"put me in coach"

Last night I had a dream:

It began inside the Kansas City Chiefs locker room. We had apparently just lost another game. It did feel like about week 9 in the season. I see Coach Haley. He's not happy, but he's not furious.

I start to follow him down a hallway. I go up to him and ask him how he's doing. Something about how we really haven't been able to connect because the season's been so busy. I sort of faux-introduce myself, as if to make a clean start. I say to Haley, "Hi, I'm Jamaal."

It's at this point that I realize that although I have my 5'8", 166 white body, to Haley I am Jamaal Charles. We continue walking down the hallway, reach the end, and reach the field. This is not Arrowhead Stadium, but a much smaller stadium, like a high school field. I look up at the clock and the score is 21-27. We are losing. There are about 40 seconds left.

I'm not sure if there was a fumble or something, but our team gets the ball back with about 16 seconds to go, on our on 20 or so. Coach and remark that maybe we'll be able to win this one yet, without taking notice of the fact that we were in the locker room before the game was over. I ask him if he wants me to go in, and says sure.

It is this point that I reveal that every other player of the field, was a Pee Wee football player. And not like middle-scholars that are big for their grade, these guys aren't over 4 foot tall.

Despite not wearing a uniform, and in fact wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and regular sneakers, I line up wide left. On first down our quarterback throws a terrible pass incomplete over the middle, before I had even really started my route. There's now 13 seconds left and it's 2nd down and about 80 to go for the touchdown.

Coach Haley barks out some complicated play. There were a lot of 'Z's in it. This time I line up slot left. I see a lot of movement, so I take off out of my stance, but then look back and see the ball hasn't been snapped. So I get back in formation, and am staring at the ball now. No flags were thrown. (At this point it is very important to note that I have no idea what the play call is going to be. This is all in my dream, and yet I am a receiver and I don't know what play call my subconscious has picked out for me.) So I'm looking at the ball intently now, and I immediately see that the snap was fumbled. I run towards the ball, absorbing hits along the way. The ball is on the ground and I noticed that most of the players on the field are running down the field, running routes or dropping into deep coverage. That's when I figure it out.

Haley called for an 80-yard playaction fumblerooski. I pick up the ball and am about to be tackled, so I lateral it to the quarterback. The opposing player who was about to tackle me turns to go after the quarterback. The QB sort of pitches it back to me and I pick it up after a bounce or two. (That probably should have been called an incomplete forward pass but there isn't a whistle). So now I've got the ball on my own 25 or so, on the right side, and every other player is running down the field. So I start running, trying to hide the ball, crossing the field diagonally. I get to about the opponents' 30-yard line and there are two players in yellow who are now trying to tackle me. (Picture AFL-Broncos unis). I could try and take the angle I have to the left pylon, but I'm afraid that I could get pushed out of bounds.

I cut back toward the hashmarks, getting the defense going that way, and then I spin and cut back toward the left numbers. This time with more separation I've got a pretty good path to the endzone. I do a stiffarm on the second tackler and get by him. Now I'm at about the 15 and I see there are about 3 opponents standing on the goal line, looking like they're playing Red Rover.

I know the clock has expired and I think I can make it, so I run straight up the field, right at the defense. And then, me as Jamaal Charles, playing against a bunch of Pee Wee shrimps, I dive up and over the defense, with two hands on the ball, crashing into them. I just scored the winning touchdown.

All we have to do is quick the extra point. At this point Adam Cobb shows up. I tell him to line up on the right corner of the formation, I'm on the left. I'm counting our blockers to make sure we don't get a penalty, and I count at least 15. I'm trying to tell 4 people to run off the field and we get a delay of game penalty. We try and regroup at the seven yard line. People are getting set. The play clock is again ticking down. I'm yelling "hike, hike!" We hike it, the kick goes up and through.

And then the Ref throws his flag, and calls delay of game again. That we didn't get the hike off in time. And he's right. We reset again and this time we hike it in time but the kick is low and no good.

27-27 tie.

So my brain does the most logical thing it can, and turns the football field into a basketball court, and we are going to play a 5-minute overtime period of basketball. I tell Adam "no flashy stuff, no stupid alley-oops, no turnovers. Let's get this win."

Both teams have two possessions, and each team commits two turnovers. Terrible passes. And for absolutely no reason, the ref blows his whistle and says the game is over. It's a tie.

I walk off the court/field with Coach Haley talking about the game. I say, "It's a shame because it's the first time all year that I felt like we've had the personnel advantage." This is obviously a reference to the 2009 Chiefs team and how they've been outmatched in every game.

This was a good dream.