The Longest Yard
Hey everyone,
I’m a big fan of the New Heights podcast, with brothers Travis and Jason Kelce having random conversations, alone or with guests, and answering fan questions. They’ve been in the NFL for years and both are Super Bowl champions, so I trust their opinions more than most in the sports podcast world. A clip from their show has been stuck in my head for the last few months, and it revolves around the question of could an average person gain one rushing yard in the NFL. And I think I could do it.
I decided to ask around over the weekend to see if anyone else shared my sentiments about my hidden rushing talents, and the response was overwhelmingly negative. So much so that it inspired me to write today’s newsletter and gain a true consensus amongst my readership community. I’ve created a poll below, but let me describe the two scenarios where I think this could work and I could gain one rushing yard.
The first one is on a power running play designed to have blockers clearing a path for me. I would be in the backfield behind either a fullback, a pulling offensive lineman, or ideally both, and I would have to run full speed in the gap that they’ve created for me. I would break all of my ribs when I got tackled, but once the dust settled the scoreboard would say that I had gained one rushing yard. The other option is more of a fluke honestly, but it could still work regardless.
The second one would be if I were part of a fake punt play. The ball would be directly snapped to me and in that split second of trickery, I would deceive the defensive team and be able to run as fast as I could for one rushing yard. Again, I feel like this is more of a fluke, but if you’re not cheating you’re not trying. Also, I would hope that I could get out of bounds before this ultimately happened to my body.
Let me know what you think about my chances of pulling this off, and let me know whenever they decide to bring back the television show Pros vs. Joes. I’d be ready to shock the world.