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She smiles sympathetically, but it doesn’t change the fact that the thought of her so freely being able to attend events with the man I spent a secret weekend with hurts a little more than I thought it would.
CHAPTER 23: LINCOLN
I’m not looking forward to the working lunch I have today.
I haven’t spent much time alone with my offensive coordinator, but I kept him around because something about firing the OC after winning the championship last season felt like it would be a stupid move on my part.
Instead, I think keeping him around might’ve been the stupid move.
I’ve been studying his playbook, and it’s too conservative. Too predictable. I like his focus on minimizing mistakes, but there’s no focus at all on surprising our opponent—something that I’ve found wins games, too. Instead, the focus is on complex plays that’ll only serve to confuse our players, particularly rookies coming in.
I already know we’re going to butt heads over this, and my approach is to take chances that will push this team to the limits of what it’s capable of where his approach seems to be avoiding mistakes.
Sometimes those mistakes turn out to be the best thing that could happen. Other times they don’t pan out. But if we play it safe, we’ll never know.
He walks into my office, and Megan brings the food in a minute later. I’ve been in and out quite a bit, but she’s already proven to be a valuable asset to me, so much so that I’ve already considered confiding in her about the whole Jolene thing.
I feel like Megan is the type of person who not only would understand, but would work to help protect what we have.
I’m not sure why I think that, but some people just give you that gut feeling that they can be trusted, and Megan is one of those people.
Mike Sharp, however, falls somewhere on the other end of the spectrum. I know he and Mitch Thompson were tight, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that I am going to be tight with—which is unfortunate given the fact that this new position limits the pool I have for making friends here in town.
But that’s been a pain point my entire life.
When I was a kid, I assumed anyone who wanted to spend time with me just wanted to get to my father. When I got a little older, I assumed it was because I was good at football, too. When I played in college and professionally and even when I transitioned to coaching, I assumed they just wanted tickets to a game.
I’ve let very few people in because I trust basically no one, and I’ve gotten by just fine up to this point. I think Mike could have become a friend since we’re in similar positions and we’re going to be forced together a lot over the next year, but rather than being friendly with him, my guard is firmly in place.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I begin as we both dig into the fajita spread.
“Of course,” he says, and it’s easy to see that his guard is up, too.
“Look, man. We have to trust each other if we’re going to work together this season, so let me begin by saying I really respect your playbook and your ideas, but I have a few ideas I want to include in this year’s book.”
“Such as?” he asks, refusing to meet my eyes as he grabs some sour cream for the top of his fajita.
“Playing it safe isn’t really my style, and I think the conservative nature of many of your plays just won’t work with my vision.”
He glances up to meet my eyes. “What’s your vision?”
I shrug. “Winning games. Surprising the opponent. Not complex and confusing plays, but simple things nobody will be expecting.”
“But we won the Super Bowl last year, Lincoln. It makes exactly zero sense to change everything.”
I figured he’d play that card, but the truth is that it was his first year as OC, and he got lucky that he worked with a team that meshed as well together as last year’s Aces did.
“I realize that, but we lost big names along with that win. We’re training the next generation, so this is the time to go big if we want to prove we’ve still got the same culture of winning even though so much of our team turned over.” I shove a forkful of chicken and peppers in my mouth, foregoing the tortilla and sour cream in favor of the healthy choices.
“Exactly,” he says with a curt nod. “I think it’s smarter to play it safe and minimize mistakes as we train this new generation.”
“Play it safe?” I repeat. “That’s not my style.”
“I know, Coach, but hear me out. Playing it safer last season paid off for us, but we could’ve cleaned up a lot of costly mistakes. If we minimize those, we’ll show a more consistent performance this season.” He’s staying calm and cool, but his words only have the effect of drawing the anger rising in me.
I throw down my fork. “How can you know that when half our team is new players? You think throwing a hundred fifty complex plays at them is the way to do it?”
“No, but I do think maintaining a playbook the majority of our boys already know is the way to do it. A winning playbook, might I add.” He gives me a smug look, but I don’t necessarily agree with him.
