American Football: King of the Bay Area

Three weeks of the regular season were in the books. The San Francisco 49ers’ week one victory could be chalked up to being a dark horse. Their week two win could be attributed to Lady Luck. As for their week three triumph, it was a hard-fought victory against a powerhouse, a classic case of snatching a tooth from a tiger’s mouth.

Excuses and doubts were bound to persist, but the three-game winning streak had already proven Lu Ke’s ability. As a rookie quarterback who had burst onto the scene, Lu Ke’s market value was naturally soaring.

After finishing his calls with his family and Candice, calls and text messages kept trickling in. All in all, he’d already received over twenty calls and fifty texts. As the only one of the Alliance’s thirty-two starting quarterbacks without an agent, Lu Ke was now truly experiencing what it meant to be a hot commodity.

”I’m very fortunate that we’re in Cincinnati right now,” Lech said meaningfully.

Although Cincinnati was a major transportation hub, it wasn’t the most ideal city for sports agents to be based in. Over eighty percent of the top agencies in the Alliance had chosen Los Angeles or New York as their home base.

Today’s away game had been in Cincinnati, so no matter how anxious or eager those other agents were, phone calls and emails were their best bet. In comparison, Lech, who had made his move right after the week two game, had once again seized the initiative.

Lu Ke immediately understood the deeper meaning behind his words and chuckled. ”And what makes you so sure a face-to-face conversation will give you the upper hand?”

”Give me one reason why I’m not the most suitable agent for you.” Lech wasn’t the least bit flustered. His casual rebuttal left Lu Ke at a loss for words.

But Lu Ke was not an opponent to be so easily defeated. ”Then let me put it another way. How can you be sure that I’m the right choice for you?”

”You’re not sure about yourself?”

”No, I’m completely sure of myself. The problem is, no one else in the entire Alliance is.”

The back-and-forth was incredibly quick, with almost no time for thought. They were conversing on pure instinct. Suddenly, Lech paused. He didn’t press on, and a smile flickered in his eyes. He averted his gaze, sheathing his sharp edge, and then said, ”I hear you were a madman back when you were a practice player in your junior year.”

Lech didn’t answer Lu Ke’s question, changing the subject instead. His choice of topic was also very interesting: Lu Ke’s career as a practice player.

To the Alliance, and to the coaches, time spent as a practice player held little weight. Practice players didn’t receive systematic tactical or physical training; their role was more akin to that of a mobile punching bag. That period of his career could practically be summed up in a single sentence.

And yet, Lech had brought up Lu Ke’s time as a practice player.

In fact, Lech hadn’t just conducted an investigation; he had also personally interviewed Lu Ke’s college teammates—Kevin Price, John Ward, and others. He had personally visited these people, names now far removed from the world of sports.

For Lech, when choosing a player, talent and ability were important. But beyond that, willpower, competitive spirit, and personal conduct were also crucial. He didn’t mind cleaning up the messes of an athlete like Big Ben, who constantly got into trouble off the field, but that kind of behavior was certainly detrimental to career longevity.

In a 2006 car crash, Big Ben had been driving without a license. He almost ended up in a hospital, never to wake up again.

As he got older, Lech’s eye for talent and his requirements for the players he chose had gradually changed.

”It depends on how you define ’madman.’ If it means being completely dedicated to training and doing my utmost to fulfill my duties, then I’ll admit it.” Lu Ke was perfectly composed, showing no sign of the awkwardness or anxiety that came with having a weakness exposed. ”But honestly, when it comes to training, the real madman is JJ Watt. Have you seen him train? God, compared to him, I’m practically a little lamb.”

”You and JJ are friends?” Lech sounded surprised.

Although JJ Watt was a rookie this year, the talk surrounding him was endless—that’s how it always was for first-round picks. Watt was a player who was completely devoted to football; you could even call him a fanatic. Outside of practice, Watt didn’t have many friends and his personal life was rather spartan. There was nothing but training, and more training.

Lech had truly never heard that Lu Ke and Watt were actually friends.

”We just text occasionally to discuss training regimens and things like that. I guess we’re not really friends, more like training partners,” Lu Ke said good-naturedly. ”Like I was saying, he’s the real madman.”

Lech chuckled softly. ”In a way, you’re not far behind him. I’m talking about today’s game.”

”Today’s game?” Lu Ke was confused, a question mark floating through his mind.

’My passing choices were too risky,’ was his first thought. ’But compared to the previous two weeks, I was actually much more conservative with my passing choices today. That was mainly because the pressure from Geno Atkins was immense. I had to be cautious with my decisions, otherwise I might have thrown an interception—’

In the end, his interception count for the day was zero.

Lech didn’t answer. Instead, he walked over to a bench in the hotel’s back garden and said with a smile, ”I’m getting old. A short walk like that and I’m already a bit out of breath. How about we sit here for a bit before heading to the restaurant for dinner?”

”No problem.” Lu Ke sat down next to Lech. He still couldn’t quite grasp the rhythm of Lech’s conversation; he would often jump to another topic before the previous one was finished. ’If this were an interview and I were the reporter, I’d take control,’ Lu Ke thought. ’But it’s not, so I’ll just go with the flow.’

”You should have kept your cool,” Lech said out of the blue. Seemingly noticing Lu Ke’s confused gaze, he continued, ”I mean on the field. After you were knocked down that second time, you should have stayed calm and told the team doctor honestly about your condition. That’s the only way they can give you the best treatment. It’s not worth it to bet your future on a single game.”

Lech had noticed.

As a spectator—and a spectator whose attention was focused entirely on Lu Ke at that—his real purpose hadn’t been to watch the game, but to observe Lu Ke. So, he had noticed the two times the team doctor came onto the field. He had noticed the issue with Lu Ke’s arm. And he had noticed the strange interaction between the doctor and Kip Kester after Lu Ke left the field.

Lu Ke opened his mouth, ready to argue, but Lech continued, ”Just humor an old man pulling rank to give you some advice. Even if you don’t like it, just listen.” His calm words carried an authority that couldn’t be refused, and Lu Ke fell silent.

”In the NFL, I’ve seen and represented countless players. Everyone has their reasons, their own convictions—maybe it’s for a dream, maybe for bonus money. Did you know? A player once threatened a team doctor to hide his injury report, all for a five-hundred-thousand-US-Dollar bonus. He then signed a liability waiver with the team, stating that he understood the consequences of playing but agreed to play anyway. But the truth is, he didn’t know.”

Lech turned and looked Lu Ke square in the eye. ”You players don’t know,” he said, his tone decisive and final. ”You don’t know the consequences of the games, and you don’t know the consequences of the injuries. To be precise, no one knows. Not the team doctors, not the experts. They can only offer professional opinions, but they still can’t control the illness. Because they are not God.”

Lu Ke didn’t speak, but his steady gaze wavered slightly. During the game, in the battle between the angel and the demon, he had listened to the demon’s urging. Because he couldn’t afford to lose, and he couldn’t afford to give up.

”There’s nothing you can’t afford to lose,” Lech said, as if reading Lu Ke’s mind. ”The 2009 concussion story that rocked the entire Alliance—its aftershocks are still felt in every corner of the Alliance today. As a journalism major, have you heard of it? No, let me rephrase that. Do you know what that story truly meant?”

In 2009, ”GQ” magazine published an article titled ”Game Brain,” co-authored by two neuropathologists. It exposed the truth behind the suicides of several retired football players: in reality, they had all been suffering from the long-term effects of brain injuries.

Since the 1990s, the Alliance had paid significant attention to concussions. In a sport like football, physical collisions are unavoidable, and the head endures immense impact and concussive forces. Concussions are one of the inevitable side effects. To protect the players, the Alliance had enacted numerous regulations to ensure their safety.

According to medical examinations, those players had shown no signs of concussions, so the Alliance refused to take responsibility. They argued the players were simply struggling with personal issues like alcoholism, bankruptcy, and so on.

But after conducting in-depth research, these two experts brought the issue of CTE in professional football players to the public’s attention for the first time. The truth was shocking to everyone.

CTE, in essence, is traumatic brain injury caused by sports. In football, every player endures thousands, even tens of thousands, of direct impacts to the head, which can cause dizziness, tremors, and even more severe physical discomfort. However, these symptoms don’t align with those of a concussion, and they can’t be detected by simple medical check-ups. Diagnosing it requires far more expensive, in-depth examinations.

In other words, aside from concussions, all professional players were potentially facing the effects of brain trauma. In fact, the Alliance had been aware of this truth for a long time, but they worried that if it were made public, the fallout would be uncontrollable: parents refusing to let their children onto the field, young people giving up the sport out of fear, loyal fans making greater demands on their teams…

This would be a fatal blow to the Alliance, potentially shaking the very foundations of the sport. And so, Alliance officials suppressed the reports and denied their scientific validity. Even after GQ published the story, the Alliance continued to issue denials, which eventually led to lawsuits.

This news event became the most sensational story of 2009, and the number one sport in the United States faced a severe challenge. This was what Lech had been talking about.

P.S. The aforementioned events were later adapted into the film ”Concussion,” starring Will Smith.