American Football: King of the Bay Area

Chapter 390: Chapter 387: Off-field Topics

The Week 8 regular season game, where the San Francisco 49ers hosted the Cleveland Browns, concluded with a final score of 48-7.

The game entered garbage time after the third quarter.

Although the Cleveland Browns managed a brief rally in the fourth quarter, taking advantage of a lapse in concentration from the opposing Defense Team. With a combination of passes and runs, they steadily advanced and successfully scored a touchdown, finally avoiding a shutout and seemingly rekindling a glimmer of hope.

But immediately after, Lu Ke took the field again and extinguished any remaining suspense. After a series of precise short passes, he suddenly launched a long ball, finding Logan Newman deep downfield. Newman then broke away for a long run after the catch, completing a forty-one-yard touchdown and sealing the game for good.

After the Cleveland Browns offense went three-and-out again, the San Francisco 49ers offense, beginning to relax, started managing the clock with short passes and running plays. But the dispirited Brown Team’s Defense Team couldn’t muster any energy, and in their daze, Lu Ke somehow managed to lead his team back into field goal range.

If the Defense Team hadn’t snapped out of it at the last moment and swatted down a twenty-three-yard pass from Lu Ke to Ted Ginn Jr., Lu Ke would have had another passing touchdown. Nevertheless, after failing to convert on third down, the San Francisco 49ers still relied on the steady leg of David Akens to kick the field goal, adding another three points.

The score remained unchanged after that.

The game was over.

Lu Ke, firing on all cylinders and utterly dominant, was undoubtedly the brightest star of the game. He completely controlled the regular season matchup, finishing 29-for-36 with 412 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions!

Looking purely at the numbers, Lu Ke not only posted an astonishing completion rate of 80.5 percent, but also recorded the first 400-yard passing game of his career.

More importantly, he found the key to unlocking perfect chemistry within a balanced pass-run offense. The entire team was firing on all cylinders: Logan Newman had three receiving touchdowns, Ted Ginn Jr. added another, and Marcus Lynch ran for two more. On top of that, Michael Crabtree, Vernon Davis, and Kyle Williams all had outstanding receiving performances.

Notably, rookie running back Kendall Hunter ran for fifty-three yards in this game. As a rotational back, he is gradually carving out a role for himself in the offense and beginning to make an impact. This is vital for diversifying the team’s offensive attack.

Ultimately, his quarterback rating of 153.9 and PFF grade of 1.9 were both new career highs for Lu Ke!

His quarterback rating was particularly noteworthy. A perfect rating is 158.3, and Lu Ke’s 153.9 for this game put a “perfect game” well within reach. Judging by his performance through the first half of the season alone, as a rookie quarterback, Lu Ke has already surpassed Ben Roethlisberger’s level of play and is in the process of making history.

On the show “Inside the Alliance,” Spencer Larson, one of Lu Ke’s biggest supporters, stated, “More important than a single victory is the growth and improvement we can see in Lu Ke when you compare this week’s game to Week 1. This rookie quarterback is developing at an astonishing speed. He is undoubtedly the biggest find of the season for the Alliance!”

Beating the Cleveland Browns, a team whose performance has always been inconsistent and which has languished among the league’s weaker teams, was nothing to write home about. However, the sublime form Lu Ke displayed during the game was enough to make everyone take notice.

After Week 8 of the regular season concluded, the Alliance’s official awards once again named Lu Ke the National League Offensive Player of the Week. This was his third time receiving the honor this season, following wins in Week 1 and Week 5, tying him with Aaron Rodgers, who has also won the title three times so far.

Without a doubt, Lu Ke and Rodgers were the two best-performing quarterbacks in the National League this season. Incidentally, the Green Bay Packers were on their bye week, but they had won their previous game, leaving them at a perfect 7-0—still the only undefeated team in the entire Alliance.

One could sense from the post-game commentary alone that with his stellar performances week after week, Lu Ke was systematically silencing his critics with his play. For a “rookie quarterback,” his veteran-like poise and brilliant on-field decision-making were truly eye-opening, bringing with it a torrent of praise.

Spencer Larson’s praise was just the tip of the iceberg. The silence and sullenness from Charles Davis served as the perfect counterpoint.

To that end, the official NFL website and its official magazine both published a feature story—

“Who Is He? He Is Lu Ke (Lu-Ke)!”

In the title, the official publication used simplified Chinese characters to write out the name “Lu Ke,” followed by a Pinyin annotation, formally introducing everyone to the first starting Chinese-American quarterback in the Alliance.

In fact, waves of heated discussion about Lu Ke had already surged after Week 1 and Week 3 of the regular season. The question “Who is he?” was constantly buzzing, but this time was different. This was an official feature, a true star-making moment, which drew comparisons to Kurt Warner’s magical 1999 season.

“Back then, countless fans witnessed a true Cinderella story. In just his second professional season, Kurt Warner led the St. Louis Rams, a team that had finished a dismal 4-12 the year before, to a 13-3 record. After winning the regular season MVP, he fought his way to the Super Bowl and clinched the victory with a game-winning seventy-three-yard touchdown pass, putting a spectacular end to the Rams Team’s perfect season and scripting a Hollywood-style fairytale ending.

At that time, after they started the regular season with four straight wins, everyone was asking the same question: Who is this guy?

Now, having witnessed Lu Ke’s own meteoric rise, everyone is asking that same question again: Who is he?”

This familiar wave of discussion felt different, gaining a certain mystique because it came from an official Alliance source, adding another layer to the Aura surrounding Lu Ke’s miracle season.

For casual fans, they had really started to notice Lu Ke after the San Francisco 49ers’ game against the Detroit Lions. This week’s dominant victory only deepened their understanding of him. Without a doubt, this rookie quarterback had true star potential.

As for the analysts and industry insiders, their curiosity ran deeper. Never mind whether Lu Ke could replicate Warner’s Cinderella run; more importantly, how long could this dominant streak last? When would he hit his ceiling? And, which team could replicate the success the Philadelphia Eagles had in defeating the San Francisco 49ers?

The disdain, contempt, and ridicule from before the season had all but vanished. People were beginning to take Lu Ke seriously, affording him the respect reserved for top-tier players.

The same was true for reporters.

The home game against the Brown Team was a blowout, and the game itself was rather unremarkable, lacking any major highlights or talking points. During the post-game press conference, reporters were already eagerly looking ahead to the San Francisco 49ers’ next opponent.

Not because the opponent was particularly strong, but because the matchup was packed with narrative value. In Week 9 of the regular season, the San Francisco 49ers would be on the road to challenge the Washington Redskins.

Founded in 1932, the Washington Redskins were one of the most storied and traditional powerhouses in the Alliance. The team won the Super Bowl three times—in 1982, 1987, and 1991—making them undoubtedly one of the franchises with the richest history and heritage in the entire Alliance.

The most famous and controversial aspect of the team was, without a doubt, its name: “Redskin.” The term refers to the skin color of Indians, and according to legend, the name was chosen to honor the team’s head coach at the time, an Indian man named William “Lone Star” Dietz.

But with social progress and the changing of times, profound shifts occurred in perspectives on race, culture, and history. Indian and human rights organizations argued that the term “Redskin” originated during the United States Civil War period as a discriminatory, offensive, and insulting term used by immigrants against the native Indian population. Consequently, they demanded that the Washington Redskins change their team name.

This controversy perpetually followed the Washington Redskins. Even President Barack Obama was repeatedly asked about the issue on various occasions. And until the name was changed, the controversy would continue to follow them like a shadow.

Since the turn of the millennium, the Washington Redskins had likewise fallen into a slump. Squeezed by their divisional rivals—the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, and Dallas Cowboys—their room to compete had gradually shrunk. Over eleven years, they only made the playoffs twice, in 2005 and 2007. Their other seasons were spent floundering, showing no signs of improvement.

The reason reporters were so interested in the Washington Redskins was singular: Lu Ke.

As the season wore on, the attention on Lu Ke continued to escalate, showing no signs of cooling down. Naturally, the fact that he had gone undrafted became a major focus.

And in that story, the Washington Redskins were undoubtedly one of the teams that had come closest to acquiring Lu Ke.

During the Rookie Training Camp, they had seriously considered Lu Ke. They even thought about picking him as a backup quarterback during the draft but ultimately passed. Later, during offseason tryouts, Lu Ke had a workout with the Washington Redskins but was unfortunately passed over once again.

On two separate occasions—arguably even three—the Washington Redskins had missed their chance with Lu Ke. They had passed on a quarterback who was now playing at a level comparable to Aaron Rodgers this season. Now, the Redskins were about to face him in a head-to-head matchup, and the media certainly wasn’t going to let such a juicy storyline go to waste.