By Ernest Hemingway (if he wrote about football).
The sun was hot over the field, and the ocean smelled like salt and rust and old fish.
The season began like the others before it. There was hope. There were men with strong hands and fast legs, men who believed.
They ran routes, caught balls, hit hard. It was supposed to matter.
But the losing came early.
Early turns to late fast
They dropped the first game. Then the second.
The offense, once quick and full of beauty, stumbled like a man drunk too early in the afternoon.
The quarterback stood tall in the pocket but the pocket did not hold. The line broke and the ground gave way.
He threw, and sometimes the ball sailed wide, other times it found no one. Sometimes it found the other team. It is hard to say which was worse.
The coach talked after the games. His words came like soft rain – pleasant, maybe even warm – but they did not water anything that could grow.
He said they would be better. He said it was early. But early turns to late fast in this league. And the men in the locker room knew it.
We have been here before
The defense tried. They hit hard. They bled.
But they were tired. They were on the field too long. They bent, then they broke.
And after the breaking, there was only silence and tape and long stares in dark rooms.
The fans had seen it before. September comes and with it, a kind of quiet dread.
The jerseys are worn. The bars are full. The beers are cold.
However, in their eyes is that same old look. That look that says, “We have been here before. We know how this ends.”
The truth is a hard thing
Yet still, they hope. Because there is always next Sunday.
There is always the snap, the run, the deep ball hanging in the air like a prayer.
And when it lands, maybe this time it lands true. Maybe the blocks hold. Maybe the defense stiffens in the red zone.
Maybe they find a way. More likely, they do not.
A poor start is like a wound. It may heal or it may fester. The Dolphins have started poorly. That is the truth. And the truth is a hard thing.
But football – like war or fishing or life – is not about how you start.
It is about how you hold on when it gets cold and the sun goes down and the crowd thins and the lights burn too bright.
There is still time. But not much…
