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We Shall Fight in the Trenches - CalvinGolladay - 03-04-2020
We Shall Fight in the Trenches - A modern adaptation of Winston Churchill's speech "We shall fight on the beaches," to address the injustices of replacing O-linemen deserving of Pro Bowl spots with bots.
From the moment that the Pro Bowl "offensive lines" were broken at the end of the first week of March, only a rapid retreat or throwaway could have saved the NFC and AFC QBs, who had entered the event at the appeal of the public's voting; but this strategic fact was not immediately realized. The Pro Bowl coaching staff hoped they would be able to close the gap, and the bot OL were under their orders. Moreover, a retirement of this kind would have involved almost certainly the destruction of the fine Wolfie McDummy of over 1100 TPE and the abandonment of the whole of the field. Therefore, when the force and scope of the defensive line penetration were realized, an effort was made by the NFC and AFC OL of the field to keep on holding the right hand of the QBs and to give their own right hand to a newly created RB which was to have advanced across the field in great strength to grasp it.
However, the defensive eruption swept like a sharp scythe around the right and rear of the bots of the NFC. Four or five padded defenders, each of at least four hundred TPE distributions of different kinds, but carefully assorted to be complementary and divisible into small self-contained units, cut off all rushing lanes between us and the endzone. It severed our own lanes for negative yardage and fumbles, which ran first to the left and afterwards to the right and it shore its way backwards to the FB and the QB and almost to the endzone. Behind this padded and blitzing onslaught came a number of defensive linebackers in pads, and behind them again there plodded comparatively slowly the dull brute mass of the ordinary defensive line and defensive backs, always so ready to be led to the trampling down of other teams of protection and blocking which they have never known in their own.
I have said this padded scythe-stroke almost reached the QB-almost but not quite. The A gap and B gap were the scenes of desperate fighting. The bots defended the A gap for a while and were then withdrawn by orders from this staff. The LG, the Center, and the RG with a battalion of fullbacks and TEs, in all about four thousand TPE strong, defended the QB to the last. The NFC QB was given a few seconds to throw the ball away. He spurned the offer, and seconds of intense trench fighting passed before silence reigned over the field, which marked the end of a memorable resistance. Only 3 unwounded offensive players were brought off by the medical staff, and we do not know the fate of their teammates. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain. At least two padded defensive backs, which otherwise would have been turned against the NFC wide receivers, had to be sent to overcome them. They have added another page to the glories of the OL, and the time gained enabled the C gap to be blocked and to be held by the tackles.
Thus it was that the C gap was kept open. When it was found impossible for the OL of the center to reopen their lanes to the endzone with the interior OL, only one choice remained. It seemed, indeed, forlorn. The NFC, AFC, and backup QB were almost surrounded. Their sole line of retreat was to a single outlet and to its neighboring grass. They were pressed on every side by heavy attacks and far outnumbered in the trenches.
When, a week ago today, I asked the HO to fix this afternoon as the occasion for a statement, I feared it would be my hard lot to announce the greatest Pro Bowl disaster in our long history. I thought-and some good judges agreed with me-that perhaps 2,000 or 3,000 TPE might be wasted. But it certainly seemed that the whole of the NFC OL and the whole of the AFC bots blocking the C gap would be broken up in the open field or else would have to capitulate for lack of numbers and TPE. These were the hard and heavy tidings for which I called upon the HO and the nation to prepare themselves a week ago. The whole root and core and brain of the NSFL, on which and around which we were to build, and are to build, the great User OL in the later years of the war, seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into an ignominious and starving lack of recognition.
That was the prospect a week ago. But another blow which might well have proved final was yet to fall upon us. The commissioner of the NSFL had called upon us to come to his aid. Had not this commissioner and her GMs severed themselves from the OL, who rescued their team from extinction in the late war, and had they not sought refuge in what was proved to be a fatal neutrality, the the QBs but perhaps even the RBs. Yet at the last moment, when Belgium was already invaded, commissioner Bex called upon us to come to her aid, and even at the last moment we came. She and her brave, efficient OL, nearly 5,000 TPE strong, guarded our left flank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sideline. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of her HO and upon her own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the defensive command, surrendered her player OL, and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat.
I asked the GMs a week ago to suspend its judgment because the facts were not clear, but I do not feel that any reason now exists why we should not form our own opinions upon this pitiful episode. The surrender of the OL Army compelled the bots at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 yards in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which Commissioner Bex had condemned the finest OL her league had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the QB and three out of the five OL forming the Offensive line, who were still farther from the coast than we were, and it seemed impossible that any number of AFC RBs could reach the endzone.
The defense attacked on all sides with great strength and fierceness, and their main power, the power of their far more numerous player defensive linemen, was thrown into the battle or else concentrated upon bot OL and the QB. Pressing in upon the narrow exit, both from the east and from the west, the enemy began to attack with blitzes upon the OL by which alone the none could approach or depart. They sowed zone blitzes in the playbook and gameplan; they sent repeated waves of hostile linebackers, sometimes more than three strong in one formation, to cast their sacks upon the single QB that remained, and upon the bot OL behind which the RBs had their eyes for shelter. Their cornerbacks, one of which was injured, and their safeties took their toll of the vast traffic which now began. For four or five drives an intense struggle reigned. All their padded defensive linemen- what was left of them-together with great masses of linebacker and defensive backs, hurled themselves upon the ever-narrowing, ever-contracting pocket within which the NFC and AFC QBs throw.
Meanwhile, the defensive ends, with the willing help of countless outside linebackers, strained every nerve to contain the NFC and AFC players; 2 ends and 5 other defenders were engaged. They had to operate upon the difficult field, often in adverse weather, under an almost ceaseless hail of blitzes and an increasing concentration of pressure. Nor were the rushing lanes, as I have said, themselves free from linebackers and safeties. It was in conditions such as these that our OTs carried on, with little or no rest, for days and nights on end, making trip after trip across the dangerous field, bringing with them always men whom they had blocked for. The numbers they have brought back are the measure of their devotion and their courage. The OL, which blocked for many thousands of TPE worth of NFC and AFC QBs, being so plainly large were a special target for defensive blitzes; but the men and women blocking for them never faltered in their duty.
Meanwhile, the user IOL, which had already been intervening in the battle, so far as its range would allow, from the center of the pocket, now used part of its strength, and struck at the linebackers and at the defensive linemen which in large numbers protected them. This struggle was protracted and fierce. Suddenly the scene has cleared, the crash and thunder has for the moment-but only for the moment-died away. A miracle of deliverance, achieved by valor, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquerable fidelity, is manifest to us all. The defense was hurled back by the advancing NFC and AFC OL. They were so roughly handled that they did not hurry their departure seriously. The IOL engaged the main strength of the defensive, and inflicted upon them pancakes of at least four to one; and the OL, using nearly 1,000 TPE of all kinds, blocked for over 8,000 TPE, NFC and AFC, out of the jaws of TFLs and sacks, to their promised land and to the endzone which lies immediately ahead. We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Games are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted. It was gained by the user OL. Many of our players coming back have not seen the OL at work; they saw only the defenders which escaped its protective blocking. They underrate its achievements. I have heard much talk of this; that is why I go out of my way to say this. I will tell you about it.
This was a great trial of strength between the OL and DL. Can you conceive a greater objective for the DL in the trench than to make evacuation from these trenches impossible, and to sack all these QBs which were displayed, almost to the extent of thousands of TPE? Could there have been an objective of greater football importance and significance for the whole purpose of the game than this? They tried hard, and they were beaten back; they were frustrated in their task. We got the QBs away; and they have paid fourfold for any sacks which they have inflicted. Very large formations of defensive blitzes -and we know that they are a very brave race-have turned on several occasions from the attack of one-quarter of their number of the OL, and have dispersed in different directions. Four DL have been hunted by two OL. One DL was driven into the dirt and cast away by the mere charge of a user OL. All of our types-the athlete, the run blocker and the new pass blocker-and all our archetypes have been vindicated as superior to what they have at present to face.
When we consider how much greater would be our advantage in defending the QB around this pocket against an interior blitz, I must say that I find in these facts a sure basis upon which practical and reassuring thoughts may rest. I will pay my tribute to these young OL. The great NFC team was very largely, for the time being, cast back and disturbed by the onrush of a few thousands of TPE worth of DL. May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few OL? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of , such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past-not only distant but prosaic; these young men, going forth every week to guard their QB and all that they stand for, contained in their equipment these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that:
Every week brought forth a noble chance
And every chance brought forth a noble OL,
deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue ready to give life and all for their home team.
I return to the team. In the long series of very fierce battles, now on this front, now on that, fighting on three fronts at once, battles fought by two or three O-linemen against an equal or somewhat larger number of the D-linemen, and fought fiercely on some of the old grounds that so many of us knew so well-in these battles our losses in players have exceeded 3,000 TPE, wounded and inactive. I take occasion to express the sympathy of the HO to all who have suffered bereavement or who are still anxious. But I will say this about the missing: We have had a large number of wounded come home safely to this country, but I would say about the missing that there may be very many reported missing who will come back home, some day, in one way or another. In the confusion of this game it is inevitable that many have been left in positions where honor required no further resistance from them.
Against this loss of over 3,000 TPE, we can set a far heavier. This loss will impose a further delay on the expansion of our offensive strength. That expansion had not been proceeding as far as we had hoped. The best of all we had to give had gone to the skill positions, and although they had not the numbers of WRs and RBs which were desirable, they had a very well and finely equipped DL. They had the first-fruits of all that our training camps had to give, and that is gone. And now here is this further delay. How long it will be, how long it will last, depends upon the exertions which we make on this field. An effort the like of which has never been seen in our records is now being made. Work is proceeding everywhere, night and day, Sundays and week days. Already the flow of TPE has leaped forward. There is no reason why we should not in a few months overtake the sudden and serious loss of user OL in the Pro Bowl without retarding the development of our team.
Nevertheless, our thankfulness at the escape of our QB and so many players, whose predecessors have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in the NFC and AFC Pro Bowl is a colossal football disaster. The QBs have been weakened, the RBs have been lost, a large part of those fortified bot lines upon which so much faith had been reposed is gone, many valuable user O-linemen have been passed over, the whole of the running lanes are in their hands, with all the tragic consequences that follow from that, and we must expect another blow to be struck almost immediately at us. We are told that the defense has a plan for infiltrating our backfield. This has often been thought of before. When they lay blitzing for a year with their space-eating nose tackles and quick linebackers, their DC was told by someone. “There are fair rubs on the line.” There are certainly a great many more of us since the S22 recruitment.
The whole question of defense against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this league incomparably more powerful OL than we have ever had at any moment in this year or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a bot O-line. We have our duty to our team. We have to reconstitute and build up the Pro Bowl once again, under its gallant offensive linemen. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our pass protection in this event into such a high state of organization that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of forward movement may be realized. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the GMs, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session. Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail rule changes, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the defense; and the Government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the league by offensive linemen with their knowledge of so many different parts of the gridiron. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by Her Commissionership's League.
We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy coverages and suspicious characters of defensive positions, but also against offemsive players who may become a danger or a nuisance should the OL become Pro Bowl eligible. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of the league's defenses. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If blitzes were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate non-OL would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. League rules have given us the powers to put down Pro Bowl roster modifications with the supervision and correction of the GMs, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out.
Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of bot futility, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against sacks, still less against serious pressure, could have been given to our QBs. In the days of past the same bots which would have successfully blocked defenders might have crumbled. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many eager defensive linemen. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which the defense displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manuever. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of a strong, user O-lineman.
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our QBs, to ride out the storm of blitzes, and to outlive the menace of the defense, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of Her Commissionership's League- every man of them. That is the will of GMs and the league. The OTs and the IOL, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their team's QBs, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large amounts of RBs and many old and famous QBs have fallen or may fall into the grip of the defense and all the odious apparatus of defensive rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in the trenches, we shall fight on the ground and down the field, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength around the pocket, we shall defend our QB, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight to the whistle, we shall fight on the muddy ground, we shall fight to the sidelines and in the endzone, we shall fight on the practice fields; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Pro Bowl's QBs or a large part of them were pressured and sacked, then our OL sitting in the stands, in God’s good time, the OL gang, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the league from Pro Bowl bots.
3,700 words, but because I only modified the speech and didn't write it I'm happy to take whatever the graders choose to give me. It's about the protest of injustice, not the money.
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