*Baby Yoda Goes to Chicago

[SwagSloth]

Hi, everybody! I’m back again. I know that right now everyone is talking about the draft and I’m usually super excited for the draft every season because I get to meet new friends. However, this season is different because I joined a new team, which means that everyone on the team is a new friend. Sometimes, that can be scary because you don’t know anyone at first. It reminded me of when I moved to the USA from Dagobah. All the kids at school made fun of me for being green and short. But I did my best to be nice to everyone and ended up making a lot of friends. But my new team has been super nice from the very beginning, which is great! We’ve started doing lots of activities together and I even got to try deep dish pizza.

Uh oh. I think I got ahead of myself. I said I wanted to talk about free agency, so let’s go back to that, then I can talk about deep dish pizza and all the new friends I made…

Anyway, I didn’t really know much about free agency at first. I was always happy just to play football and be part of any team. First, I got to be a Minnesota duck in the DSFL, then I got to be an Arizona Outlaw in the NSFL, which they just renamed to the ISFL. They told me we went International! That’s really cool. As a person from another country myself, I think it’s great to include all kinds of different countries. We all love football. Even though there are different types of football and different countries call it different things. I like the one where you throw the ball instead of kicking it. Even though I can’t throw the ball very good myself, I still like to catch it. In the other kind of football, you’re not allowed to use your hands and that would get very confusing to me. But I sat down with the people from Arizona to talk about my contract. I worked very hard these last few seasons and they were offering me more money than my first contract, which I guess is good. I don’t need a big house or anything because I am so small, but I guess more money is still helpful. I want to buy a sports car one day because they are much lower to the ground and I think I’d be able to get into them a lot easier than a regular car. Some of them also have cool doors that go up instead of sideways. So, I started thinking about what type of car I would buy with the new contract money. But then I went to read it and got very confused. It’s a lot of pages and they use really big words. You would think it would just be a page with a dollar amount, but the “lawyers” said they have to add all the other stuff for “legal” reasons. So, someone helped me find an agent person that could help me read the contract and understand the big legal words. And they told me about free agency and suggested that I give that a try. I didn’t want to leave Arizona, but I’ve always been told it’s important to think hard and talk to a lot of different people before making a big decision. So, how would I know if I was with the right team if I didn’t talk to them all first? Thankfully, the GM of the Outlaws understood and he encouraged me to try it out if that’s what I wanted to do. I could tell it made all of my friends on the team sad to think that I might go somewhere else, but the agent told me it’s called the football business, not football friends. Whatever that means. The other Outlaws didn’t seem to know what it meant, either, when I told them, though, so maybe I remembered the phrase wrong. That actually happens a lot to me.

Eventually, the big day came and I was nervous. My agent told me to keep my phone nearby because teams would be contacting me. I even made sure my phone was fully charged because sometimes I play a lot of games on it and that drains the battery. Watching the Ultimus was really fun and I was excited to see Cooter Bigsby win the championship in his final game. I hope I can win a championship one day. Even if it takes me until my last game, that would be okay, I guess. But then the phone rings and the first team to contact me was the Baltimore Hawks. They are a really good team, I think.  They said they would love to have me on the team and talked about ways that I could help out as part of the team. I told them I was nervous to go to a new locker room, but they promised they could help meet me everyone and said the team was very nice. I didn’t know if that was true because the Baltimore Hawks defense wasn’t nice to me the last time we played them, but I guess that was just them doing their job because I see the Outlaws defense be mean on the field, too, and some of them were my best friends when we weren’t on the practice field. I guess part of football is that you have to be mean to the other teams. I talked to a few other teams, too. Not everyone reached out and my agent person told me that may not happen because not every team needed a Running Back, but I think that’s because the league is full of great Running Backs and they’re all very talented. But I did talk to almost half the teams and that meant a lot of phone calls. Some teams even had more than one person call me! And that made me feel really important.

My choices came down to three teams: Baltimore Hawks, Chicago Butchers, and Philadelphia Liberty. I was surprised that Arizona did not end up in the top three because I really liked it there, but when I talked to the agent, he made some good points. Arizona throws the ball a lot and Jay Cue does a lot of running plays, which means less chances for me to run the ball. I like Jay a lot and he is a good friend of mine, but if I took the ball from him and tried to throw it, that might be confusing for everyone, so I guess it’s not so bad that I would get confused when coach would tell me to let Jay run the ball instead of me. Someone even told me it was called a “vulture”, which I guess means it’s bad because vultures are pretty scary. And I saw a lot of vultures driving around in the Arizona desert, so I didn’t need to see them on the football field, too. But I also thought to myself that it might be good for me to meet more friends and learn more about different locker rooms. And Arizona is actually a really good team with some great players. I would always be sad when we lost a teammate and I’m sure it made everyone sad to see me leave, but I think they will still be okay. Plus, these other teams were in a different conference, so at least I only have to play my old teammates once a season. It was hard enough on its own to decide to leave, but even after that, I still had to choose between the three other teams.

Baltimore had a great “pitch”. They told me a lot of different things about the team and made me feel like it was a place I wanted to be. I didn’t really know many people there, but I’ve only been part of two teams, so I guess that’s going to be a problem with most places. Chicago was different. I dealt with their co-GM more than the main GM, but he really wanted me as part of the team and talked about the locker room a lot. He said everyone there is really nice and supportive. They have been through a lot of rough seasons as a team and I lot of people like to make fun of them, but I can relate to that because people made fun of me at first, too. In a way, they are a lot like me. I also got to talk to many of the players and I even got a call from my old friend Tyler Oles. I got to play with him back at Arizona and he was always really nice to me. He told me he enjoyed his team so far in Chicago and answered a bunch of my questions. Chicago seemed to be a good place to go if I wanted to make new friends. However, there was one other team that I was still talking to, the Philadelphia Liberty. I got to talk with their GM at the team office and one of the players even took me out for a Philly Cheesesteak. I didn’t think it was as good as chicken nuggets, but it was okay. They put Cheese Whiz on it and I thought that was a good idea; it made me want to try other sandwiches with that type of cheese. He also showed me the Rocky statue and we took a lot of pictures with it. I really liked Philadelphia. It’s a cool city with a lot of fun things to see. And the team had a lot of really cool ideas for how to use me. I wasn’t looking forward to learning a new playbook, but I still tried to play attention to the plays that he was explaining to me. I never thought football would have a lot of homework, but since I got to the ISFL, it takes a lot of studying to get good at it. Who knew? Still, I could tell they put a lot of work into including me in their playbook and I really appreciated that.

So, then the big decision came. I talked to my agent guy to get his opinion. He was worried that Chicago didn’t have a good track record, but they were under new management and could get good in a few seasons. He also told me that they were rumored to be close to a deal with a big name wide receiver and that the two of us could make a big difference together. It also meant a lot to me that so many players reached out to me directly. The co-GM also took me to a local restaurant to get deep dish pizza and beer. I didn’t really like the beer because it made me feel funny and the pizza was weird because they put the cheese and sauce on top of the toppings, which I don’t think it’s how that’s supposed to go. But the pizza did still taste good even if it looked weird at first. I guess that’s like me. I look weird at first, too, but once you get to know me, you find out I’m really nice. (Don’t eat me, though.)

I ended up signing with Chicago, but I had one last question. I didn’t really know what a butcher was. They tried to explain it and it has something to do with the history of the city, but it was a little confusing for a moment, but then they figured out a better way to explain it. The butcher is the person that makes chicken nuggets. That must be a cool job. I think if I weren’t a football player, I would try to make chicken nuggets for a living, too. I also found out that Chicago is the headquarters of McDonalds! I bet they hire a lot of butchers to make their chicken nuggets. I even got to visit the Headquarters and they told me I could come back as much as I wanted. I’m really going to miss all of my friends in Arizona, but I think this is a good chance for me to grow as a player and a person. And maybe I can help out a team that people always made fun of. I get to talk to visit schools sometimes and talk to the kids about bullying. I always tell them it’s important to treat people the way you want to be treated. I think this is true for football teams, too! Let’s put an end to team bullying and focus on playing the game that we like. It doesn’t matter if you’re a cowboy or a chicken nugget maker. Deep down, we’re all people that love to play the same game.

I’m so excited for this next season. I can already tell I’m going to get to try some new things on the field, so I’m practicing really hard and studying my playbook. I even got to eat more deep dish pizza. It doesn’t go too good with chocolate milk, but I liked it better without the funny tasting beer. I already miss my old teammates in Arizona, but I hope they understand and will still be my friends. I promise I’ll try to visit next offseason! Maybe I can even bring a deep dish pizza with me.

I also have an announcement! I made a twitter account. You can check it out and follow me here. I try to post new things every day and it’s a great way to make new friends. If you follow me, I promise I will follow you back.

2299 Words
Ready for Grading

[retrospace111]

only if you bring deep dish pizza

[infinitempg]

have i ever told you i love these articles

because i love them so much

[Billybolo53]

Def need to snag a baby yoda jersey

[ReverendOReily]

This is exactly the kind of content that was missing from my ISFL experience A+++

[SwagSloth]

Appreciate the feedback. With the move to a new team, I need to make these a regular thing this season.

[Ben]

This was amazing lol

[NicholasTheGreat]

I miss you little buddy