[Blade]

I walked into the pub and found John sitting in a booth in a corner. He already had an empty pitcher in front of him, and he was pouring a glass of beer from a new pitcher. He saw me and waved me over, quickly pouring another glass and setting it down in front of me as I sat. He raised his glass in the air, and waited for me to do the same.

“We are now truly free, Bear! The football team is ours to do with as we please!”

My smile was just as wide as his as I clinked his glass and took a long drink. When I was done, I set my glass down and sat back.

“Finally. All this planning, all the worrying, everything. It’s over, all thanks to this.”

Mackey pushed an envelope towards me. It was addressed to Mackey, and was obviously from the city council. I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside, printed on nice municipal government letterhead. The letter read:

Stadium Vote:
From: The County Government

Your proposal for new stadium construction was submitted to the voters of your county for a decision.

The issue failed. We hope that you do not view this as a referendum on the viability of football in Oakland, but we understand that you are now free to seek a new stadium elsewhere. Please try again next year, however. You may find the voters more amenable.

Here's the final vote tally:

Rejected: 411,190 - 67.0%
In Favor: 202,102 - 32.9%

I laughed as I pushed the letter back into the envelope.

“Please try again next year? Optimistic, aren’t they?”

Mackey laughed. “A little bit. So, now the real fun begins. I have to see who wants an NFL football team!”

“Any idea of the cities interested, Mack?”

Mackey shook his head. “No, I haven’t done any searching yet. Didn’t want to show our hand early. That will be my job this season, while you worry about the football team. Speaking of which, I read the article about our drafting, and I have to say I agree with some of the criticism. In fact, I was watching the draft and after the second pick I was going to call you up and ask you what you were doing, but I got pulled into a meeting. So, I am asking now. What were you doing?”

I sighed, having to justify myself again. “I did what I thought was best at the time. When our pick came around, the players we were interested in were off the board. Of the players who were left in the positions we needed, there were none who were sure-fire players worth a first round pick. The reports that Gino’s staff gave me said that Erik was a fantastic talent, despite his size. He has the skills that I love in a running back, so I had to take him. I know that we have Lamont, and that I signed Chris, but Chris is not a starting calibre running back and we only signed him to a $2.98 million contract, so we are not tied up for a whole lot. Chris should be a fine number three guy. Lamont is the starter, but Erik gives us some flexibility in our options in the future if Lamont wants too much.”

Mackey nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced.

“I think our only other question mark is Quinn, and at 5’6”, he is definitely a risk. But the guy has skill to burn, and I think that he will be able to make up for his size based on that. I stand by my picks, Mack, and I have faith in them.”

“Alright, Bear. You are the GM, so it is your ass on the line, so we will see where that puts us. This truly is our team now, so we want a winning team. We will be out of Oakland soon, and we will have to deal with a new fan base, and that will be a fan base that we will not want to piss off.”

“I know.”

Mackey took another gulp of his beer. “Good. So, what is next? We still are short in terms of filling out our roster, I see.”

“Yah, there are still some free agents out there that I am looking at. They wanted to much in the first go around, but their demands are sure to have dropped, so I need to see what positions we are short at, and what players are available. New England’s GM actually called me wanted to get our cornerback Fabian Washington from us. He offered their tight end Ben Watson and a fourth round pick. I told him no, obviously, since we are good at tight end with Courtney Anderson and our new draft pick, and we are short at cornerback so we need Washington right now.”

“Ok, sounds good. Well, we need to drink it up! This is a great day, my friend!”

I laughed and clinked glasses with Mackey again. We drank for the next few hours, and as I sat there drinking, it finally became clear to me that my job was truly beginning. My butt was on the line with every transaction, and that was something I had not faced before. It was a challenge I was happy to take, but I was worried it may tear me up in the end.