So guess what?
It turns out an intrepid Fontenot investigative reporter managed to dig up an advanced copy of Jason Elam's forthcoming novel, Monday Night Jihad.
Considering the literary significance, we've decided to publish some excerpts.
Don't worry. It won't give away the plot.
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(p.7)
As usual, all the players came to his house for a barbecue on Saturday afternoon. Joseph Lame was the quiet leader of this team, not the headstrong loud-mouth D-lineman guaranteeing victories, not the brash young quarterback with the rocket arm. For the public, and for the media, the usual players could be the leaders. And that was just fine by Lame. But to lead the soul of a team? To show them what it meant to be a champion?
That job was for the place-kicker.
(p.34)
Lame was on his way into the facility when he saw Scrapples, the team janitor, hanging his head over by the dumpster.
“What gives, Scrap-Man?” Lame said, angling over toward the 490-pound man.
“Hey, Joseph,” said Scrapples. “So nice to see a friendly face. Some of the guys were giving me a hard time in there before.” Lame could see that Scrapples had been crying. He looked a little roughed up, too. “These guys came around the corner when I was polishing the trophies and the knocked me real good. They said janitors weren’t an important part of the overall workforce and that they were easily replaceable. They pushed me around some more and said that we were kinda in the background, you know? Like anyone could do what we do? And that we weren’t tough, too? And that we weren’t really ‘workers’ at all, just guys who happened to find themselves in the middle of something? And that we weren’t really part of the organization, even? And that our presence was sort of required but no one wanted us around? They pretty much told me that janitors are by far the least important members of the organization.”
Lame, fighting off waves of boiling, incandescent rage, put his hand on Scrapple’s shoulder. “What guys?” he said, gritting his teeth. “Just tell me their goddamned names.”
(p.42)
The score of the big Monday Night game was 39-0 just before halftime. Coach Shanana approached Lame during the TV timeout, on the sideline.
“Mr. Lame,” Coach said. “Can you spare a quick second?"
“Pretty busy here, Coach,” Lame said. He was stretching out The Leg for the big kickoff. The 13 field goals had been cakewalk—he’d done the last four with his eyes closed. On top of that, he’d already put his first 12 kickoffs through the back of the endzone, and he wasn’t going to let the streak get broken just because their bobble-brained jokester of a coach wanted to say something to him.
“Wanted to run a few questions by you,” Coach said tentatively. “About—about the run game we might use in the second half?”
“Show me,” Lame said.
Coach handed Lame the playbook and started pointing out a few plays. Lame didn’t even pretend to listen to Coach’s interpretations. Instead he flipped to the back of the book and drew up nine new plays.
“Look at how the zones all work together, Coach,” Lame explained for the millionth time. “The O-linemen can’t miss the cuts. That’s your problem.”
“Oh boy,” said Coach. “Wow.”
“There,” Lame said. “Do you understand them now?”
“Sort of,” Coach said. “I’ll look at them at halftime. You’ll be there to help me?”
But Lame wasn’t paying attention anymore. His attention was on the field, and 80,000 other sets of eyes were pointed that way, too. They all watched as a lone, mysterious, robed man sprinted down the sideline. But this wasn’t a player, at least not from any team Lame had ever heard of. And he wasn’t holding a football. He was holding a football-shaped bomb.
“Get down!” Lame shouted. “That man is an Islamic extremist!”
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