The premise: Coming off a Super Bowl victory, the Patriots open the 2013 season with a blowout win. Unfortunately, they get into trouble for Spygate II. As punishment, Roger Goodell orders the Patriots to fire Bill Belichick and replace him with Emmitt Smith. Three years later, the Patriots beat the Bears in the Super Bowl, 2-0. After the game, Emmitt announced his retirement.
This is a weekly feature that will take a newspaper reporter's perspective and follow Emmitt through his post-retirement days.
By Alex Rodriguez, Special to the NFL Bible Network Friday, July 5, 2019
He crumpled up the newspaper and launched it across the room. It just missed the Elmo trash, and the errant throw made him even more furious.
How can they do this to my favorite sports star? My hero?
He stared at the poster above his bed and decided that he had to do something. I have great power, he realized. I can fix this.
He picked up the phone and wasted no time calling his chancellor, though his fury - not to mention his fat fingers - prompted him to misdial on two separate occasions. Once he finally connected, he scheduled a meeting.
"Within the hour!" he shouted to his chancellor, hanging up the phone as soon as he was done shouting. The chancellor sounded perplexed, but he didn't care; he hastily stripped off his Care Bears pajamas and put on his suit. Luckily, this outfit included a clip-on tie, so he didn't have to summon his secretary to his chambers to help him with the real thing.
An hour later, the chancellor finally had arrived. Sweat dripped off his forehead, as he rushed through town on what happened to be a scorching, sunny day. The chancellor obviously did not want to make his boss wait; his predecessor was guilty of such a crime, and now he was nowhere to be seen.
"Sit down!" the boss said, motioning the chancellor toward the chair right next to a large, oak desk that was cluttered with napkins, voided checks and Magic the Gathering cards. The boss started to sit down behind the desk, but sprung up, as if he was too anxious to relax.
"We have probrem!" the boss exclaimed. "Big probrem!"
"Kim Jong-un, sir," the chancellor responded, cautiously. "I understand that you are distraught about Tom Brady and the Deflategate situation, but there's-"
"How can NFR say Tom Brady cheat!?" Kim Jong-un shrieked. "Tom Brady no cheat! Tom Brady great prayer! He my idor! Do you know how many poster I have of Tom Brady hanging on my warr? Do you know how many poster hang!?"
"I have no i-"
"I have ereven poster Tom Brady on warr! Now they say Tom Brady make a cheat, so not onry poster go down in varue, but arr my Tom Brady bobbrehead dorr go down in varue as werr!"
"Sir, this happened four years ago though."
"What you mean!? I just read on newspaper today!"
"I assume that's the North Korean Bugle? Thanks to your socialist policies, you've stripped their budget, so they are four years behind in the news."
"That's it! I gonna kirr arr people who work for newspaper!"
"Mr. Jong-un, don't you think your venom would be better used against the NFL for accusing Tom Brady of such vile crimes?"
"Yes... yes, you right. You right arr arong. Prease get pen and write down everything I say. This retter need to go to Roger Gooderr!"
ROGER GOODELL CALLS FOR HELP AGAIN
By Alex Rodriguez, Special to the NFL Bible Network Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Roger Goodell was growing impatient. His meeting was supposed to start an hour ago, but the man who was scheduled to arrive to his office was running late.
"Where the hell are you?" Goodell spat aloud. "Why can't everyone just be as smart and punctual like me?"
Goodell grabbed random items on his desk and tossed them from one hand to the other. He thought he would be tired by now, thanks to the various ceremonies he attended that morning, but then he remembered that he had three cups of black coffee at the celebration just prior to this scheduled meeting.
"Damn it, why did I have so many cups?" Goodell asked himself, growing more bored by the second. "Then again, those celebrations can be tiring..."
A relatively short, stocky, bald black man walked into his office and approached him to shake his hand. Goodell hesitated.
"Emmitt, you're an hour late!" Goodell snapped.
"What do you means?" Emmitt asked, looking confused. "You telled me that we having a meeting at your office at 3 pm Eastern, 2 pm Central, so here I am at 3 o'clock in the noon."
"Emmitt, we're Central time because we're in Chicago," Goodell explained.
"I agree on you that we in Chicago, Mr. Goldman," Emmitt replied. "However, we also in the East, so 3 o'clock was the appropriate meeting times."
"It's Goodell. And we're Central time, Emmitt."
"We East. We east of a lot of cities right now. I can name a few, so to speak. We east of Los Angeles, which is in California. We east of Las Vegas, which also in the Los Angeles. And we east of the city of Canada, which also in California."
"I... I... meh," Goodell relented, resisting the temptation of correcting all of Emmitt's mistakes. "Forgive me, Emmitt, but I had to attend so many ceremonies today. Ring-kissing ceremonies are always draining. Do you know how tiring it is to have people kiss your ring over and over? It's especially taxing when babies kiss your ring. I've always scoffed at politicians, who kiss babies to gain votes. Fortunately, I'm in the position where babies have to kiss me - or my ring, specifically - or their parents will lose the right to own season tickets, but that's neither here nor there."
"If it not here or not there, where is it?"
"Never mind. Emmitt, do you know why I called you in today?"
"I do not know, Mr. Gordon."
"It's Goodell. And take a rook, I mean look at this letter. I just received it today."
Emmitt opened up the letter and began reading...
Mr. Gooderr,
It is me, your ord friend Kim Jong-Ir. I hope many people kiss your ring today because you are great man. But I have compraint! I angry that Tom Brady got into trouble for defrate football. Nothing wrong with defrate! Rast time I make threat it work when I promise to brow up America movie theater that show movie about me get kirr! Now I make another threat! Because you accuse Tom Brady of cheat and because he my favorite prayer and idor, I make threat: If you no cancer NFR season and you no give me box Cheez-It, I promise brow up United States America and arr American gonna die! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!
P.S. Did you see rast week episode Game of Throne? I can't berieve what happen!
"Emmitt, this needs to be stopped immediately, and you've come through for more so often in the past that I feel compelled to ask for your help on this," Goodell said.
"I will gladly accept this quest," Emmitt said. "It is not good if Kim Johnson gonna blowed up the U.S. If he gonna blowed it up, all the people here in America gonna die, all 5,000 of us."
"Die? Oh yeah," Goodell said. "I'm just worried that someone bombing the U.S. will ruin all of my ring-kissing ceremonies."