Ron Rivera placed 12 cans of cat food on the counter at PetsMart.
"That'll be nine twenty-eight, sir."
Ron ripped 12 pages out of Mike Shula's playbook and placed them on the counter.
"Sir, those have no value here," the cashier said.
"These are pages from an NFL playbook. You mean to tell me these have no value?"
"Not that playbook, sir."
It wasn't that Mike Shula's playbook was inherently awful or that Mike Shula had turned a whole town sour by his own doing, but the fact remained that Mike Shula was largely worthless to the greater Charlotte population.
"Well what do you expect me to do? Just go hungry?" Ron Rivera pleaded.
"Don't you make a pretty decent salary?"
"In human money, yes." The cashier returned his comment with silence and Ron Rivera reluctantly swiped his card through the reader. "You should really be more accommodating to people who may not do things the way you do." Then Ron got in his car and put on Taylor Swift's new hit single, Shake It Off. In his car alone, he belted out:
Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off
Heart-breakers gonna break, break, break, break, break
And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake
Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off
Ron Rivera got back to Bank of America Stadium to continue preparations for the upcoming game against the Philadelphia Eagles. He was met in the halls by Mike Shula.
"Ron, I got an idea that I think is going to give us the upper hand against Chirp Kelly. Get it? The Eagles, Chirp Kelly, right?"
"Eagles don't chirp. Mike."
"Fine, they screech. Don't be a buzzkill, Ron."
"They don't screech either. You're confusing them with Hawks."
"I bet Falcons screech. Just ask Mike SmEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERth."
"Dammit, Mike."
"Anyway, I was thinking we'd run a few gadget plays this week. In the past we've run a flea flicker to the smokin' fast Cotchery and a tricky little screen pass on 4th and something or other in our own endzone. But I was thinking this week, are you ready for it, Ron?"
Rivera had fallen asleep in a chair in the hallway. His stress diet of cat food was finally taking it's toll on his delicate inner ecosystem.
"Ron, wake up Ron," pleaded Mike Shula.
"Hm, oh, what, yeah? What Mike?" Rivera startled awake.
"I got a new gadget play for Philly. Here's what we'll do. We'll have Jonathan Stewart fake like he's going to block then go out for a screen pass."
"That's not a gadget play, Mike. That's just a regular-ass play."
"Okay, well I do have this wild idea... Let's have Kalil snap the ball to Cam, then drop back to the backfield while Jonathan Stewart goes to block Kalil's man. Then Cam will hand off to Kalil and he'll run it up the gut for a touchdown."
"No, Mike. I have to go. Let me say this, though. If this offense weren't so devoid of talent, maybe we wouldn't be resorting to this sort of thing." Ron Rivera then walked down the hall to Sean McDermott's office.
"Sean, holy hell we've got some work to do," said Ron Rivera while sacrificing a goat he'd nicknamed Chirp Kelly.