Part 1: Sacrifices
It is a beautiful, bright, summer day when the greatest quarterback of all time, Tom Grady is in his backyard with his wife and kids enjoying the sun and a nice dip in the pool. While in the pool, Tom looks at his kids and wife sharing a laugh and having an overall great time and has an immediate feeling of satisfaction. He begins to look around at his massive house and the beautiful view of Florida that he has, when his wife approaches him. His wife gently floats beside him, in hopes of not disrupting his day dream that just so happens to be a reality. She lays her head on his shoulder and asks, “Are you okay baby?” Tom lays his head on her head and responds, “Yes my love! Just enjoying everything that we have worked so hard for!” Tom had spent about twenty years of sacrificed time with his family to play in the NFL and had finally just gone into retirement. His wife says, “You did a great job babe, and now it is time for you to enjoy the home life with the kids and I!” Tom responds, “WE did a great job! I couldn’t have done it without you and the kids, and now it is time for me to pay you all back the time that we have lost!”
As Tom and his Wife enjoy the view of a “happily ever after” together, Tom’s phone begins to ring. Tom quickly hops out of the pool and heads to the chair that his phone is on. He picks up the phone from the chair and sees the name of the person who is calling him. “The commissioner?”, a puzzled Tom asks himself. “Could this be a Hall of Fame call already? No way, it is way too soon! At the same time though, I have had an amazing career, but let’s see what he is calling about!” Tom answers the phone. “Hey Commissioner! How is everything going?” The commissioner responds, “Hey Tom! I am doing okay. I am a bit stressed out, but how is retirement treating you?” “Retirement has been great so far! Just spending as much time as I can with my family and resting my body!”, says Tom. The commissioner responds in a disappointed way, “Interesting!”. Tom asks, “Is everything okay commissioner?” “Well, have you been keeping up with the news lately?”, asks the commissioner. Tom says, “Come on! You know I am not a news type of guy!” The commissioner says, “I know, but you might want to check it out!” Tom quickly heads to the internet and opens up a website that provides all of the latest news. The first headline Tom sees says, “The Fate of the NFL! To Be or Not To Be?” Tom quickly clicks the headline and skims through the article. Surprised by what he is seeing, Tom screams, “WHAT?” and quickly heads inside.
Tom has just found out that a combination of governments around the world have decided to make the decision to turn football into a game that will only be played by robots. Tom asks the commissioner, “Why are they doing this?” The commissioner says to Tom, “There are a couple reasons, but the main reason is technology is now taking over the world and money that is being put towards football can now be put towards the military, if humans who play the sport are replaced with robots.” “So, what are your plans to stop this? There has to be a way to destroy this plan, right?”, asks Tom. “Well that is why I am calling you Tom! The collective group of governments have agreed to let the NFL choose its top players to play a fully robotic team to decide if their plan will go through or not. I have already put together an all-star team of the top talent I could find and you are my last call! We need a great quarterback and leader, and you just so happen to be the greatest at both, so I thought that I would call you to ask if you would like to participate in “operation save football”?”, asks the commissioner. As soon as the commissioner finishes talking, Tom responds with a big, “YES! YES! I would love to help!” As he is accepting the job opportunity, his wife walks in and asks, “What is going on?” Tom explains the situation and his response to his wife, who at first hesitates to agree with Tom’s decision, but after Tom emphasizes that this is a sacrifice he is no longer making for just him and the family, but for many more people out there and the future of the game he loves, she allows Tom to accept the opportunity, then heads outside to explain the situation to the kids. Tom asks the commissioner, “Where do I have to be and when?”
Part 2: Preparation
Practices had started, and things were running smoothly until Thursday evening (three nights before the game) when Tom was called into the commissioners office. “What’s up commissioner?”, asks Tom. The commissioner responds, “Well, if I say that I am doing well, then I would be lying, so I am not doing too well! I have received word from a “little birdie” that an ego filled reject somehow got a hold of our playbook and shared it with the government who have by now already programmed the robots to stop all of our plays on offense and destroy all of our plays on defense. I don’t know what to do and I have now lost a great amount of hope that we will be able to defeat the robots, so I have decided that the best choice is to forfeit.” Tom simply responded with, “Give me a day!”. “A day to do what?”, asks the commissioner. “A day to write a whole new playbook that is simple. Give the guys off tomorrow to recover physically and mentally, then we will be back in here on Saturday to make last minute changes.”, says Tom. The commissioner says, “If you weren’t you, I would say, “YOU ARE CRAZY”, but because you are you, all I can say is, YES SIR!”
The commissioner follows Tom’s commands and gives the guys off on Friday. Tom Brady spends the rest of Thursday night creating a playbook and uses Friday to rest and recover. Saturday (day before game day) comes around and the commissioner explains to the team that there was a breach in their system and the government got a hold of their playbook, so they have to learn a whole new, but simple playbook in one day. At first some of the guys have the same reaction as the commissioner (lost hope), but as practice goes on the guys start to realize why Tom Grady is called the G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time) when it comes to football and it is because he has the discipline and work ethic to come in clutch when he is needed. Due to the playbook being pretty simple, things start to click fairly quickly. Practice comes to an end and everyone’s hope is restored. Tomorrow is the big day that will be a deciding factor for many people around the world.
Part 3: Game-day
Game-day has arrived and the atmosphere is insane. With the robots having home field advantage at SoFi stadium and all the other odds being stacked against the human all-star team. The ball is kicked off and the game is underway. The human all-star team catches the robotic team off guard with their new playbook and have a great first half of football. Going into halftime the human all-star team is up twenty-one to nothing over the robots.
Everyone is caught by surprise due to how the game is unfolding, but like any other “Cinderella” story, the win is never that easy. During halftime the government pulls out their final trick and goes into the settings for each robot to turn on their artificial intelligence. The human all-star team come out of halftime clueless of what just happened in the opposing team’s locker room and unfortunately assume that the rest of the game is going to be easy. The robots come out blazing and quickly adjust to everything the human all-star team is doing. They take away the momentum and quickly get back into the game and soon take the lead with one minute left in the game.
Once again, it seems as if all hope is lost. There is one minute left in the game and it seems as if nothing is working for the human all-star team. The commissioner approaches Tom and says, “At least we tried.”, but Tom quickly says, “NO! The game is not over yet! Call everyone over to the bench.” The commissioner listens and quickly gathers everyone to the bench. During a commercial break Tom quickly tells the team, “Your future is going to be what you make of it! Anyone who wants to achieve something great, will face challenges and obstacles, but, ultimately, they are responsible for what they achieve. We have something the robots don’t…Emotions! So let’s go out there and play our hearts out like it is the last time that we will ever play football again.” This is all the team needed because with one minute left the human football team drives down the field with all they have. They play with a lot of emotion and heart as if it is the last drive of football they will ever play again. They end up scoring, just when the clock hits zero and win the game.
The game of Football has been saved and will continue to be played by humans all over the world. During the celebration and post game interview Tom Grady brings to everyone’s (specifically the government) attention that the special thing about humans is they can’t be programmed. No matter how hard we try, computers and robots will not be able to have the same special type of emotions that humans contain. Tom warns the government and everyone involved in the computer takeover operation to stop their progress because things will never be the same and it won’t be easy to turn back. Tom’s advice works and the computer takeover operation is stopped the next day. Tom goes back into retirement and finally gets to enjoy the time he promised his family.
Works Cited
Technology Source
Woods, Andrew Keane. Robophobia – University of Colorado Law Review,
Accessed 18 Mar. 2022.
My story revolves around robots who are programmed to be better than humans at football. The robots have ultimate speed, strength, endurance, and most importantly artificial intelligence. All the odds are set against humans, so I searched for how robots could be programmed to be better than humans at wordly tasks. In this article about robophobia (which is the fear that robots will take over) Woods states that, “In many different domains, algorithms are simply better at performing a given task than people. Algorithms outperform humans at discrete tasks in clinical health, psychology, hiring and admissions, and much more. Yet in setting after setting, we regularly prefer worse-performing humans to a robot alternative, often at an extreme cost.” Without human error, robots can efficiently perform tasks at a consistent level. My takeaway from this is that due to errors that humans make, we are naturally just not as efficient as a robot is.
Character Source
Williams, Dylan. Three Leadership Observations from Tom Brady | Lead Read Today – Fisher College of Business,
Accessed 20 Mar. 2022.
My main character is Tom Grady who is based on Tom Brady (American football quarterback). Like Tom Brady, Tom Grady has many great qualities and characteristics that make him the best quarterback of all time and a great leader. In this article about what makes Tom Brady the G.O.A.T (Greatest of all time) and the G.L.O.A.T (Greatest leader of all time), Williams says that the three leadership behaviors that Brady has are, “self-discipline, self-regulation, and self-determination.” I chose Tom Brady not only because he is arguably the greatest player of all time, but because he fits well with the timeline of the story. He has just announced that he is coming out of retirement to play one more season of football in real life, so I decided to make that one more season (game in this sense) the one that decides it all for Tom Grady.
Setting Source
Donato, Decerry. ‘LA Hasn’t Built a Stadium of This Size in 100 Years’: SoFi Stadium Is Ready for Its Super Bowl Close Up.
Accessed 20 Mar. 2022
The main event of my story takes place in the newly built Los Angeles Rams Stadium (SoFi Stadium). I chose SoFi stadium because it is the newest football stadium that was not only greatly built from the architectural standpoint but is also filled with the newest technology available. Donato says, “Privately financed by the Rams’ billionaire owner, Stan Kroenke, SoFi Stadium is built on a single, converged network—powered by Cisco and partner technology integrator AmpThink—that connects virtually every piece of digital infrastructure in the stadium.” This plays a part in why all the odds are stacked against the humans (which emotions eventually overrule). Although the robots technically have home field advantage, the human football team feeds off the human filled crowd’s energy (emotions).