Although one particular route has always been at our quarterbacks’ disposal, it was never consistently used (and certainly not executed to such exquisite perfection) – until this season. It took brothers – Dachs to Dax – to show us the full potential and devastating effectiveness of the comeback route. To work, the maneuver mandates a lot of things go right. It requires a sequence of conditions met relating to speed and distance and timing. More than any of that – it requires faith. That the receiver stops at the agreed upon moment and deceptively returns to a previously tread spot. That the QB will release the ball at the split second his target slams the breaks so the defender is unable to react. Perhaps this unquantifiable element of faith (above all the technical criteria) is why it remains an unpopular play call. But – as we saw – when handled properly and with precision, it is nearly unstoppable.

Jewball, I’m done talking about our miracles and magic with a golly-gee naivete. Yes, we are supremely blessed and over the past five years built an absolute behemoth. Yes, it was built on the backs of dedicated Vets and Dark Age Rookies who loved Jewball even when we had far less (or even nothing) to love. It was built particularly on the wings of Yaron, our guardian angel of the Revolution. But we’ve graduated from being dumbstruck by the phenomenon. It happened. No question we capitalized on it. We stared our good fortune in the face and boldly declared that fate could do even better. And even better then. So here we are. Enlightened AF. A bunch of lucky bastards with a fierce, greedy conviction to keep our luck going. We’ve freed ourselves up to talk about something else.

As I pondered this past season and made my notes – a recurring theme became impossible to ignore. In the midst of our overwhelming success and spoils accrued on a global level, there were too many stories of individual struggles and hardship. Too damn many.

I know he will be uncomfortable that I’m talking about this first, but how could I not? PJs literally left his last game of last season in an ambulance after getting knocked unconscious. Did we laugh about it? Of course! But, I mean, it’s not a joke. Everything about his well-being and future was at risk. He was said to be done for good (take note, Singer). Doctors’ orders. Wife’s orders. How could he dare continue to play football (and do all the other incredible things he does for us) when the stakes were so high? The answer: I don’t know how he dared. I just know he did. I know he came back.

I know he will hate that I’m talking about him at all (and the cold sweat breaks out as I type), but if this isn’t a safe space then I’m doing that thing in Donnie Brasco where Al Pacino holds a gun to his head in the car. Gronk had about as bad an off-season as someone could have. Fact. He’s our Jewball brother. Fact. Deal with those two converging facts however you like. But I know that we needed (and will need) him – and vice versa. And I know we can hold our heads up high on judgment day. But, for him, being truly in the depths of (and he will admit it, self-inflicted) hell: How could he show up on Sundays, look us in the eyes, and manage his trademark smirk? The answer is I don’t know how he found the courage. But I know he found it. I know he came back.

If I have the time as this polemic unspools, I will get to our injured players who returned against all odds. I can get to Spira who returned against all logic and precedent. But you see the direction I am heading in to establish this year’s unifying epicenter: 2022-2023 was – more than anything else – more than the year of the Rookie takeover (but, we will most assuredly get to that – as it factors in with serendipitous exactitude) – this was the Year of the Comeback.

We needed a comeback almost immediately. With last year’s League Champion quarterback being MIA, we were in full scouting mode. You ask me if I remember the QB who beat our team last year at Greis, relishing every second of the beatdown, yelling Let’s Fucking Gooooo with an obnoxious finger pointed in the air as he chased down the receiver who just caught a bomb TD? Yeah, I can picture him. He was the enemy. He was not a Jewballer. He was pure Croton. The anti-Jewballer. But we needed a QB and Yaron thought we could get him and his talented brother. Yaron targeted a bunch of guys as Daveo targets everyone. I was (and still am) cautious. My job is to protect Jewball for the Jewballers. To keep it closeknit and grounded. Yaron and Daveo one thousand percent would never do anything to hurt Jewball consciously, but I do know they see (or saw) it’s future differently than I did.

So it turned out the diminutive assassin who radiates competitiveness had a name – Sruli Dachs. The brother was Mordy. I was told things about them by the always optimistic Yaron – that their joining us was possible – but I would believe it when it happened. I also didn’t know if I wanted it to happen. That’s the thing about rookies. Bringing them in is scary. It feels like messing with perfection. More than that – it always feels like jeopardizing perfection.

I saw Mordy – who seemed a lot more human/personable than his bro – at a volleyball game. Turned out he knew Zez and was the son in law of Jonas, who I’d been playing volleyball with for five years. Good signs. I saw Mordy again at softball and Pray was there and we brought up Jewball and his brother. This is where I learned about the infamous Yaron messages to Sruli. Two thousand words explaining that Jewball is not a cult. Mordy – with his surfer bro laugh and smile – assured me that Sruli was out (and disturbed) and that Mordy might check us out (which sounded like him just being polite). If you would have asked me to bet money at that moment whether Sruli would be rocking an I LOVE JEWBALL sweatshirt on Chanukah, drinking a l’chaim with me and Mordy in my house on Purim, then dancing with us in Daveo’s dungeon, and finally winning both Vets Rooks for the Rooks and a Jewball League Championship – I’d probably be broke right now. I would have bet every dime I had against that. As would any of you.
I’m not going to go through every rookie storyline. I will say I was hesitant about each one except Stats since I knew he was Jewball material. The second you meet Oppen, it’s game over. You’re melted. Even if he wasn’t a remarkable talent, the positive energy alone makes him a keeper.

Now, to be Rookie of the Year, in this class – how special do you have to be? Think about it. I mean….think about who came in….and then think about what it would take to be undisputed Rookie of the Year.

And I’ll tell you why it’s Zinn. Because it has nothing to do with football. He’s a mesmerizing athlete. That is not up for debate. You watch him in any game he plays and he will do one or two things that prove his talent massive. But, for me, I’m more impressed by his showing up to Munch’s house before the draft. I’m more impressed that he craves football and wants to wring every drop of it from our offerings. I’m more impressed that he was at Theo’s bris. I’m more impressed that he looks to organize and steps up to lead. I’m more impressed that he doesn’t complain when I randomized the hell out of him in the early going so his wins and good targets were few. That he plays in Bowl Games with the same vigor that he does regular weeks and league weeks. That he scoots to the game after minyan. He is our Rookie of the Year because he gets what we are trying to do here beyond football – and if he doesn’t fully get it (at 20/21 years old!), he fully ventures to get it. That – plus all the talent and competitive spirit in the world – is what makes Zinn the spotlight player of – and it’s not even remotely a question – the greatest infusion of rookie talent our almost 30 year game has even known.

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”

The above is a quote from Orson Welles, who was a genius, but potentially insane as well. It’s a cynical take on existence. I don’t buy into it, but we have to admit that in many ways – although we are together with others – as we are currently “together” reading this – we are trapped in a fortress of solitude.
I bring it up because when I think about the comebacks that manifested over the course of this past season, though I take pride in the love and friendship that motivated them, I also realize that comebacks are very much a personal and lonely road.

I think about Irv and his accursed nagging back. I think about Waldo in agony rehabbing his broken collarbone. I think about Singer and his season from hell. And of course I think about Pray being wheeled to shul on Yom Kippur.

These are just a few examples of physical injuries and the aloneness they surely engendered within the player. I think of other Jewballers as well going through difficulties in life – God should bless us all. And there is no question that a comeback demands an internal fortitude and mental toughness that relies entirely on the individual. Where I would argue with Welles is that love and friendship is a mere illusion.

When Dax runs his route hard down the sideline, he does so alone. It is him pushing himself using only his brain, heart, lungs, and muscle. But the instant he turns to come back, it becomes a mutual endeavor. He relies on his brother to be there for him. To convert faith into real world action. To deliver on the promise and potential of that faith. To supplant the illusion of his going it alone with a predestined team effort.

That’s a comeback route in football. A comeback in life (as in Jewball) is equally a team effort. It requires many things from the collective, but among them are patience, compassion, and sympathy. Sometimes forgiveness. Both parties must be willing to see beyond the temporary “reality” and take the long view. To maintain perspective. The Year of the Comeback is the year where we proved that love and friendship is no illusion.

A comeback also needs inspiration. Some light at the end of the tunnel to make the fight worth fighting. To get one through those bleak moments of isolation.

It is no coincidence that the Year of the Comeback coincided with the year of birth and rebirth. The year of youthful exuberance on the field and the year of flourishing families off it. When perhaps many of us were this close to giving in to the weakness, we couldn’t help but see the teeming, thriving life pouring in from Jewball – and it acted the Muse. It carried us back like a providential current.

I needed a comeback. I needed your patience, sympathy and forgiveness. As beautiful as Draft Night was, it was marred by poor decisions that fall on me. It tainted the entire season. I imagine at some point we overcame and replaced the bad Draft Night vibes, but that was a team effort.

I don’t want to get too sentimental here, but – when you get older you get to observe life more often than participate in it. And I observed that we are all trying to overcome something. Some more obvious than others – but I see in many ways we are each constantly in the middle of a Jewball comeback. For me it is age, but for others it might be an awkwardness or emptiness. A trauma, a loss, a troubled relationship, youth, or mistakes made and regretted. Many of us arrive here as damaged goods to no fault of our own. This reminds of an unforgettable and cherished conversation I had with PJs on a windy night coming home from Vegh’s shalom zachor.

Sometimes life feels like a Bowl Game. It just keeps going and going and you have all the time in the world to figure your shit out. And just like that it can become TNF where half time came and went in a flash and Dom is yelling, “2 minutes! Clock is running!”

I want us to always be a place for great football. I’m so proud of our being right now a place for great football. I’m even more proud of our being a place for great stories. For great redemption. For great second and third and fourth chances. For resilient comebacks.

Let’s talk about some of these stories and some of these comebacks. As they are the building blocks of this season.

At the 2021 Draft Party, a kid showed up who seemed to place himself in constant shadow. He was there of his own free will so there was no doubting his choice to be present. Yet he seemed at the same time as if trying to fold himself into nothingness. To disappear. I say this not to embarrass The Rook, but to cite him as the ultimate example of someone who had blind faith in us – who we had blind faith in – and – how did that turn out? He is our brother for life. He is my brother for life. And he’s one hell of a football player. After coming out of his shell/car seat last season and only showing flashes of brilliance, his 2022 season cemented him as top of the draft talent. The Rook is on The Rise. Special shout out to Beast and the X-Factor.

I don’t know Perla well yet. He’s guarded. All good. Respect that. I do know he was out of the game for a while. I know Yaron kept tabs on him as a possible QB for us. I know he reached out to give us a try and of course we said yes. There is no greater commodity in Jewball than a competitive QB. He came down in his parka with the hood up, the wristband and stuck in his ways. He came down with whatever baggage he carried, like we all do, but without being open yet to us carrying any of it for him – with him. So it felt like a challenge. Perhaps not the best fit. But then he went on TBI. An act of faith. And so began the comeback. So began the legend. Culminating in perhaps the most joyous moment of the Jewball season. Perla, wrapped in a White Goodman cape, pumping his fist, which clenched a purple -shirt, as the crowd chanted “SAY-LEM! SAY-LEM! SAY-LEM!” Right there – a snapshot of what separates us. A room of men and women proving Welles got it wrong.

I’ve told the story in a prior recap, but just so it gets the bold and underlined treatment – Spira’s comeback to Jewball is a wonderment of biblical proportions. It’s incomprehensible. And yet….it’s just one of our many incomprehensible comebacks. Let that sink in. I’m not going to say Jewball is a place where miracles happen, but – I will say – that Jewball is a place where some miracles have happened. And speaking of miracles….

Pray won MVP two seasons ago and the sentiment that I come back to often with him from that Season Recap is that if the Vets commissioned a team of geneticists to create the perfect Jewball Rookie in a lab – so as to assure us a future of success and longevity – the result would be Pray. What is the man lacking in? When I think of one incredible quality as being his premiere endearing feature, it is immediately replaced by another. Generosity. Kindness. Passion. Leadership. Competitiveness. Wisdom. Humility. See what I mean? Everyone is nodding their heads. Because it does keep going. We knew all these things about Pray before this season and took them for granted. What we did not know about him was that he was superhuman. What no one could know was how he would respond to extreme physical adversity. We had no stick with which to measure his capacity to come back.

I don’t need to remind you of his grueling journey from surgery through the League Championship Game. A game in which he threw a TD to Goldberg, who was mounting a comeback of his own. We can all picture Pray on the sidelines in his cast, and boot, and brace, and whatever other contraptions he needed to wear as he spectated with envy. The man always came out. Always made sure to bring to Jewball whatever he could – even if it was not on the field of play. He brings dignity, gravitas, and a magnetic aura wherever he goes. And if that was all he could contribute to Jewball this season – it would have sucked for him and us – but it would have been enough. It would have been the best he could do and much appreciated.

What we learned about Pray this past season is that there is depth to him that no one can possibly fathom. You don’t come back from his injury in the same season and perform at the level he performed at unless you have the filthiest of determinations. Essentially, Pray, you are on the inside someone the rest of us mere mortals cannot fully understand.

In the year of one fantastical comeback story after another, Pray won Comeback Player of the Year. And, yet, he was not our best comeback story.

Our best comeback story belongs to our 2022-2023 Jewball MVP.
There’s a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend
He refuses to crawl
He’s always at home with his back to the wall
And he’s proud of his scars and the battles he’s lost
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on the cross
And he likes to be known as the angry young man
Billy Joel wrote these lyrics even before I was born, so surely before Storm was born. But there is a certain type, and the great songwriter nailed it. He goes on:
Give a moment or two to the angry young man
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand
He’s been stabbed in the back
He’s been misunderstood
It’s a comfort to know his intentions are good
And he sits in a room with a lock on the door
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor
And he likes to be known as the angry young man
As distressed as I was on draft night, Storm was fuming. My Assmen teammate saw every selection prior to his as disrespect – and there were five infuriating rounds of disrespect. Storm came to us four seasons ago mid-season. An angry young man. It was a very memorable game at Woodmere Middle School where he battled with Mighty, maybe almost got into fight, roared after he made a reception, and maintained an audible inner-dialogue the entire time. Yaron called him John. I called him Storm because you couldn’t watch him on the field and not perceive the bolts of lightning or hear the thunder rumbling just below his surface. After the bunch of games he played that season, it was hard to tell if Jewball and Storm would forever clash or find common ground.

One thing that became eminently apparent about Storm was the brilliance of his game. The other thing was his style. He is someone who could show up to game and takeover, but – whether he played well or played in a fog – he made sure he had the right gear, the right cleats, the right attitude. There is a reason he is Kill’s favorite player. His bravado never feels arrogant, though. It’s a personal reflection. It’s often as if he is celebrating his accomplishments to prove something only to himself and we just happen to be witnesses. Whether it be “Stat! Count It,” “Why don’t you come over for dinner,” or “Mama Storm didn’t raise no bitch,” his lines are instant classics. And not because he is trying to make anything happen. He’s a natural showman. He is as real as they come. His realness flows from him in every interaction. On the sidelines, he’s the best guy you will ever meet and it’s all love and laughs. In the game, he’s going to another place. A place where he doesn’t know any of us. A place where there are his teammates and those trying to stop his teammates and him from winning. And the latter must be dealt with accordingly. He plays like football is the word of God. Like nothing matters more. It’s a level that very few of us are even capable of conceptualizing. His devotion to the craft of football – it doesn’t get higher in our group.
The problem for Storm has been that he was never able to fully put all that brilliance and style and passion on display. We saw it in bursts. We knew it was in there. But it never came together in a stream of sustained excellence – until this season. From wire to wire he brought his signature fire and intensity and did not relent. Zinn came in set to torch the record books and Storm stuck with him stride for stride. And while Zinn had an MVP caliber season in terms of pure numbers, he will have to settle for being the latest golden child of Jewball. This is the Year of the Comeback and to be Jewball Season MVP, you have had to have gone through the ringer.

Listen, I don’t know everything Storm has been through. What he’s had to overcome. I’m not going to pretend I do. But I know he has had his struggles and hardships. More than his fair share. And instead of wallowing in them or giving in to them – he suffused them into his spectacular performances on Sunday mornings. No one does more with a chip on his shoulder. No one here is real enough to convert that chip into an actual tactical advantage. We say it. He does it. He did it. Because of Draft Night, the comeback was on. He brought a razor-blade-sharp edginess to the field every week. But – somehow – and this is Storm’s distinction – he plays ice cold, but it’s the farthest thing from who he is. He’s all heart. A tough exterior masking a vulnerable soul. Storm, you are our 2022 Season MVP because you brought a passion for football to Jewball that we had not previously known. You put your faith in us to give you the quality of football that you demanded of yourself. You showed us that before we worry about the expectations of others, we need to set the highest bar for the expectations we have of ourselves. It was always clear to us the level of game you expected of yourself – and this past season – you finally showed everyone what you are capable of. And I’m sure you are still hungry. I’m sure the chip is still on your shoulder as you prepare for Draft Night 2023.

And speaking of Draft Night 2023, let us count the comeback stories waiting to be written. Beast, Feit, Goldberg, Irv, Singer, Rabin, Snow, Maor, Daveo, Sting, to name just a few. Like I said, we are all in the middle of our own personal comeback. Just gotta dig deep and write it. But….like I also said….it’s a team effort. And Jewball is here for you.

We are a place where miracles have happened. Believe that. You’ve seen it. You don’t need to talk about it or promote it. Just acknowledge it and be grateful.

It used to break my heart to write this last paragraph of the Season Recap. There was such a finality to it. I sometimes cried because it was like a moment of mourning. A gaping hole in my life was about to open and be filled by nothing. Those days are no more. In the Age of the Enlightenment, the good times keep going. The family sticks together in some form or another through the off season. I think we have a game Tuesday night. If I’m overloaded with emotion right now, it’s just because there is good reason to be overloaded with emotion. But the emotion is not sadness at all. It’s pure unfiltered awe. That I get to be the Commissioner of Jewball now for 18 years. To tie up my cleats with you all on Sunday mornings. To share in your simchas. I don’t know….It makes no sense. Guys, I’m just very thankful. I am under no delusions, here. Jewball accentuates and improves every aspect of our lives and I know my role and task is to keep it going and keep us together. I’m on it.

With that, you know the drill. Kick your own ass over the next six months. Set high expectations for yourself and – whether it’s on a journey of self-motivation or through the comradery of Jewball – come back next season better. Come back stronger. Come back quicker. Come back leaner. But – above all – just make sure to come back 😊