Man exactly bro lol. Been there and done that as well. Its annoying because this fan base is so bipolar ita crazy. If they trade 21 and start 20 I'll give it 1 year before they turn on him. But anyway its TEAM first always, as a fan it's so hard for me to root against my team amd our players NO MATTER. It gets annoying seeing us doing good or someone playing well amd instead of cheering them on they find a way to RIP somebody else on the team that's not playing as well
Yeah I've given up trying to explain the team dynamic to people .. This business of constantly wanting to pit one guy against the other absolutely baffles me.. I complained about playing time once in my entire high school and college career.. and it really wasn't for myself.. but for my best friend.. I was a junior and he was a senior. He was a 6'2" 210 pound super athlete with 4.4 speed who for whatever reason the coaches would not play. About midseason I went to the coaches and told them they should be getting him some totes.. Well I started out pleading for all of us to get some run but when they rolled their eyes I focused on him. He was raw as hell but his physical talent was undeniable. Because I was.. ahem.. the best speaker (read the biggest mouth) of our little scout team group I got elected to go talk to the coaches.. They came along but I did all the talking.. Long story short, the coaches listened.. at least when it came to him.. He got to play a little more down the stretch that season and ended up getting a ride to Edinborough College in PA. And yes, that is meant to tell you how good our high school squad was.. The fourth string running back got a scholarship to play college ball. As did 21 other guys on that team.. including 2 to Florida, 3 to Florida State and one to Miami. We were good.. really good. Unfortunately our coaches were idiots.. so we never won a state championship .. but we should have.
That experience of playing on such a talented team taught me the value of being a good teammate even though I wasn't a starter. It was my job to imitate the other teams' RB1 in practice all week.. At the end of the season the defense to a man all thanked me because they said the toughest RB they had faced all season was yours truly. 8 guys off that defense played college ball.. Oh yeah, my little "challenge" of the coaches my junior year earned me a permanent seat in the coaches' doghouse my senior year. Well I may have been a bit of a bigmouth about a few other things too. But they bent over backwards not to play me.. and when they did put me in the game it was only to pass block.. Which was fine.. I had over 300 academic scholarship offers my senior year.. I didn't really need them to "showcase" me to go to college. But I stayed a good teammate.. that was important to me.. and I think it's important to Zeke.. and to Pollard as well. I think they both get it.. and simply try to go out and do whatever is asked of them to help the team win. Zeke vs Pollard is a fan or media creation. It doesn't exist between the guys..