YOUR TEAM FACES SPRING PRACTICE: THE OFFENSIVE LINE

Our positional previews cover your team's depth chart. Which team? Your team, because they are all the same going into spring. Your offensive linemen follow. There are only seven types of them.

You really have one perfect offensive lineman. You never talk about him for the same reasons peasant cultures insist beautiful babies are ugly, and not worthy of your attention. Fear of a godly envy fuels your comment that "PERFECT LINEMAN really needs to pick up his run-blocking," even though he just piledrived an end into the turf and sloughed off a linebacker like so many dead skin cells in the last play of scrimmage. "His conditioning needs work," you mumble just after he ran full steam with his back down the sideline on a long TD run. You yell at him about being late for practice, even though he is tardy because his lab ran long, because he is a chemistry major, and because he will be a doctor or some day.

You do this because the gods envy beauty. That is why your perfect lineman just tripped on a rake and partially tore his ACL. He will still make All-Conference despite playing the whole season on it. You will cry manly tears whenever you think about this, and then blame allergies.

The rest of your offensive line is as follows:

1. Ol' Vertigo. Named this because he finishes every play on the ground, and always blocks to the right. He is also named this because he has a crippling case of vertigo, and will cease playing football after this spring practice. He is your second best offensive lineman.
2. Bodhi. The free spirit of the group, Bodhi frequently skips class, has a girlfriend who drinks heavily and with zeal, and is seen on a scooter, surfboard, skateboard, or other silly forms of transport. His tattoos have meaning; his women's studies class really opened his eyes. He and his artisanal facial hair will miss the entire season after a scooter accident/torn something involving a skateboard/broken orbital bone in face taken during krav maga lessons.
3. Slumpfoot. A gigantic former blue-chip recruit of a lineman whose dexterity and foot speed would be really shocking if we were talking about a 500 pound man. We are talking about a 300 pound man in this case. His run blocking is fine, but his pass blocking alone would count as the seventh best defense in the conference if you counted the sacks, fumbles, and yardage lost it generated. Unfortunately for you, Slumpfoot is unkillable and invulnerable to injury. You have to start him. Why did you ever, ever start coaching this wretched game?
4. The Golden Corral. Sweats a moisture that lab analysis is revealed to be pure clarified butter. Receives holding calls when whipping bands of belly fat are mistaken for grasping arms. Cannot block, but cannot be moved, and is thus half-useful. Is covered in several years worth of Gold Bond Powder crusts. These serve as a form of body armor and additional padding, and yeah, The Golden Corral is basically covered in a light, Kevlar-like substance.
5. The TIght End. You have a tight end playing offensive line. You do. He's the one cramming pizzas into his mouth at night struggling to stay over 280. He is the one squatting until he deposits that pizza on the floor. He is the one the coaches are asking to do an unnatural, horrible thing by sumo-ing up to a ghastly, unsustainable body weight. You will see him at a tailgate years later and think, "Man, that guy's lost weight!" He has, because he hates food, and only eats it to keep from dying thanks to four years of joyless binge eating. He's not bad, and you like him better for being not bad at the thing he shouldn't be doing in the first place.
6. The Daryl. There is a meanass redneck on your team, and he is most likely on your offensive line. He is the member of the team who watches Doomsday Preppers not as entertainment, but as education. Did you see new fresh mud on the side of a pickup truck in the practice field lot? That is his, and he got his this morning scouting for new tree stands to spotlight hunt from this weekend. Yes, he knows spotlight hunting is illegal. He doesn't care much for what the government says ever, or for the way you're silently judging his lopsided beard. It's shaved unevenly on purpose. The rifle stock rubs the hairs the wrong way when he's sighting up a buck or a hog, and that's why the right side's shorter. You people will have nothing when the Great Hunger comes. Nothing, says Daryl. (SPOILER: Daryl is sharpening his knife in a menacing way looking at you right now.)
7. The Leonard. Leonard has a family story. You will never hear it because everyone Leonard has ever known or loved is dead. Leonard comes from some abandoned, lawless quarter of a Sun Belt city. He did not sleep indoors from the age of nine to fourteen, and grew large and mean off the endless calories offered by a diet of pure rage and stolen meals. In his time on the team, Leonard has said exactly 25 words, most of them being his name, "yes," or "no." At a team meeting he may decide to tell everyone his full life story in excruciating detail. Practice will be canceled, and everyone will go home weeping for the pain man can inflict on man. At the 20 year reunion of the team Leonard will be a completely different person: jovial, conversational, and full of love and concern for his teammates and their lives. At the present, he is a PTSD case who just wants to kill whatever's in front of him on a football field because that's legal and could get him to the League. You will let him do that, because Leonard is fucking scary. (Neat fact! Your snap count is really "whenever Leonard goes," because no one wants to tell him he's false starting.)