Front Office Fiction: Different Hats...

"Well? What do you think?" Derinda kept flashing her beauty pageant smile as she waited to hear what Jeff Fisher, Les Snead and Kevin Demoff thought of her newest creation. To combat what she called, "Those cheese-head hat thingy-s...", she'd cobbled together a prototype for Rams fans. Blue and gold, it had a single horn on top - sticking out, but angled forward - with a small football on either side of it... Her cheek muscles were starting to cramp, as she looked at the men studying the hat in jaw dropped silence.

"Can I take this off yet?" Janoris Jenkins asked as he started to turn toward Derinda. Without taking her eyes off the men in front of her, she gave Jenkin's face a shove from the side.

"Shut up and model, dammit!"

Janoris lowered his head slightly and began to sulk a bit. "...But I look like a dick-head. I gots this big 'ol gold dick on my head, with two elephant sized blue balls on either side?" He began to shake his head. "Can I take this off and go back to practice, coach?"

Fisher shook his head, as Snead and Demoff positioned their phones to take pictures of their star corner back.

"This is soooo going up on the team's Facebook page," Snead said as he tried to keep from laughing.

Derinda stopped smiling, then glanced at the hat.

"Why only one horn?" Demoff asked as he covered his mouth with his hand.

Derinda gave them an "Ah ha!" look, "It's so fans can hold onto it..." She snatched the hat off of Jenkins' head, grabbing the single horn. She shook it to show how sturdy it was, and wondered why all four men suddenly winced and simultaneously had to place a hand at the front of their pants?

The three men couldn't control themselves any longer. They burst into laughter, Snead falling out of his chair in the process.

Still a bit confused, she took the hat and turned it toward her; the gold horn inches from her face. She leaned her head from side to side, then her eyes went wide. She screamed, threw the hat in the air, and rounded on Jenkins. "That's sick!"

"Can I go now?" Jenkins asked.

Fisher nodded, and Janoris seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Derinda turned to yell at Jenkins for not telling her before showing the fan hat... "Where'd he go?"

"He's probably in Florida by now..." Fisher laughed.

Shoulders slumped, she kicked the hat laying on the floor in front of her. It went striaght up in the air, and arced perfectly toward Les Snead's head. It landed squarely on top of his legendary hair. Fisher and Demoff began snapping pictures before Snead to slap the hat off his head.

"Too late!" Demoff laughed. He began to send the pics he'd taken to a  few friends; one of them being Snead's wife Kara.

She sat down in a chair across the table from the three men. Derinda put her head on the table, her mop of blonde hair trying to hide her as best it could. "I'm such an idiot..." She mumbled, then made a mental note to call her friend in New Mexico to tell him just how stupid his hat idea turned out to be. He'd told her their friend Brandon Bate wore a hat like that all the time, and...

Rookie running back Todd Gurley walked into the room. He'd heard laughing as he walked down the hall, and had seen Janoris Jenkins running by as he screamed, "I ain't no damn dick-head!", over and over.

Fisher wiped tears away from his eyes as he tried to stop laughing. "What can I do for you, Todd?"

Gurley glanced at the hat on the floor a few feet away, then back at the three men and the well know crazy lady with her head down on the table top. "What's with the hat? He said, as he reached down to pick it up.

A chorus of "NO-s!" filled the air. All three men flew out of their seats, and tried to tackle Gurley before he could pick up a hat that had to have more than its share of bad karma to it. But he showed why the Rams had taken him in the first round of the NFL Draft, and quickly sidestepped them as he tucked the hat securely under his arm. Then something happened he'd rarely experienced before, even during his time at the University of Georgia. Out of nowhere, he was tackled so hard he flew sideways. Then he felt a boney, thin arm punch its way under his arm. The hat flew into the air, and fell to the ground. The tackler drove him into the wall, then to the floor. Blonde hair covered his face for a second, then a smiling, blue eyed face appeared...

Derinda got to her feet, and looked down at Todd, then over at the "hat of death" a yard away. She smiled, shook her head, then said: "Fumble..." Without another word, she walked out of the room.

"What the hell? Gurley said, then looked at his head coach, who was still on the floor with Snead and Demoff.

Fisher glanced at his two colleagues, who both nodded. The he looked at Gurley, "Welcome to the NFL..."