…there is an idea of a Fitzpatrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze as I stare down the receiver and you can shake my hand after the game and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our quarterbacking styles are probably comparable: the arm strength is simply not there. It is hard for my presence in the league to make sense on any given level. My victories are fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent football player. My spirals are wobbly and unformed, my inability to go deep is persistent. My drive, my aspirations, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more lines of scrimmage to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no lead is safe, no promotional codes are redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of quarterback play must be assumed to have some validity. Is mediocrity something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better record. In fact I want the pain of these losses to be inflicted on others. I want no fan to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have, countless times, in just about every turnover I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about defensive formations, no new understanding can be extracted from the game film. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This offensive possession has meant nothing…