Freddie Friedman is a character who figures prominently in the first football novel, The Draft, and a little less so in the second one, The Cut. A friend of mine who read both said he liked the way I did that, using the same character but not necessarily in a strictly ‘recurring’ fashion. I kind of liked it, too, as ol’ Freddie struck me as the kind of character you’d like to see again. In the same spirit, I also made a passing reference to Jon Sabino in The Cut , the good-guy hero of The Draft. As with Freddie’s revival, it seemed like a nice idea at the time. Nothing planned—the idea came to me, I judged it worthy, and I went with it. What has arisen from this practice, I’ve noticed, is the creation of a kind of ‘alternate universe’ where the truths of the National Football League blend with the fictional elements I’ve created, resulting in a sort of secondary, imaginary world all my own. My initial intention with this series was to utilize the ‘facts’ of the NFL as fodder to create entertaining (and, to a slightly lesser degree, educational) stories for people who were, like me, diehard football fans. What I didn’t count on was that I would end up with my own little reality—the one in which Freddie Friedman and Jon Sabino and many others exist. As I write this, I imagine them there, Freddie in his silk socks trying to deal with irresponsible and egocentric clients, and Jon at his desk sifting through piles of data on college prospects, hoping the perfect first-round pick for his Ravens becomes obvious before the commissioner starts the clock at the end of April. I don’t know if I’ll ever hear from either of these guys again, or any of the other characters from books past. But I know I’m enjoying enjoy the process of stumbling across this phenomenon when I write. The spontaneous, the unexpected—these are among the author’s greatest rewards. Will there be a moment when T. J. Brookman walks onto the stage again? Or Quincy Pressner? How about Barry Sturtz? I honestly don’t know—but I kind of hope so.