Chapter 355 - 230: Breaking the World Record
THUD!
He landed solidly on the turf. Without even a half-second pause, his legs exploded with terrifying force. Like a deep blue cannonball fired from its barrel, he instantly tore through the last gap in the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive line!
On the flank of the Eagles’ formation, two safeties closed in from either side.
But Li Wei didn’t even bother with a juke, instead launching into a straight-line sprint.
Charge!
On the big screen, just 0.1 seconds before the two safeties could complete their pincer movement, Li Wei violently shot out from the gap between them!
Ahead of him lay an open green field.
"Wait a minute!" Joe Buck leaped onto the commentary desk in the broadcast booth. "How is he so fast?! Director! Director! Where are his stats?!"
"25.78 miles (41.48 kilometers) per hour!" Troy stood up too, his eyes wide as saucers. "And remember, he’s wearing over 20 pounds of pads and a helmet... The director just told me, sports scientists have calculated that if Li Wei took off his gear, that speed would have broken the world record!"
Spurred on by the commentators’ shouts, the more than 80,000 spectators watched Li Wei’s mad dash and couldn’t help but erupt in cheers and shouts for him.
Li Wei rode this wave of sound, leaving everyone in the dust. He left all the Philadelphia Eagles defenders far behind as if he were walking a dog, and like a blue bolt of lightning, he easily stepped into the end zone.
Touchdown! Score!
Everyone thought Li Wei had made a beautiful counterattack. Little did they know, this was only the beginning.
The rest of the game devolved into a dual torture of the Philadelphia Eagles’ bodies and Spirits. Whenever it was the Giants’ turn on offense, Li Wei completely shredded the so-called playbook.
He didn’t pass the ball. Not even once.
Facing a battered and bruised substitute offensive line, on every single down, Li Wei stood behind the line of scrimmage and ruthlessly ran the 40-second play clock down to the final second.
Then, snap, head down, charge.
He had no intention of showing the Eagles any mercy, because the Eagles had been the first to break the rules.
He only had to slightly unleash his agility to 3.5, and it was enough to leave everyone behind.
And just like that, yard by yard by yard, he ruthlessly steamrolled across the Philadelphia Eagles’ side of the field.
And when possession changed, just as the Philadelphia Eagles thought they could finally catch their breath and get some payback with their offense, Li Wei didn’t leave the field.
He put on a defensive helmet and took his position at free safety like the Grim Reaper himself.
Five minutes into the second quarter, the Eagles’ star running back caught the ball and tried to charge up the left side to reverse their decline.
He had just broken through the line of scrimmage when a blue blur instantly closed in from ten yards away.
Li Wei’s movement was clean and efficient, but because of his immense strength, even a textbook frontal tackle was enough to break the running back’s ribs and take him out of the game on the spot.
A similar scene occurred near the end of the second quarter. The Eagles’ star wide receiver was also hit by Li Wei and carried out of the stadium, his season over.
When the halftime whistle finally blew, almost all the Eagles players breathed a sigh of relief.
On the big screen at MetLife Stadium, the score was frozen at a glaring and cruel 35-0.
Li Wei had played the entire first half by himself.
On offense, he acted as Quarterback but refused to pass, using an agonizing, time-consuming strategy to drain every last drop of his opponents’ stamina.
On defense, he played free safety and completely shut out the Philadelphia Eagles, using perfectly legal violence to brutally take out two of their core players.
In the top-level VIP owner’s box, a deathly silence had fallen.
The big shots who had just been pontificating and mocking John Mara were now all ashen-faced.
The head of the online casino didn’t even notice his cigar had burned down to his fingers.
The owner of the Philadelphia Eagles was trembling slightly, his hands shaking as he stared intently at his star players being carried off the field.
"This... This has to be cheating," he said, heartbroken, watching his two players, worth a combined 50 million USD, get carried away. "His speed is faster than Bolt’s."
"It seems the script needs a rewrite," John Mara said faintly. "Do the Eagles still have any hope of a comeback in the second half?"
"Why don’t we take a look at the data everyone is most concerned about," Don Quixote suddenly interjected. "What do you think, John?"
As he spoke, he shot John Mara a look.
John Mara gave a barely perceptible nod.
Don Quixote rose from the sofa in the corner, walked straight over to grab the remote, and turned on one of the two large televisions. He skillfully flipped through the channels, finally settling on a screen showing a fluctuating line graph and a constantly refreshing digital panel.
The faces of the few people present changed slightly.
The third quarter officially began, and the big shots in the box were met with their nightmare.
There were two TVs. One was showing a live feed of Li Wei’s performance, while the other displayed the real-time viewership ratings for the Fox Sports national broadcast and the flow of betting funds for several Las Vegas lines.
A public execution.
Don Quixote walked forward, coughed twice, and stood in front of the television.
"Ahem... this takes me back to my old line of work," he said. "As you can all see, the ratings started plummeting at the beginning of the second quarter, entering garbage time. And as for the Las Vegas betting pools, there have been no large bets placed for the last 20 minutes."
"That’s enough! Turn off that damn TV!"
The head of the online casino finally snapped. He violently slammed his cigar into the ashtray and roared.
Don Quixote looked at John Mara with a smile. The latter took the remote, pressed it a few times for show, and then said helplessly:
"My apologies, everyone," he said. "It seems there’s a problem with MetLife Stadium’s broadcast control system lately. This TV is frozen. I can’t operate it."
"You!" The Philadelphia Eagles’ owner pointed a finger at John Mara, his whole body trembling with rage.
The third quarter, the fourth quarter...
The game had become meaningless, turning into Li Wei’s personal scoring spree.
Whenever the remaining Philadelphia Eagles players saw the deep blue figure of number 1 approaching, they would even drop to the ground and give up possession before contact was made. Everyone knew that a collision with that monster meant not just losing the ball, but a future of broken bones.
When the final whistle echoed through MetLife Stadium, the Philadelphia Eagles had been permanently nailed to the pillar of shame.
The score on the big screen was like a slap across their faces—
65-0!
What a disgrace. What a humiliation.
This was a number that would go down in the NFL history books, a new record for the largest point differential in a regular-season game.
Keep in mind, even back when the NFL was less professional, a massive 64-0 point differential was set in a regular-season game on November 6, 1934.
And the team that beat the Cincinnati Reds 64-0 back then was none other than the Philadelphia Eagles!
As for after the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, the last time a differential this large occurred was over a decade ago, when the New England Patriots beat the Tennessee Titans 59-0.
And now, Li Wei alone had shattered the entire NFL record, setting a new benchmark for the largest point differential in NFL regular-season history with a final score of 65-0.
The Philadelphia Eagles were now the laughingstock of the entire NFL.
"This is impossible... Absolutely impossible!" The owner of the Philadelphia Eagles shot up from the sofa, jumping up and down like a crazed gorilla, pointing at John Mara and the vice president of broadcasting and screaming hysterically:
"He must be on drugs! He definitely used banned substances! I’m going to appeal to the league! I want him subjected to the strictest urine tests! Blood tests! Hair tests! Every single test for performance-enhancing drugs! I’m going to ruin his reputation!!!"