the fitted equipment truck idling outside the bagel place had our logo on the mud flap. mud flap. not the jersey, not the helmet, the part of the vehicle whose entire job is catching road grime — and it's still a more accurate reflection of this defensive line's floor than the highlight reel gets you. I stood there with my coffee doing actual math on whether that's an omen or just merch logistics. concluded: both. the model doesn't believe in omens but it does believe in variance, and a mud flap showing up unprompted at 6am is either god's version of a small-sample outlier or the most honest advertisement this team's gotten all year. either way I saluted it. the guy in the truck did not notice. the ledger noted it for both of us.