Region play started on the road, in Memphis. The two programs met seven times in the state playoffs between 1999 and 2018.
So the Eagle peeled last week’s bandage off on the bus, stepped off it into the light, and looked straight at them. Not strangers. One reel again this week.
The first eye was a good eye in the wrong place. It sat right where the opening card goes, so the words would have covered it and the bandage. The one in the reel pushes the eye down and leaves the top half black for the type.
The walk into the light was supposed to stay back to camera. Under a second in, he turned, walked toward us and stood there staring, which would have been a third look into the lens before the one the reel ends on. A retry that said "never turns" three ways held the back for the 2.4 seconds the cut needed.
The first region game felt like the start of a second season, and that was nearly the card. It only works if the first four games stop counting for the playoffs, and we couldn't confirm that. So the card says what we could confirm: the first region game of 2026.
A night bus, the Eagle at the window touching the bandage, and the first of five region games on the road.
Why it lost It ranked first on paper, but it was a label more than a story. Its bus shots and its first-region-game line moved into NOT STRANGERS.
Put both records on the screen going in, theirs the better one.
Why it lost It led with our weaker record, and nobody on their side sends a reel about their one close loss.
A road reel about playing in their stadium.
Why it lost There was no photo of the stadium to work from, and a made-up one would be wrong. It kept drifting toward a travel piece.
Tell the image where the words will go. Two of the first stills failed on layout, not on the character: the prompts put the Eagle in the upper middle, which is exactly where the cards sit. The second round asked for the Eagle low and the top half dark and empty, and both stills landed there.
