Word from the Mouth: Playoffs! edition
What a beautiful weekend we had for round 1 of the playoffs. It was 22 degrees with plenty of sun and a little bit of a breeze all day long. At the end of last season when we were trying to figure out when to start the fall season there was talk of not having the extra week off between season and just jumping right in to have fewer November games, but the weather was great last week.
This week it’s looking like rain which is going to be bad for whoever is playing later in the day since the field will get all ripped up. I’m writing this on Monday and its calling for rain, but we all know that the meteorologists predict the weather as well as Willie makes his picks this season, so 50-50 on a good day. Sorry Willie, had to burn you on that one last time and I know I wasn’t much better, but 1.25% ahead is still a win.
I just got breaking news on my phone about the Colts firing the man who has the greatest playoff comeback in NFL history, Frank Reich, and replacing him with long time center Jeff Saturday. I know all you Tom Brady fans are thinking 28-3 in the Superbowl, come talk to me when you’re the backup QB and comeback from 35-3 to win the game 41-38 in OT. Most of you won’t remember that since you’re too young and don’t know the history of the game (ed’s note: whatever, grandpa). Right now, some of you have gone and google searched this and are amazed that Brady isn’t number 1, but Brady isn’t even number 2 on the Colts since Andrew Luck came back from 28 points down, so Brady is at 3 on the list. Looks like Brady who just broke 100 thousand yards in his career will have to stick around another few years just to get this record since he pretty much has all the other ones.
Playoff Round up
Division 1
Gros Coqs vs Iron Wolves (52-21)
Let me start by stating that Iron Wolves were down a few key players (Jon & Stanley) and maybe that would have made the difference, but I don’t think so. You’re called Iron Wolves and you showed up and played like paper pups in this one. Dom played his ass off like he always does in the playoffs, especially when Iron Wolves didn’t have Stanley there to rush him. I get it that in D1 you need to score points to win, but going for it to start the game on 4 & 5 on your 10-yard line isn’t the smart thing to do. That was the first play that stood out to me and the second was after Iron Wolves punted with 34 seconds left in the half and Dom hits Charles for a 45-yard TD to end the half. Gros Coqs started the second half with the ball and on the second play Dom ran 35 yards for a TD that gave them a 32-14 lead. At that point Iron Wolves were just trying to crawl back into the game and couldn’t.
Division 2
Thunder Buddies vs Red Raiders (41-36)
For some reason Steve sat on the bench and allowed Willie to take the snaps under center in this game. Red Raiders came out on fire, scoring on 3 straight drives and getting 2-point converts on them as well. Going into half the score was 24-19 Red Raiders with Thunders Buddies starting the second half with the ball. Second half both teams matched scores and with 4:05 left in the half and Red Raiders being up 1 after scoring on the convert it was picked off and looked like the defender was going to score, but Mike took a good angle and was able to flag him and keep the 1-point lead forcing Thunder Buddies to go down and score if they wanted to win, they were. Now being down 5 with limited time left this is where things got weird or stupid in my opinion. Mike threw a deep ball to Andrew which he caught, but was a good 3 or 4 yards out of bounds and they weren’t able to convert the drive to get the win.
Division 3
Bines vs Double Dippers (28-38)
I don’t know how we ended up with a score like this considering the score was 7-6 Bines at half time. Second half both teams figured it out a little more. Leon was able to use Alex going on deep post a few times, but Alex still dropped one that would have been 6. The big difference in this game was Rich making 2 huge picks early in the second half and scoring on 1 of them. Bines couldn’t stop Alex, but Dippers weren’t able to stop William either. Alex scored twice while William scored 3 times. What I really noticed in this game other than Double Dippers playing up to their potential was the ball placement from Leon. If his receiver had a defender inside, he threw it outside and vice versa. This had to be the best game I have seen Leon play all season by far. Dave didn’t play badly for Bines and even with him throwing 3 picks Rich made nice breaks on the ball and jumped the route.
Division 4
Phoenix vs Revenants (14-39)
I’m embarrassed for myself and my team to lose a game like this, and to Marvin of all people. If you can’t tell, I’m still a little bitter about this one. On the Phoenix side we were missing Khalil our rusher and Marvin was loving that. That wasn’t the only reason why we lost. Marvin came out and played the best game of his life, picking apart our defense like they weren’t even there (ed’s note: I think you’re mixing metaphors a little. How do you pick apart something that isn’t there?). Phoenix was flat from the start, missing tackles, not breaking up passes or picking balls off that they should have, and allowing Marvin to run whenever he wanted. For Revenants, they played a great game on defense. They didn’t allow yards after the catch and made every throw difficult for me and I can’t tell you how many times they knocked the ball out of my player’s hands when it looked like a catch. Marvin and Revenants came out to play and Phoenix didn’t. They thought it would be an easy game, but falling down 19-0 early, there wasn’t any coming back.
Division 5
Phoenix vs Lesniaks (18-12)
This was the last game of the day and both teams were missing key players. Lesniaks were missing Zack who finished the season with 13 TDs and an amazing 19 picks on defense, while Phoenix was missing Khalil the top rusher in the division with 19 sacks to go along with his 8 TDs. With both players missing you’d figured that offense would light it up. We had the complete opposite happen and neither team did much with the ball. Phoenix should had scored on their opening possession except for a player having pockets, it then took until the final minute of the first half for points to go up on the board and that was from Lesniak finding Josh on a 20-yard score. When second half rolled around Phoenix started with the ball and started to get things done scoring on 3 of 4 drives in the second half. Mike was only able to score on the last drive of the game and by then the game was over. The biggest difference in this game was the 4 picks Phoenix got compared to zero for Lesniaks. This game might have been different if Chris hadn’t picked off the pass on fourth down while Lesniaks were inside the redzone on their opening drive.
That’s my wrap up for round 1 of the playoffs. I’m sure Terry and Willie will have more to talk about this week on “The Jaf Show”. Hope you enjoyed.
Players of the Week
I would normally choose 2 players per division and it would be open to anyone who played, but now that it is the playoffs and we have less (ed’s note: sic) games played I have decided to go with 1 player per division. That just means that you either had to make an impact on both sides of the ball or do something remarkable on one side to make my list this week.
Division 1
Dominic Lefort went 23 of 27 for 248 yards, with 7 TDs and 2 1point convert. Dom also ran 6 times for 58 yards and 1 TD. On defense Dom made 3 tackles.
Division 2
Will Power was called upon to play QB and he went 33 of 40 for 249 yards, 6 TDs, 1 1point convert and 1 2point convert threw the air. Willie also ran 5 times for 10 yards and made 2 tackles on defense.
Division 3
Alex Szaplipski caught 6 passes for 140 yards 2 TDs and made 2 tackles on defense.
Division 4
Old man John Morris had a day to remember or at least one that someone will tell him about someday. John had 6 catches for 50 yards, 4 TDs and made 2 tackles on defense.
Division 5
Goldrick Noel was 12 of 21 for 149 yards, 4 TDs, 2 1point converts and threw a pick. Gold also ran 6 times for 59 yards and 1 TD. On defense he made 1 tackle and had 2 picks.
There you have it, this week’s top players. At least from what I saw.