Here we go! Teams have 2 or 3 games left in the season and most playoff spots are still up for grabs. This is great for the league, since it means that most teams are in the right division and that every game still matters at this point. We all know that the field last week was horrible by the end of the day, so we have decided to move the games to Parc Sainte Bernadette and the Rosemount high school soccer field. It is very simple to get to and you really can’t miss it if you are on the right street. When Jon and I went to see it a few weeks ago we were able to put all 4 fields down so if the field isn’t like Le Ber, we will be able to get some proper footing and not slide everywhere.
Saturday night I was able to catch a bit of the Notre Dame vs USC game and at the end of the first half, with seconds on the clock USCs QB runs the ball and gets the first down (which stops the clock until the chains are moved) and with 3 seconds left lines up in shotgun to spike the ball and he does it, but with zeros on the clock. He should have been under center to give them 1 second left to attempt a field goal. I like this rule and I tried to get it passed in the MFL where in the final minute clock stops until bags are set and play is blown in. It was a no go.
The other thing that got me was the TD taken off the board in the Iowa State vs Oklahoma state game for a guy changing his running style (high stepping) a few yards from the endzone. It was one step, and no one was around. Rules are rules in the NCAA. (ed’s note: the rule he’s referring to is taunting being a spot foul, meaning if you taunt on your way into the endzone, the touchdown comes off the board. I like the rule, but it was a terrible call in this game. This is the rule in the MFL, by the way!) When Sunday rolled around I was once again in Brossard where Willie almost pulled a horse shoe out of his ass trying to upset the top team. I got home and was able to see Mahomes playing like banana split and Brady throwing his 600th TD pass. The funny thing about the Brady’s pass was Mike Evans gave the ball to a fan not knowing it was a huge deal. Brady got the ball back after a person from Tampa Bay organization went over and spent a few minutes making a deal. I’m not sure what that person got, but it probably wasn’t enough. For how much sport memorabilia goes for, what would you have asked for or would you have kept the ball? For me it would have cost Brady an arm and a leg plus a date with his wife (ed’s note: literally the joke the announcer made!). Okay, just an arm, forget his leg or the date with Giselle, neither of them would do me any good. Also, at what point does Miami end up pulling off a trade for Watson and what is it going to cost them? Two seasons ago it was “suck for Tua” and now Miami want to move on from him already. There is my weekly rant on what I saw this weekend in sports.
Weekly Recap
Division 1
Outlaws vs Gros Coqs (56-19)
Let me start by saying that this really wasn’t a game and that Gros Coqs were missing almost everyone. The game started late since we were waiting for a few players for Gros Coqs to show up, but once they did it got ugly really fast. There were only a few things that stuck out to me in this game and the big one is that Marvin really only cares about himself (ed’s note: dayum!). Marvin thinks he can do it all. They made Marvin sit out a few plays on offense and Steve decided to throw a pass to Terry on a play that was made for Marvin and he started asking how you going to throw Terry the ball on a play made for him? After all his hard work of trying to chase Dom down, Terry allowed Marvin to take a few snaps at rusher and of course he had to complain about it and asked why it had to be against Dom. With the game way out of reach, Steve took his last drive because he is trying to get Smuda the single season TD record. Steve throws a short pass to Marvin who runs it all the way for a score even with his team telling him to go out. Marvin might have been happy, but the rest of the team was a little annoyed. On a final note, Marvin shape up or start running upside down because that might be the only way we see you smiling while on the field. (ed’s note: what did Marvin do to you, Kevin?)
Bitter Boys vs Honor Game (41-42)
In a matchup we all expected to be physical, we never expected it to be this close. From what I heard and saw there was more than one instance where it looked like a fight was going to break out. One of those times it was Dave running down the sideline and getting hit in the chest or rib area once he was out of bounds. I’m not sure if it was from the player or because he landed on something. This was late in the game and Dave had asked for Lambert to be thrown out of the game on a few plays earlier in the game and nothing was done. Now with all the pushing and shoving out of the way let’s get to what happened while the game was being played. Guillaume scored 5 times for Bitter Boys on 7 catches. I know Guillaume is good, but was anyone even covering him. On the other side of things Dave spread the ball around between two players. Dilan had a low 10 catches for 63 yards and 2 TDs, but Laurent had 16 catches for only 89 yards and 1 TD. I’m not sure if either team knew what to do on defense. How can 3 players on the two teams do all the damage. After that no one did much of anything.
Division 2
Outlaws vs OG Panthers (6-24)
OG came into this game needing a win and had a great game plan. They knew who they were facing and how to go about beating them. The offense for Outlaws was horrible in this game all around. Steve started 0-9 in his passing attempts, and it wasn’t all on him. Outlaws dropped way too many balls or couldn’t keep their feet inbounds. Steve was getting mad, the players were getting annoyed, and nothing good came from it. The real big issue was Outlaws couldn’t get separation on any of the OG defenders when they were in man and it was at least 90% of the time. The final score was 24-6 but it really didn’t feel that way. To me it felt much worse and everyone on that Outlaws team needs to think about how poorly they played and how to fix it. For OG, Charles played a decent game, but was able to exploit what was open and that was the short underneath stuff all day long. Both teams are battling for a playoff spot, but OG now have the tiebreaker over Outlaws since they swept the season games 2-0.
Outlaws vs Joey’s Haters (40-27)
This was a must win for both teams if they wanted to make the playoffs (Narrator: it was not). Both teams have fallen so far from where they were supposed to be at to start the season. Both teams were supposed to be favorites to win it all and now there is a possibility that neither make the playoffs. There were too many mental mistakes all game by both teams. Outlaws were able to score with 30 seconds left in the half to take a 20-12 lead. Two plays later Justin picked the ball off and it looked like Outlaws were destined to blow this game wide open, but did nothing with the few seconds left on the clock. Outlaws started with the ball second half and marched all the way into the red zone, but then a stupid penalty pushed them back as well as taking points off the board. Haters went down and scored and got their convert to take the lead. Both teams then traded scores. With under 4 minutes left, Outlaws were down and needed to score to take the lead and hopefully seal the game. Steve drove the field chewing up clock before punching it in and leaving under a minute left. Max was able to complete a pass on his first throw, but that was it on his next three throws it was all Outlaws as two were knocked away and the last one was picked off by Justin and taken in for 6. That is how it ended with Outlaws winning by two scores, but it was a really tight game that came down to the final whistle.
Division 3
Panaches vs Blackout (8-28)
This was a hard game to watch. Both teams have solid rosters, but both teams QBs struggled in this one. Felix played great last season and this season he just seems to be struggling. Last season he was able to run all over the place and the field might be funky monkey these last few weeks, but you have to do something. Quaysie has stepped up to fill the QB role for Blackout, but he is a way better receiver and I noticed a few tells with him playing QB. Even when Quaysie tries to run, he can’t seem to turn it up and get into that second gear. There are far too many times that he is getting tackled for a short gain or a loss when he has space in front of him. There were a few good plays made on both sides like the pick 6 by Connor who read the play in front of him, jumped the route and took the ball in for 6. Gabriel had 4 sacks, and none were bigger than on the fourth and one where if he didn’t make that tackle it could have easily gone in for 6. Next week when Omar is back, I want to know how a team plans on stopping Blackout. That will give them two solid receivers and a defense that won’t give up points. This game was never close, and Panaches should be lucky it was even this close.
Iron Wolves vs Mustard Tigers (18-33)
I knew this wasn’t going to be a close game, but it was closer than I expected it to be. With all the experience Iron Wolves have they should have been able to stop Mustard Tigers, especially since they only had Tom and Dave making plays on offense. Jon did a respectable job on offense, but he had too many guys running bad routes or dropping balls and the one player that was making plays early got hurt and took himself out of the game. Brian was able to pick apart the Iron Wolves defense by attacking the weak links or the open zones. It also helped that Brian was able to hit Tom over the middle with little to no resistance. All he had to do was throw it high and not too deep to avoid Marvin and it was an easy completion. I also saw Tom pick a ball off where it looked like the receiver was open behind him but when he raised his hands the ball was right there for him. The second half went quick, Iron Wolves tried to get chunk plays that weren’t working and Mustard Tigers just wore the clock down every time they had the ball.
Division 4
Phoenix vs Airborne (22-13)
This game was closer than I would have liked it to be. I made 2 bad throws, and both were picked off. Kris was on the sideline watching and when I threw the second one, I knew it right away and he looks at me and says all arm no hips which I already knew. I was going to say in all the years of playing I have never faced Airborne, but since last fall was the first time we were in the same division, it makes sense. Guillaume is a good QB, but needs to find more weapons to help him. I went in expecting to score 40 easily, but they are a better team than their record. Dave made a huge pick off me as it looked like we were going in to score. This week, like last week, Kat stepped up for Phoenix. Last week she filled in to snap for an injured Yann and this week she filled in at rusher. She started the game with no cleats which made it impossible to cut, I then gave her my spare pair and she ended up sealing the game with her only sack that was for a safety. The final score of this game should have been at least 30 to 6. Airborne scored on a play where the entire Phoenix defense stopped since we all thought Greg had touched the sideline. Therefore, everyone needs to play until the whistle. Greg kept going and the defense just stood there.
Spin Doctors vs Sneaky Snakes (19-13)
In what is Raph’s final game of the season, he pulled out a win in what seemed like an upset. The game was very boring and took forever to open up the scoring. Spin Doctors added a few new players to replace the ones they lost, but now all they are in a Chiefs team with a different QB at least for now. It wasn’t until 5 minutes left in the first half before someone scored and it was spin Doctors on a pass from Raph to new acquisition Ryan for a 14-yard TD. Spin Doctors started the second half with the ball and scored on their opening possession. That was followed up by an interception which didn’t take Raph long to find the endzone again. That was it for scoring from Spin Doctors. Raph had 18 completions and 15 went to 3 players with 5 each, but only 2 of them had any real yards. A few weeks ago, Sneaky Snakes were all the talk and now they look mediocre at best. They can’t seem to score and can’t stop anyone. A few weeks ago, Terry had Dave penciled in as the division MVP, not anymore. I know Sneaky Snakes were missing a player or two, but you shouldn’t struggle this much, especially down the stretch. I hope Jie will be back from his exciting vacation to Ottawa by next week or they might lose again. Also, who takes a vacation to Ottawa?
That is, it for my recap of week 7, only 2 weeks left.
Top Performances of the Week
With the weather being nicer this week, and by that I mean not raining, the field conditions still sucked, but the numbers went up and making my picks a little bit harder. I hope no one got used to playing without the rain because it looks to be back this weekend. Here are the players that I felt balled out this week.
Division 1
Offense
Last season was Phil Pharand’s first time in the league, but a few players knew who he was before then and by now everyone knows who he is. This week Phil made 12 catches for 173 yards and 4 TDs, not bad for a guy who was in D3 last season.
Defense
I’m not going to sugarcoat it at all here. This week I think everyone in D1 forgot how to play defense. That includes this week’s winner Kevin Smuda. His stat line has to be the worst ever for one of my picks. Kevin had 1 tackle and 1 pick which he scored on.
Division 2
Offense
I’m sure that Jonathan Plourde has won this award before, but if not, he got it this week (ed’s note: I mean, he got it this week whether or not he got it before). Jonathan was 20 of 28 for 225 yards, 6 TDs, 1 1point convert, 2 2point converts and threw 1 pick. On the ground he ran 7 times for 37 yards.
Defense
When players talk about good solid rushers in the division you never hear them mention Carlo Lopez. All Carlos did this week was make 3 tackles which just happened to be all sacks. If Carlos keeps this us everyone in the division will know his name or at least the QBs will.
Division 3
Two-way player
After looking over all the stats and trying to figure it all out I came to only one conclusion and that was that I couldn’t pick an offensive player or a defensive player, but I was able to pick one player that balled out on both sides of the ball. That person would be Ryan Dobbs-Garnett. Ryan played 2 games this week and had some impressive numbers. Ryan made 17 catches for 156 yards, 5 TDs and 2 2-point converts. On Defense Ryan made 1 tackle and picked off 4 passes. Not bad for a guy last summer in Brossard was told he couldn’t catch. Yes, I’m everywhere and I hear all.
Division 4
Offense
I ended up having to pick between two receivers with similar numbers except one did it in one game and it took the other two games. I went with the guy who only played one game this week and that was Marco Gavita. Marco made 4 catches for 88 yards, 4 TDs and 1 1point convert.
Defense
This player is better known as a passer, not a guy who plays great defense. This week Adam Gorzen played well on both sides, but really stood out on defense where he picked off 3 passes.
There you have it my players of the week. With only 2 weeks left your time is running out to show everyone you’re a top dog. Go out, bust your ass, put up good great numbers, and make sure you do all this while helping secure a victory for your team and you might make my list in the next two weeks.
