Week 1 has come and gone and it was nice to get out and see some friends and play sports again. Ok, let's be honest, last week wasn’t really the beginning of the season. It was where we had a few teams come out to get a game in since they needed a week off during the season so they can have a bye week. 

It’s a really good thing that we did, as we had a chance to train a few new refs and let them get some game experience and a feel for the game, plus we learned that there was an issue with the app so some stats went missing and are irretrievable (ed's note: man, it happens one time in a decade and Kevin writes about it!). I know that sucks for some players, but it was better for a few as well (ed's note: we're working on reconstructing the missing stats!). I hope all that played had fun and didn’t get too banged up playing for the first time in a while.

This week will be more of the same as this Jon will have a little bit of room to play around with the schedule. The season is going to be tough to make everyone happy since we have a 48 teams in total and we will be playing on 4 fields in 6 different time slots, so if you haven’t put in your request for time preference its way too late and you will have to play where you are (ed's note: schedule is done, so yeah, too late for time requests!). You might not like all the times of your games, but it’s too bad now, just like team captains not putting in their rosters and a possibility of conflicting game times since so many people are playing on two teams this season. 

(ed's note: just a heads up that I really don't know who is playing on multiple teams, so if you didn't reply to the email requesting conflict information then we did not take that into account when making the schedule)

 

Week 1 Recap

 

This week we only had 3 games total, so this will be relatively short compared to once the season kicks off in full swing. (ed's note: "kicks off" in "full swing" makes no sense)

 

Division 1

Outlaws vs Henchmen (37-21)

 

This was a game that was a tale of 2 halves. The first half belonged to Henchmen as Jason Rossie took complete control of the game. He had them score drive after drive while eating up lots of time on the clock. Outlaws had no way of stopping them. At half it was 21-12 Henchmen and to me if felt like Outlaws were going to lose this game and it wasn’t even going to be close. 

At Half both teams made some adjustments and it only paid off for one team. Smuda talked to the defense for Outlaws and that was the real difference in the game. Outlaws defense started making Jason hold the ball for an extra second which allowed Terry to rack up 4 second half sacks and when Terry couldn’t get a sack on Jason he forced him to throw faster than he wanted to, which led to a few picks. The biggest mistake the Henchmen made in the second half was getting away from controlling the tempo of the game and were just looking for that big shot down the field. 

I only have 1 question to ask about this game: what happened to Andrew once the clock expired? He kind of looked like Cinderella running out of the ball when the clock struck 12. 

 

Division 2

Outlaws vs KOLB (52-44)

 

This was a game that was all about the offense. I can’t remember much from this game other than a few plays here and there. Steve kept putting up the points figuring that the defense couldn’t get any stops, so he’d do it all on his own. 

One play that stood out to me was where Outlaws were in trips, maybe even quads, to the left and Steve showed why he should be considered as a dual threat QB. The man took off hustling down the right side, made a guy miss, and looked like he was going in for the score, but he pulled a Daniel Jones and stumbled and was caught by KOLB. 

It doesn’t seem like there was any defense played by either team, but players did make a few good breaks on the ball to knock them away. With under 30 seconds left in the game KOLB still had a chance to make it a tie game and force OT. Jonathan made a few good throws that fell incomplete. On 4th down with 4 seconds left in the game he made a throw on a deep cross that hit his receiver in the hands and chest area and fell incomplete. That wasn’t for a TD, but it would have given them one last shot for a TD.

 

Division 4

Thunder Buddies vs Les Beautes (18-7)

 

You are really able to see the difference between the divisions. This game, unlike the division 2 game, had very little offense. Les Beautes went out on their opening drive and put up 7 points, which is a TD and a convert. I’m only pointing that out because Thunder Buddies have a really hard time getting them. 

Thunder Buddies were able to answer on their opening drive as well making it a 7-6 game. It was a long time before anyone was able to get back into the end zone, which isn’t surprising considering how both QBs were playing. Simon was getting a lot of drops from his receivers and Terry couldn’t make a good throw as it was either high or low. 

Manon who is the rusher for Les Beautes hard the hardest job of the day and that was trying to keep Terry from running and she did an amazing job. I think she had 3 or 4 sacks on him. With under 7 minutes left and Thunder Buddies being up 12-7, Les Beautes started driving for the go ahead TD the ball goes off a receivers arm and right into the hands of the defender. Terry would milk the clock down and score as the clock hits 0 to win the game.

 

Top Performance of the Week

 

This is normally where I would be picking an offensive and defensive player from each division and making them my player of the week. This week since we only had 3 games played and most of the stats aren’t accessible, I will just pick one player who made the biggest impact on their team. 

 

Division 1

I had two really good players that I could have picked and both dominated, just on different sides of the ball. One had 3 TDs and one had 3 picks, but what put my pick over the top was the adjustments that he made at half time to the Outlaws defense. Anyone who knows the Outlaws have probably figured out my player of the week for Division 1 goes to Kevin Smuda. 3 TDs and a pick that could have gone in for 6, but he lost a flag. 

 

Division 2

This one was really hard for me to pick since I didn’t see half the game and there were a few subs playing and guys who play in higher divisions. After asking a few people who were at the field about who was the most dominant player on Saturday they all came back with the same name and that was Julien Proulx, who is my pick for player of the week in division 2. I want to point out that this goes against what I said last week about giving the award to someone who plays in a higher division, and yes Julien did play on Outlaws in division 1, but he was a last second spare so this week it was allowed.

 

Division 4

The way this game played out I didn’t know if I was even going to get a player of the week, no one really stood out that was until Nick Kousaie made the interception with under 7 minutes lef tin the game. Without that pick Thunder Buddies are looking at an 0-1 record. For the first time in his young MFL career Nick Kousaie wins player of the week. (ed's note: is that one more time than his dad? If it isn't, it should be)

 

That is it for this week's top performances. Hope that next week there will be some stats that I can go back over and once we start playing more games that is when it will start to get interesting and remember don’t come and approach me about how well you played and how you deserve the award.