We have passed the midway point of the season and its time to start thinking about the playoffs and what it will take to get there.
I’m flabbergasted that no one has come up with a streaming network for College football. With the NFL you can stream anywhere and that’s not an issue, my problem is not being able to come home Saturday night after football, get my Chinese food, and watch a boat load of games in quick succession. I know Jon downloads them and watches them commercial free, but I want to be able to flip back and forth if that makes sense (ed’s note: if there was a streaming service where you could easily flip between games, I would definitely get that).
All weekend people were asking where Sunshine was and why she wasn’t there and I told them to look up in the sky cause there she was all weekend long. If you asked me on Monday where she was, the answer would be taking a nap behind all those soft fluffy clouds so she can shine bright next weekend (ed’s note: listen, I like hallucinogens as much as the next guy, but Kevin, you gotta tone it down).
Settle down everyone, it’s the last weekend of September, so there is a chance of rain. If it does don’t blame me, I’m not a meteorologist. Plus, it’s only Monday when I wrote this and it can change before then.
Recap
D1
There was only 1 game this week and I couldn’t catch it, so maybe Terry or Willie did and will talk about it on the Podcast this weekend.
D2
Phoenix vs Nice TDs (25-33)
The QB change that I mentioned a few weeks back was huge in this game. Guillaume was able to pick us apart with the intermediate routes. Andrew did what he does and scored 1 TD and had over 100 yards, but the biggest impact player had to be Brian scoring 2 TDs and making 1 heck of a catch for one of them. On defense, Nice TDs didn’t do anything special, no sacks, no picks, they just made every tackle and limited the YAC. Phoenix needed a few things to go their way to walk away with the W. In the first half on fourth down Andrew knocked a pass out of bounds that would have given us the first down. On defense we missed a sack that would have been a safety and given us the ball back and instead Nice TDS scored a few plays later. Phoenix needed to attack the middle of the field in the intermediate range more and this would have opened up the underneath, but it’s too late for that now. The difference in the game was that Nice TDs double dipped and Phoenix couldn’t stop them.
D3
Tropic Thunder vs Top Shooters (13-34)
With how this Tropic Thunder team is built this should have been a cake walk for them. They had 2 jobs to do on defense, take away the deep ball and don’t let Marvin run. Well, they took take the deep pass away, but only because of drops and keeping 3 players back and that let Marvin run 9 times for 50 yards and 1 TD. Nigel went off once again this week with 3 TDs on 4 catches, but only had 29 yards receiving. Justin struggled to get things going early and by the time he did they were down and out of the game. Justin couldn’t avoid the rusher and make things happen with his legs as he was sacked four times, three of them by Sam and once by Deven. Tropic Thunder came in hot and looked unstoppable and after the seeing how they played this game, I wouldn’t think they were one of the top teams.
Blitzing Bastards vs Iron Wolves (6-28)
The one player that stood out most to me from this game was Lucas. If you know Lucas you know he is a nice guy, but his hands are sus at best. Well in this game his hands were like rat traps catching everything that hit them. Lucas also showed he has a few moves up his sleeves when he made multiple defenders miss on his 29-yard TD catch and run. Jon did what he does and spreads the ball around to everyone not named Carlos who only had 1 catch for 2 yards and 1 TD. Carlos you should be telling Jon he has to get you a catch per sack and if that were the case you would have had 3 catches and at least 1 TD if not more. Blitzing Bastards have a few good players, but they lack discipline and leadership and I know that’s what bothers Kris. They have talent on this team, but they won’t win games if they don’t catch the ball. Sanketh needs to do a better job of looking for the open players, too many times he would force a ball when he had another player wide open. This will come with experience.
D4
Sour Peeps vs Hawks (0-37)
Simon Torres is the best player for Sour Peeps, but Geneviéve Gaudet gives them a better chance at winning when playing QB. Sour Peeps played musical chairs at QB in the first half until settling on Geneviéve. Sour Peeps never challenged Hawks and were never in a position to score. Thomas did a good job of getting the ball out of his hands early and often finding his players wide open. The one take away from this game is Thomas should not be trying to throw 40-yard bombs late in the game because you want to get reps in and practice. I won’t go into many details since the Hawks roster was much stronger than Sour Peeps.
D5
Phoenix vs Jungle Squad (20-7)
What was labeled as the game of the week was very disappointing. This was supposed to be the top 2 teams in the division and it didn’t play out that way. Jungle was missing a few key players, and you could see Gold didn’t have his trusty center to rely on to keep the chains moving. Jungle should be very glad Elana was there as she was their one and only stud catching 5 balls for 64 yards along with all 7 of her teams’ points, plus she added 3 sacks on defense. When you rely on the short game like Gold did in this game, you need to be accurate and your players need to catch the ball and that didn’t happen. Phoenix took control of the game with long drives, and it helped that they scored on 3 of their first 4 drives. With Phoenix up 20 Jungle Squad tried really hard to make it a game when they picked off back-to-back passes from Kevin midway through the second half. Had they been able to score earlier in the game it would have made it interesting, but they were only able to score off the second one and at that point Phoenix played the time game and ate it up. The hardest part about playing Phoenix will be how do you prevent Sparky from getting into the endzone for a fourth game in a row.
That’s all I have folks. I know you’ll need more MFL news, so look for Terry and Willie on MFL Total Access on Wednesday.
Studs & Duds
It’s time to see who balled the duck (ed’s note: I’m tired) out and who should have stayed the duck home. I get people asking me all the time why they were picked as my Stud and there can be a few reasons why. I base my picks off stats and when 2 players are close, I go look and see when they made these plays. For example, a pick at the end of the half of a blowout doesn’t do it for me. Like, big deal, you had a meaningless pick. Now to see who got what.
Studs
D1
- Jérémi Riendeau-Demers 9 catches 118 yards, 3 TDs and made 4 tackles, 1 sack on defense.
D2
- Jean-Sebastien St-Arneault 9 tackles 6 of those being sacks in 1 game.
D3
- Simon Valiquette 7 TD passes 0 picks and a win over Kris Hope which is all that really mattered in this game at least for Simon, Ben, and Nico.
D4
- Albert Nguyen 25 of 29 for 204 yards with 5 TDs and 1 pick.
D5
- Louis François Francoeur Décarie had 3 picks scored on 1 of them and added a TD on offense as well.
Women’s
- Branda Léonard throwing 5 TDs, 136 yards and ran 4 times for 28 yards.
Duds
D1
- Alexandre Szalipszki 2 catches 18 yards and 1 tackle on defense. Some pretty sad numbers for someone who talks about being a stud all the time.
D2
- Stephen Harripersaud for throwing 3 picks against Nice TDs, when I threw 0.
D3
- Tropic Thunder for a bunch of questionable decision-making choices, getting blown out and going 0-2 on the weekend after winning 13 or 14 games in a row.
D4
- Sorry for doing this Pascal Risler, but you threw 7 picks. It’s not all on you, it’s also on Brian and Tom for not showing up and putting you in that position.
D5
- Ryan Wong for his 7 picks throwing.
Women’s
- Kayla Gauthier throwing 3 picks and only 64 yards on 16 completions.
That’s who I got this week and just remember you too can see your name up here if you ball out, fizzle out, or give me a bribe. If you made my list congratulations, and if you didn’t better luck next time.
