Mustangs Get Revenge.

Three games in, and the Power already finds itself in a deep, deep hole. Now with Philly (somehow) falling to the Gladiators, everyone in our division has won a divisional game except us - we've lost two. We now find ourselves among the five teams that are 1-2 or worse.

I know that there are still 15 games left for the season, but the point needs to be made that the Power is already at a come-to-Jesus point. The team needs to look closely at their tactics, training and game-planning if they want to stop this slide. This week wasn't just a loss, it was another drubbing (63-40), and that needs to stop now.

Thursday night, we traveled back to Milwaukee to battle a team that is greatly changed over the one that we beat twice last season. Bill Stull was our starter, and he was shaky from the beginning. Before he was pulled, he only went 13/31 with a lost fumble and a pick. Now, it came out later that he dislocated his shoulder in the 1st half and tried to fight through it, but the fact remains that he didn't seem to have much confidence before that.

In the 3rd quarter, he was slammed into the boards and finally had to bow out to Andrico Hines. Hines' first drive was after Milwaukee's Marcuss Everett fumbled right around the goal line. I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking, "Okay! Fresh QB, played well week one - maybe the game turns around here!" Not so. Everett redeemed himself by perfectly picking Hines' first pass and running it in. He ended the night with two picks, a fumble recovery and a touchdown.

After that auspicious start, Hines actually looked pretty good the rest of the game. 10/16, 124 yards and a touchdown. Not too shabby. Also, considering that the game had thoroughly spiraled out of control at that point, it is also impressive that he maintained a sense of optimism. With a dislocated shoulder, I'm thinking that it's likely that Stull sits next week, giving Hines another chance against the Barnstormers.

Washington, Hymes and Berry were all pretty much shut down this week. Some of that was because of our QB situation, but a lot of it was because of the Mustangs' solid defense - especially Everett. On the subject of Berry...I just don't know. He was Iron Man of the Year last year, and was very good - but so far, I just haven't seen it. Offense is one thing, but we brought him in to handle returns, and they haven't been that impressive yet. This week, he averaged only about 14 yards a return, but that average was skewed by one 25 yarder. (To be fair, he had a 58 yard return-for-score that was called back on a hold.) I'm not saying that he's bad, but only that he's the main non-QB position that I know the Power can improve at. Here's hoping he steps up soon.

The stand-out star of the evening was Tyree Young. I love watching this guy play. It's easy to invoke the name of Bettis in this town, but this guy rolls like The Bus himself. 41 yards and two TDs this week, he out rushed all of Milwaukee's players combined. The only player who rushed for more TDs than him in the game that night was Gino Guidugli, and that's because he's one of those crazy QBs who can move when he needs to. One more comparison: Young rushed for only three less yards than WR Jared Jenkins, whom the Power said ahead of this game that they had to prepare for.

Finally, I really like our kicker Wagner. After those two poor spots by Hines last week, Wagner has been money every time. I have a feeling that's going to be important going forward.

What do we take away from this game? I know I had a bummer of an opening to this post, but we really are only three games in. There's a lot of football left to play, and we can hope our division rivals screw up along the way while we find our sea legs. This game was a brutal follow-up to our loss to Philly, but hopefully we can move past it.

Besides - we were the first team this season to hold the Mustangs to less than 65 points. I'll take the the victories where I can find them.

Elsewhere in the league

• Orlando starts 0-3 as they lose at home to Garcia and the Talons. It's nice to know someone's in a deeper hole than us, but Colin Drafts is still looking good, and the team really is playing well together - and they're going to want our blood in a few weeks.
• Arizona destroyed the Command in a why-even-show-up game, 56-28.
• Jacksonville/Tampa Bay - I could write a whole post on just the last quarter of this game. After exchanging scores the whole game, it came down to the wire. Former Power QB Bernard Morris had the start, and was up to his old tricks of holding the ball too long when he shouldn't, and then couldn't hold onto it when he should. Then Terrance Smith ran for a Sharks touchdown - but started dancing before the end zone! The ball got stripped, and he luckily held onto it, but this stupid, stupid, stupid play left 4 seconds on the clock for a Tampa Hail Mary. Stephen Wasil bombed it end zone to end zone and missed - but the Sharks committed an intentional foul in the end zone. Normally, this would be a 10-yard penalty and another shot, but since it was determined to be intentional, Tampa got the ball at the one-yard line. The score was a gimmie, and it ended with Tampa 71, Jax 69.
• Sabercats annihilated the Shock 69-35. Of note, San Jose coach Darren Arbet earned my respect in this game. The play was to fall on the one yard line and run the clock out - But Mark Lewis ran it in. Arbet chewed him out for running up the score, and I respect that.
• Chicago struggled heavily in PATs (or more specifically, the snaps right before them) but managed to get the money kick in OT to remain the only undefeated team in the league - 62-61.
• New Orleans remained strong this week, and finally have a win over the Blaze to show for it.
• Why, oh why did I not watch the Philly/Cleveland game? Why? It was a long day of yard work, Game of Thrones was on and I was tired. I just couldn't get it up for football tonight, and I didn't really need to see Dirty Dan and his boys roll over another division team. However, somehow the game ended with the Gladiators on the right side of 68-62 score.