Over the hump and back to football

Greetings, all. Due to some circumstances beyond my control, I was unavailable for any football viewing this past weekend, as well as being unable to write a column. It worked out that it was a bye-week, then.

We now find ourselves at the half-way point of the season, with the Power in a surprisingly respectable position for an expansion team. While some teams like the Rush and the Sharks are already talking playoff locks, other teams like the Gladiators actually have to say, “...but Pittsburgh is in a position to screw that up.” This is because we are second in the division, and we still have two games to play against them. If we somehow manage to take the pair, things will be solidly shaken up.

If the playoffs were held today, assuming the same 8-team system the AFL did last year (4 divisional leaders, 4 wild cards), we'd see Cleveland and Jacksonville heading up our conference with Pittsburgh and Orlando making up the wildcards. In the National, it would be the Rattlers, Rush, Dallas and Utah. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but in this case we'd be saying, “Well, it's an honor just to be nominated...”

However, 5-4 is a good place to be at this point, and not one I'd expect. Only 8 teams have a winning record right now, and we're one of them. We haven't gotten here easily, of course, because we've had a lot of growing pains along the way. Procedural errors still plague us, and our quarterback situation is still anything but stable. Now, we enter the hardest chunk of the season.

From here on out, we only have 3 home games left, with the Gladiators and Rattlers making up two of them. Other than that, it's all road, and all really tough teams. Dallas, twice against Cleveland, the Preds, the Rattlers and a rematch against a crappy team who already beat us.

If I had to pick, though, I'm glad it's the second half of the season that this happened. This way, we had time at home and weaker opponents to work the kinks out – and we needed it. We're in a good place right now. A winning record, a team that's gelling and a huge win over San Jose. I'm a little concerned about the fact that we went into the bye right after it, as I would have preferred to keep the momentum, but you can't have everything.

The Power can't even pretend to be a lock for anything right now, but we can dream. If we take the lessons learned the first half of the season and apply it to the big boys – coupled with the fact that we're pretty good on the road – we might pull it off.

The first step is Dallas this Saturday at 8:30, on the road.

Right now, they're only one game better than us, but are undefeated on their home turf. They're also really, really good. Unlike us, they are set at quarterback with “Dirty” Dan Raudabaugh (My nickname. Western history. Google it, or watch Young Guns II) who is the only recorded QB for them this season. This right here tells us that he is tough, resilient and isn't going to give up. Pressuring him will be difficult at best.

On the ground, it's all behind Derrick Ross, who has averaged more than 2 touchdowns a game thus far this season. We didn't do that well against the run last game against the Cats, so this is something that we're going to have to watch for.

Finally, Dallas is one of those teams with defined receivers that they don't stray from often. Jones, Rubin and Fields are the go-to guys for the Vigilantes, they all average at least 12 yards a catch and have 48 touchdowns among them.

By the numbers, they're pretty even between what they score each game and what they allow, with the edge towards scoring. Much like with the Cats, the Power is going to need to get the attack on early and get a lead as fast as they can if they want to get out of this while avoiding a slugfest. Before the last game, I wouldn't have had great faith in this, but now I'm thinking that this is something that we can do.

Rushing, they run the board. Generally, they out-rush their opponents 2-1, so I'm not thinking that this is going to be a game for Rue. That's okay, because we're getting our passing game into solid gear. Another 2-1 stat is their sacking ability, which is really scary, given that I don't want to see Morris broken again.

Bottom line is that we need to keep on keepin' on. This is a tough team without a lot of easy-to-exploit weaknesses. They also haven't lost at home yet. Now is not the time to get fancy – the Power needs to stick with what has been working the last few games and just try to bring the hammer down fast and hard on Dallas.

After all – this is the first game of the rest of their season.

Elsewhere in the league

• The NFL Game of the Week is the Blaze vs Barnstormers. Iowa has pretty much nothing to play for at this point, being nearly dead-last in the league, and the Blaze is looking for a playoff berth. However, I generally find the 'Stormers fun to watch.
• Barnstormers aren't last in the league, but the Voodoo is, and this Friday, they meet the Soul, who are only a game ahead of them. Given the option, the NFL game is the much better option.
• After the Power finishes up, switch your NiFTy feed over to the Rattlers channel to catch what I'd say is the best game of the week: Cleveland travels to the Snake Pit for a brawl that should be lots of fun to watch.
• Because you were all so patient with me not posting last week, here's a blurry picture the Sparks were nice enough to pose for:

Power Defangs the Sabercats

First off, let me state that this post won't be edited as well as it usually is, as Keller is in Sacramento, in what I can only assume is a poorly planned victory tour celebrating our win over the San Jose Sabercats.

Wow. What a game. I gotta be honest: I put on a brave face in my preview, but never actually thought that we'd win. I certainly didn't expect to see how the rankings turned out after this weekend's games. However, to pat my own back, most of my predictions on what needed to happen in order for the Power to win actually did.

First off, I had stated that the first team to jump out to a good lead was going to win this one – however, this didn't play out exactly how I expected. Early on, the Power jumped out to a 14 point lead, which is good, but not exactly decisive, lead-wise. Before we knew it, the Cats were able to catch up, then pull ahead, making it 21-14. Not to be deterred, the Power got back in the end-zone and the PAT was...no good. Ugh. Edingered.

This one-point deficit would haunt the team the rest of the first half. Not only that, but San Jose was nice enough to miss one themselves, giving the Power a chance to even it up on the next score – before Edinger missed another one. Honestly, missed PATs aren't uncommon in the AFL and going into the half only down by one to the Cats was better than I'd expected, but our kicker's consistency (or lack of it) is disturbing and frustrating. Also, in the forefront of my mind, I knew that missed extra points nearly always come back to the team that have them.

The half ended with another key to victory that I mentioned that we needed: Goal line stops. San Jose had the ball last and were going to come out of the half with it first, so they had a very good chance to get more than one point ahead of us. It was not to be, however, as the Cats went 4 and out on the goal line when our defense refused to budge, mainly because of Dewalt and Royce Adams.

Coming out of the half, Adams returns to the field to force a fumble, which Pittsburgh recovered. Unbelievably, the Power had denied the all-offense Sabercats two scoring drives in a row. This was very important as San Jose went on to score 14 points to our 7 in the 3^rd. This kept the deficit to something manageable going into the final fifteen minutes of the game.

The only way to describe the 4^th quarter is “brutal.” Our first drive ended in Morris's second interception of the game. San Jose's first drive ends with a 4^th down stop, giving us a mid-field turnover on downs. Next, they returned the favor. Then – we did it again. Three 4th-down stops in a row. The crowd was screaming for blood.

This crowd fervor was rewarded when the Power scored on their next drive. Trying to make up for Edinger's earlier mistakes, Morris went for two instead of kicking an extra point. Unfortunately, it did not pan out, and the Power was down by two with 46 seconds left on the clock. Obviously, an on-side kick was in order, and Edinger drilled it right into the head of a Sabercat player, bouncing it right to our special teams players – who were not able to recover it.

Remarkably, the Power was able to make yet another 4^th down stop when the Cats started on the four-yard line. Getting the ball back with 41 seconds on the clock, they were able to drive it down the field, score and come up with the two-point conversion. All that stood between them and an upset victory was 27 seconds. Edinger booted it deep, and four plays later, it was over.

Power 54, Sabercats 48.

The Good, Bad and Ugly

I'll start with the Bad, just to get it out of the way. The Power actually had a lot of trouble holding onto the ball, which made me very nervous during the game. The final tally was two interceptions and three fumbles. By comparison, San Jose only threw one INT and only dropped the ball once. Normally, stats like this would tell you who lost the game, but the rest of the Power game up big in a lot of plays.

Very surprisingly to me, Chad Cook was the star for San Jose, and they ran it a lot during this game. All told, they rushed twice as much as we did, and scored 3 rushing TD's, where we had none. I didn't see that coming. Obviously, the Power had anticipated an aerial attack and didn't really have an answer for Chad Cook.

Semi-bad was that the return of Josh Lay meant that Xavier Lee has been put on “Recallable Reassignment.” Don't get me wrong: Lay is a hell of a player and had some seriously clutch plays in this outing – but I wish he didn't cost us the Swiss-Army knife that is Lee.

The Good is a lot more fun to talk about. “Joystick” Washington continued to be Morris's favorite target in this meeting and had a huge game this week, totaling 120 yards and 4 touchdowns. (Seriously – I didn't have a yardstick with me, but I'm fairly sure Joystick is shorter than the waterboy, yet Morris loves to throw to him.) He was followed closely by Jason Willis with an additional 3 touchdowns.

The defense did exactly what I said that they needed to do. As I pointed out in my preview, the Sabercats rely on scoring on nearly every drive, and we needed to hand them a few big stops to keep them off the board – and the Power accomplished this handily. The Cats only converted 3 of 7 3^rd downs, and none of their forth-down attempts. “Powertool” DeWalt continued to be a huge force on defense, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this be his permanent home.

The Ugly. Oh, man...I'm still laughing about this. People always say that Arena Football is a fan participation sport, and Keller proved it. We sit in the forth row near the end-zone, and he likes to mess with the opposing offense by yelling, “Huthuthuthike!!!” to see if he can draw them off-sides. The most it has ever done was really torque off Kyle Rowley last week (he glared at us the whole game.) This week, it actually worked...on the Power defense. Carlo Campbell flinched and the yellow flag went out.

I bet Keller's not gonna do that again. (Regardless, I'll never let him forget it.)

Final thoughts

This was a great way to end the first half of the season, with two solid wins in a row at home. Also, we are now only a game behind Cleveland in our division, and actually have a tied record with Sabercats. Now, we're in a weak division, and the people out front in the league look at us and say, “Aww...aren't they cute...” but – we're still second in our division, and that's all that matters.

Over at the NFL Network, Big Ant released his mid-season awards, and he has Coach Siegfried as the runner-up for coach of the year. This is pretty big, and I can't say I fault his logic. He's been making ballsy decisions the last few weeks, and has managed a hell of a record as an expansion-team coach with 3 starting QB's at the half-way point of the season.

My only concern at this point, is that we've built up some great momentum in these last few games, and now we've got a bye-week. On one hand, a dead-center bye is a good way to recharge the batteries. On the other, we might lose that momentum that we've built up. I will have more on these issues in my mid-season Bye-Week Spotlight later this week.

Elsewhere in the League

• Both Philly and Milwaukee won their games this week, improving to 3-6 on the season. Good for them, but they're still not a concern.
  
  
• Cleveland was destroyed by Orlando, losing by 30 points. Ouch.
  
  
• The Rush beat the Rattlers in a last-second field-goal that was nothing short of a miracle, as their kicker has a worse record than ours. This bumps Chicago back up to top of their division, a gnat's wing ahead of Dallas.
  
  
• The Sharks hold their 8-game winning streak, with only one loss on their record for the season. Garcia is having a fairytale season that could very well end up at the Arena Bowl. If the Power isn't there, I'll be rooting for them.

San Jose Sabercats come to town

Okay, did everyone enjoy that feeling of a win at home last week? Good – cause it’s
time for the next game, and it’s going to be a tough opponent. For the second week in a
row, we get a team right after the Rattlers are through with them. The big difference is,
unlike the Shock, the San Jose Sabercats got shellacked out in Arizona, and I’m betting
that they’re not going to take that lying down.

This is the game that ends the first half of our season, and really sets the tone for the
second. From the moment I saw this game on the schedule, I was worried about it.
Technically, the Sabercats are an expansion team, just like we are. However, they
are a recreated team like the Soul, who came back with new faces and old traditions.
Currently, they’re number 5 in the league power-rankings and always looking to move
up. (By comparison, our win against Spokane got us the #10 spot this week, but only
just.)

Last week, I talked about the difference between our division and National West, in
particular that 3-4 was second place in ours and last place in theirs. This week, it’s
slightly more heartening that the ‘Cats are also in second place and only have one more
win than us. This means that they can bleed, etc.

Make no mistake: They are a tough team and strong competitors. Around the league,
you will hear a lot of talk about their defense, and how it’s possibly the worst in the
league – and that might very well be true. They are letting up almost 60 points a game
this season. On the other hand, they average around 60 points a game on offense as well.

Quarterback Mark Grieb is not afraid to air it out, and has three solid, solid receivers in
Goodson, Flowers and Toler. Flowers is one of those guys that I’ve loved to hate this
season – the type that will flip over the wall in the end-zone multiple times in a game,
just to thrust the ball up in the air to show he had it the whole time. Goodson is generally
in-your-face and not afraid to take a hit. Think of an evil Hines Ward. Toler rounds it
out for yardage over touchdowns.

Rushing (comparatively) is not much of a focus. Chad Cook has only 110 yards on the
season, but is mainly used in goal line and 3rd/4th down situations. That having been said,
he also has 17 touchdowns on the season – our team doesn’t have that many rushing TDs.
What we do have, however, is twice as many yards on the ground.

What does all of this mean when taken together? I’ll tell you what: It means that we
have a chance.

The style of play that the new Sabercats employ – and to generally good effect – is
very similar to what I do in war-simulation games: Don’t puss around with figuring
out defensive tactics and fancy cover mechanics – just fill the air with as much lead as
possible until everything stops moving.

They’re all offense. They just keep hammering down the field and managing the clock,
banking on themselves having the ball last. It’s gutsy, and a fine tactic when it works

(which, statistics say, better than 50% of the time, it does for them) but risky at the same
time

Last week, we saw two equally as ballsy choices from Coach Siegfried. One, he put
Bernard Morris back in the game his first week off of IR, and two, he put Powertool in as
a linebacker instead of a receiver. This gamble paid off. Once Morris regained his sea-
legs, he started giving the Shock what-for. “Powertool” DeWalt grew about 4 feet, cloned
himself and placed himself everywhere on the field, breaking up plays. Honorable
mention goes to the decision to let Zeck have the ball and go murder a few defenders.

If DeWalt stays on defense to just generally befuddle the opposition, I think we can rely
on the likes of Stevenson, Butler and “Total Chaos” Carter to put up a wall. The Power
made some outstanding stops last week in 3rd and 4th down situations, as well as on the
goal line. Dewalt will be key as the Sabercats do little on the ground…until 3rd and 4th
situations and the goal line.

On our side, if Morris comes in to the game the way he ended the last one, then hopefully
he’ll come out shooting down the field and putting points up. If that doesn’t work, get
Rue out there and maybe put some fear into them by unleashing Zeck.

The main concern is going to be the battle of wills. More so than most games, this one
is going to be decided by whoever gets up to the first major lead – possibly the first
lead, period. Last week against Arizona, once the Rattlers got in Greib’s head, it was
over. When Arizona started pulling in front, and the scoring war of attrition started to
backfire on the ‘Cats, Grieb started panicking and ended the game with four interceptions
. It wasn’t just him – the rest of the team freaked out and started missing routes and
coverages as well.

Problem is – that all sounds really, really familiar.

Interesting note: I fully realize that correlation does not equal causation – but I love
symmetry. The only game this season at home that the Power can say that they out-in-
out destroyed another team and salted the earth was against the Barnstormers. So far this
season, the Barnstormers have only won two games, and they were back-to-back:

The Spokane Shock, and then the San Jose Sabercats.

I’m just gonna put that out there and let it sink in for a moment. The more I think about
it, the more I think last week was a dress rehearsal for this game, and maybe – just maybe
– we’ve underestimated Siegfried.

Game airs on the CW at 7:30, but there should be plenty of seats down at the Arena to see
it in person.

Elsewhere in the league:

• Not a lot to write home about this week on Friday. The Game of the Week is another snorefest, but it’s the only AFL a lot of people are going to get. For those willing to watch online instead, the Force @Philly looks like the best bet
• The Gladiators at the Orlando Predators looks like it should be a brutal game. After the Power finishes up, tune in to NiFTy TV online, and the rebroadcast should be beginning.
• Late game is a tossup between Rush @Arizona, which would be my preferred game to watch, but seeing how the Vigilantes stack up against the Shock isn’t a bad call either, since we’ve got them in a few weeks.

Power vs Barnstormers Review

To quote an old DVE Morning Show sketch:

“My Lord.”

“My Liege.”

“My god, what an ass-whooping!”

The Power more than made up for their painful loss to the Soul in their home opener last week. Before the game, I said to Keller that, after last week, I really needed a runaway victory like the Rush were nice enough to hand the Soul Friday night (62-28 final.) Well, I almost got it. Last night's score was a lopsided 58-28, courtesy of a smoothed out Power offense.

As I predicted last week, the second game of the season saw a lot of adjustments in style and strategy throughout. This was obvious right from the beginning. when the Power managed to burn 7:07 off the clock on one drive. That's a ridiculously long time in this league.

This week, QB duties were split between Morris and Kevin McCabe, with each taking a half. I'm not sure if an injury benched Morris, or if Siegfried just felt that 114 yards and 2 touchdowns were enough out of him for one week. It's tough to say, but the fact is #14 got sacked three times and we didn't see him again after the half.

Far and away, Morris' prime target this week was Willis for picking up critical yardage throughout the first half, although he didn't get any TDs to his name. Both Morris and McCabe chose instead to spread the passing TD's out among five other targets. Interestingly, week one favorite Washington was not the presence that he was in the opener, picking up only 24 yards and a touchdown.

Continuing to be a Bus-like figure, Joshua Rue was utilized in short yardage situations. He had six carries, averaging about a yard apiece, but this still resulted in two touchdowns. He was also able to pick up 21 additional yards and a touchdown in the air. In just two games this season, he has been so potent on offense that there were two plays in which we needed a critical yard and the crowd started bellowing “RUUUUUUUUEE!” Despite everyone in the building calling out where the ball was going, the Barnstormers were still unable to stop him.

When McCabe took the field in the second half, his performance by the numbers were very similar to Morris' accomplishments in the first, however he seemed a lot more confident and composed on the field. Granted, the Barnstormers had begun to fall apart at that point and the Power had a comfortable 28-14 lead, but I really felt he was the more stable figure behind center. He changed up his targets, not really preferring one receiver over another, adapting to the situation on the field as he went. He also didn't seem to get happy feet and managed to not end up lying on the field looking up at the lights much. Again, it might just have been that the other team wasn't pressing as hard. As such, I'm hoping that he starts next week in Milwaukee so that I can get a better sense of it.

As cohesive as the Power looked this week, they had a lot of help on the other side of the line. As there is really no preseason to speak of and Iowa had a week 1 bye, this was the first chance the Barnstormers had to take the field together – and it showed. Their offense was confused and all over the place. Interceptions were common and end zone discoveries rare. More often, their O-line ran into their own players more than the Power defense.

Even worse was that their defense didn't show much sign of knowing what they were doing – particularly linebacker Sam Smith getting gigged for two illegal formations and a holding. Things weren't all bad for the defense, however. Defensive back Patrick Stoudamire was all over the field, breaking up passes wherever he went. If there is a standout weapon on Iowa's team, it's him.

A few thoughts on adjustments and changes off the field from week one: As predicted, attendance dropped substantially this week, but not as much as I'd feared – especially considering that Pitt was busy slugging it out in a doomed March Madness outing. The 9100+ in the house were louder than their numbers, and brought the enthusiasm. (Note: the consensus seems to be “Let's go Pow-er ” rather than the modified, “Here we go Pow-er, here we go!”, though both were used.)

The announcer was a lot more subdued this week, keeping the monster-truck-rally style color commentary to a minimum. At first, I thought that he might have gotten a memo after the opener, but in the second half, his nicknames returned. Jason “Watchu Talking About” Willis, Mike “the Joystick” Washington and Lonnell “the Power Tool” DeWalt all put in appearances. God help me, I actually realized the first half was lacking them.

Finally, the grounds management decided to take down the glass around the team benches. I am particularly pleased with this, as my lower-level seats had a very disrupted line of sight to the far end zone because of them. It's selfish, but I give it two thumbs up.

Conclusion and closing thoughts:

So, where do the Power stand? This week's performance was vastly improved over the home opener between two expansion teams finding their footing. On one hand, the Soul had it handed to them Friday, and the Power came out swinging in their second game. On the other, the Soul went on to play a hard-hitting, established franchise on their home turf, whereas the Power stayed at home and beat up on a shaky team still trying to work out the kinks.

With McCabe backing up Morris and getting an expanding role, I think we've got a potent one-two punch that can surprise the opponent. I hope we see McCabe starting next week, rather than being a relief for Morris after he gets laid out too many times. In that regard, I hope the line can get better at keeping the defense from reaching Morris and give him time to gain some confidence in getting rid of the ball before he gets slammed.

The strengths this week were the D making some great goal-line stands and taking the ball away from the Barnstormers. Also, McCabe's style of spreading the ball around (rather than watching Morris for a few plays and figuring out which guy he's tapped for the game) is an effective strategy. I have high hopes for the season if these things continue.

Let me take a moment to apologize: I missed the memo that I was supposed to get a pic of the Sparks for yinz this week. Below is the best I have from the game. Yes - I took one for...my...own, personal portfolio. Don't judge me.



Next up: The Milwaukee Mustangs Monday night, giving the Power a long rest before heading on the road.