Peeze’s Playbook (Div 5) – Week 2 – FlagPlus Football League

Last season Sammy Feder, a newcomer to FPF, quarterbacking a brand new team (Coyotes) shattered the previous Division 5 record for passing touchdowns when he threw a preposterous 56 touchdowns. In fact the trend has been that every year, Division 5, sees a new all-time high in passing touchdowns. This season two quarterbacks have come out of the gate slinging balls around like this was the flag football equivalent of the O.K. Corral. Marc-André Théberge of the First Downers leads the way with 14 touchdowns in 2 games. He is on pace to throw 70 touchdowns this season and most fascinating in all of this is that in his 36 attempts he has only thrown one interception.

Right behind Théberge is Erminio Iadeluca, who is off to an incredible start in his own right throwing 12 touchdowns in his first two games. Erminio has seen past success at the Quarterback position but has never thrown more than 25 touchdowns. Perhaps his time on Clockwork in Division 4 has allowed him to grow as a passer, playing with Marco Masciotra. On the other hand, Théberge struggled in the summer season throwing 29 touchdowns and 22 interceptions. What is even more shocking is that he is completing a whopping 77.8% of his passes. Whether or not these two men can keep up this pace is subject to debate. Either way I think we’ll see these two at the top of the stat page for weeks to come.

Weekly Overview

TCO (Tiny Cocktail Olives?) Off to a Hot Start

Having beaten Team Ethnik 25-6 and starting off 2-0, TCO has, thus far, made this FPF analyst look competent for having picked them as a pre-season favorite to win the division 5 championship. Despite getting off to a slow start, the TCO offense came alive in the last 6 minutes to take control of the game. Newly acquired Akeem Hoyte Charles racked up 40 yards and provided TCO with a deep threat that allowed all of Matthew Bondoux’s weapons to run free. Team Ethnik now finds themselves at 0-2 and will hope that their experience will help them get the season back on track.

Lockdown Feel the Weight of the Albatros

It would seem that former defensive all-star Andrew D’Anna took the Lockdown defense with him into his FPF retirement. Being one of the more storied franchises in Division 5 Lockdown always been considered a solid defensive club. This has not been the case thus far this season. Having allowed 79 points in two games team captain Alex D’Aquila was clearly frustrated after the game: “We have only made 1 stop so far this season”. The real story here is Les Albatros. They are young, energetic and talented. Quarterback Sebastien Thibault had a combined 275 yards through the air and on the ground, threw for 5 touchdowns and ran for another. As if that wasn’t impressive in itself he, as the team’s rusher, sacked veteran QB Gianfranco Ranaudo 3 times! Overall, this was a remarkable game for this new squad.

War Declared on Manatees

Before I go on, picture that. Who would go to war with a manatee? Who could they possibly have as enemies? Well, there are some particularly aggressive sharks. But I digress…

The Warriors initially came into the league as Predators, then, for one season, they were known as Westside Connection. Perhaps beating the Manatees 39-0 will be a statement win and will help solidify this team’s identity. Cedric Sambour moved from quarterback to receiver and this move yielded positive results as caught 3 passes for 86 yards, each catch resulting in a touchdown. Perhaps with a new man behind centre (Paul Lalonde) the Warriors finally have a lineup that is best suited to their team. Conversely, The Manatees are learning the lessons often experienced by new teams. They face an angry Dolphins crew next week that are coming off losses to two of the stronger teams in the Division.

Primes Roll-out on Love Cows

Just as the Decepticons were seemingly in constant retreat of the Autobots in the original Transformers television series, the Love Cows looked to be in reverse from the get go. Nothing seemed to work well for the “Pink Stink” as normally reliable snapper G.M. Kolethras had difficulty getting the ball to his quarterback and was eventually moved to the slot. Primes QB Adamo Iadeluca moved up and down the field with relative ease as the Primes defeated the Love Cows 26-18. Across the field, Yannick Doston seemed to have had issues calling plays that would help his receivers get separation. This seemed like a game between two teams heading in opposite directions; we will see how they move forward from this point on.

Power Rankings

This week saw quite a bit of movement in the power rankings. We’ve seen teams burst on to the scene from nowhere and we’ve seen established teams plunge down in the rankings. This is how I see the division thus far this season:

TCO – Another solid win against a good opponent. The boys in black have only allowed 12 points against all season.
Project Mayhem – A solid week 2 win keeps them at number 2.
Turf Toe Inc. – 2 big wins against 2 tough opponents.
First Downers- A +74 point differencial propels the First Downers to 4^th place.
Checkmate – Winning games largely on the backs of their defense, a new experience for a typically offensively oriented team. Speaking of new experiences, they are 2-0 for the first time in their franchise’s history.
Jaggerbomb –If you haven’t yet, go watch these guys play! One of the best early storylines of the season.
Kingdom- These guys are fun to watch and having taken their lumps 2 seasons ago in division 3 they seem to grow by leaps and bounds every week.
Speed Demons- 8 interceptions in 2 games. Are these numbers inflated by having played 2 backup quarterbacks? It remains to be seen.
Black Ice- This is a team that could pick up steam as the season wears on.

Cougars- So far so good; there are questions however regarding who they’ve beaten.

Others Teams receiving votes (1 vote each, because I’m the only voter):

Centurions- Winning games on defense alone, in an offensively driven league, how will they do when matched up against the elite offensive teams?
Two and a Half Dans- Honestly, there is some voter prejudice here. I haven’t seen them play and the idea of half a man on the field makes me wonder which half.
Ballz Deep- Two Narrow wins thus far. It makes me wonder if they play down to the level of their competition.

New Faces

This is a section of the article where I would like to introduce new up and coming players, talk about their season so far and draw attention to them after a notable performance. This week I’d like to draw attention to Marc-Andre Nguyen who caught 3 of his 4 touchdown receptions this past week. Jaggerbomb have a wealth of young talent and yet Nguyen has found a way to stand out. Marc-Andre works well in space and even added a 30 yard run to his 3 catch day. A defense would be best served knowing where #20 is at all times.

Reflections, Rants, Ravings

Shame on the boys from TCO for lying down in their own endzone during the last play of the game. TCO are a good group of guys and they are generally a class act. That being said, disrespecting an opponent in a game that is already out of hand is poor form. I expect better from these guys. Keep it classy TCO.
The Dolphins are a good team. Unfortunately schedule makers had them face TCO and Checkmate week 1 and 2 respectively. Don’t be surprised to see them win 3 of the next 4.
The First Downers look to be the first team to score 100 points this season as they already have 99. I wonder who will be the first to allow 100.
This week: Dolphins vs. Manatees, an underwater themed flag football game!
Big Blue Wrecking Crew probably find themselves on the power rankings if not for a late Hail Mary that cost them a win. How will they respond to a heartbreaking loss and to losing Quarterback Ron Taylor for 2-3 weeks?
Checkmate’s Julien Belleavance asks the league to change his name on the website to Beast after picking off the opposing quareterback 4 times in a single game. The league has asked for 7-10 days to deliberate before reaching a final decision.
One week after being called out in this article, Aces win in impressive fashion. They seem to have abandoned their quarterback by committee gameplan. We may see Aces have far greater success with Doug McKernan taking all of the snaps.
67 players have attempted 5 more passes as of week 2 this season. I guess teams are trying to figure out who there best option is.

Predictions

It has been an abysmal start to the season for yours truly going 10/24 as compared to Simon Dagenais’ 14/24. That being said, for those of you who are degenerately gambling on Flag Football games, I’ve got your back. I figure my average reader is a lot like Mike Singletary who wants winners; I’ve got winners right here:

Les Albatros vs. Venom

Fools of the Country vs. Aces

Green Lantern Corps vs. Jaggerbomb

Those Guys vs. Loose Cannons

Overthrowners vs. Speed Demons

Golden Girls vs. Big Blue Wrecking Crew

Roughnecks vs. Two and a Half Dans

Black Ice vs. Pendant Publishing

Tyrants vs. Centurions

Moose vs. The Hangovers

Primes vs. Dark Knights

Ballz Deep vs. Limetime

Dolphins vs. Manatees

Ecurie Bar et Tables vs. TCO

Cougars vs. C’mon Man!

Hamsterdam Cornerboys vs. Warriors

BearSkins vs. First Downers

J’s vs. Flying Comics

X-Men vs. Les Affreux

Turf Toe Inc. vs. Warhawks

Project Mayhem vs. Lockdown

Love Cows vs. Les Maloudes

Young Bloodz vs. C Difficile

Crooklyn Dogers vs. Team Ethnik

Simon Dagenais has sent me a variety of taunting texts and Facebook messages about my picks. Perhaps he is unfamiliar with the parable of the tortoise and the hare. Everyone knows that after the race it was unanimous to eat braised hare rather than tortoise soup.

The Weekly Wrap Up

This is such an exciting time in the season. From where we stand it is still impossible to see who will go on an incredible run and who will begin to falter despite early success. As weeks will pass we will see who recovered from early losses and who would never regain form.

How do you think the season will unfold? Want to be featured in the article or be a guest on the podcast? Let us know by emailing me at [email protected] or you can reach me on Twitter @PeezeFPF. For those who do not like how you’ve been represented here or on the Podcast, email the complaints department at [email protected]. The dude loves hate mail like Nicholas Picholas loved “Letter Time” on Video and Arcade Top Ten.

Please tune into and subscribe to our podcast ‘Calling the Audible’, available via iTunes or at http://fpf.podomatic.com. This week join me and my usual cohost, Andrew D’Anna as well as Turf Toe Inc.’s very own Kevin Lubin. League President Robert Campana will be calling in and this week’s musical theme is: The Super Plattsburgh Mix.