Peeze’s Playbook (Div D) – Week 2

For those of you who have already heard the div. d edition of Calling the Audible this week, you’ll have noticed that we made an inordinate amount of references to my now world renowned watermelon chicken.  So, because it displeases our Executive Vice President of Media Relations and Interim League President, Daron Basmadjian, I thought I would list the recipe.

 

 

 

Recipe for Watermelon Chicken:

 

 

 

-3 kilos of Chicken breast, cleaned and marinated (olive oil, spices, if you use anything that has salt in it, don’t marinate for more than a half hour otherwise the meat will start to erode)

 

-8 cups of blended watermelon

 

-4 cups of blended watermelon rind, skin removed

 

-1 onion, sliced

 

-1 clove of garlic, minced finely

 

–1 lemon, juiced, 2 Mangos, sliced

 

-1 table spoon of lemon lime concentrate

 

-1 table spoon of ground clove

 

-2 Jalapeno peppers, chopped finely

 

-1 table spoon of salt

 

 

 

In a sauce pan reduce the Watermelon over high heat for at least 2 hours until it becomes almost solid (a jelly-like consistency).  When the Watermelon is almost completely reduced grill the chicken breasts.  Mix all the other ingredients together.  Lay a bed of the Watermelon chutney on the plate, place the appropriate number of chicken breasts and spoon some of the mango/jalapeno/onion/clove mix over the breast.

 

 

 

You’ll notice that some of the recipe has been changed because I didn’t have any lemon.  But that’s how FPF is sometimes.  Here are my thoughts on how week 2 went down.

 

 

 

Mongoose Devour Shamrocks

 

 

 

So, I had stated that I didn’t think it would actually be a devouring but with the Mongoose winning 26-6 it was exactly that.  Last week, I was astonished to see Cédric Nuckle’s name left off the offensive stat sheet.  This week I am happy to report he was back to being the bad man he’s always been.  He had a monster game on defense also, as he intercepted 2 passes and made 7 tackles.  The biggest factor on defense was actually Mongoose rusher Jonathan Chevalier, who sacked Doug McKernan 5 times.

 

 

 

McDoug had his issues in this one.  Other than the sacks, he threw 3 interceptions and was visibly disappointed throughout the game. Once the game concluded, I got a tweet from Doug claiming complete responsibility for the loss. It was clear that this one bothered him. If I were a member of Hostile Territory I would not look forward to facing a very angry Shamrocks squad next week.

 

 

 

Speed Demons Overrun by Jaggerbombs

 

 

 

A look at Jeremie Gauthier’s passing stats in this one would not lead you to believe that Jaggerbomb won by a score of 26-0.  Gauthier had only 18 passing yards, the reason for which is that he took 7 sacks and that that negated a lot of his yardage.  Gauthier was involved in a game of chess with Speed Demon rushers Mathieu Bilodeau and Bryan Nguyen; while they did get to him numerous times he also did run for 102 yards and scored as many rushing touchdowns as passing touchdowns (2).  The fact would remain that despite all of their scoring, the Jaggerbomb’s defense was stingy enough that scoring more than once was a moot point.

 

 

 

Benjamin Dore, Martin Gelinas and Jean-Felix Daloze all picked off Speed Demon quarterback Samuel Holden as the SD offence could never get going.  Holden looked to have difficulty reading the Jaggerbomb’s defense throughout the game.  Jaggerbomb are known to use multiple schemes and rely on their athleticism to confuse and bait the quarterback.  This was the case in this game as Samuel Holden recorded his lowest QB rating (33.1) since Week 9 last spring (0.0).  Holden impressed me with how much he had improved last winter.  He now needs to take the next step and develop an offensive system that will allow him to use the weapons around him as effectively as possible.

 

 

 

Centurions Avoid Wrecking Ball

 

 

 

Last season I was late to the Centurions party and by the time I had jumped on the bandwagon they proved to be a middle of the pack team, ending the season by limping into the playoffs. In this game however the Centurions looked very good.  They played very tough team defense, as they typically do, and they were able to overcome Jeremy Laporte’s three interceptions to beat the Big Blue Wrecking Crew by a score of 33-12.  For the Centurions defense Morin, Laporte and last season’s defensive player of the year, Justin Melrose all got interceptions of their own.

 

 

 

Dean Demetriou continues to struggle so far this season; while he has been a menace on BBWC’s defense, he has not been able to get the offence going. As this is an offensively driven league Demetriou will need to start clicking with his receivers.  I like Big Blue Wrecking Crew; they have good size and are a hard working group.  They have a tough schedule ahead but I think they will get stronger as the weeks go on. For more on their team, listen to this week’s Division D Calling the Audible where we interview captain Sergio Sicoli.

 

 

 

Snakes and Mountains

 

 

 

On last week’s edition of CTA, we talked with Kevin Gauthier, quarterback of Blue Mountain State and of course a large portion of our conversation centered on the team’s collective muscularity.  This week, as a means of exemplifying this, Gauthier, who was being pulled down by his jersey, ripped through the material and remained in stride before eventually being forced out of bounds.  Beyond that, Gauthier was truly heroic in this game.  Even with the game hanging in the balance and with BMS trailing for most of it, as a spectator I did not doubt for a second that they would win this one.  Hermes Zepada was all over the field in this one and his chemistry with Gauthier paid off as 2 of his 5 catches were scores.

 

 

 

The script was fairly simple for the Black Mambas early.  Jerson Previllon would chuck it up; Mendy Cardichon would find it and catch it regardless of who or how many defenders were covering him.  To be honest, we’ve seen this team do this before.  For the most part it has worked.  Cardichon is an absolute beast and he accounted for 70% of the passing yardage in this game.  Having lost a tight contest by a score of 32-31 Black Mambas felt the need to make a move.  In realization of how strong the division is this season, the Black Mambas added some firepower by picking up Kevin Lubin early this week.  They now stand at 0-2 but the addition of Lubin makes them a far more threatening team moving forward.

 

 

 

X-Men go Street Sweeping

 

 

 

Gautama Swaminadhan is a quarterback that we oft neglect.  Mostly it’s because his name drives up the character count in our articles.  As of right now he has thrown 10 touchdowns and has yet to be intercepted.  Kevin Boustany had a big game on both sides of the ball as he added 5 tackles and an interception to his 4 catches, 48 yards and 1 touchdown on the offensive side of the ball.

 

 

 

Park-X Streets started Dionissopoulos who was once again fairly ineffective.  After throwing three interceptions, Drew Saitanis took over to try and right the ship but the damage was already done.  New recruits Danny Aylward and Foti Evangelista looked very good on offence and defense respectively.  Evangelista actually led the league in tackles this week with 10.  X-Men win this one 39-14.

 

 

 

The League of Not-Quite-Legends

 

 

 

The draft is around the corner.  Next week, take a look at our teams, the awesome team names that I have bestowed upon my colleagues and let the arguments of who should have been picked where begin.

 

 

 

Predictions

 

 

 

‘Justinian’ Blanchard appeared to be the emperor of picks this week as he slightly edged me in our weekly competiton. His 10-4 was just good enough to beat my decent record of 9-5. However, I still hold the lead and by the time we’re done, the emperor will have no clothes.  For those of you who have taken to degenerate gambling and have wagers based upon which FPF analyst will end the season with a higher winning percentage, you need help.  That being said, I’m not here to judge so the running tally is The Glorious and Heoric Peeze: 18-10 while Justin, the evil emperor who probably burned down his dominion, Blanchard: 16-12. Here are my picks for this week:

 

 

 

Speed Demons vs. Le Zoo

 

Bearskins vs. Big Blue Wrecking Crew

 

Blue Mountain State vs. Limetime

 

Ballz Deep vs. X-Men

 

Wheel of Fish vs. Black Ice

 

Lockdown vs. Les Affreux

 

Black Mambas vs. Vikings

 

Ghosts vs. Gotham Knights

 

Jaggerbomb vs. Pardon my Swag

 

Playground vs. Mongoose

 

Longhorns vs. Underdogs

 

Shamrocks vs. Hostile Territory

 

Warriors vs. Tyrants

 

Centurions vs. Park-X Streets

 

 

 

The Tuesday Throw Down

 

 

 

With two weeks done, this season’s pace, already fast, furious and perhaps even Tokyo drift-y, looks to heat up even further in the upcoming week.  Do you have thoughts or questions?  Perhaps you have comments about our league, your team or my writing.  Want to know how they could possibly make 7 “The Fast and The Furious” movies? Contact me at [email protected] or reach me on Twitter @PeezeFPF. 

 

 

 

Another reason you can contact me is because you’d like to appear on Division D’s Calling the Audible. This week Daron Basmadjian (@DaronFPF) fills in for Terry Tam (@TerryTamFPF) and we discuss topics ranging from: who may or may not be the top quarterback in Division 5, who we think will go undefeated and which games we can look forward to in week 3.  As mentioned earlier, Sergio “Pop” Sicoli joins us to talk about his team, Big Blue Wrecking Crew. Check it out at http://podomatic.fpf.com.

 

See you on the fields, till then, thank you for letting me be myself.