Teams finding their identities as we approach mid-season

After four weeks of football, the halfway point of the season is almost here. We’ve seen teams move up and down the rankings, we’ve seen contenders become pretenders, and we’ve also seen teams come out of nowhere to surprise everybody, including maybe even themselves. That’s the beauty about football, it’s a one game do-or-die affair, and anything can happen.

Week 4 was a crazy week. There were upsets, tight defensive showdowns, and of course, some blowouts. More importantly however, there is a new king in D6, as the Woofpack have been dethroned. Before I get into that, here are a couple of things that caught my eye this week.

The Mountain Goats make it two in a row, Fresh off their shocking Week 3 12-12 tie with Wax On Wax Off, M.G knocked off the slightly favoured The Pocketwatch 12-7.

This low scoring game simply came down to execution. When he wasn’t under pressure from Stuart Fink (who had a strong game with 4 sacks) Mountain Goats QB Hazem “little Tim Tebow” Tawakol, was efficient completing just under 60% of his passes with his ball control clock-killing offense.

The Pocketwatch unfortunately didn’t get the same production from the pivot position as Paolo Della Rocca struggled for much of the contest, completing 50% of his passes and throwing two crucial interceptions.

The Tigerz also make it two in a row, as they knocked off the heavily favoured Balls Deep Saturday night in Lachine.

A tip of the hat must go to the Tigerz defense, who basically shut down Balls Deep’s best WR Chris Valentine.

It feels weird writing this considering the talent they have on the team, but congrats to the Smokin’ Axolotls on finally got into the win column. Being 0-3 and staring 0-4 in the face, S.A came through with a strong defensive performance spearheaded by non-other than Jad Aridi (strong candidate for two-way player of the year) and Timothy Kauffman to notch their first win of the season. Let’s see if they can keep the good times rolling against a hot Jean Guy team this coming Wednesday.

Congrats are also in order for Team Fourth and Twenty, as they were also able to get their first win of the season, knocking off Orange Crush.

This game came down to turnovers and defense, as Team Fourth and Twenty were able to force Orange Crush pivot Chris Mana into two interceptions, and hold him to only a whopping 5 completions. Good job guys!

Lastly, I got my butt kicked in predictions last week. I promise to do better this week.

 

Top 11

1. The Mean Machine – Daniel Goloff looks to be the front runner for the D6 QB of the Year award. Their +82 PD is also tops in D6.

2. Flagrant Fouls – Not only are they 4-0, but they have back-to-back wins over two of the better teams in the division.

3. Woofpack – Despite a tough loss, Woofpack’s WR group featuring Telemacque, Café, Alzamora and Augustin seems to be tops in D6.

4. N.W.O – It seems like not long ago, N.W.O were the new guys who were learning the game, now they sit at 4-0. They haven’t had the toughest of schedules thus far though, so I’ll curb my enthusiasm for now.

5. L.A’s Finest – They did to Obamacare what Flagrant Fouls did to them the week before. A humbling loss always works wonders. Big game versus N.W.O. on the docket.

6. Pardon My Swag – Brad Evans seems to have found the perfect game plan; dump it short to brother, Ryan or chuck it deep to Jon Grizzley. It worked wonders in week 4.

7. Diablos – D4 QB Alexis Gaumont is showing he can be a threat running patterns as well, here in D6.

8. Obamacare – Tough loss this week; as much talent as there is on this team- not many new teams come in and run the table. Learn from this week and get better.

9. Sun Bros – First loss for the Sun Bros. Jean Guy QB, Chris Chartrand can run circles around any team if they’re not ready for it. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

10. Tigerz – It looks like Rahul Mohan has settled in nicely into the QB position. Once that’s settled, this team is athletic enough to do some damage- like they did this week against Balls Deep.10.

11. Balls Deep – Which Balls Deep team can we expect this week? One week they look like the best in the division, the next they look like they’re middle of the pack.

 

 

High Five

Jad Aridi. Once again the boss of the Monstars showed up on both sides of the ball. On offense he had 6 catches for 41 yards and 1TD. Where he really stood out was on the defensive end, where he registered a game high 3 picks and 4 tackles as he helped his team pick up their first win of the season.

Akeem Gordon. The Tigerz WR shredded Balls Deep’s defense to the tune of 3 catches for 54 yards. While that doesn’t sound all that impressive at first, keep in mind that all of Gordon’s receptions went for TDs.

Stuart Fink. As I mentioned above, The Pocketwatch rusher had a great game with 4 sacks. Although his team came out on the losing end of their game against the Mountain Goats, the blame can’t be placed on Fink.

LA’s Finest Defense. Obamacare entered week 4 averaging 30 points per contest, and a perfect record. What they left week 4 with was a 38-6 beatdown at the hands of LA’s Finest. Most surprisingly, the Finest D held opposing QB Jordan Mcinnis, who has been playing great football to 1 TD and 4 INT’s.

Alexandre Guay. The Diablos defender picked off three Michael Covillo passes last week against Goon Squad. Covillo and his team are still finding their footing, but three INTs in a game will always be impressive.

 

Step It Up

Obamacare

The Pocketwatch. They find themselves on this list for a second week in a row. I’ll make this short and sweet, there is too much talent on this team to have the record that they currently do. The schedule does them no favours the next 4 weeks as they play 4 strong contenders in The Mean Machine, Flagrant Fouls, Obamacare, and the N.W.O respectively. To have any chance of making the playoffs, The Pocketwacth need to win at least two of those games. Step it up, The Pocketwatch.

QB accuracy. As I mentioned above, we are almost at the halfway point of the season, and there are still a lot of QBs who are struggling to complete 50% of their passes. I already talked about why the short passing game should be the best friend of a QB. Completions however, are the key to it all, and this week especially, there are some pivots who have nearly as many INTs as they do completions. That’s unacceptable no matter what division you play in. Step it up, QBs.

 

Picks

Beast Mode vs Tigerz – Tigerz

The Sun Bros vs Pardon My Swag – Pardon My Swag

Goon Squad vs Team Fourth and Twenty – Team Fourth and Twenty

Balls Deep vs Orange Crush – Balls Deep

Wax On Wax Off vs Diablos – Wax On Wax Off

The Pocketwatch vs The Mean Machine – The Mean Machine

Woofpack vs Obamacare – Woofpack

TMNB vs The Minge – The Minge

n.W.o. vs L.A’s Finest L.A’s Finest (My pick for game of the Week

Mountain Goats vs Flagrant Fouls – Flagrant Fouls

Jean Guy vs Smokin’ Axolotls – Jean Guy

 

Last Week 6 for 12 (Counting the Super Bowl!!!!)

Season 24-9 (Not counting the Pats win)

 

Don’t forget to listen to the Super Flag Bros Division 6 podcast on Thursday nights at 6:45 at www.theunclemikeshow.com The show is hosted by Peeze Della Reeze and David Della Rocca. Feel free to tweet either one or both of them at @ PeezeFPF and @DavesRepublic respectively.

That’s it for this week; I will be back next with your Week 5 recap.

I’ve been checking my e-mail and twitter regularly for feedback and suggestions from you guys, so keep it coming. If you loved the article, hated it, or simply felt I left something out, don’t be shy. You can shoot me a tweet at @BADNEWS51, or do it the semi old fashioned way and e-mail me at [email protected]