2nd-and-Short (Div 4) – SPECIAL EDITION

It’s already been two weeks since the last joint article from Simon Dagenais and I, and that means it’s time for another one. My answers are in regular font, Simon’s are in italics. Let’s get right to it.

 

1. Best team still without a win?

 

I’m going with Playground. Here’s a team that made it to the quarter-finals in Division D last spring led by one of the most dangerous offences of that season. Don’t tell me their lack of success this year is a result of replacing Gabriel Côté with Mathieu René at quarterback—René has spent most of his career tossing touchdowns left and right in divisions B/2 and 3. Don’t say it’s their lack of quality receivers, either—Laurent Foucault and Scott Payne are two of the best in the division. All to say, I simply do not understand why it’s not clicking for them this year. The fact they’ve played some stiff competition so far (Ball Busters, La Sauce and Six Fast Guys Plus Ryan are a combined 10-2) certainly hasn’t helped though. 

 

Without a doubt, I’ll go with Fruit Loops on this one. Not only is their roster amazing, they have talent all across the board. They are, possibly, the best team on paper, but they can’t seem to make things happen for themselves. Although they’ve lost plenty of close games, I believe the only problem with Fruit Loops at the moment is the constant pressure from Lady Luck. With no disregard for Jaggerbombs (who woulda’ve been my pick if Fruit Loops woulda’ve had a single win), I still have high regards and hopes for Fruit Loops at this point of the season.

 

2. Your midseason pick to win the championship?

 

Sea Assassins are atop my power rankings for a reason. Yes, they’re a young team, with this season being only their second in FPF. But they’re also a team that made it to the divisional round in the playoffs last year and essentially were eliminated on conversions. No, they may not have played the best Division 4 has to offer yet, but it’s a quarterback-driven league, and right now they’ve got the best in Daniel Lazzara. The sky is the limit for this team.  

 

I like La Sauce, I’ve been saying it for a while. They’ve won before and may win again. Sadly, I’m foreseeing them fail late in the post-season. At the beginning of Week 5, it pains me to say this officially, but I’m going for Six Fast Guys Plus Ryan. I believe La Sauce will lose late and Sea Assassins, although being favorites, will have a bad game and lose as well. Regardless of when.

 

3. Who’s your darkhorse to win the championship?

 

They may only have two wins through five games so far, but I can see Smokin’ Aces making some noise come playoff time. QB Anthony Bozzo is slowly coming along in his first year as a Division 4 quarterback, and it helps that he has top talent at receiver in Daniele Gentile and Matthew Petrone. It hasn’t all come together yet for this team, but I think they have great potential to turn things around just in time to knock off some top seeds en route to a deep playoff run. 

 

I love darkhorses. I love underdogs and I’ve been scouting them recently. I still like Les Maloudes and BearSkins for underdogs, but if I had to pick one real underdog to shake up the FPF world from here to the end of the postseason, I’d stick with my earlier pick and say KGP Lite. Regardless of their current success, I believe KGP Lite is built to make the playoffs as an underdog and surprise opponents. With Phil Cutler leading this offense, and defense, I like their odds.

 

4. What’s one stat you’d like to see start being tracked in the league?

 

Conversion rates. Third down, fourth down, extra point—I think any or all would be really add to the strategic aspect of the game. If know beforehand that a particular team needs to convert a lot of third downs in order to move the chains week in and week out, I’ll head into that game with a much different defensive strategy than if I face a team that converts just five third downs all game yet blowout out its opponents by 30 points. Same goes for fourth down and extra points.

 

I’d love to see the scorekeeper keeping tracks of penalties. Whether as a whole or individually. Nothing speaks like penalties. Gives you a good idea of how the team behaves on and off the field and what to expect. For instance, a team that averages 50 yards of penalty against per game will be physical, not necessarily a class act, etc. This will take away a lot from the “they have a great defense” idea. They only allowed 130 yards, which isn’t that much, so we’d expect a strong defense and then we realize they took 50+ yards in penalties, it changes the game around. I’d love to see a side-stat, at the end of everyone game, stating “Team A took 3 penalties for a total of -15 yards, Team B took 1 penalty for a total of -15 yards”.

 

5. A common NFL saying is “offense wins games, defense wins championships.” Do you think the same is true in FPF?

 

I’m not so sure. On the one hand, the fact Checkmate lost to Mongoose in the Division D finals last year despite having the Quarterback of the Season and Receiver of the Season on their team is reason to believe the saying hold true for FPF. However, I don’t find that there’s as wide a gap between, say, The Family’s defence and Outlaws’ defence as there is between the Seahawks’ defence and the Jaguars’ D. There’s a lot more room for scheming and confusing the opposing QB on defence in the NFL than there is in indoor 6-on-6 flag football. I’d say more often than not defences run 3-2 zone coverage on defence in FPF, whereas on offence there’s a multitude of concepts you can run on any given play. It’s great to get picks and force turnovers on downs once in a while, but in the end, if your offence can’t put points on the board in FPF, you’re going to have a tough time winning a game, let alone a championship.  

 

Definitely. I’ve seen great offense stumble in championship games because their defense simply couldn’t make it happen. All season long, offense will give you wins, but when it comes down to the wire, most of the time, defense will win for you. Regardless of how potent your offense is, bad clock management could get you, as a QB, sitting the last 4-5 plays out even if you are up by 6. Defense needs to step it up if you want to walk away with the Win.

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The media heads have asked, the media heads have answered. You can expect our next joint article two weeks from now. So far, Simon and I have been the ones coming up with the questions, but if you have any of your own that you’d like to see us go over, don’t hesitate to ask. You can reach me by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JBlanch6, or Simon at [email protected] or @DagenaisFPF. Good luck to all this weekend!