2nd-and-Short (Div4) – Week 4

With the Super Bowl bye week comes the sad realization that, for many of us playing in FPF, six weeks from now there won’t be any more football for quite a while.

There won’t be any NFL or college football until August. No CFL until July, and no FPF until May.   

These next six weeks may be the only football fix you get for months. Make the most of them—I know I will.

 

Recap

 

Knights Overthrow the King

After two subpar weeks, quarterback Antonio Lanni and his Knights showed up in prime form in their game versus Kingdom earlier this week. The knights cruised to a 28-7 halftime lead behind some big catches by veteran receiver James Crowe and some great rushing by Jonathan Mills, who forced a number of errant throws by opposing quarterback Brad Puklicz. 

But Kingdom weren’t going down so easily, replacing Puklicz with Emilio Cecere at quarterback in hopes of rejuvenating their offence. It worked—with the defence doing its part, holding Knights to just one second-half score, Cecere led the team to three touchdowns on just 7-of-10 passing in the second half.

The gap was simply too much to overcome in the end, however, as Knights took this one by a final score of 34-25. 

 

Mutants Take Over the Newsroom

Needing a win to stay ahead of the game in the West subdivision, the X-Men delivered in a big way against Jake Applebaum and his speedy receiving corps on Tuesday.

Trailing 13-6 at the half, the X-Men clawed their way back in the second half behind the efficient playcalling of quarterback Gautama Swaminadhan, who dinked and dunked his way up the field to give his side a 19-13 lead late in the game.

C4NT had a chance to re-take the lead facing a goal-to-go situation moments later, but on fourth down X-Men’s Kevin Boustany was able to track down Applebaum for the sack to seal the win.

 

Monstars Need Allstate

(Project) Mayhem struck Monstars on Tuesday night. A first-drive interception by Monstars quarterback Rod Mashtoub led to a quick scoring drive and a 6-0 lead for Project Mayhem to start the game. Monstars were able to settle down to trail by only 12-6 at the half before taking the lead 13-12 on a 40-yard touchdown pass from Mashtoub to receiver Aram Boyadjian on their first drive of the second half.

But facing the possibility of starting the season 1-3, Mayhem didn’t lay down. The team answered back with a touchdown drive of its own to re-take the lead before defensive back Danny D’Amour picked off Mashtoub on the ensuing drive en route to a much-needed 24-13 win.

 

Scoping Saturday

 

The Replacements vs. Lynx

Having given up just six points combined in their first two games of the season, Matt Bishara and company gave up a whopping 32 last week to Primetime.

Lynx, meanwhile, are tied for second in the entire division with 128 points scored—and mind you both the team they’re tied with (Eskimo Brothers) and the team they’re behind (KGP Lite) have both already played four games.   

QB Mathew Bourbonnière-Morin has looked virtually unstoppable so far throwing to his brother Samuel. Even if The Replacements’ 32 points allowed last week was a fluke, I don’t see them holding Lynx under 30 points.

That makes it imperative that Bishara gets his team on the board first and keeps control of the game. One early turnover may make the difference between a close win and an ugly loss. I think the former is in the cards for The Replacements.

 

Ball Busters vs. Sea Assassins

Fresh off a one-point loss to Six Fast Guys Plus Ryan, the 2-1 Ball Busters will have their hands full when they face the red-hot Sea Assassins this weekend. The Assassins boast one of the division’s best offences, with already three wideouts with double-digit receptions and two over the 100-yards receiving mark. 

If the Busters hope to win this one it’s going to take a near-perfect game from QB Dylan Taylor. One advantage they have is the fact the Assassins have recorded only three sacks in their three games so far and haven’t yet faced someone with Taylor’s running ability.

That being said, no one has yet been able to slow the Assassins’ high-powered offence. I think that trend continues this week.

 

Fantasy Football

The media heads came together last Friday, eating pizza, drinking beer and engaging in the kind of trash talking that would give your grandmother a heart attack.

By night’s end, eight fantasy teams were chosen via a snake draft (so Peeze chose first in round 1 and last in round 2, etc.). They are as follows:

 

Round	Peeze	Justin	Simon	Mat	Eagle	Roger	GM	Brent
1	QB Daniel Lazzara	QB Kristian Cerantola	QB Mathew Bourbonnière-Morin	QB François Raymond	QB James Floreani	QB Joey Taylor	QB Anthony Vendrame	QB Frédéric Paquette-Perrault
2	QB Ryan Lelinowski	WR Mathieu Brunet	WR Patrick St-Amand	Flex Hermes Zepeda	Flex Shawn Steen	QB Simon Vallée	QB Maxime Forget	WR Scott Payne
3	Flex Aleksander Papich	Flex Alex Blanchet	Flex Eddy Martinez	Flex Kyle Lebofsky	WR Josh Feder	WR Mikey Candussi	Flex Dean Demetriou	WR Zack Goldstein
4	Defence La Sauce	QB Brennan Burke	Flex Philippe Lachapelle	QB Sammy Feder	Flex Anthony Brisebois	WR Jacob Barnett	Flex Nick Pilon	WR Eric Maiordi
5	WR Danny Aylward	WR Jean-Sebastien Ouellette	QB Rod Mashtoub	WR Dominic Perron	Defence Broccasion	Flex AJ Rashkovan	WR Vince Mancini	Flex James Nowakowski
6	Flex Ryan Best	Defence The Replacements	WR Frank Boulard	WR Brian Martin	QB Simon Duschesne	Defence Angry Beavers	WR Jonathan Garfinkle	Flex Louis-Philippe Paquette
7	WR Marc-Antoine Viens	Flex Yan Vandelac	Defence Eskimo Brothers	Defence Sea Assassins	WR Zack Jauniaux	Flex David Horwood	Defence Lynx	Defence Turf Toe Inc.
8	WR Duraney White	WR Andrew Langburt	WR Hugo Quintin	WR Foirian Buuer	WR Chris Rivest	WR Philippe Marier	WR Kevin Boustany	WR Danny D’Amour
9	WR Samuel Bourbonnière-Morin	WR Sami Beg	WR Danny McFee	WR Mathieu Boulard	WR Jean-Nicholas Verret	WR Mark Donohue	WR Justin Cerantola	QB Gianfranco Ranaudo

 

This year the powers that be decided to mix things up, and instead of a simple weekly points calculation, the eight of us will be going head-to-head each week.

Here are this week’s matchups:

Peeze vs. Brent

Simon vs. Mat

Eagle vs. Roger

Justin vs. GM

 

Here’s how the points are calculated:

1 point per 10 yards passing
3 points per TD
1 point per 5 yards rushing
5 points per rushing TD
-2 points per INT
-1 points per Sack

WRs:
1 point per 5 yards receiving
5 points per TD

Defense:
1 point per 3 tackles
1 point per 2 PDs
2 point per sack
3 point per INT
5 points per pick-six

10 points for allowing less than 10 points
8 points for allowing between 10-20 points
6 points for allowing between 21-30 points
4 points for allowing between 31-40 points
2 points for allowing between 41-50 points
1 point for allowing 51 + points

 

Cue the voice-over: “Fantasy football just got a whole lot realer.”

 

Random Thoughts:

• Shoutout to Vladir Boursiquot of Team Ethnik. Boursiquot leads the division in sacks with 11 through just four games. That’s quite the accomplishment considering he had 11 in nine games last year, and 14 in nine the year before—and that was in Division 5. Looks like my goal of getting this season’s sack title (not to be confused with the Sacko, awarded for finishing dead last in fantasy football and which Simon Dagenais has held so proudly for two seasons) just got a whole lot harder.

• Gianfranco Ranaudo went from first-round pick in last spring’s Division D fantasy draft to Mr. Irrelevant in last Friday’s draft. If that’s not motivation to tear it up the rest of the season, I don’t know what is.  

• Ten players have thrown a single pass in the division this season. Seven of those have been for touchdowns. I guess the success is all in the element of surprise?

• It looks like I’ll be making my appearance on the Game of the Week against Gotham Knights next Saturday if the voting holds up. Don’t let Gotham’s 1-2 record fool you—this is gonna be a great game.

• I can’t help but feel bad for Peyton. It’s gotta suck knowing that for all the records you set, your younger brother will always have won one more Super Bowl than you. 

***

That wraps this week’s edition of 2^nd-and-Short. Be sure to check the website early next week as I get back to my usual Tuesday-Thursday publishing schedule, and don’t forget you can reach me by email at [email protected] or on my new Twitter handle, @JBlanchFPF. Be sure to check out the latest Division 4 podcast with Peeze and Brent Callender at http://www.theunclehood.com/flag-plus-football/ if you haven’t already. Until then, don’t forget you can make fun of Simon for losing his game this week at [email protected].