The NFL, the End of a (Covid) era, The Majid Race and Week 4 Power Rankings

Hey hey Div 4, welcome to Week 3’s article. We’ve had a pretty nice March so far weather-wise, and there’s more to look forward to. We’ve got Covid rules crumbling down, as vaccine passports will be lifted and bars will once again allow dancing, just in time for St. Patrick’s next Thursday/weekend. There’s 2 years worth of bar shenanigans and general frustrations that will relieved in the coming weeks, so be safe, party hard, and play harder on the football field! Oh, and we get more light as of Saturday 2am, so remember to move the clocks forward when you wake up Sunday morning!

OH and WHAT a week in the NFL offseason. Are you kidding me?? Aaron Rodgers back in GB with a MASSIVE contract extension? Then Russ gonna be cooking in Denver with special ingredients? The return of Carson Wentz to the NFC East? Chargers beefed up either edge rush, getting Mack from the Bears, as the QB talent is off the charts in the AFC West? The Eagles almost sign a suspended-for-the-year Calvin Ridley? Man, WHAT a week!!

Now, onto all things FPF!

General FPF notes:

• As a scorekeeper myself, a general reminder to all teams to remember to submit your roster via the Website. Pro’s tip: You can send it while working from home or at work on your computer during the day. The scorekeepers have the iPads at all times and can enter your roster wayyyy before even arriving at the field, so you can start playing your game faster!
• Notice to all re: Playoff Eligibility: You need 5 games for playoff eligibility, so make sure you start getting those games in, in case you’ve already missed a few!
• This past week was picture week, so hope you looked good for the website, and for the articles, as I will be sure to use them in my articles!
• Message from the League: A quick reminder that teams are to stay in their endzones and not be on the sidelines which are reserved for refs and scorekeepers.

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4A banter:

• I think we all know the standings are not accurate, as, Hurley & Sons are surely aware, since they just beat Big Fun 13-12, and have a better divisional record, but are still below them in the standings. Yeah, we will get it corrected, don’t worry!
• Small Giants came away with the win over Bruins, as I predicted in last weeks article and are now 3-0. I think they have a shot at the perfect 10-0 season 👀.
• So I was misinformed; Ian Einheiber was back for Takeover last week and he put up where last left off; another 6 TD, 0 INT performance, going 27/35 for 230 yards! That was good enough to give his team the 36-33 win over a highly touted Blackouts team.
• TOPSZN rebounded in Week 3 with a big win over LBB, 30-18 led by Brandon Parent‘s big day, catching all 7 targets for 122 yards and 3 TDs.
• I’m getting the sense that 4A is SUPER competitive, and even more so in Conference A. It seems like any team can beat any team on any given night. I love the parity!
• KGP Ra vs. Centaures was a great battle on Monday in St. Laurent! I’ll be recapping it later in this article. Stay tuned.
• The Brotherhood have won 2 in a row and are one of the hottest teams in 4A. After a 44-0 shutout win, they’ve combined for 98 Points For and 12 Points Against in their last 2.
• Damn! The Bruins find themselves at the bottom of the division! I would not have thought that at the start of the season heading into Week 4.
• Adam Sinagra is your TD passing leader with 17 and leads 4A with 585 passing yards. His league-leading stats have led to Anthony Mungiovi absolutely running away with the Receiver of the Year (the award is actually Offensive Player of the Year), but nonetheless, 250 receiving yards and 9 TDs in 3 games is crazy!

4B thoughts:

• And turn it around in Week 3 is what Team Ethnik did, coming away with a 36-12 win to get their first win of the season. Let’s see if they can string together a few wins. They are in tough though, as they have the 3-0 Les Montagnards squad.
• I found it surprising that The U only put up 12 points in Week 3 against the Golden Eagles. Still, it was good enough to win yet again and remain undefeated at 3-0.
• The Bandits’ Zach Graveson rating does not make sense… 58.3 on O and 57 on D?? Most underrated (literally) player in the division.
• Les Verges Folles may have saved their season, as they avoided going 0-3 by beating the then 2-0 Mofos.
• This was the first time I saw Arouch play ever, after 3 or 4 seasons they’ve been in FPF, and I was impressed with Eric Lalonde. I mentioned in last week’s article that Moe Khan thinks they are in trouble without Simon Losier, but I don’t think that’s true. If Lalonde can clean up the redzone turnovers and Bastien Phaneuf-Thibault is a full timer on the team, I don’t see why Arouch has to worry.
• Ben McMahon and the Vulture boys took care of Ballers, 39-19. The Vultures are so hard to defend, as evidenced last week by Chris Colantonio, arguably their WR4/WR5, and his 5 reception of 5 targets performance going for 50 yards (averaging a 1st down) and 3 TDs! Anthony and James Drysdale combined for 4 INTs and 1 pick 6. Dang!
• Beer Belly Brigade made a statement in 4B, handling Honey Martin in Brossard last Saturday, 25-12. When QB Alex Fafard is in a groove, he is tough to stop.
• Like Honey Martin, Hot Sauce Sports had an off-night, getting whopped by FPF veterans Voodoo, who seem to have added Jean-Felix Daloze to the lineup. Can this push them in the contender category?
• Ryan Kharouf is having a tough season. He attempted a pass on Saturday that didn’t come out of his hands, and that extra hesitation caused the ball to come out funny and his receiver wasn’t ready for it. The pass ended up getting picked off in the endzone🤦.

Game Recap

KGP Ra 32 VS Centaures 29 

This was a game worthy of being on Monday Night Football, as it was a clash of titans playing in St. Laurent this past Monday.

Knowing how this game ended, Jordan Rossie would love to have his second pass of the game back, which was intercepted by Dylan Garber.

KGP Ra’s offense in this one was interesting. Ryan Garber played his style of game: the dink and dunk offense with sporadic runs here and there, along with the sideline hooks and occasional shots down field. The Centaures rarely missed the defensive tackles, particularly Chris Brockwell who was a tackling machine, leading to multiple 4th down situations. This is one of two things in which R. Garber excelled at in this game; the 4th down conversions. In fact, 2 of their 5 touchdowns came on 4th down, both of which were shots down field. First, Jonathan Garfinkle took a corner route to the house for 21 yards, and the second was brought home by Cooper Young on a sideline hook-and-go for 27 yards. This slow-punch attack and strike on 4th down offense surely frustrated the Centaures defense.

What was fun in this game was that it was truly a score-for-score game. The score line may not reflect that, but both offenses were not quick strike, but were nonetheless efficient. In the first half, it was the Tyler Stewart show. The dude must be the best 55/55 rated player in the division. He was shaking guys at the 4-6 yard line and making his way into the endzone on 2 occasions. His 17 yards don’t leave much an impression when viewing the box score, but damn, he was probably the Centaures best offensive weapon in the 1st half, which surprised me a bit that Rossie stopped feeding the beast in the 2nd half.

It was for the most part score-for-score, with the exception of the aforementioned pick on the 2nd play thrown by Jordan Rossie, as well as the opening drive of the 2nd half for KGP Ra. On the first attempt for 10 yards, KGP Ra was forced into a 4th down situation, which Chris Brockwell just tackled a running Ryan Garber over the first down line. On the 2nd attempt for 10 yards, once again the KGP Ra offense went for it on 4th, but this time Brockwell made the tackle on another running attempt by Garber, but this time the Centaures were able to force the turnover on downs (it really was a battle of key tackles by Centaures vs. evading tackles by KGP Ra. After Centaures took possession and went up for the first time by hitting Riley Pincombe for a 5-yard TD and converting for 2 points, surprise surprise, KGP Ra found themselves in a key moment in the game, in yet another 4th down situation. The pass was actually incomplete from Ryan to Dylan Garber, but a key penalty, an Unnecessary Roughness penalty by Rayan Chalal kept the drive alive with a fresh set of downs, plus Chalal was out for 10 plays. On the very next play, Josh Naimer punched it in from 1, giving his team the lead with under 4 minutes to play.

Rossie and the offense looked poised coming out of the huddle, knowing they needed to score if they were going to win this game, with the clock winding down. As I usually say, a scoring drive in FPF’s “2 minute drill” usually starts with a chunk play on 1st down, and that’s what they got with Pincombe picking up 15 yards, already putting them at midfield. Rossie then hit Stewart, Semerjian, Stewart again and Hugo Allamanno, the big man for a 5-yard TD, on a drive run by FPF veterans.

And then the whistle blew. 5 plays. This is the 2nd thing that Garber excelled at, as KGP Ra looked to their young QB to lead them downfield. Garber started with a few hooks to Naimer for a 13 total yards and a first down, and on the following play, in what seemed like a Diggs! Sideline! Touchdown! Unbelievable! play, Phil Cutler took it 20 yards down field for the score as the KGP Ra bench exploded.

This only left the Centaures 2 plays, down 3 points, to get a score. And who else to start it off, but Mr. Do-It-All, Chris Brockwell taking a 10-12 yard hook up field to the sideline, only to be ski-tackled by Cutler, and if you envisioned a ski-tackle, you immediately know that one of those bright orange flags was coming out for holding. So add another 5 yards to the 15-yard gain, and the Centaures were already passed midfield. With Chris Rivest there to film the last play of the game, it was in fact a bit underwhelming as Rossie overthrew Rory Semerjian, never really giving his receiver a chance to make a play. I found it a bit odd that he wouldn’t try the jumpball to his tallest receiver in Hugo, who also has absolutely great hands and body control. Of course, Rossie knows all of that and may have seen a coverage that he thought was unfavourable.

All to say, a damn good game, and I was happy to be there to see it.

Game Preview 

4B Arouch (2-1) VS Beer Belly Brigade (2-1)

Both teams are coming off wins in Week 3 to push both their records to 2-1. Arouch played a tight game against Eastside Boys, while Beer Belly Brigade beat up on Honey Martin. So after getting a good glimpse of both teams, this one is going to be another GREAT matchup that both teams should be excited for. Arouch is led by Eric Lalonde who is more of a pocket passer and throws a great ball, putting his receivers in spots to make plays. BBB’s offense under Alex Fafard is more of a hybrid attack, with Fafard maybe throwing 2 or 3 passes from the pocket. He mostly moves laterally and gets the defenses to shift, move in, and either take off for the run, dink it to Olivier Claveau or dunk it over the shorts to the intermediate routes to the other BBB receivers that are tall and athletic and can make you pay.

Defensively, Arouch is a tough bunch across the line, with multiple players forcing turnovers and have a sack-by-committee approach, with 3 guys with 2 sacks. For the Beer Bellies, a lot of the interceptions are coming off the good deep coverage from Jonathan Benoit and have Xavier Tran-Khanh as one the best rushers in the div.

Both teams have the ability hit you with a big play and score quickly, but their base offenses are more about running the clock with long offensive drives that are difficult to stop, which is frustrating because you know what’s coming, but both teams execute it so well that it works anyways.

Okay, so prediction time… man, this one is really tough, as the 2 teams are so evenly matched… that I’m going with the not-often predicted.. TIE, 25-25.

Prediction: Arouch 25- 25 Beer Belly Brigade

4A Power Rankings

1. Small Giants (3-0) – Last Week #3: “A win against the Bruins could push them into the Top 2 Power Rankings next week.” .. and true to my statement last week, here they are, atop the Div 4A standings after a convincing win over Bruins. Small Giants will be looking to go 10-0 on the season.
2. KGP Ra (2-0) – Last Week #2: As mentioned in the Game Recap, there were 2 things that impressed me with Ryan Garber watching in person. The 4th down conversions and the big plays for TDs on those 4th downs, and the pressure top win with 5 plays to go against a tough Centaures defense. He is, under Phil Cutler‘s wing, developing into a top tier QB in the middle divisions in FPF.
3. Takeover (2-1) – Last Week #7: Well, well, well… put Will Power at receiver and BOOM, 100+ yards and 4 TDs! With the return of Ian Einheiber, takeover should now sit in the Top 5 Power Rankings for the rest of the season unless they fall short of expectations. Big win over Blackouts to make a statement that they are here for a championship run.
4. Blackouts (2-1) – Last Week #1: They take the loss to Takeover, but it’s not enough to drop them out of the Top 5, but enough to drop them 3 spots from the #1 position.
5. The Brotherhood (2-1) – Last Week #10: Here’s your fastest rising team of the week. Oh and speaking of fast? If your in Brossard tonight, catch the annual Majid brother’s race to see which brother came out of Covid faster! Damn, Quaysie is coming a long way in a heartbeat from Quarterbacking last season’s Co-Ed Y&Y team, where he didn’t quite look the part. Now he’s picking apart defenses and is looking like a front-runner for 2-way player of the year with his 12 passing TDs and 4 defensive INTs, one of which was returned to the house for 6. But he’s not carrying the team on his own, 2 others, Nathan Nyandro and Connor Lafferty also have pick 6’s and 8 different receivers have at least 1 TD. I’m personally a fan of not knowing where the next pass will be going when all receivers are a threat, but the counter point is that no one has 100 yards after 2 or 3 games played. Let’s see how far it takes them.
6. Centaures (2-1) – Last Week #4: Nothing to worry about here. The team is strong on both sides of the ball after a small bump in the road. They do have to watch out for a desperate Bruins team in Week 4, but if they can go up 2 scores on Bruins, they might have the Bruins spiraling down on their own.
7. The Stoics (2-1) – Last Week #7: Dang! Close call by Rivest and The Stoics. It took a Micky Mensah last play interception to prevent Nomads from coming back in the game after Rivest threw an uncharacteristic interception with a chance to ice the game with possession of the ball.
8. Backyard Bullies (2-1) – Last Week #9: So another win for Backyard Bullies, I can see this team to start going on a run and moving up the standings. The wealth of FPF experience is shaking its rust and adapting to the new FPF quickly.
9. Big Fun (1-2) – Last Week: #5: So maybe I was a little too high last week after just 1 win, so I’m coming back down to reality. They are good enough to make the Top 10, but they might slide out depending how the season goes. Hurley & Sons have some good players themselves, but have otherwise been crushed by other teams and I still don’t see a clear #1 QB for them, which makes the 13-12 loss to them a little worrisome.
10. Bruins (1-1) – Last Week #8: Time to win a game, or else the Bruins will slide out of the Power Rankings. The schedule isn’t kind to them, so there’s no time to waste to get a W, or else the season might slip away from them.

4B Power Rankings

1. Vultures (3-0) – Last Week #3: Ben McMahon is balling out, and now doing it in 4B. Kevin Donnet and James Drysdale are incredible top-division talent. Look for their names in the top of the Player Stas section of the website. And then the complementary pieces are very nice on both sides of the ball in Anthony Drysdale, Tremayne Salmon, Phillip Roberts and Chris Colantonio.
2. Les Montagnards (3-0) – Last Week #4: Damn, 6 points allowed in each of their first 3 games. The defense is strong with this team, and the offense is rolling led by Mathieu Girard-Provost‘s 8 TDs.
3. The U (3-0) – Last Week #1: Yes, The U won, but they jusssst beat a team that, based on The U’s expectations, they should have blown out of the water. Instead, they came away with a 12-6 win. The positive way to spin this is that this team can win any type of game: High scoring, defensive battle, tight games, etc.
4. Beer Belly Brigade (1-1)- Last Week #6: Big statement win by BBB as they took it to Honey Martin who were never really in the game. The Brigade played their game to perfection and kept drives alive, keeping that clock running to never give HM a chance back in their Week 3 game. They move up 2 spots in the ranks.
5. Honey Martin (2-1) – Last Week #2: Lose a game to a good opponent? Definitely dropping in the standings, but not enough to move them out of the Power Rankings. Their next 2 weeks are tough matchups. How will they comeback to prove their FPF worth to Peeze Della Reeze?
6. Voodoo (2-1) – Last Week #8: So now Scott Rhodes emerges as yet another weapon for Frank Kaye? They took it to Hot Sauce Sports last Sunday night with no mercy. They have to keep that same mentality moving forward and keep teams like Finessers, their next opponent, down and out. Let’s see if Voodoo develops that kill shot mentality.
7. Arouch (2-1) – Last Week #7: Nice win over the Eastside Boys, but I’m left wanting a little more. I’m predicting a tie against the Beer Bellies, but if they can beat them, they will definitely move up the standings.
8. Mofos (2-1) – Last Week #5: Hmmm I need to collect more data on these guys… They beat 2 veteran FPF teams with Tiemoko Sanogo balling out, and then he throws 6 picks the next week against Les Verges Folles… Maybe LVF read my article and took away the deep threats. Mofos drop 3 spots.
9. Team Ethnik (1-2) – Last Week: NA: Heyyyyyy, welcome to the Power Rankings! Ethnik definitely needed the win to get in the playoff picture, and that they did, with a hammering win over Sphinx. Sometimes you need those games to feel better about yourselves and get the season back on track. Let’s see how they fare against the #2 ranked Montagnards.
10. Hot Sauce Sports (1-2) – Last Week #9: Oh boy, you guys are another loss away from stepping out of bounds from the Power Rankings. C’mon Peeze! Bring that championship caliber pedigree to the table. Emerge as the leader of this team and save the season. He needs help and more out of Justin Blanchard and free agent signing Alexi Dubois in the turnover department. C’mon, you guys know Peeze.. defense isn’t important… until he asks for you to get him the ball back! As Alexi often says… “TIME TO HAUL ASS!”

Week 4 Game Picks 

4A Games (My Picks are in Bold Green)

The BrotherHood vs. Les Blues Branleurs

KGP Ra vs. Big Fun

TOPSZN vs. Small Giants

Blackouts vs. Hurley & Sons

Backyard Bullies vs. Nomads

Takeover vs. Spera’s Cougars

Mongoose vs. The Stoics

Centaures vs. Bruins

4B Games (My Picks are in Bold)

Honey Martin vs. The U – NA

Arouch vs. Beer Belly Brigade – TIE

Ballers vs. Golden Eagles

Finessers vs. Voodoo

Vultures vs. Bandits

Les Verges Folles vs. Hot Sauce Sports

Los Locos vs. Eastside Boys

Sphinx vs. Mofos

Team Ethnik vs. Les Montagnards

Epilogue

Well, that does it for this week! Hope you enjoyed the article. Feel free to reach out to me on socials @iggymanz or Ignacio Valdes-Manzanedo on FB messenger. Let’s get pumped for Week 4 and get safe to your fields! Time to celebrate those victories the way it was inteded! LET’S GOOOO!