Anxiety, Forfeits and I’ve Told You Thrice

Peeze’s Playbook: Week 2

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This is the part of Peeze’s playbook where Peeze normally has this long, meandering introduction. This week however, I’ve been asked to take over for this segment. My name is Thompson. Peeze was unable to write this part of the article and so I’ve stepped in. Rather than front-loading it, I’m going to sprinkle in content around all of the segments of the article.

I think I should start with how Peeze and I first met. It was college and while working in a job where Peeze needed to make sales in the US, he decided to hand those clients to me. My name was easier to pronounce and it helped me make in-roads with these clients. We developed somewhat of a symbiotic relationship for a while but then, with no warning, Peeze (or Paolo as he was then known) called on me less and less frequently.

So why have me chime in here. Well, in the first stage of the lockdown Peeze called me up. He had lost a friend who had passed away at a young age and decided he wanted to get in touch with people who he hadn’t spoken to for a while. Between the unknown future unfolding on the other side of a global pandemic and suffering personal loss he reached out.

He told me that he had two weeks off from work as the city and province were ostensibly shut down. I was in the same boat. We all were. In fact, we were told from the beginning that we were all in this together. At first it seemed like a great deal of fun. I got to hear from my old friend and we drank too much over zoom, we played party games on our phones and spent too much time binging Tiger King and whatever other flavour of the week became available.

Things were good. It was going to be a couple of weeks and maybe we could all get together after the curve was flattened in about two weeks. I’ll tell you what, I don’t want to do the Peeze thing and ramble too much in the introduction. Let’s get to some of the content and then I’ll tell you more about the dude who’s covering your division.

***

Public Service Messaging to Appease Corporate Overlords

There are two items I wanted to bring up for this week. Firstly, this week is picture week as I believe all byes are done and all teams should be at the field. So make sure your uni’s are pressed, your hair is done and your smiles are whitened. Teams will be asked to take their team pictures and players who do not have individual pictures will be able to strike a pose.

Secondly, I need to address forfeits. I have no pity for teams that forfeit. In very few circumstances will you not be able to field a team at all. There are always options. Get friends, your parents, grandparents, whoever you find on the street to fill in. Anything is better than a forfeit. We’ve had two forfeits in two weeks of games! You, your team and your opponents pay good money to play in FPF so make the most of it.

Here is a reminder to teams who have or who plan to forfeit. The forfeiting team who has informed the league that they are forfeiting will lose their game by a score of 60-0. This can paralyze certain teams because one of the tie-breakers is points against. Additionally, teams who forfeit while letting the league know in advance are subject to a 100$ fine that they need to send the opposing captains.

There are also teams who either aren’t aware of this rule or lack the decency to notify the league. If this is the case, the penalized team will be fined 150$ to be sent to the opposing captain. This is also a reminder that the teams who forfeit may not play their next game until the opposing captain confirms receipt of the fine.

If you want to take a moment to review this as well as any other roster regulations smash the link below:

https://www.flagplusfootball.com/assets/pdf/rules/fpf-roster-rules-regulations.pdf?1625769794

***

I’m BACK! It’s Thompson here. When we left off I was telling you all about the ways Peeze and I were getting along. As I said, things were great. It felt just like our days in college. The days seemed listless. Mornings would interrupt my foggy sleep as it did for Peeze I’m sure. He was never really a morning person. He has never been productive in the morning. He writes these articles late at night because before his third espresso he’s got about as much brain activity as a lobotomy patient.

Either way, mornings were slow, afternoons were filled with the stuff we need to do to fill our days as adults, paying bills, cleaning, doing laundry and so on but night time is where we’ve always hung out the most. In person or online it was all the same. Sure, Peeze is married and spends a lot of time with his wife but given the fact that the dude DOES NOT SLEEP, I knew we’d be able to have a few late night drinks or a smoke or two and let the good times roll. Knowing this, I adopted his habits.

We were waking up late and partying from afar into the night. Too many substances, not enough time, not enough sleep and man the morning kept hitting like a ton of bricks. I honestly don’t know how the dude can function on 3-4 hours of sleep a night but he does. I mean, I guess there are times he relies on help from others. I remember the first time during quarantine he asked me to come along to do groceries with him. The dude loves to cook and the grocery run is part of the process where he imagines what recipe he’s putting together or what technique he’s going to try.

The first time he asked for my company, we met in the parking lot. I pulled up next to his car. He had already been there for a while. So I rolled down the window and he did the same. I was excited to see my friend but he sat and seemed unsure of going into the store. When I asked what was up he simply answered “I don’t know if I can do it man. The masks, the line, the crowds”.

The dude had to pull himself together. I told him he was being ridiculous. What would other people think of him? The dude who’s on his own podcast, the dude who’s been one of the faces of FPF for almost a decade, the dude who’s a TRAINED COUNSELOR can’t get out of his car to pick up some eggs. I was completely embarrassed by this. Peeze just sat there in his car, crying, his hands gripping the steering wheel and his knuckles turning white. He just kept muttering “I don’t know if I can do it man”. This guy, 38 years old, can’t even figure out something as simple as a grocery run. I can’t imagine what he would even have told his wife.

Most of the time he was alright. I had to give him some tough love now and again but most the time he seemed absolutely fine. Here I go rambling again. The next excerpt shouldn’t take that much time. It should be quick.

Musings, Ramblings, Lies and Other Assortments

Using a giant piece of wood as a mouse pad makes me is about the manliest way to write an article. Move over Nick Offerman
I had the chance to talk to Frank Kaye and the dudes from Voodoo this week. They’re such good guys! Kaye is in the best shape I’ve ever seen him in. Developing div E QBs can do a lot worse than learn from him!
I got called out by Mathieu Houle of the Ravens. “Flag Jesus” thought that I was choosing The Bad Batch to be the top team in FPF. Instead, I considered them to be loveable underdogs with whom we share an affinity for war documentaries. If you don’t think the Star Wars ever occurred, perhaps reread the opening lines of the scroll that indicate that the story happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Quatrium FFC, I still think your name has to get over itself. Also, if you want to be pretentious at least do it by showing up at the field. A forfeit as your first result in FPF has our relationship off to a rocky start.
I’m sticking to my guns. Forgetting that Tuesday was July 6th is not the same thing as forgetting my anniversary.
Heard rumors that Juwan Edghill may be joining the Oreos. If he joins his younger brother, I don’t know how anyone beats them. Just imagine, this team was supposed to be in FPF Jr. This season.

If Kucherov was a Hab and said the same thing about Tampa Bay you’d all love him.
Nobody uses the word “thrice” anymore. I think I’ll bring it back!

***

So Peeze figures out that he needs a creative outlet. He’s had one for years. He’s been putting keystrokes to pages for FPF and his work with Hot Sauce Sports was also allowing for expression. However, he kept telling me that it didn’t feel like it was enough.

One day I surprised my friend. Peeze was in his yard and I saw him toying with his old satin-finished, sunburst Fender Telecaster. I laughed. I knew the guy had been a working musician for years while we hung out in college but come-on. These days he hadn’t been practicing and the chord changes sounded more like a mechanical clunking on the worn out strings. He kicked his wah and the peaks were in all the wrong places. Once in a while he’d stomp on his old Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man. That delay pedal used to be his psychedelic exploration of sonic soundscapes. These days, the repeats betrayed him. His playing was so choppy and off-time that each repeat showed his age more than the encroachment of white hairs that lined the sides of his head.

“I’m not as good as I used to be huh…” Peeze remarked.

I just shook my head and smiled wryly. I told him he was wasting his time. What did he think he would do, find success as a songwriter in his late 30’s after having kept that hunk of wood in it’s case for a decade? He kept plucking at the strings and told me that his wife didn’t even know him as a musician. As time passed he felt every day as if it was another man who lived that life. I reminded him that it was. I told him he’d be better off selling that telecaster to someone who can use it. What a waste.

***

Memories, Hallucinations and Observations

That’s Trailer Park Life

Time was running out. With bodies dropping left, right and centre around him, team captain Frederic Meunier felt as though he was running out of options. It was GO TIME! Finally, as time faded and game time approached the most anti-climactic conclusion to this saga took place. Meunier opened his banking app and forwarded 100$ to his opposition after informing FPF that he would not be able to field a team.

If you forfeit, I will bust your b@lls. Consider yourselves warned.

Not Deep Enough

Last week I said that Vince Romano had a great QB name but rarely lived up to the unfair expectation that I created by this. It’s no fault of his own, this was my reaction to reading it and his parents found each other attractive and before you know it, the dude was born and given a gritty af name. This week, after a disappointing loss in the season opener, Vince Romano would take on Balls Deep.

Both teams lost their first game of the season but Vince Romano looked to right the ship as early as he could. The Pincello’s QB connected with understated emerging threat Mike Apa for a 40 yard strike to put 6 on the board after a failed convert. Mike Apa would then get attention from the offense and defense alike as he would be targeted 6 more times but only muster an additional 13 yards on three more catches. It would be Jocelyn Calixte who would do the bulk of the damage for the team named after the famed colouring pencil brand. Calixte had to take over qb duties after week one but in an exchange as seemingly amicable as Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tua Tagovailoa he would relinquish the reins back to Romano who’s 124.1 QB rating would prove enough to get beyond Balls Deep by a score of 37-31.

Sometimes going Balls Deep isn’t enough. Sometimes, it’s just not in the cards. In this case a fair performance by Michael Hiotis who scored 5 touchdowns (4 in the air and 1 on the ground) would not be enough. Similarly, Antonio Venturino’s interception would also prove to not be enough to vanquish their foes. The same can also be said for Emmanuel Oliveira’s 2 touchdowns. What to do next, well there’s always this week as they face Green Means Go! It’s important to note that the emphasis is not mine but rather is quite the statement as a team name. Balls Deep need to go back to the drawing board to avoid the dreaded 0-3 start. May I suggest foreplay?

Great Scott!

It would only be a matter of time before Blast From the Past shook off the rust. That’s also a super strange aphorism. Rust proofing would be a dead business if you could just remove the fall coloured reminisce of degradation. Either way, their second game paired them up against an equally unfamiliar team. After their first drive led Les Chevaliers du Rohan to the redzone, quarterback Kevin Hebert-Pedulla showed his FPF immaturity. Many of the plays simply did not work in the redzone and the unknown gunslinger found it difficult to find room. This of course was not helped by a bad snap and a penalty that drew the shadow of the goaline far beyond the range of it’s typical silhouette.

This would give Blast from the Past the ball early and they would be receiving the ball in the second half as well. This is an underrated advantage in FPF. If you can control the game early, only to get the ball back after half-time this can be the recipe to a rout. Grenier took full advantage and after making quick work of Rohan’s defense, he then hit Maurice Dykmans with a 3 yard strike for a touchdown. From this point on Les Chevaliers de Rohan would never come back into the game. They entered halftime down 13-0 and would not score for the entire game.

For Kevin Hebert-Pedulla the interceptions don’t bother me a ton. One ball was intercepted by Frank Grenier at the end of the half. The second pick was when already down by three scores when Hai Minh Luong stepped in front of another offensive attempt. Les Chevaliers de Rohan are a new team. They are so unfamiliar with FPF that they thought they would have to physically punt the ball rather than just giving up possession. This reminds me of my first game where as a snapper I thought I had to block the rusher. Both the rusher, and the officials were not pleased with my attempt. Les Chevaliers de Rohan were often pinned deep as their average starting field position was their own 9 yard line. The team has some talent, Frank Cardinal, Jimmy Lariviere and Jean-Mathieu Padilla Trudeau were all heavily targeted throughout the game. However, the 25% conversion percentage on 3rd down and 20% on 4th indicates that they simply aren’t calling plays to put them in the position to succeed. They lost this game to Blast from the Past by a final score of 26-0.

Visions of the World of Tomorrow

Picking games in Division E is Devil’s Folly. While we have more information about new teams than ever before as well as stats from each game that allow a clearer picture of what happened in said games, there are still so many unknowns. For some teams we still aren’t sure about their rosters, how they will develop or even if their quarterback will be given another opportunity. However, I stroked the crystal ball and here’s what it gave me. My picks, as always, are in bold. After all, fortune favors the bold:


			Quantum FFC		Save the Turftles
			Ravens		The Bad Batch
			Oscar’s Hockey School		V-Town
			Brewers		Les Chevaliers Du Rohan
			Suicide Squad		Menace II Sobriety
			Green Means GO!		Balls Deep
			Blast From the Past		Trailer Park Boys
			Dilly! Dilly!		Les Mythiques
			Pincellos		Rainmakers
			Melons		Oreos

***

There’s also angry Peeze. Many of you haven’t seen this. He’s not a violent dude by any stretch but boy does he have a temper. There are days where when trying to write something he slams down the top half of his lap-top in frustration. There are times where that very telecaster was carelessly flung into its case when it didn’t behave the way he wanted it to. What a disgrace.

This is the side of him, even back in college that I always hated. There was never a reason to get so mad but he would go from happy, to angry, to despondent to not being able to breathe at times. He described it as seeing something right in front of him but it would appear as though it was at the end of a long hallway. “Voices rattle and echo” he said. Imagine that. This f@&king coward. How can he be trusted to counsel others when he can’t even hold it together.

As the days of the pandemic drew on Angry Peeze was more and more part of our everyday life. The calm, laid back creative dude I knew from back at the sales office was around less and less. Paolo was around less and less. Peeze, a function of his own creation, was more and more a part of his life. Meant at first to keep people at arms length was becoming just who he was all the time. The line between who he was and who he presented was blurred. The lie of Peeze grew each day as each day he struggled more and more.

He watched as a man was murdered by a police officer in broad daylight and I saw despair across his face. He grew angry as a medical mask, a sign that was long since considered a symbol for health and courtesy, became hijacked and became a political symbol of decisiveness. He tried to understand the world’s problems while weeping on a weekly basis because being in public meant seeing people and more importantly, people seeing him.

I couldn’t handle him any more. My once good friend became something I did not recognize. Until, it started to get better. Peeze had started talking to other people about his situation. He sought help. His family, friends and wife were there to support him and to be honest it kinda hurt. He didn’t turn to me during this time.

He turned to EVERYONE else in his life and that piece of sh!t couldn’t face his oldest friend. Who does that? In any case, Peeze is lying to you all he’s not the dude he says he is. He had the audacity to tell me that while it was fun to reconnect, we shouldn’t be friends anymore. He told me that I bring out the worst in him. He gave me the opportunity to write this to show you the kind of person he really is! I bring out the worst in you Peeze! I am you Peeze! You’re NOTHING WITHOUT ME!

Declarations of Bravado

As this article is coming out a little late, I’ve updated the records but the analysis is based on the initial reactions to week 2 games.

Oreos (2-0): Dylan Blumber’s perfect catch:TD ratio is unsustainable but his 3 touchdowns in 3 catches show that he’s a threat from anywhere on the field.
Ravens (2-0): How can a team that looked this good, win their first game and drop in the power rankings? Well, put simply, Joel Houle did exactly what I expected. It’s a curse to be underwhelming with 5 passing touchdowns.
Oscar’s Hockey School (2-0): Four plays into their second game Oscar’s Hockey School grabbed the lead and never looked back. An impressive win over Suicide Squad and a team I expect to be competitive throughout the season.
Dilly!Dilly! (1-0): They didn’t play. Stan Marino and his buds sat around drinking light beer and kept their value in the power rankings. At least they aren’t named after hard seltzer.
V-Town (1-0): They also didn’t play. However, Their week 3 matchup has them facing Oscar’s Hockey School and that will go a long way toward deciding which of these teams are for real and which I saw in a phantasmagoric state after a long night in the desert.
Rainmakers (2-0): I’m definitely not high enough on them. The defense looks impressive and beating les Mythiques is a big deal. Also a big deal, Matt Parent’s 3 interceptions in 2 games. However, I don’t love that they’ve only scored thrice in both of their games. I also don’t love that Derek Kastner is 0-6 on converts.
Les Mythiques (1-1): They took a loss against a tough Rainmakers defense. It’s not time to panic for Mythiques as they do have a lot of talent. That talent needs to translate into points however. One important distinction to make is that they were also without quarterback Etienne Cantin.
Blast From the Past (1-1): I thought they’d turn it around quickly. Les Chevaliers du Rohan are not familiar with FPF. As such, Frank Grenier did what good quarterbacks do when they have favorable matchups.
Pincellos (1-1): I have to admit, my hopes for this Sons of Mitches offshoot were low. However, my interest is piqued.
The Melons (1-0): It was a forfeit win but Manny Bizogias and Co. showed up for the game. It’s literally the least you can do and it’s more than we can say about most teams.

Denouement

This is probably the strangest article I’ve ever written. Through the words of yet a character of my creation I was able to talk to you all about some of what I’ve gone through throughout my life and it got especially difficult during the pandemic. About 3 years ago, I learned that I suffer from social anxiety disorder. This was shocking given that everything I have chosen to do in life I do for an audience or surrounded by people.

While this story was largely about me and my alter egos, Peeze, Thompson etc. the reason I wrote it was to indicate that we never truly know what other people are going through. I wanted my readers and anyone who comes across this to know that if they are struggling to reach out and ask for help. FPF is above all a community and while I’m certain many of you were annoyed by my indulgence I thank anyone who took the time to read it.

For those who have any thoughts, commentary or complaints, I am very easy to find. I’m @peezehss on twitter, @pdellarocca and Peeze Della Reeze on facebook. You can also take a chance by emailing me at [email protected] but I don’t check it because it’s a death trap of junk emails all trying to sell me hair and penis growth solutions. I really need to use incognito mode.

Remember that each week you can join the party on Facebook live or at www.youtube.com/flagplus on our weekly podcast: Calling the Audible. We are still trying to figure out when the shows will be available and how to get it live on air.

Till next week, I want to thank you falettineme be mice elf agin! (all of mice elves)