Peeze’s Playbook (Div 5) – Week 1 – FlagPlus Football League

I stepped outside one morning last week and it felt different. The way the cold air nibbled on my skin, the way the light emitted from gray skies reflected off the white snow; a familiar feeling of excitement, exhilaration, and wonder that can only mean one thing. We were on the precipice of the FPF season. In only four short months the cold outdoor domes will feel warmer, the drives to games will be brighter and one team will be able to call themselves Division 5 champions.

Folks, let me be your guide. I will strive to sift through the action, the rivalries, and the stories that will make up this Winter 2013 season. This year features the most challenging field ever with a record setting 50 teams striving to compete for this city’s most prestigious championship (in the realm of Flag Football in any case).

And Now For Something Completely Different

So I thought I would interrupt my own article for a moment (or however long it takes you to read this section) to introduce myself. While my name is Paolo Della Rocca, as it appears at the top of this article and on the FPF website and most likely on one of my birth certificates. I am also known on the FPF Facebook wall and largely in the FPF community as Peeze Della Reeze. I have two names so that if you, the readers, send me hate mail I can direct it interchangeably to my other persona.

I made my way onto the scene late last season with many guest appearances on the inaugural season of FPF’s podcast, Calling the Audible and co-wrote a couple of articles for Division D. For reasons only known to FPF President Robert Campana, he trusted me enough to give me my own podcast this season (as long as the Eagle at Master Control has me under his watchful eye at all times). Furthermore, FPF realized that I drink just enough to be a writer and as such this article was born.

I hang out at a lot of the facilities and will try to introduce myself to each team individually but please feel free to say hey if you do see me at one of the complexes. Now back to flag football:

Weekly Overview

Welcome to Cougartown

Erminio Iadeluca lit it up against his former team, The Crooklyn Dodgers, throwing for 280 yards and 8 touchdowns leading the Cougars to a 52-13 victory. Matthew Priess was the chief beneficiary of Iadeluca’s video game like success (seriously he was All-Madden and everyone else seemed to be stuck on pro) with 7 catches for 81 yards and 2 touchdowns. This game was out of reach from the start and as the Cougars seemed to gain confidence with every score the Dodgers seemed more and more out of sync as the game went on. Auditioning a trio of quarterbacks, The Crooklyn Dodgers could not seem to find any answers. On a positive note, new acquisition Adam Santorelli did look good with 4 tackles and an interception. His numbers would have been even more impressive had a late touchdown grab not been called back.

Jaggerbomb Avoid Infection

In one of the more impressive debut’s in recent memory, Simon Duschesne, led a group of men with no FPF experience and dominated in the first game of their franchise’s history. Even more impressive was their defense, coming up with 4 interceptions, 2 sacks and 2 key redzone stops. Martin Gelinas had a standout performance pulling down three of those aforementioned interceptions. After the game C Diffilicile captain Emile Carey told me: “They do some special things on defense” (expletives deleted for our more sensitive readers). Jaggerbomb are an exciting, young team with a bright future ahead of them. C Difficile will need to regroup quickly as they take on a hot First Downers team next week.

Speed Demons Hurry Past Warriors

Seeing Bryan Nguyen play any other position than rusher is akin to seeing Andrea Bocelli quit singing. That being said the dude probably makes a mean Sunday gravy. Likewise, Nguyen showed he had other defensive skills with a PD and a pick-six. Teammate Eric Pawlusiak added another pick-six as the Speed Demons defense continued to frustrate Warriors quarterback Cedric Sambour. Sambour did improve as the game went on and managed to throw 3 touchdowns but it was too little too late and when the dust and rubber pellets cleared the Speed Demons walked away 1-0.

J’s Golden in Win

One of this past off-season’s key acquisitions was the J’s picking up Adrien Dusautois. The man we affectionately nicknamed ‘Le Boeuf Français’ on an episode of Calling the Audible, tore it up this week to the tune of 5 catches for 75 yards and 3 touchdowns. Hai Minh Luong was more than happy use the new weapon in his arsenal and hit Dusautois early and often. Conversely, Golden Girls are a team composed of FPF rookies and faired well for much of the game against their far more experienced counterparts.

Turf Toe Inc. Hold an Ace in Hand

The Aces are a self-proclaimed favorite to win it all this season. However, that despite the familiar names Doug McKernan, Devin and Derek Daoust appearing on their roster, this loss to TTI assures Aces have do not yet made their way up into my power rankings. On the other hand spectators were treated to quite a show as Kevin Lubin spread the ball around and hit four different receivers for touchdowns and ran one in himself. Early on, Turf Toe Inc. looks to be a legitimate contender.

Power Rankings

My predecessor and arch nemesis, Andrew D’Anna is far a more cautious man than I. He waited until the second week of the season was completed to produce his power rankings. Throwing caution to the wind and realizing that it doesn’t mean anything anyway, I’ve decided to list my power rankings out of the gate. As many of you may have already noticed, I put up my preseason power rankings on the FPF Facebook page prior to the season; how things have changed in a few short days.

TCO – A convincing win with their backup quarterback leading the team is more than enough to keep them on top.
Project Mayhem – A dominant showing, they’re out painting the town orange tonight. They face stiffer competition next week when they meet X-Men.
Les Affreux – Despite a slow start, a strong second half push the red menace up this list.
Young Bloodz – Kevin Boustany was more imposing on the field than he was in text.
Checkmate – Despite a very strong defensive showing (allowing only 41 total yards), we haven’t seen enough consistency out of what should be a very explosive offense.
Hangovers- The summertime booze has worn off and the winter hangover has begun. Left off the preseason power rankings by my fault of omission, the Hangovers look to be a contender in Conference B.
Turf Toe Inc. – Kevin Lubin looked good in his new jersey, a big win for TTI.
Jaggerbomb – They are a really talented, young group of players. Armed with a strong-armed Simon Duchesne and an aggressive defense, look for the Jaggerbomb to do well against what seems to be a very favorable early season schedule.
First Downers- The boys in blue put up 54 points and look like they’ve learned a lot since the summer season.

10. X-Men- Took down a strong Love Cows team.

At this point it’s still a lot of guesswork as a lot plays into the first week of action. By next week I expect to have a much clearer picture of what’s on the up and up. Tune into the power rankings next week for actual analysis.

Reflections, Rants, Ravings

Here are some observations from this week’s action

GM Kolethras scorekeeps in a suit; I didn’t realize this job required a wardrobe upgrade.
Two teams went with unlikely quarterbacks to start the season. While Moe Khan was unable to carry his team on his Afro (Pendant Publishing). Matthew Rupcic gave us his best impression of Colin Kaepernick beating up on the opposing defense on the ground and in the air (TCO).
The Boozers pummeled a new team and yet Bruno-Pierre Pelletier was seen throwing bombs in the last two plays. Not surprising.
There were lots of blowouts this week. I think a lot of teams will make the adjustment early on.
Anthony Carbone had 0 rushing yards on 0 attempts this week. First time.
Every week, I will guess what TCO stands for until they tell me what the acronym means. This week’s guess: The Convection Oven.

Predictions

So begins a new rivalry, Peeze vs. Simon Dagenais. Who can claim that they are the best predictor of division 5 games. Two men will compete; as for who will claim supremacy, much like Highlander: there can only be one! My picks are in bold:

Tyrants vs. Cougars

Manatees vs. Warriors

Flying Comics vs. Pendant Publishing

Les Albatros vs. Lockdown

Ecurie Bar et Tables vs. Green Lantern Corps

Big blue Wrecking Crew vs. Ballz Deep

Project Mayhem vs. X-Men

Loose Cannons vs. Aces

C Difficile vs. First Downers

Crooklyn Dodgers vs. Venom

Hamsterdam Cornerboys vs. Two and a Half Dens

Black Ice vs. J’s

Limetime vs. Golden Girls

Speed Demons vs. The Hangovers

Warhawks vs. Kingdom

Jaggerbombs vs. Roughnecks

Fools of the Country vs. Those Guys

Moose vs. Overthrowners

Centurions vs. C’mon Man!

Les Affreux vs. Turf Toe Inc.

TCO vs. Team Ethnik

Les Maloudes vs. Dark Knights

Bearskins vs. Young Bloodz

Love Cows vs. Primes

As I always expect my own team to win, I will not be picking any Checkmate games this season. Instead, I will let Simon Dagenais pick against my team and prove him wrong in yet another way.

The Weekly Wrap Up

Week one is over and has set the stage for an exciting season. As you all know Division 5 is massive and we have seen an unprecedented 50 teams registered to play in this division alone. As such, it makes it quite difficult to cover it thoroughly without your help. Please email your thoughts, ideas and complaints to [email protected]. If you feel more comfortable expressing yourself using 140 characters or less, you can hit me up on Twitter @PeezeFPF.

Let me know about you, and your team and I will do my best to cover you as impartially and completely as possible. Unless of course you confess to me that you think Shark Week is an overrated annual television event, in which case you would have hurt me too much and impartiality would be impossible.

Please tune into and subscribe to our podcast ‘Calling the Audible’, available via iTunes or at http://fpf.podomatic.com. This week Alex Holowach of Project Mayhem and Division 4’s #NoRegard will join me and my usual cohost, Andrew D’Anna, in studio. Domenick Bartuccio of Checkmate will be calling in from whatever city he’s in this week and this week’s musical theme is: Peeze’s Afterschool Mix-tape.

Good luck, play well, be safe.