Quarter-Finals Preview

Ah, the playoffs in the lower divisions. Never fails to be absolutely nuts. It’s safe to say this season’s is among the craziest in recent memory already, as six of the top eight seeds in each conference are bounced from the playoffs through just two rounds. Meanwhile, of the eight teams remaining, four are 10 seeds or lower. And I haven’t even gotten into the specifics yet – everything from teams playing (and winning) without their starting QB, another purposely moving their starter to receiver, and multiple games ending in overtime.

The best part about it all? The insanity isn’t over yet. Two more rounds separate us from crowning a new Division D champion. We’ll get to previewing this Sunday’s batch of games in a second, but first, here’s a quick look back at the week that was – yes, the whole thing.

 

Recaps

Wild-Card Round: 

Gators 30, Pandas 6: Pandas had no QB, as expected. Surprisingly, they didn’t even have Ryan Kharouf to step in at the position. More surprising was that Gators didn’t have their own starter, either. But while Pandas basically went with two woeful third stringers, Gators found themselves the 2011 Week 17 Matt Flynn of FPF in Eddy Martinez, as he took over for a vacationing Corey Walwaski and dropped 5 TDs on the Pandas D in his first-ever start at the position. Not too shabby – the man makes his QB first start, in the playoffs might I add, and balls out? Yeah, sounds like just another day at the office for Eddy. (But thanks for reminding us that David Beltrami, Charles Diodati, Kevin St-Pierre and Evan Cook are still on the team and can ball, too.)  

 

SABRFC 26, On Les Empêche 25: In a classic tale of two halves, OLP QB Nic Schaefer went from hero to zero rather quickly, easily putting up big points in the first half only to toss multiple turnovers – in the redzone, no less – come the game’s final 22 minutes. Led by their four beasts at receiver, SABRFC capitalized, and that’s all she wrote.  

 

All Blacks 31, Magic City 26: All Blacks took care of business against a devious Magic City offense the first time these teams met, so it comes as little surprise that they did so the second time around. The All Blacks defense made it a tough night for QB Matt Cinquino in the air, as he failed to complete so much as half of is 32 attempts, but they made it even tougher for him on the ground, holding him to just 24 yards rushing. Most impressive in all of this is that it wasn’t snapper Anthony Lapointe who made the most noise offensively for AB, but rather receiver Emile Amyot who, after catching just 10 passes for 4 TDs all season, went 3-for-84 for 3 TDs. Damn.

 

Friends in Low Places 19, Get Off My D 18: There’s not a nice way to put it: this was an ugly, ugly game from both QBs. Jeff Rosenblatt for GOMD and Jordan Bellemare for FiLP were quite simply off from pretty much the start right through to overtime. As expected, it was the top names that did the heavy lifting, with Jad Aridi and Marty Freedman marching the ball up and down the field for GOMD and Kevin Smuda and Danny D’Amour leading the way on the other side of the ball. Curiously, Bellemare targeted Smuda just twice – both targets being caught for TDs – the entire night, choosing to lock down on third receiver Alex Grey on most drop backs. But no matter – they get the job done.   

 

Backyard Bullies 25, St. Lunatics 12: I predicted 20-18. Close enough. The final score didn’t perfectly match what I predicted, but the game was more or less what I thought it would be: a defensive clash. Highlights (lowlights?) include just two TDs allowed through the air by the Lunatics D, while ByB picked off QB Dom Benevento 3 times on the night. As usual, Rich Humes was on fire, pulling more than his share of the weight on both sides of the ball. In the end, it was the ground game (or lackthereof for Lunatics) which made the difference: 64 yards and 2 TDs rushing for Brennan Burke, just one attempt for seven yards for the mobile Benevento.   

 

Ghosts 31, Bromigos 20: time for the semi-annual “Ghosts Make Justin Look Dumb Af, Part One” recap. I’m not even mad at this one though, because Ghosts whipped out their massive balls and decided to put in François Martin at QB, and move QB Gab Wiseman to right slot. It’s safe to say Bromigos simply didn’t know what hit them before it was too late: Overcoming some early struggles from Martin, who hasn’t thrown at a level as high as Division D since last spring, Wiseman went off for 6 catches for 83 yards and 2 TDs, to avenge a Week 10 loss to the very same Bromigos.

 

Les Affreux 26, Fuzzy-Kittens 18,  Gab Poisson went off, which was to be expected. SBB didn’t, which comes as an obvious surprise. Interestingly, Fuzzy decided to put Lorentz Menuau at rusher instead of Bosquet Beaudoin, which came back to bite them a bit as the free time QB Mat Domon had turned into 4 rushes for 45 yards and a TD on the ground, and generally all the time he needed to push the ball downfield – mostly to his snapper, Martin Jackson, for whom the Fuzzy defense simply had no answer.

 

Frosty Bronsons 36, The Goats 28: A great game that probably had the dumbest ending of all thus far in the playoffs, that being the ejection of some Goats players to end any hope of a comeback. Considering the ease with which QB Joey Fiorillo was slicing and dicing the usually stingy Frosty defense, chances are they very well could’ve pulled it off had they been able to keep the game 6 on 6 from start to finish. But as has been the case too often since the franchise’s inception, emotions got the best of the Goats, and it finally caught up to them at the worst possible time. Meanwhile, how the hell do you let Terry Tam score 3 TDs on you?!

 

Divisonal Round:

Gators 30, Junkyard Dogs 26: Good thing Gators had Walwaski back for this one, because they sure as hell needed their top dog (it’s the end of the season, give me a break here) playing his usual position versus the rough and tumble Junkyard Dogs defense. It wasn’t so much Martinez’ offensive prowess that ended up being the difference (although 6 receptions for nearly 100 yards and two scores certainly helped), but rather his ball skills on defense: With under five plays to go and JYD starting to drive for the potential game-winning score, Martinez jumped a rather slow developing hook route on the sideline to seal the deal.      

 

Friends in Low Places 32, Two and a Half Dabs 31: After getting pummeled 28-6 the first time these teams faced off back at midseason, Two and a Half Dabs came to play with the second time around… for a half. THDabs QB Eric Maiorino was, simply put, unstoppable in the first half, making all the right reads and all the right throws for all the right touchdowns (I tried). most of all of the above went to receiver Joey Taylor, who finished with 4 TDs on 6 catches for over 60 yards. But that’s really where the fun stopped, as a pick by DB Kevin Smuda in the endzone helped swing momentum FiLP’s way, ultimately for good when it led to a deep TD from QB Jordan Bellemare to Justin Santillo to finally erase a two-score lead. The Friends didn’t look back from that point on.

 

Ghosts 27, Prestige Worldwide 26: “Ghosts Make Justin Look Dumb Af, Part Deux.” To say I would’ve predicted a Ghosts win here would be my biggest lie of the season. PWW were among the top three scoring teams entering the postseason led by one of the clear cut best receiving corps in all of Div D. But the offensive juggernaut that scorched teams all season long was nowhere to be found on the field on Tuesday, with Jonah Cohen’s opening drive ending the same way his last one did: with a slick interception from DB Gab Wiseman (I swear they had him rushing all season to hide his ball skills as a DB). With the game tied at 26 at that point, it came down to converts, and PWW simply came up short.

 

The Alpha-Ts 50, All Blacks 6: Blowouts are no fun, but on the bright side this is truly the only one of the playoffs up to this point. The stats really tell the whole story here: With 8 TDs and zero INTs on 20 throws, Jesse Dupuis reminded us why he truly deserved his QB of the Year award. That’s all that needs to be said.    

 

Les Affreux 34, Zoo 27: Another season, another postseason that ends in bitter defeat for Zoo. It seems to always come down to the worst matchups that end up knocking Zoo out, but despite that looking to be the case here once again (speed/ball skills for days on that Affreux offense), Zoo still had a chance. Unfortunately they came up just, just short, notably getting turned away on fourth down twice via pass deflections from DB JD Joly. The Affreux defense as a whole were all over Pat St-Amand and Kevin Marcil all night long, while offensively QB Mat Domon made it look easy tossing TDs to Martin Jackson, Mat Dubois and company.  

 

Justice League 24, SABRFC 20: Justice League have been all about that defense from since Day 1 this season, and Tuesday night’s game was no different. Well okay, it was kinda different. Surprisingly, the usual firm JL defense were taken for a bit of a ride by SABRFC’s talented receiving corps in the first half, with early TDs from Kyle McGuigan and the big bodied Jordan Mcinnis to result in a 20-12 halftime lead. But the JL D got back to its usual self in the second half, forcing pass deflections (I see you, Mendy) and picks from QB James Hamilton, doing just enough to help result in JL taking the lead on a Jerson Previlon run. And yet it wasn’t Mendy, or Jerson for that matter, who gets the glory in this one, but rather DB Naim Goulamhoussen, who made the game-sealing tackle on fourth down on the ensuing drive to seal the JL win at the five play mark.

 

Frosty Bronsons 14, 5-Star 13: The biggest upset of the playoffs. On paper. In reality. In whatever. 5-Star were the top seed in their conference, facing the team that got in because I suck at QB. 5-Star were the team putting up 35, 40 points week in and week out. They had perhaps the most dominant flag football trio of athletes in the entire division, among them an All-Star QB. And they happened to be facing the QB that led all of Division D in interceptions. And yet somehow despite all of that, 5-Star simply just crumbled versus Frosty Bronsons. Jordan Moses and Dilan Daoust were tamed, Jeremy Anderson played his worst game of the season by far, and once again Frosty’s sluggish offense does juuuuust enough to get the W. Unreal.

 

Backyard Bullies 32, Gamecocks 26: The Bullies ended their regular season with two losses (one via shutout) and a tie, but it’s pretty clear this team knows when to kick things into gear (the playoffs, obviously). The ByB defense were in full bend-but-don’t break mode in the night’s first stanza, allowing QB Jordan Prizant to move the ball with ease but turning him away multiple times down by the red zone. But while Prizant was struggling to score points, Brennan Burke turned in his best game since Week 1, having little difficulty driving the field and simply finding the open man for the score, and ultimately the win.

 

Previews

Conference A:

Gators (5) vs. Les Affreux (10)

Previous meeting: none

This is going to be one very interesting game, first because I simply don’t remember these two teams ever facing off. What intrigues me the most though is how Eddy Martinez will match up with the Affreux defense. Les Affreux don’t strike me as the type to just show up and play without putting some thought into their gameplan, and, given that it’ll definitely involve slowing down Martinez, this game really could come down to whether their plan works…as planned. I’m curious to see what it ends up being. Do you dare try your best DB on the big, athletic Martinez man-to-man? Or do you just roll coverage to his side?

In any case, one thing that you can be sure to see in this game is picks, and a decent number of them – consider that in Walwaski’s 9 games played, he’s tossed INTs in 6 of them and tossed multiple INTs in 4 of those; meanwhile, Mat Domon has turned the ball over in 8 of 12 appearances, with 6 of those being multiple-INT games. If Les Affreux can’t contain Walwaski’s go-to-receiver,making sure to capitalize on every turnover they get may be Les Affreux’s best shot. It seems like a long one to me.

 

The Alpha-Ts (3) vs. Ghosts (11)

Previous meeting: The Alpha-Ts 31, Ghosts 12 

It just wasn’t close at all the first time around, but because this is the playoffs, and this is Ghosts we’re talking about, I’m sure somehow it’ll go down to the last drive.

Yes, I know The Alpha-Ts are coming off a 50-burger and have the top scoring offense in the division. Yes, I’m also aware Ghosts averaged 21.5 points per game in the regular season. But that was without X-Factor Gab Wiseman taking the field at his natural position on both sides of the ball. You can bet he’ll make a battle of this game.

Now, to Alpha’s advantage, Ghosts’ changes will not be coming as a surprise: unlike Ghosts’ last two opponents, Alpha know what to expect. Not to mention that, objectively, they’re coming in with the much more complete squad from top to bottom. Be it QB, the receivers, or defense, Alpha’s roster takes the cake in every category. Put Wiseman on, let’s say Marc-Antoine Vallée, Zach Zwirn on Mathieu Houle, and you still have to find a way to slow down Bryan Mongeau, Georges Élie-Voyer and Alex David. I just don’t see that happening. There will be no Part Three of Ghosts making me look foolish.  

 

Conference B:

Backyard Bullies (7) vs. Friends in Low Places (11)

Previous meeting: none  

So many individual matchups to look forward to in this one. ByB rusher Mark Donohue versus the mobile Jordan Bellemare. Rich Humes the wideout vs. Danny D’Amour the safety. You may have noticed one name in particular missing from the list: Kevin Smuda. As dominant as Humes is, there’s just something about that Smuda, man. The mix of size, speed and hands makes him a tough matchup for anyone – yes, even for Humes if ByB choose to leave the speedster D’Amour to someone else to try to take care of (good luck, whoever you may be).

Given what the Bullies have accomplished versus FilP, the head says to go with ByB. But the heart says otherwise. I feel like the gritty FiLP defense has what it takes to rough up the Bullies offensively, while on the other side of the ball I see the D’Amour-Smuda tag team being just a bit too much for the Bullies to handle.

Plus, I need an upset pick. Give me FiLP in a one-score game.   

 

Justice League (3) vs. Frosty Bronsons (12)

Previous meeting: Frosty Bronsons 22, Justice League 20

Okay so this technically could’ve been my upset pick, but I just don’t see it that way. Rather, if the matchup above was my upset special, this game is my blowout special. But blowout in the Simon Dagenais sense. Like, a 15-point game…. for the underdogs… who are underdogs on paper alone in my book. The JL offense is back to its low-scoring self, finding it pretty difficult to move the ball whenever it’s thrown to anyone not named Mendy Cardichon or when QB Jerson Previlon isn’t running with it.

Meanwhile, Frosty Bronsons’ offense is equally coming off a pretty muted effort, being led by a QB playing just his second season at the position. However, I feel like the team has the tools to keep Mendy in check, and therefore keep JL’s offense in check altogether.

And if that happens, well, all that’s really needed of QB James Nowakowski is rather simple: don’t do anything stupid. A rushing score here, a short TD pass to Alex Holowach there, and next thing you know Frosty’s moving on to the conference finals. As long as Terry remembers how to snap a football properly, this game is Frosty’s for the taking. 

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Be sure to check out this week’s Division D podcast with Simon Dagenais and and Terry Tam at www.youtube.com/flagplus, recorded live on Thursday at 9 p.m. Until next week, Blanchard out.