The Grande Finale: The Enriching, Electric, Exciting and Elevated Play of Division E
Ignacio Valdes-Manzanedo
10-08-2024 11:06 PM
We finally made it. From May 12th when we started the season to the Finals on August 11th, we’ve had 3 months of fantastic flag football that has gotten us to this point. A grueling Division E playoffs that has gone 4 rounds so far, will conclude with Round 5, the Championship Finals featuring Les Petites Carottes Jr and Baby Sharks. While Baby Shark have Jérémie Laplante that has a Finals appearance, a championship, and a Finals MVP under his belt in Spring 2022 with The Praetorian Guard, Les Petites Carottes have a lot more playoff and in particular, Finals experience. LPC as a franchise have made it to the Finals twice since 2022. While that is true, they have 0 championships to show for it, including back in the Spring of 2022, where it was that same Praetorian Guard team that got the best of Les Petites Carottes and hoisted the Div E championship over them. Les Petites Carottes have tasted defeat in the Finals twice and will be hoping that the 3rd time’s the charm for them and that they can exact some revenge over Laplante.
Div E Finals Preview
Les Petites Carottes JR
vs.
Baby Sharks
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Matchup Breakdown
| Position | Les Petites Carottes JR | Baby Sharks |
|---|---|---|
| QB | ✅✅ | ✅ |
| Receivers | ✅ | ✅✅ |
| DBs | ✅ | |
| Rusher | ✅ | ✅ |
| Chemistry | ✅ | |
| Finals Experience | ✅ | |
| Championship Pedigree | ✅ |
Road To The Finals
–
LPC JR
In our bracket-style playoffs, LPC Jr’s defense early on swarmed their opponents, giving up just 6 points to Head Tops Only and Vice City. Against Head Tops Only, despite missing their starting QB Alex Manes, Emile Descoteaux‘s completion percentage was under 50%, but threw 5 TD’s on 8 completions. With IG clips of Jason Rayes shutting down the Head Tops QB running the ball, and Mathieu Thibault‘s pick 6 and 2 offensive TD’s, they easily disposed of the young and new FPF team.
Against Vice City, Jason Rayes once again was the star offensively, with 109 yards and 2 TDs off of 8 receptions. He alone had more passing yards than the Vice City Quarterback. With the return of Alex Manes, he looked confident in his post and the Defense once again gave up less than 115 total yards of offense, cruising their way to the Quarter Finals.
In the QF’s, a much different story. Playing against a hungry underdog team in Team Timbo who were making a run of their own, LPC Jr faced adversity for the first time perhaps all season. With a clutch stop on defense near or inside the redzone, a pass batted down by none other than Jason Rayes meant they were down 13-6 instead of 19-6 at halftime. In the 2nd half though, while down 20-18, Rayes would take an OC penalty, taking out their best 2-way player for 10 plays and Manes couldn’t complete a 4th and 20 down over Tim Horner. Horner though, would take a massive DPI penalty downfield that setup Laurent Beauchamp‘s TD and Emile Descoteaux‘s clutch 2-point convert to tie the game at 26. Once again, needing a stop from the defense to bring the game into Overtime, Descoteaux got a big hand on the 2nd-to-last play destined for Horner and got the stop on the last play from 3 yards out of the endzone. We then know that the Manes-to-Beauchamp connection went to work in Overtime, where they squeezed out a 2-1 victory in an exhilarating playoff game. Narrowly eliminated, LPC Jr moved onto the Semi-Finals having overcome their biggest test so far this season.
And then the Semi-Final. Against an experienced team like themselves, the key stat line was Sam Anastasopoulos going 4 for 18 on his receptions-to-target ratio. The LPC Jr Defense got 7 PD’s that night and kept Kyle Folkerson‘s completion % to a season-low, and perhaps career low of 34.4%. Despite throwing a first-drive INT, Manes kept his composure. Twice in the 1st half, the LPC Jr defense would create turnover-on-downs on the Freshmen XL offense and both times Manes would make them pay in short order. The first drive took just 2 plays to score from 16 yards out and the second took 1 shot to Rayes that connected in the endzone for 29-yards. Something to watch out for is that Descoteaux picked up a UR in that game, and as we saw in the Quarter Finals, Rayes picked up an OC, so the LPC Jr squad will need to toe that line, but not cross it in the finals. It could be something to watch out for, as they need their big guns available at all times.
Road To The Finals
–
Baby Sharks
The playoffs started rathe easy for Baby Sharks with a forfeit win over BackYardigans.
On came a Sweet Bonanza crew that was athletic and getting better as the season went along, but were simply no match to stop the Baby Sharks offense. 4 incompletions on 22 pass attempts, 6 TDs from Jérémie Laplante with 133 massive yards and 2 touchdowns from Max Sharkawi and another 3 TDs from Sam Aerts, Sweet Bonanza could simply not match that offensive output. While that’s how the game ended up, Baby Sharks were somewhat tested early in the game. Sweet Bonanza would score on their first 2 possessions and got an interception from Antoine Caron on the 2nd Baby Sharks drive. At the time, the score was 12-6 and it appeared that the game would be an offensive shootout. Luckily, Baby Sharks defense were able to get a turnover-on-downs to match the INT thrown by Laplante. By halftime, Baby Sharks were up by 1 by a score of 19-18. This is where Baby Sharks kept pouring on the points in the shootout, but Bonanza could not match their scoring pace.
The prize for beating Sweet Bonanza? The 10-0 Western squad that I mentioned were too strong for the division all season long. Luckily for the Sharks, Western were without their star QB. Though, Laplante was still going up against a very good defense and was able to put up another 45 points on the board. Very impressive stuff from the 1st-time FPF QB. Baby Sharks started the game strong, scoring in just 2 plays and were able to pick off the backup QB on just his 2nd throw of the game. With a short field, Laplante capitalized and before the game was 4 minutes old, Sam Aerts had 2 TDs and the score was 12-0. Everything in the game was going the way of Baby Sharks, scoring on all 5 1st-half drives, and ending the half with a bad snap that went for a safety after a clutch 9 yard sack from Alex Sharkawi. Sure, you can get lucky, but you can also make your own luck with plays like the 9-yard sack before the safety. With a halftime score of 33-6, the route was on early in this one, ending in a 45-18 Quarter Final victory.
You could say that Baby Sharks have gotten lucky in their playoff run and that they haven’t been truly tested except for 1 half of play (vs. Sweet Bonanza). Their opponents have clearly not put the best roster out there possible, as in the Semi-Finals, TuneSquad could only manage to have 5 players available. Still, they kept up early in the game, where it was 21-19 at one point for Baby Sharks. The game turned when Chaz Presser was picked off by Laplante, late in the 1st half as they driving the field, giving Baby Sharks 2 plays from 33 yards out to score, and they did. Sam Aerts got his team-leading 7th offensive touchdown of the playoffs. And then the game REALLY ended when Aerts picked off Presser for 6 on the 2nd play of the 2nd half, cementing him and his team a spot in the finals.
Breakdown by Position
Quarterback
Both Quarterbacks will need to stay calm, cool and collected and run their offense. It’s brought them this far, so the jitters and throwing the ball against the ballhawks on D on both teams means they will both need to be precise with their passes and decisive in their reads. A big part of this game will be which quarterback can make the least number of mistakes. These are 2 rookie QB’s and the bright stage of the FPF Finals can be daunting early on. Whoever can put the jitters away earlier and limit the early-game mistakes will be at an advantage. Manes is coming off a QBOY season and a Semi-Final game where he completed 84.6% of his passes, while Laplante has been dominating teams, those teams though, haven’t exactly been the best roster those great teams could have put out there. Another dimension that both Quarterbacks bring to the table is the run game. Both QBs are ELUSIVE, both laterally and downfield. While Manes had a ton of rushing yards during the regular season, where he would run an average of 4 times per game, he’s now averaging 1 run per game and his average yards per run have halved. Laplante has been more tame and feels as though he tried to be a passer-first approach, which I love, but don’t let that fool you, if ever a play breaks down, he can elude most rushers and is a danger in open space. A big play could break out from either QB off a run play, and it could change the dynamic of the game. Ultimately, I’m giving the slight edge at QB to Manes because he threw fewer interceptions throughout the season and I’m a sucker for protecting the football, but honestly, the hotter QB right now is Laplante.
Receivers
Both teams have some serious receivers. For LPC Jr, Jason Rayes and Laurent Beauchamp are the 2 main threats, as during the regular season, they had over 880 yards combined and 26 touchdowns between them. Their depth is rounded out nicely as well as Emile Descoteaux, Gabriel Jobin and Mathis Ledoux made magic happen with their limited targets, combining for 14 TDs and 528 yards between WR 3,4 and WR5. With that high end talent and that depth, it’s no surprise why LPC JR went 10-0 and averaged 41.6 points per game offensively. They have a great mix of size, speed, route running and hands and become a formidable attack that defenses must try and contain.
As for the Baby Sharks, much of the same is true. They have loads of high-end talent and depth, with a nice blend of all the attributes you look for in receivers: Speed, size, reliable hands and solid route running. Baby Sharks though, have a slightly different receiver characteristic when you look at their regular season. They leaned heavily on their WR1, Max Sharkawi and had more solid depth from WR2 to WR5, between Sam Aerts, Alex Sharkwai, Jonathan and Ben Caron. Playoffs though, Sam Aerts has stepped big and made himself the WR1B to Max‘s WR1A, as both receivers have 7 touchdowns in their playoff run.
Overall, I’m giving the slight edge to Baby Sharks because of their height advantage. Goodluck trying to cover the three 6’0+ receivers!
Defense
While both defenses have playmakers, particularly Jérémie Laplante on the Baby Sharks side, I’ve personally faced off against most of these LPC Jr DB’s, and I can tell you they are athletic, have a great understanding of the game and when they want to straight up man you, they absolutely can. To not fully contradict what I wrote previously, obviously a jumpball situation in man does favor the Baby Sharks, but that just means that LPC Jr as a defense will need to properly time their man coverage and perhaps get Laplante thinking man, and drop down into a zone defense. While guys like Rayes and Beauchamp, Jobin and Ledoux are the more known characters, I will say perhaps the dark horse of this defense and perhaps globally, is Emile Descoteaux. Watch out for this guy, whether it is a big time rush, or in coverage, as well as his offensive skill set, to make enough plays to low-key be the wild-card that gives LPC Jr a shot at raising the trophy and championship banner.
Rusher
While the numbers suggest that Andéol Forgeot d’Arc was the best rusher between the two teams, the reality is, he hasn’t played a single playoff game, so even if he is available to play in the finals, the dude has not played a down in over a month and would be rushing a QB who had over 380 yards on the ground. I think the rusher position is mostly a tie, as neither team has a dominant force at rush. That force could be Rayes for LPC Jr, but while Laplante can take off, he’s shown to be more dangerous throwing the ball, therefore it makes more sense for Rayes to be in coverage as the best DB om the field. LPC Jr is more of a rusher-by-committee, with rotations between Rayes, Antoine Pelletier, Emile Descoteaux and Mathis Ledoux, while Alex Sharkawi and Ben Caron have taken those duties on for Baby Sharks. If ever one of the two teams needed a big performance from their rusher, IMO it’s whoever is rushing for Baby Sharks taking on Manes. The finals can get intense and QB’s in the lower divisions often default to run, so let’s see how that matchup shakes down.
Prediction Time 🔮
Okay, this is it, the big one, the final prediction of the Spring season, the final prediction for me in what could be many years. The matchups are set, the scales have been balanced, but who has the ultimate edge? For me, what LPC Jr have done all season, and for the past 2 years, gaining all that experience, including 2 Finals’ losses, they have assembled THE team in Division E. With high-end talent, amazing depth, fantastic Quarterback play from the rookie Manes, I see LPC Jr coming out on top in a TIGHTLY contested game, winning 27-26 as they will get 1 more XP1 convert during the game to get their first ever FPF championship.
I maybe should have written this early on in the article, but remember that you DO have challenges available to you, as we do have live replays, so make sure you talk how those work the refs and how they affect your timeouts, because that those can be crucial when it comes to a close play that you don’t feel went your way in terms of the call on the field. I do know that ANYTHING can be challenged, there are no limits to what you can and cannot challenge!
Epilogue
Ok, that does it for the Spring season! Good luck to both Baby Sharks and Les Petites Carottes JR, you both had incredible seasons that will wrap up Sunday afternoon in Brossard. As for me, it’s time to say goodbye. First, goodbye to the Spring season and Div E. It was a pleasure to write articles all season, and thanks for keeping up week in and week out, joining me on the wild ride that is every FPF season. Second, good bye to all things FPF for me. As I mentioned, it is my final season before leaving for Toronto later this month. I want to thank all the players, all the refs, all the teammates, all the media members, all the readers and viewers and opponents and all the people who make FPF the greatest league in the world. I have no doubts when I say that, it truly is such a special league and I hope everyone has and will continue to enjoy it as much as I did. FPF gave me so much, that I felt compelled to give back, so that others could gain and feel what I felt. What a truly amazing community and part of my life. Thanks and goodnight. Iggy Magnets, out✌️