SportsCrack

Confessions of an AFL Newbie: Adopting an Obsession (Team)

Instead of pretending to know what I’m talking about in regards to baseball, I’ve decided to stick to my guns, no matter how different and un-gun like they may seem. That’s right; I’m throwing myself into the AFL to satisfy my withdrawal from the NFL. Sure, I love baseball and I have an eagle eye for talent fantasy wise (be forewarned), I just don’t feel myself qualified to write whole articles about it. At least not right now, with the season still a ways away.

Due to outside forces, I was going to adopt a CFL team but I have decided that the AFL will be a more worthy endeavor to write about in place of my brilliant NFL ramblings. This is due to the fact that AFL games are on ESPN and they start in March. Game, set, match. This should tide me over until the NFL season (along with baseball of course), at least and honestly, that’s all I’m looking for. So to all the AFL die-hards out there (all 23 of you) I apologize if I’m whoring myself out to your beloved sport in order to satisfy my selfish, whore like needs.

The AFL has 17 teams for its 2008 season. I will be choosing a team to adopt based solely on the nickname, my gut feeling and the fact that they are not a juggernaut if you will. I would like to root for an underdog AFL team and hope that they have a great season. Even if they don’t, it’s the fact that they could that makes this so much fun.

Since it’s not physically possible for me to support a New York team, the New York Dragons are immediately taken out of the equation. The San Jose Saber Cats and Columbus Destroyers are also thrown out the window since they both made the 2007 championship game, formally known as the Arena Bowl (San Jose won 55-33).

The Tampa Bay Storm has 5 titles since the AFL’s inception thus making them similar to the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL. So they, too, are out of the question.

Not only do I want a team with a cool nickname and who is not too popular of a team in the league, I want a team that will fit my football personality. I like a strong running game and a tough defense. Yes, I know these are rarities in the AFL, but why not take a look at the top rushing teams and top defensive teams shall we?

2007 Top 3 AFL Rushers

1.) Dan Alexander from the Chicago Rush - 426 yards

2.) Adrian McPherson from the Grand Rapids Rampage 360 yards (is actually a QB)

3.) Josh White from the Dallas Desperadoes 278 yards

If you’re a rabid NFL fan like I am, these stats are hard to comprehend. I knew the AFL was pass-happy, but I didn’t know it was this bad.

Even though Josh White was third in rushing in the league last year, I’m leaning towards picking the Dallas Desperadoes as my team based solely on his picture:


I’m not sure if it’s a picture error or what, but it appears as Mr. White has a fake eye not to mention he looks like the biggest badass in the entire universe. Also, he plays linebacker too! I could get to see him destroy people on BOTH sides of the ball? Hmm…

Since one of the top 3 rushers in the AFL last year was a QB, I felt I needed to take into account the top 5 rushing teams overall instead. This is where it gets complicated. First off, let’s take a look at the top 5 rushing teams in the AFL. That’s right, five, you’ll see why in a second:

1.) Nashville Kats 470 yards rushing

2.) Austin Wranglers 444 yards rushing

3.) Kansas City Brigade 393 yards rushing

4.) Columbus Destroyers 367 yards rushing

5.) Grand Rapids Rampage 354 yards rushing

Now, you may be asking yourself, why five? Well, that’s because the Nashville Kats are no longer in the AFL (and a good thing, they spelled the word cat wrong). In AFL terms, they ‘folded’ which apparently means although they may have been a good football team, whoever was running the business side of things behind the scenes just did not do a very good job.

The Austin Wranglers were demoted to the newly formed minor league branch of the AFL, the AF2, which is perhaps the most retarded name for a league or branch of a league in the history of sports.

Now taking these two teams departure from the league into account, the actual top 3 rushing teams would be K.C., Columbus and then the Grand Rapids. After seeing the sorry state of rushing in the AFL, I decided to abandon my hope of a good rushing game and instead focus on a fantastic defense. This may also be a false hope since it is not uncommon for an AFL team to put up 70 points on any given day.

Top 5 AFL Defensive Units in terms of Opponents QB Rating

1.) Chicago Rush – Opponents QB rating: 91.4

2.) Dallas Desperadoes – Opponents QB rating: 98.1

3.) Kansas City Brigade – Opponents QB rating: 98.8

4.) San Jose Saber Cats – Opponents QB rating: 99.1

5.) Orlando Predators – Opponents QB rating: 107.1

I felt it better to take a look at the defenses rating compared to the opponents QB rating since every defense gives up so much passing yards, it’s incredibly difficult to decide who is good and who is not. At least with the opponents QB rating you can factor in turnovers and the like.

Top 5 AFL Defensive Units in Terms of Rushing yards per game

1.) Arizona Rattlers – 164 yards per game

2.) Georgia Force – 187 yards per game

3.) New Orleans Voodoo – 207 yards per game

4.) Dallas Desperadoes – 212 yards per game

5.) Los Angeles Avengers – 231 yards per game

My favorite team going into this information, the Dallas Desperadoes did nothing to hurt their status with these stats, showing they have a great defense (at least by AFL standards). Not to mention, they have a beast of a running back/linebacker who is already my favorite AFL player, and I haven’t even see him play yet!

It’s been a long journey filled with a lot of ups and downs but I now have my team: the Dallas Desperadoes! I from this point on will be hopping on the bandwagon and have absolutely no intentions of getting off, unless the team ‘folds’ in which case, I’ll be extremely pissed.

Fantasy baseball and fantasy whores, an unfortunately friendly duo

February has been going by pretty quickly which means March is fast approaching. At least in my mind, my addiction has almost completed the full translation from football to baseball. Basketball, you’re cool and shit, but I like you much better towards the end of the season, and I apologize.

Fantasy baseball is an entirely different animal than all of the other fantasy worlds. Fantasy baseball includes such a dizzying array of statistics, not to mention an entirely separate set of minor leagues, that I sometimes assure myself that I know absolutely nothing about a player as I add him to my roster (except that he’s doing well of course). Plus, he has to have somewhat of a cool name. I obviously take into account major stat categories but if I had to take a John Smith or a Chone Smith who’ve both hit 5 homers in July, I’d take the Chone. This is probably why I haven’t finished higher than 4^th place in the last three years of fantasy play but hey, I have fun, so whatever.

Although I’ve avoided them in recent years, you always get those baseball leagues that everyone is 104% ecstatic about being in it until the middle of May, and then have the people that tail off until the end of August. I absolutely and positively cannot stand these people. They are fantasy baseball whores, in my opinion.

No words are needed.

They join a league for the draft, and for the sake of just knowing that they are in a league, even though in the middle of July they couldn’t name half their team. They might get that occasional flashback such as “Oh shit, I think I have that guy on my team” in the middle of the season which will in turn force them to check their team, once mind you, in a three month span. I do not like these people and I am sure we all have encountered them.

They are not found so much in football, since there’s action once a week but they do also exist in basketball, which proves that they are most likely incapable of completing any and all long term objectives in their actual life.

So if you could do me a favor and you have a friend (and I use that term loosely) who happens to be one of these fantasy sluts will you please, PLEASE punch them very hard and call them a failure to society. You know you want to and I absolutely guarantee you will feel like a better person afterwards.

Anyway, I felt this was a good time to kick start everyone’s collective ass and get them ready for the fantastic alternative universe of fantasy baseball. Even if you’re a fantasy whore, which means I want to throw you out a third story window, you should still be getting excited. Fore with everything great comes something bad and you at least serve a purpose, is what I always say. Or at least I just made that up and it sounded fairly cool.

In the coming weeks I will try my best to give the top 10 fantasy baseball players by position. It will not take into account sleepers, since there are always spies about. I don’t want to be giving away my genius assumptions about this season, now would I? I also know that this doesn’t fulfill most people’s needs as compared to the MLB as a whole, but if you have a problem, go buy a frigging magazine or something, because I don’t care. But please, stay tuned.

Patriot Reflections: No Field Goal Attempt and a Dollar Short

I don’t know who said it but time heals all wounds, even when your team loses the last game of a 20 week quest of immortality. You see, I respected the New York Giants. They were a great team and I had watched many of their games all year, thanks to NFL Sunday Ticket. It was here that I made my mistake, however. I neglected to realize this was the Super Bowl, and I just could not get over the fact that the Giants just looked so frigging vulnerable all year long. I neglected to take into account their playoff victories and their momentum and their underdog mentality that they carried into the Game of all Games.

Let’s pause for a minute here shall we? Now, I respect Bill Belichick as a coach – please emphasize the coach part. He’s a football mind like I have never seen before. Do I agree with some of the decisions he makes in regards to his peers? No. If I was an NFL coach and he did what he normally does to me, would I want to break his jaw? Absolutely. Does that make me respect him any less? Of course not.

But it was at this 4 th and 13 in the Super Bowl, in the quest to go 19-0 and become football’s best team for the remainder of time, that I finally understood Bill Belichick. I enjoyed when he went for it on 4 th and 1 and even sometimes 4 th and 2 in regular season games. That was fine, I did it in Madden and agreed with doing it to some degree in the NFL. It was cool, it was hip, no other coach did it. I enjoyed it. My coach had more balls than your coach was the way I phrased it in my warped ADHD mind. It didn’t bother me.

After a while, with the Patriots having the best 4 th down conversion percentage in the last couple years in all of the NFL, Bill started to get a bit more greedy. He would go for it on 4 th and 3, 4 th and 5 and to the best of my knowledge (not saying this is true, I blame the Bud Light) I think I saw him go for it on a 4 th and 8 one time. I’m too lazy to go and research it, I apologize.

Anyway, back to the scene: 4 th and 13, the third quarter is running out. The Patriots are up 7-3 in the biggest game in the history of the franchise, perhaps the biggest game in the history of the NFL. What happens? Bill goes for it, on fourth and 13 in the second half of the Super Bowl. It was all well and good before, Bill, but WHAT THE FACK WERE YOU THINKING? Its 4 th and 13! It’s not 4 th and 1, or 2 or 3 or even 5! Who does that in the Super Bowl?!

Like I said before, it was at this time that I really knew who Bill Belichick was as a coach. I love the guy to death for all he’s done for the Patriots and to a lesser extent, for my life. I don’t know about you all, but my week hinges on whether my home town teams win or lose. I don’t go into a depressed isolation or anything, but you can be sure I won’t be holding doors for old ladies and smiling at everyone throughout the week. Okay, I still hold doors for old ladies, but I am a timeless gentleman who always does good for my elders – but if my team loses, I still have a sourpuss on my face.

But why, oh WHY, would you go for it on 4 th and 13 when you’re up by 4 in the Super Bowl? If you get a field goal there, your up by a TD going into the 4 th quarter. Isn’t that basic football strategy? I get you’re an on the edge coach who does some different things than other coaches, but this went too far. It was by far one of the dumbest decisions I have ever had the misfortune of seeing in the history of my watching the New England Patriots. It’s not like the New York Giants defense had been lying down all day, they were playing A+ football!

In short, I was confounded by this play call. If a field goal attempt was called and was successful, the Patriots very well could have taken it into overtime and won. But that’s neither here nor there; I just needed to get it off my chest.

On the other side of the ball, the New York Giants played a great game. Thankfully, I like the Giants as a football team and enjoy watching them. It’s good to see Michael Strahan get a Super Bowl ring, he’s a class act and an entertaining personality. It’s also good to see Eli Manning get out from the massive shadow that’s been placed over him since birth, and which got bigger with his older brother massive ascent to stardom. As the youngest brother of four, I know how it is living under the shadows of your older siblings.

Also, props to Tom Coughlin for having the cajones to mix up his coaching style entirely for the good of the team. Known as a tough guy coach for his entire career, he threw it all out the window and listened to his players more and axed the tough guy routine. He is a great coach and I commend him for his game plan as well as his coaching abilities.

It’s sad to see football go, and even though basketball is currently in mid swing, I will look forward to baseball to lighten my mood. As for next year’s football season, I would like to go on record and say that every single member of this team will return next year, save for Asante Samuel. If I had to put my life down on a Super Bowl winner next year, I would easily take the New England Patriots. But for now, congratulations to the New York Giants, and their fans -- I’m already looking forward to next year’s NFL season. Go Sox!

Super Bowl Quick Pick

Just so I can get this on the record:

Patriots 44 Giants 20




It's going to be a close, high scoring game until halftime but then in the second half New England will begin to pull away... by a lot.

Just so everyone knows, after the Super Bowl this whole site is going to be morphing into Baseball Crack to begin getting ready for the baseball season. Expect a major overhaul and hopefully, wittier content. Stay tuned.

NFL 2007 NIT SUPER BOWL (w/ What if Sports)

At last, we’re here. For all three of you that are looking forward to this, the NFL’s 2007 NIT Tournament’s Super Bowl has finally arrived. Call me crazy, but the match up isn’t half bad. The two number one seeds in either conference, the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns are geared up for the game that will make one of them the best team that didn’t make the playoffs. If you’ve ever been left out of anything, this game is definitely for you.

The game was going to be played in Hawaii, because… well, Hawaii’s awesome. Then I realized the Pro Bowl stadium was not available as an option, so I picked Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Call it a pre actual Super Bowl under card, if you will.

THE 1st EVER NFL 2007 NIT SUPER BOWL

CLEVELAND BROWNS VS PHILADELPHIA EAGLES

1st Quarter

The 2007 NIT Super Bowl got off to a quick start with the Eagles going 88 yards on their opening possession to score a quick TD to go up 7-0. Cleveland answered right back after a great Joshua Cribbs kick return – with Jamal Lewis taking one 38 yards to the house for a TD. A successful extra point tied the score up at 7.

After forcing the Eagles into a four and out, Derek Anderson took advantage of the change in possession and led his team 72 yards for another TD. The 1 st quarter would end with the Browns on top 14-7.

2nd Quarter

The Browns defense continued to impress, allowing a bit of yardage on the Eagles next possession, but not enough for the Eagles to convert it into points. Already having scored two TDs on two possessions, the Browns continued the trend, this time with a FG.

Lock down defense on both sides would assure no more scoring in the first half. The Browns go into halftime up 17-7.

Halftime

The Halftime show included a fan field goal kicking contest (he missed) as well as a great performance by Kanye West, Chamillionaire and Shakira. Also, everyone was given a free personal size pizza courtesy of Uno’s.

3rd Quarter

Good defensive play on both sides of the ball continued into the 3 rd quarter. However, the Browns held the Eagles to zero points for the 2 nd consecutive quarter while Cleveland tacked on another field goal to their score.

The score was 20-7 going into the final quarter.

4th Quarter

The Eagles wasted no time in the 4 th quarter, scoring a quick TD 2 minutes in. The Browns answered RIGHT back however, going 71 yards to counter the Eagles TD. The 2 point conversion failed however. With 9 minutes to go the score was 26-14 and the Eagles looked to be on the ropes.

After a quick first down, the Eagles would have to punt. The defense would answer the call however and get them the ball back. McNabb would take care of the rest and with 4:31 to go in the game, the Eagles would make it 26-21.

With only 2 timeouts, the Eagles couldn’t stop the Browns rushing attack who successfully gained three first downs to put this one away.

The Cleveland Browns win the 2007 NFL NIT Tournament 26-21!

Player of the game: Jamal Lewis 22 rushes 105 yards 2 TDs (And for anyone interested, Derek Anderson didn't have nearly as good a game as last week -- 18/28 246 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT)