Hey, Hoser, You Got Reverse Kurt Warner, eh?

Even in the midst of the announcement that another football league is gestating in the sports womb of three dudes, It’s Still Football is committed to being your source for all things King. Shaun King, formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and then Las Vegas Gladiators, continues his tour of major professional leagues, landing in Hamilton, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Ontario, Canada. (Yes, I had to look it up.) He will play for the Tiger-Cats of the CFL, where they hope he can continue to excel, or at least do whatever it is he does. He’ll be competing for the starting spot with four others, including incumbent Jason Maas, a couple other guys and … NCAA record holder Timothy Kealii’okaaina Awa Chang! I wondered where he went. And where all those vowels came from.

Personally, I find this notable: where most journeyman players have to learn a new playbook when hopping from team to team, Shaun has had the arduous task of learning three new rulebooks.

So, good on you, Reverse Reverse Tangential Kurt Warner: keep hurling those oblong spheroids at people dressed roughly in the same colors you happen to be wearing.

“A rouge? Fuck you - you just made that shit up. And there’s no fucking ‘c’ in defense.”

Messrs. Hambrecht, Armstrong, and Cuban? Miguel Cervantes Called…

…He already wrote this story.

So, this UFL thing? Our thoughts, after this clicky thing:

Can’t Miss Random Pick Victory Party!

Three lackluster cheers for the appropriately mediocre Can’t Miss Random Pick! The re-invigorated Soul did what they had to against the Austin Underachievers. In other news, the Chicago Tribune had a article about career .200-ish hitter and former Stanford QB Joe Borchard’s baffling inability to live up to his potential. Mind you, Borchard hit the longest home run I’ve ever seen in person - it bounced off the concourse facade at Comiskey Park/US Cellular and back two or three rows into the seats - but his batting average has hovered right around .200. I think this implies that he should pick up a Spalding again, and fight for a spot with Matt Nagy in Columbus or something. I’d like to see the guy succeed; by all rights, he’s a pleasant fellow, and it’s never too late for a former quarterback.

Anyway, there were some games this week, and I’ll get more thorough updates after lunch. For right now, we’re going to try to write one sentence that encapsulates each game PERFECTLY. It’s a brevity game we journalists like to play. (Note: I may be making that up.)

Utah 65, ORLANDO 62: I said that Utah would be okay in shootouts, and I was right, which makes life worth living.

San Jose 48, NASHVILLE 34: Nashville’s clock control can’t stop my dark horse team; again, it’s hard to be so correct.

KANSAS CITY 62, Los Angeles 56: The Brigade continue to be successful at home, and the Avengers continue to weave through the end of their season like Lindsay Lohan at 5:30 AM (topical!).

Colorado 56, GRAND RAPIDS 58: Don’t let Brian Gowins beat you, because he’ll do it without remorse.

Dallas 56, COLUMBUS 47: If Dr. Dolezel didn’t slap Columbus around like interns, as I’d like to do to specific interns - the perpetually whiny ones on Grey’s Anatomy (topical!?) - I would’ve been both shocked and appalled. 

GEORGIA 52, Tampa Bay 38: Order is restored to the universe, as Tampa can’t string a game together, and The Scrappy Chris Griesen returns to fine form.

Chicago 53, ARIZONA 47: This score is closer than the game actually was (I hope), and Bobby Sippio had best get healthy before the playoffs, or the Rush are royally screwed.

Philadelphia 76, AUSTIN 66: Philly is back, Austin remains bad, I win.

New York 69, New Orleans 63: Way more exciting than Old York vs. Old Orleans, unless you count the Battle of Agincourt, which probably indirectly involved those two cities. (Topical!)

Week 13 Power Rankings, CMRP, and Weekend Pillow Fight

Once again, it is time for your ISF team to break down the weekly power rankings from Scouts, Inc. and insert our bold-faced wit and wisdom; also we’ll lay out the Pillow Fight of the Week, and see if Randomness can prevail and get back to a .500 record, all after the jump:

(Ed. note: prior to the jump we will completely ignore the fact we totally jinxed “American Idol” and ruined someone’s life who’s only crime was having a non-sanctioned fan site that commented on an AFL blog) 

Briefly: An excuse to mention American Idol and Romo/Underwood

One of our early claims to Internets fame (Ed. note: not to be confused with actual fame, unless you’re Gary Brolsma or Will Ferrell’s landlord)(Ed. note: even in Internets terms, this post was not really that big a deal) was an in-depth look at a humorous fan interference penalty during a Dallas-Orlando game that prevented Clint Dolezel from getting ever-closer to that 800 TD mark.

Because this was our first ‘big splash’, we took delight in seeing readers submitting comments, which until then, we hadn’t really had (to clarify, both readers and comments). One of those comments caught my eye, because it linked to a site about a contestant on ”American Idol”. I didn’t think too much of it, mostly because I hadn’t watched an episode of ”American Idol” since the audition of William Hung. I’ve actually been so unaware of “American Idol” that last year, when I was still working in a restaurant in my final year of college, I walked by the above-bar television during a slow post-lunch hour. I glanced at the screen, and asked my manager who the old guy with Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest was. My manager informed me that was Taylor Hicks, who had won the night before.

Anyhow, I didn’t think too much of our Idol commenter until recently, when I casually glanced through our archives to see how the site had progressed since we started in March. Again, I saw the Idol comment, then did a quick Google to see who it was and how they’d fared in the show.

The author was ‘Blake Lewis’. Tonight he finds out if he can look forward to the illustrious career of an “American Idol” winner like Reuben Studdard, or the lucrative career of an “American Idol” runner-up like Bo Bice.

We should point out that although the commenter name and (secret to you) email address is ‘Blake Lewis’, it doesn’t seem as though it’s run by the actual beat-box champ, or that he enjoys the ongoings of the Arena Football League. However, we look forward to the day when he follows in the footsteps of “Idol” winner Carrie Underwood and dates Tony Romo, so we have another excuse to put up this picture:

So, go Blake. Beat …your competitor. I actually have no idea who you’re up against, all I know for sure is that recently Paula broke her face. And it wasn’t Simon’s fault.

Can’t Miss Random Pick Disaster Recovery Effort and Party

So, week 12 taught us that we know NOTHING about the league. None of what we assumed was anything approaching correct. How wonderful for the league that there’s… parity, or something. I’m wholly baffled. At least we watched last night’s game, and enjoyed it. Let’s start with that analysis, and work backwards through the rubble of our predictions.

I don’t use pictures, but I do use page breaks:

I stand corrected

Ladies (Ladies…?) and gentlemen, my humility leaves me no choice but to address everyone directly and in the first person, not like my usual ISF Royal We, and drop a big mea culpa. I was wrong about the Philadelphia Soul.

I wrote them off because they had a first-week bye (like the barely .500 Can’t Miss Random Pick, for which I also apologize - randomness and I do not good bedfellows make). I wrote them off because they were in a tail-spin with the loss of mildly-Joe-Montana-ish Tony Graziani, and it seemed that nothing could pull them back into the playoffs. I wrote them off because I assumed since they are an AFL team, they are incapable of playing defense.

I was wrong.

The mere presence of Graziani charged the Soul squad, to the point where the Soul defense was out-scoring the Voo Doo offense going into the fourth quarter.

Even had Graziani not returned this game, third string backup Leon Murray probably would have likewise led the Soul to victory - he was 3/3 for 15 yards. And 2 TDs.

By the middle of the second quarter, it was clear: this was no pillow fight. Philly has a legitimate shot to run for the playoffs, right along with Dallas and Georgia (but not necessarily a Bobby Sippio-less Chicago).

This was not a pillow fight. Philly put on a clinic. It was an out and out rout.

They even would’ve beat the Cavs.

It’s Monday Night! The Philadelphia Soul Returneth

Sooooo… We met at The Fizzle Estate to watch the Soul vs. the VooDoo, but decided to make an effort to get/remain/be fit (…ladies…) first, so we completely missed the first quarter.

And then spent ten minutes of the second quarter looking at lolcats.

To make this not take up the whole page, hit the jumpy thing.

Preview for Monday Night (Arena) Football: Philly versus Nawlins

Make no mistake: this could be a painful game to watch. Both teams are at 4-6 and limping through the season; Graziani’s status is questionable, which means, “a minute before game time Jaws will determine his arm is still totally fucked”; and if you’re watching this game it means you’re probably missing season finales of either “24″ or “Heroes”. Or a marathon of “Two and a Half Men” repeats. Or “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”

However, TC and I have decided to watch. Even at 4-6, it isn’t out of the question for Philly or Nawlins to reach the playoffs, and we haven’t live-blogged in a while, which is painfully apparent because pretty much everything that happened this weekend was exactly the opposite of what we said would happen. We need to get back in the AFL groove, get our hands dirty, listen to Trey Wingo be bored out of his mind.

Really, we just need to play Guitar Hero. We’ll live blog tonight on the status of JBJ’s middle digits and the awesomeness that is playing My Chemical Romance’s “Dead!” on cooperative. Rock.

What to look for in tonight’s game: weak defense from both squads, Voo Doo QB Andy Kelly to be either decent or crap-tacular, and a glimpse of Jaws running around in the locker room, looking like he’s either deep in football thought or searching for lost car keys. We can’t wait.

Actually, we probably can.

 UPDATE: Everything I wrote in this post is completely wrong.

Briefly: More Stories We Didn’t Break

Because I cringe whenever I catch an AFL headline on Deadspin - at whose quasi-underground teat we (too) often suckle - that we didn’t break, I feel compelled to link back to it. Because, you know, we get a lot of traffic that they might not receive.

Wait, no. That’s not quite right.

In any event, apparently Quincy Carter, late of the Cowboys, Jets, Alouettes, ‘Dawgs, and Chicago Cubs organizations,  is playing for the af2’s Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings. I’m having a difficult enough time parsing AFL Prime teams and strategy and whatnot, and I only know that Shreveport exists because of the Independence Bowl, so this flew well under my radar. But he’s having a bit of a time down there in Random-Ass Louisiana. He’s been suspended for missing team meetings. Oops. The commentary on AOL Fanhouse and Deadspin are easily snarky enough for us, so I recommend you amuse yourselves there. My take is that Mr. Carter is another example of a wildly athletic young man who had the most damnable time of getting his act together. It’s sad, really.

Also, so everyone knows, I have the fullest confidence in the ability of the Desperados, Rush, Force, and maybe SaberCats to wax whoever ended up playing in the Independence Bowl.