Do you know who is interesting? Brett Dietz is interesting.

Our good friends over at ArenaFan Online agree, which prompted an interesting email conversation between TC and myself following an alert tip from our boy Jason.

Jason (to tip line, including link to Arena Fan story): You guys know about this, I presume, and are just playing coy.  

TC (to me): Alternately, we’re idiots.

JFiz: There’s nothing here we didn’t know or write. Aside from him being a frontman for a Maroon 5 esqe band in college.

TC: Well, and he’s not from Finland.

JFiz: I could have told you that, dorkface.

TC: I thought he was actually FROM Finland.

JFiz: Your mom is from Finland.*

Which led me to reflect: I suppose I never actually mentioned that he grew up in Kentucky and played at Hanover College where he kicked some fo’ serious ass, but just marveled at the fact that he spent some of his time playing in Finland.

I’m sorry if I led you astray. My bad.

Error of omission on my part? Perhaps. Does this change the awesomeness that flows from Dietz like whiskey in Ireland or vomit on St. Patrick’s Day? Nay.

The only downside is he’ll never utter Garo Yepremian-esqe football platitudes, which in AFL terms, would probably be something like “I makes net ball!”. 

*Not actually emailed.

[Ed. note: Power Rankings, CMRP, and Pillow Fight will be posted in bonus weekend coverage! (read: I am fucked at work right now) Also, apparently you can listen to AFL chattah on Sirius radio. So, yeah.]

[TC note: I really didn't know a lot of the stuff that was in that article, because I've been content to roll around like a dog in the knowledge that he played in Finland. I'm not very smart sometimes.]

[J Fiz note: because of the tremendous smirk I uttered at TC's note, everyone in my office thinks I have Irritable Bowl Syndrome.]

BrettDietzBrettDietzBrettDietz

Brett Dietz.

Brett Dietz.

Brett Dietz.

Breaking: Ladies(…) Not Repulsed By Arena Football

This morning, I woke up to two exciting things: first, a family of rabid wolverines has taken up residence in my throat and they’ve decided to renovate using pointed sticks. Second, the Ladies… Hot Blogger Bracket is out, and your esteemed editors are in! And seeded rather favorably, I might add!

J said, “considering I submitted kind of a weak post, and my pic makes me look vaguely like a serial killer or at least big D&D fanatic, I’m thrilled to be in,” which I think is being a little hard on himself. I think he was criminally underseeded, and I’m criminally overseeded, but that’s neither here nor there. I think I got bonus points for using my picture as Einstein in Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

I’m in the Region of Death – it’s insane. I almost listed and linked the dozen people in that region that I’m terrified of, but I figured that wouldn’t be sporting. Or something. Joe’s in an equally dangerous region, but I don’t feel like it’s quite as stacked.

So, yeah, vote for us! You can read other reasons why you should do so in the post where we compared ourselves to James K. Polk. Where, oddly, J Fizzle also references D&D. Hm… What level elf mage are you, sir? Also, for your enjoyment, after the jump, our entry e-mail.

When I close my eyes, I have visions of Brett Dietz

Maybe it’s because I just like QB’s named Brett. More likely, thought, it’s because since Dietz has joined the Storm, Tampa Bay has gone 5-1. They have a legitimate shot of making the playoffs. Just like the Steelers in 2005. Except Dietz isn’t an over-rated meathead of a QB.

We’re talking about the same team for which I began writing “Ode to Tampa Bay” two months ago, which didn’t get much farther than “Oh Tampa Bay, oh Tampa Bay,/You play as bad as Temple”.

Dietz is 136/198 for 1,578 yards, 31 TDs, 6 INTs, and with an average of 11.6 yards per completion, is holding an impressive QB rating of 119.0. He’s roughly on track with NY returnee and resident savior Aaron Garcia, any deficiencies in stats can be forgiven by the simple fact that Garcia is a seasoned (salted? whatever the term is, it makes me think of french fries) veteran, and Dietz’ previous experience is in the af2 and the Finnish pros.

Some things I’d like to know about the Finnish professional football league, by the way:

1. There’s a professional football league in Finland?
2. Are the balls manufactured by Ikea?
3. Seriously, there’s a pro football league in Finland?

Anyhow, we’re beginning to wonder if, in our growing tradition of tagging AFL QBs that remind us of NFL players, if Dietz will become ‘Tom Brady 2.0′ – he comes out of relative obscurity to become one of the best players in the game.

I suppose ‘The af2′s Kurt Warner’ would work too. Anyhow, go Brett Dietz go. Thank you for making the stretch interesting!

Now please kindly get out of my dreams. Thanks.

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) 

Zapruder-ing the fan interference at Orlando v Dallas

Judging from the wide variety of Google searches that lead readers to It’s Still Football yesterday, which at 79 total views was our biggest day since opening shop, a few people surfing on The Internets would like to know about the ‘fan intereference’ penalty that happened on Monday night as Orlando hosted Dallas. Previously we provided a brief explanation about the incident as was described in the game’s live-blog, linked to the game recap and video on ESPN, and updated an earlier post with general AFL queries. It’s not enough. You all want more. All approximately 37 of you want more. So here we go. Please note all time measurements are completely fabricated, as I screen-grabbed these from the ESPN video, because I live as a 17th-century serf and I don’t have Tivo.

What you’re actually looking for is not here

Although most of our traffic comes from the ever-faithful Josh and Papa J Fizzle, TC and I noticed on our stats page that we recently had a handful of hits from search engines, all, oddly enough, on Monday night. The first two make some degree of sense:

1. (1 hit) “usfl”

2. (1 hit) “ricky santos”

The USFL, referenced in J Fizzle’s inaugural post, was a mid-80′s spring-summer professional football league that featured 2-point conversions and play challenges, both of which were adopted by the NFL. Although the post contains no actual information on the USFL, aside from its relative practicality compared to the AFL in that it was much similar to the ever-popular NFL, this search result is CERTIFIED RELEVANT.

Ricky Santos, the Walter Payton award-winning QB of Division II powerhouse New Hampshire, was referenced in our post about the AFL’s new display in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a possible future star of the AFL, but we suspect he’s actually good enough to have a shot at playing in the NFL. This search result is also CERTIFIED RELEVANT.

Our final search hit, though, makes no degree of sense: