Are We Boned? Yeah, We’re Boned.

Aieeeee! It's just like Pitcairn Island!

Oh, dear Christ. We get bored and wander off for several months, and our “beloved” league is in jeopardy? We figured it was the idle chatter of a few of the we-blogs, and perhaps there was some financial difficulty … wait, where’d the VooDoo go? Well, that’s just Tom Benson, and he’s kind of a dick. The league is as sturdy as one of my favorite Chicago institutions, The Tribune Company. Oh, it’s not? Oh, crap. The Predators, sold? What are the guys we met in New Orleans going to do with their scary masks? Terrorize children [more often]?

You’ll tell me it’s all going to be okay, right, San Jose Mercury News? Gak. “WE WILL TAKE ON ALL COMERS, FOR WE ARE INDESCRIBABLY WEALTHY,” is the campaign for the 2009 SaberCats, by the way. But what of The Dietz?  Certainly the Storm…

Despite reports of AFL troubles, Storm plods along

A ringing endorsement from the St. Petersburg Times-adjacent tampabay.com.

What happened? Well, until I can get a detailed analysis from our in-house economist, let’s use broad strokes: David Baker’s AFL was growing, and had a deal with ESPN that was supposed to secure the league’s future. He left us. Heleftusheleftusheleftus. Lex-from-Jurassic-Park interlude over, the VooDoo crumble with little-to-no-notice. A deal with A Mysterious Equity Group falls apart. Talks, dispersal draft, and free agency are all postponed. No schedule?

Boned, boned, boned. Where are our cut-rate Woodward and Bernstein to follow the money? Where’d it go? Did the league expand too quickly under Baker, only to collapse like a dying star? A star that was interesting, but never really that bright in the first place? Colorado is one of the teams facing awkwardness, and they’ve been one of the sturdier teams, owned by John Elway. If Elway’s hurting, everybody’s hurting.

Dammit.

We don’t write for a while, and this is what it takes to put fingers to keys?

At least we didn’t come back for an epitaph.

Yet.

Arena Bowl XXII – The Live Blog

It’s Here! Today! We’re going CoverItLive-style, and you know what that means: no embedding! Following links! Extreme laziness!

Who will take home the Kraken of professional sports trophies? San Jose or Philadelphia? I know I predicted San Jose, but I really want to see Bon Jovi hoist this thing with his spindly arms.

Keep in the care of this guy? No. Hell no.

To follow the liveblogging extravaganza follow the mighty link: TO THE LIVE BLOG!

This Guy? Maybe.

This Guy? Could Be...

BREAKING: Commissioner Hagrid! What Will We Do Without You?

In a surprise move two days before the Arena Bowl, and one year after signing a contract extension, Commissioner David Baker resigned his post for reasons… mysterious.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I never thought I would do this for the rest of my life,” Baker told The Associated Press. “The league has never been stronger … it gives me the opportunity to look into doing other things.”

…

“There’s a lot of great opportunities for this league.” Baker said. “So this is a good time for me. If I didn’t go now, there would be no other career for David Baker.

“Like my good friend John Elway, I am going out on top.”

Bullshit. If it doesn’t turn out that he was called back to Saltfjellet by Hrungnir, King of All The Mountain Giants, I’m calling shenanigans on this whole thing. Because a world where Commissioner Hagrid resigns because he’s bored, and not because he must take part in a 10,000-year-old ancestral tradition of hewing forests, draining lakes, and piloting the mighty glaciers themselves is not a world in which I want to live.

Nevertheless, fans and employees of the Arena Football League owe David Baker a debt of gratitude for the last 12 years of work, which saw consistent growth in team value and visibility, a shocking increase in media coverage (thanks, Worldwide Leader!), and the ability to mock the leadership of every other sport. Bud Selig, Roger Goodell, David Stern, and especially that troll Gary Bettman should thank their lucky stars they no logner have to be shown up by the commissioner of a second-tier sport in professionalism, fan-friendliness, and the ability to crush coal into diamonds.

It’s Still Football wishes Mr. Baker the best, and would be remiss in neglecting to mention that meeting the guy last year was insanely great. We also might have been inebriated. But that shouldn’t detract from the fact that we were duly impressed by his magnificence

I hope he still takes care of all the Arena Bowl XXII pomp and circumstance, because it’d just feel weird to have Ed Policy hand over the 10-Ton Foster Trophy.

Godspeed, You Titan; You Showed Us How a 7'6" Bazillionaire Should Act

ARENA BOWL XXII: We’re Way Less Interesting Than Last Year

I stole ESPN's Banner. I am a winner.

So, guess what? Between general apathy and real-life nonsense, we totally blew off the playoffs (which apparently were hosted in Crazy Town, final results notwithstanding), and aren’t going to New Orleans again. For which my liver thanks the Flying Spaghetti Monster. BUT ANALYSIS WILL ENSUE!

ALL HAIL.

Multiple members of Bon Jovi! Jaws! More Cowbell! The Grieb Laser Industry! Darren Arbet! The Guy Who Owns Fry’s! D’Orazio! SOME OTHER PEOPLE OHMYGODIT’STHEARENABOWL!

Dear Point-Counterpoint, I never thought this could happen to me… (Jump?)

ESPN Is Doing An Arena Bowl Whatty-what?

Well! This looks familiar.

Jiggly camera work? Silly questions? Athletes amusing themselves? Seen it… before… but… more awkwardly?

AH HA! ESPN! Well, since we can’t go, Mary Buckheit can appropriate our hand-held stumbling meme. NEXT YEAR, MARY: DUELING CAMCORDERS!

Holy Buckets – The Playoffs Are Mostly Over!

Note: What follows is possibly the worst thing I’ve written since Young Authors in 5th Grade. (I wrote a parody of Danger Mouse. Does anyone else remember that cartoon?)

Mind you, there are nine and a half minutes left in the opening quarter of the earlier of today’s two conference championship games, and this is when I’m spurred to put something down on the Internet. When I have a matinée to get to by 1:00. Suffice it to say, we’re not going to New Orleans this year. Though there’s going to be a live-blog, with God as my witness. You know who else isn’t going to New Orleans? The Rush. Also the Desperados. Because they got blown up by 6-seeds. The AFL – It’s Total Nonsense!

Oh, dear me, Raymond Philyaw just got Cleveland within 1 by continuing to play out of his mind. He threw his first interception of the playoffs earlier in the quarter, and just allowed himself to get a faceful of defensive lineman after lofting a perfect ball to the corner of the end zone for Amey (is a girl’s name). Which seems like as good a start as any for Quick Notes On the Playoffs. Raymond Philyaw is the single biggest reason that Cleveland could shock the world.

They probably won’t, because Philadelphia is in really good shape, health-wise, and skill-wise. Though they almost lost to New York, so I clearly know nothing.

GRAND RAPIDS? REALLY? Grand friggin’ Rapids? Is this because I made fun of them in my season preview? Because I’ll admit that we didn’t know which team would show up from week to week, and were equally confused by their 91-point games as by their 31-point games.

Oh, look! Instantaneous zoetrope examination for correct officiating on the field of play! The current Chris Jackson touchdown catch is under review (and was ruled an incompletion – BOO), but the decision to add instant replay mid-season has already paid monstrous dividends, getting the call right at the end of last week’s New York/Philly tilt. Hear that baseball? You have the technology, you can rebuild him. (“Him” being “your umpiring crew’s credibility.”)

Hey, look: San Jose is quietly marching to the Virgin Mitsubishi Daiquiri Arena Bowl Presented by Ambien or something. The least-flashy team might actually defend their championship? I kind of like that. I also hope they beat the tar out of the Rampage. Sorry, Rampage fans. But my God, your inconsistency makes last year’s Columbus run look positively steady-hand-on-the-tiller’ed.

It’s the Celebrity-Owned Conference Championship vs. the “Who Owns This Team?” Conference Championship. Where’s Bon Jovi and Jaworski, anyway?

Other stuff we missed: EVERYTHING. Hey, my dentist-in-training co-editor, do you have any idea why we suddenly got remarkably bored with crafting clever bon mots in the interest of silly indoor playoff foot-balls?

Happy Conference Championships, everybody! (Picks: Philadelphia, San Jose.)

P.S. Shaun King just made fun of himself getting killed as a Las Vegas Gladiator. Classy! Self-deprecating! Also, Raymond Sillyname apparently was a house guest of Bernie Kosar in the offseason. Quickly! Who’s a good scriptwriter? I have a pitch!

Playoffs! Round 2?

Smurfit-Stone Building = Go Rush

Yeah. That’s all I’ve got. Happy Independence Day!

Who Has the Inside Track To The Virgin Bowl XXII? And Where’d That Reference Come From?

If you were worried about Mitsubishi’s commanding lead in the Race To Name Everything Related To the Arena Football League, a challenger approaches: Virgin Mobile! The league entered into a partnership that includes calling the Arena Bowl “Virgin Mobile Arena Bowl XXII,” hereafter referred to as “The Virgin Bowl.” Because I am 12.

That said: who’s going to the playoffs? Who did what last week? What the flying ass happened last weekend. All that, and less, after the page break.

“Someone, Get Me a Helmet! Quickly!”

Apparently, in the correct circumstances, the AFL is so fan-friendly that one can simply walk off the street and be invited on to the team. Joe O’Donnell, a friend of the Chicago Rush’s John Moyer, was attending the game with his wife when Paul Edinger got a bit of a groin tweak during pre-game. Faced with the prospect of having no kicker and embarrassingly being forced to deliver the ball to the other team by yelling “Waaaaarning: kickoff!” and throwing the ball downfield, Chicago mustered an impressment gang, who were instructed to roam the stands for able-bodied kickers (much to the dismay of James Madison, but to the ultimate delight of O’Donnell). With merely 15 minutes available between the injury and roster submission deadline, the Rush did what any right-thinking team would do: they provided “shoes, shorts, T-shirt and an emergency tryout,” and I hope ultimately a helmet and pads, but what do I know?

O’Donnell went 5/7 on extra points making him – a kicker who last kicked an oblong spheroid through ordinary-sized uprights in 2004 while trying out for the Chicago Bears – not tremendous, but certainly serviceable. The bad news, of course, is that he missed his first and last extra points in a 50-47 loss, and kicked the final onside kick directly to Troy Bergeron. Troy Bergeron doesn’t know how to make mistakes on the hands team. He’s heard of these “mistakes,” oh, yes, but he has no context in which to put the content, so the idea of error is meaningless.

Which is really a damn shame, because you know that if it came down to a field goal to tie, and this guy made it, Disney would have bought the rights to the story on the spot. (Note: Joe – prepare to take dictation. We shall call it… THE LONLIEST GYPSY KICKER.)

In any event, bravo, Joe O’Donnell: to kick 5 extra points cold in a professional game means you have some serious intestinal fortitude, friend. Ice water in the veins. A large set of cojones. ONIONS.

[Thanks, in part, to Sam, who insisted I make note of this in a timely fashion.]

Bugger Off, Pac-10 Commissioner Search

On Tuesday, Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen announced that July 1, 2009 would be his final day at the helm of the conference. We said, and I quote, “What? Who? Whatever.” Because we are Big Ten apologists above all else, and therefore harbor a deep-seated jealousy towards the Pac-10 for their weather, girls, ostensibly laid-back attitude, and bazillion NCAA championships. Also, we don’t pay attention to “rumors,” “news,” or “facts.” But when you suggest that perhaps our favorite motile mountain of a commissioner would be a good fit for the opening, why, our hackles get raised. He’s ours, Pac-10, and we like him, because he can palm my head like ordinary people might a grapefruit. Also, he’s made great strides towards make the Arena Football League notable, and quite nearly relevant. But most of all, he legitimately cares about the goofy league with the crazy rules, and genuinely seems to have fun with his job.

He’s not an evil gnome, employed despite global revulsion and incompetence that nearly killed his sport (Gary Bettman). He’s not a megalomaniac who, when confronted with bad news, essentially sticks his fingers in his ears and goes “Woo! Woo! Can’t hear you! Train coming through!” (David Stern, who I am convinced is the guy who hisses into his phone to fake a bad connection, or drops syllables and claims that “there’s someone on the other line.”) He’s not a combination of the two, with the exception that – by the grace of God and rampant drug use – his sport managed to not get hooked up to life support. (Buuuuuud Selig!) And he’s not a power-mad autocrat who thinks he’s Zeus. (Roger Goodell, who I actually kind of like.) He’s our friend! So, take a hike, Pac-10.