The (Now Bi-Weekly) “Weekend” In “Review”

Two references in one picture! (A) The Soul remain in the conference driver’s seat, beating the bejabers of Dallas this week, and (B) The plot of an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia episode this coming season revolves around two of the characters attempting to purchase the team from Jon Bon Jovi. I assume hilarity ensues. On to the scores, facts, and outright fabrications!

Philadelphia 71, DALLAS 64

The 11-3 Soul move into a tie with Dallas for the conference lead, but – thanks to the season sweep of the Desperados – own the tiebreaker. Tony Graziani was re-activated from IR before the game, got the start, and was INSTANTLY concussed, and Matt D’Orazio finished the game at quarterback. IS THIS THE END FOR OUR WELL-COIFFED HERO? STAY TUNED! Chris Jackson continued to make himself useful, scoring 6 times for Philadelphia. Think About It: Philadelphia celebrates things like The Constitution and Benjamin Franklin. Dallas celebrates things like jackets with fringe and drilling for dead animals that make your car go. What Does That Have To Do With Anything: Hell if I know.

MORE

The Rest of the Weekend In Review

Meanwhile, in Canada… It’s like we’re writing their headlines!

Speaking of the Rampage…

ARIZONA 52, Grand Rapids 48

We are legally obligated to call them “The Playoff-Guaranteed Arizona Rattlers,” so, The Playoff-Guaranteed Arizona Rattlers survived a scare from the Playoff-What-Are-You-Kidding-Us?-How-Stupid-Do-You-Think-We-Are? Grand Rapids Rampage, thus putting off the Rattlerpocylpse (please, feel free to steal that word) for at least one more week. [Sigh] Begrudgingly, we must mention the above-average late-game play of Jeff Smoker, who managed the crap out of the clock and converted the plays he needed to convert to beat the also-third-division Rampage. Horrifyingly, one of these teams – IF NOT BOTH OF THEM – will make the playoffs. Break up the American Conference, for they are a mighty juggernaut of quality football! James MacPherson was 13-26 for 270 and 6 parts unknown. Does that strike anyone else as weird? DID YOU KNOW: The Rattlers have now offered free playoff tickets to those of you that sign up for 2009 season tickets? Also you get a puppy? And a fluffy cloud to sleep on and a unicorn, and a sliver of the True Cross. This is the greatest front office ever. DID YOU ALSO KNOW: Grand Rapids could be next year’s Cleveland? By which I don’t mean they’ll pack up and move, but I mean they might enter the summer as a slimy, playoff-unbound pupa and emerge next spring as a scary butterfly with teeth, and we’ll spend next season going “WHERE’D THESE GUYS COME FROM?” I have complete misplaced faith in the transplanted-Georgia-Force-esque offense and whatnot. DID YOU ALSO ALSO KNOW: My metaphors are AWESOME?

Two more games to suffer through, but I’m not going to waste above-the-fold space on them.

Weekend in Review: The Only Consistent Thing is Inconsistency

Would you believe that this is the only current picture of this game I could find on the entire Internet? What the French, Toast?
Georgia 40, NEW ORLEANS 29

Every time I think about making Danny Wimprine the It’s Still Football Official Randomly Chosen Hero of 2008, the VooDoo decide to do things like avoid the end zone like it’s made of super-hot magma. A respectable-to-zesty NFL line of 26/48-244-3-0 doesn’t mean diddly indoors. Though, their continued effort to engage in lengthy touchdown passes to fullback James Lynch (5′ 11″ 276? Really? He looks three bills at least.) did provide me with no small amount of glee that was eclipsed only by Georgia’s “razzle dazzle” play that they “drew up in the dirt.” I quote directly from the mic’d commentary of Georgia’s
Jim Kubiak, on that one. It’s like they’re reading my thoughts. Georgia, finally showing the verve we EXPECTED at the BEGINNING of the year, went on a double-digit-to-zero (19-0 this time) run again to close out the game. DID YOU KNOW? New Orleans is tres not good on ESPN Deuce, chere. 0-3? DID YOU ALSO KNOW? Georgia’s quarterback The Scrappy Chris Griesen’s gains his power of being impervious to pain from ancient Aztec gold, as he is descended directly from an otherwise unremarkable conquistador.

Find the lies after the jump. Find the lines (and watch a little piece of my soul die) at the place where you bet on football.

Weekend In Review: The Darkness Looms

The winner of the Rush’s alternate uniform debate: mostly black! The winner of this picture: the guy in the beige shirt who looks more bemused than excited. “I am obligated to raise my arms in triumph, but we’re so far ahead, that it’s almost a chore,” he seems to be saying. The winner of the game:

CHICAGO 72, Los Angeles 28

Well, the good news is, this didn’t distract from the Spurs/Hornets game, though Chicago nearly outscored the Hornets. And less-nearly outscored the Spurs. Chicago came off their bye week angry, apparently, and decided to lock up a first-round bye in convincing fashion, obliterating the maybe-frisky-in-previous-weeks Los Angeles Avengers. 4 defensive touchdowns made Ditka and the ISF staff positively giddy, though we were content to wait until this morning to see what the final score was. Russ Michna continues to make me look dumb for ever referring to him as “merely adequate,” as he barely broke a sweat in this one.

The rest of the week is after the jump:

Weekend in Review: That Stuff We Posted Yesterday, Mostly

Yes, I just steal photos from ArenaFootball.com. What of it? I have a point to make.

Of course, when I’m ready to rant about how ESPN’s grand commitment to the league seems to have fallen off somewhat since the heady days of Mike, Mike, Trey, Jaws, et al. (Were those salad days merely one year ago? How young we once were!), they go ahead and announce that Mike Hohensee and other members of the Rush are going to do a Sportscenter commercial. That doesn’t necessarily take the sting out of the fact that it occasionally appears that certain games are played in poorly-lit caverns with cameras stolen from remote broadcasts of the 1980s. Occasionally, you expect to see Dan Rather show up in a Muhajadeen outfit and explain how badly the Afghans have it against the Red Army. ANYWAY. There’s that. On to what happened over the weekend.

Chicago 51, TAMPA BAY 46

For all but the fourth quarter, this game was as close as the score would indicate. Tied at the half, back-and-forth through most of the third quarter, the Storm and Rush played a tough, reasonably defensive game that began to turn on a fumbled kickoff by the Storm’s Sedrick Robinson, and then  was solidified when, the Chicago defense was able to hold Tampa Bay to a field goal after a late Storm interception of Russ Michna. I’m beginning to come around on this Michna fellow – he’s 5-0 and ran the play-fake-naked-bootleg in the 4th quarter for a touchdown, and that’s the sort of chicanery I personally enjoy. Brett Dietz, after leading a gritty win against Orlando last week managed to keep the Storm in the game, but – as has been the discouraging refrain this season – wasn’t able to get the victory. If we’re starting the playoff watch this week, Tampa’s probably a bit nervous at 3-6, while Chicago’s putting some significant space between themselves and the defending champion Sabercats.

More, after this word from our imaginary sponsor:

Weekend in Review: Let’s Respond To Some Comments

There you go, your CPR picture. This is before the “corpse” is slapped away, as you do when you fail as an EMT.

This may be irregular, as I usually leave our comments sections alone, because I don’t feel like I need another medium in which to look like a ninny, but the last two days have brought some really trenchant commentary that I’d like to mention. I’ll incorporate them into the Weekend in Review blurbs, so get reading. We’ll start with…

Chicago 49, KANSAS CITY 42

JCompton says that Kansas City “isn’t really all that bad. They just aren’t good enough to beat the teams they’re playing,” which is sufficiently bad, but in fairness, may not fall under the category of “really frickin’” bad. They’re better than, say, Utah, certainly, and D. Bryant has now a couple good games in a row, so perhaps they’re on the upswing, but they couldn’t hang with a quasi-depleted Rush team. Michna is competent, but no Bonner (or D’Orazio, for that matter), and for some reason Jeremy Unertl forgot how to cover wide receivers consistently. And I didn’t see Captain Brigade! I’ll look again, but I’m sorry I missed the belly bomb. We’re going to get the clips of the officials’ conferences as soon as I get my hands on the gadget that lets me rip footage off the TiVo

Weekend In Review: De…fense?

Can you imagine the damage this man would do on a small field? The horror, the horror!

Defense was the word of the weekend in the Arena League. April fool’s! For real! New Orleans won on the strength of their cornerbacks, Chicago shut down Arizona, Dallas triumphed with a safety, and San Jose held the Brigade to under 40 points. We’re going for really impossible-to-pull-off ideas this week, so let’s see how much we can cram into RHYMING! COUPLET! RECAPS!

Click through if you want bad poetry. Or even if you don’t. It’s all we have today.

Weekend In Review: We Know NOTHING

This is all that’s left in Utah’s “good news” file. Everything else is filed under C, for “Crap, total.” Also, we’re pandering.

Perhaps it’s that the actual normal-person (i.e. “unrelated to Arena Football”) schedule of team TC/JM has kept us from assimilating as much information as we should. Or perhaps it’s because nothing in this fucking league makes any sense. Hello, New Orleans, nice to see you here. Danny Wimprine makes that much of a difference? How wonderful for him, and for you. I’m not wagering against him anymore, that’s for certain. Full slate of winners/losers after the break.

Weekend in Reviewaaaargh!

What happened over the weekend? Everyone who wasn’t screwed before is now screwed. Except for Sherdrick Bonner, whose wife had a baby. But Graziani got his leg snapped like a twig, and Dallas has about one more quarter of keeping Chris Sanders alive. Other things happened, but it’s already 5, and this “venerable” website hasn’t commented on ANYTHING from this weekend. Nerts. [Update: Did it, and before Tuesday ended, too!]

Oh, and Cleveland’s 3-0, and that heralds the End Times.

Fake analysis after ye olde jump.

Weekend In Review; CMRP Victory Party!

Mediocre halo, add a lens flare… Yeah, that sounds about right.

TAMPA BAY 69, Georgia 48

Whew, that’s more like it. The Brett Dietz March To The Sea gets back on track with an efficient, 7-touchdown performance, connecting with 34 different recievers and he saved some children. (But not the British children.) I’m not giving up on The Scrappy Chris Griesen yet, because his numbers were okay, but Georgia simply couldn’t get a stop. Plus, the Storm decided to resume murdering teams with the passing game. (Running touchdowns? What? Not today, my good man.)

The rest of the weekend is given cursory attention after the jump.