AFL Power Rankings, Week 11

I don’t have enough fun and interesting facts for a full post, so here are a few to tide you over until next week.

• Until Week 10, no team had surrendered a safety all season. The LA KISS have now given up two in two weeks (no one else has surrendered one).
• Jacksonville’s three defensive TDs against Tampa Bay exceeded their non-offensive output for the rest of the season combined (they had one defensive TD and one special teams TD).
• Tampa Bay reached 10 touchdowns surrendered first, getting all the way up to 11 in just 10 games. Yes, opposing defenses average more than a touchdown per game against the Storm.

Here are your power rankings:

1. Philadelphia (1.21)
2. Arizona (1.12)
3. Jacksonville (1.10)
4. Orlando (1.02)
5. Cleveland (0.99)
6. Los Angeles (0.93)
7. Tampa Bay (0.81)
8. Portland (0.78)

Jacksonville improved their ranking by annihilating Tampa Bay. Portland couldn’t capitalize on the Storm’s poor performance, losing by a lot to Arizona. Orlando and Cleveland’s dead-even battle resulted in almost no movement for both teams. And Philadelphia has started running away with No. 1 honors.

This is a big week for our rankings – the No. 1 and 2 teams will battle, as will 3 and 4. The biggest disparity in a matchup this weekend is between Cleveland and Portland, and the first game between those two teams went to overtime. Enjoy the games and hopefully we’ll shake things up next week!

AFL Fun Facts, Post-Week 10

I’ve lost my ability to use Photoshop, so no cool graphs or .gifs anymore. All I have for you are fun facts about the Arena Football League as the regular season heads into its homestretch.

• Two teams have yet to surrender a defensive touchdown – Arizona and Jacksonville.
• One team has yet to score a defensive touchdown – Tampa Bay.
• The LA KISS lost their game against the Orlando Predators via a botched FG snap that bounced through the end zone. It was the first safety recorded of 2016.
• Because of Brandon Thompkins’ two kickoff return TDs in the fourth quarter that kept the Predators in it, the Predators offense took the field for only five drives. The next fewest drives in a game this season is seven, achieved by the KISS (in this game), and the Storm in Week 5. (Portland had the most, 15, in a Week 1 loss to Arizona.)
• Speaking of Thompkins, he leads a Predators special teams unit that has EIGHT special teams touchdowns in 10 games. Tampa Bay has the second-most with three.
• Portland’s maligned defense has come up with lots of stops recently. After having three combined stops against first team offenses in their first four games combined, the defense has come up with 3+ stops in three of their last four games, including six stops of Tampa Bay last week (plus two special teams fumble recoveries).
• On the other hand, Orlando’s defense has melted down recently. After getting more than one stop in each of their first seven games, they’ve managed just one stop in each of the last three. They’re 1-2 in those games, with the win being due to an unforced error on LA’s part.
• The Philadelphia Soul now lead the league in weighted offensive and defensive success rate, which is why they’re my No. 1 team in my upcoming Power Rankings post.
• …and Cleveland‘s offense has become pretty darn good under Arvell Nelson. Since he took over as starter, the Gladiators have had 70% or better scoring rates in every game, a number they failed to achieve even once in their first four games. Under Nelson’s leadership, the offense went from Tampa Bay-levels of production to slightly better than Jacksonville’s.

 

AFL Week 2 in Three .gifs

Since Monday’s game will be on CBSSN and therefore inaccessible to me, here are the highlights from the games I saw this weekend.

Tampa Bay at Cleveland: I think this is the only highlight in a game that was pretty ugly and marred by injuries and guys that were never supposed to play this year ending up playing QB for both teams. This interception sealed the win for the Gladiators.

In fairness to the QB, the defender is nearly invisible in this .gif. Unfortunately for him, real life is not compressed for size and using only 64 colors, so he shouldn’t be quite so invisible.

Portland at Orlando: It was an ugly game considering that the only real stop was the interception on Portland’s last play of the game. The first half was full of slow, methodical drives, and the second half saw lots of penalties and lots more scoring. The Predators’ feed meant lots of camera cuts mid-play, which makes for confusing .gifs and a lot of the game’s best plays were lost to that production.

The best kick return of the night ended in the returner nearly being carried off the field by the opposing team. The next play was an interception to seal the Predators’ win.

Arizona at Los Angeles: Sorry, this was after my bedtime. I see I didn’t miss much, as Arizona obliterated LA.

I didn’t watch Arizona vs. Los Angeles. I’ll let this Predator shame me (and haunt you).

Facebook Cover Schedules, Vol. 2

After we covered the American Conference yesterday, we still had four teams (and their fans) that needed Facebook cover schedules! Again, when I made these, my template was set for 2015 Facebook rules – since Facebook LOVES changing arbitrary things all the time to make it impossible to keep one set of standards, the current setup for profile pics will probably block out the “2016” part of your schedule. You’ll just have to remember what year it is on your own.

Without further ado, here are the National Conference schedules:

Arena Football League Midterm Grades

All 12 Arena Football League teams have made it through the midpoint of their season, so it’s an ideal time to hand out mid-term grades.

I took the offensive and defensive success rates, added them up, then let the SaberCats set the curve, giving them an overall 100 percent grade. Everyone else gets their grades adjusted based on that 100-point scale.

The National Conference’s average grade was a 73.6; the American Conference tops that with an average grade of 75.3. However, the National Conference has a huge disparity, with both the two top teams and four of the five bottom teams. The American Conference is the AFL’s middle class, with four of their six teams earning Cs halfway through the year.

San Jose SaberCats

A+

100

They have the best offense and defense in the league, they’re 10-0, and they still have potential to do more. When they look sloppy and bad, they win by 20. What happens when they play well?

Arizona Rattlers

B+

88.3

Yup, the Sabercats are wrecking the league so badly that no one else scores in the A range. Arizona’s offense has had some hiccups while working through missing their receivers early in the season and then their quarterback problems with Davila’s injury and Coleman’s leaving the team. The Defense has been really good; San Jose’s defense has just been ridiculous. If this team gets healthy, they are definitely still a threat to the SaberCats.

Choosing your team for the 2015 AFL season

Great! You chose to be an Arena Football fan based on my last blog post. Now, what team should you root for? Check out my newest flow chart over at ArenaFan (here’s a small portion of it below).

AFL 2015 Schedule Cover Images: American Conference

I wanted to take on a project yesterday, so I decided to make these Facebook cover images for anyone who’s an Arena Football League fan. If Facebook told me correctly in its sizing guide, the sides will drop off on mobile and you’ll still have a pretty good-looking cover image with the home schedule. And when you view them on the web, you’ll get the added bonus of being able to see your team’s away schedule!

Here are the American Conference images (NOTE: Philadelphia’s looks a little off because of where your profile picture will cover up; I wanted the logo to still be visible. It’ll look better on an actual page):

Note: I was working on these until nearly 3 a.m., so it’s possible I made some errors in transcribing the schedule. Let me know if your team’s is wrong and I’ll do my best to fix it quickly! If you’re a fan of a National Conference team, check out that set here.