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).

The War on I-4 in Three .gifs

The Predators beat the Storm by 51 points on Friday, the worst loss in Tampa Bay’s history. In case you missed the game, these three .gifs summarize it pretty well.

DE Mike Lewis recovers the fumble for a Predators TD in the AFL Highlight of the Game.

WR Brandon Thompkins makes the Cutters Catch of the Game for another touchdown.

DB Varmah Sonie celebrates his first interception of the night. His second ended the game.

Facebook Cover Schedules, Vol. 1

Now that the Portland Steel have finally been named and their logo has been announced, I’m able to finish the home schedule graphics I’ve made as Facebook cover images. Of course, after using my template from last year to show what areas would be covered, it appears that Facebook has made it so even more of your profile pic will be in the way of the image, removing the 2016 part of the image.

I hope you’ll be able to live with having to remember what year it is. 😃

Anyway, here are the American Conference’s team schedules; you can see the National Conference schedules at this link.

 

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.

Photos: Tampa Bay Storm 54, Portland Thunder 48

This is an effective quarterback sneak and shows why it’s so difficult to stop. As long as those linemen bunch together and move, it’s pretty easy for the QB to fall forward before a defender can reach him.

Jamar Howard makes a great catch despite some uncalled pass interference at the goal line against the Tampa Bay Storm.

Jamar Howard takes a screen pass from one side of the field to the other for an 8-yard gain.

WR Jamar Howard hauls in his second of 15 receptions in the game.

Jamar Howard scores one of his four touchdowns against the Tampa Bay Storm.

Fullback runs are not nearly as effective in and-short situations, as it allows the defense to find seams in the offensive line, and the line has one fewer blocker to try to stop them.

FB John Martinez hurdled TWO Tampa Bay Storm players for the first touchdown of his career.

Andre Martin makes it impossible for the Storm to complete this deep pass.

Sure, this sack by KC Obi didn’t count, as teammate Marquis Jackson was offsides…but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a great effort.

The Storm recovered this onside kick, enabling them to keep the game close at halftime.

Osagie Odiase makes a tackle while the rest of the secondary gets ready to pitch in to stop forward progress.

The offensive line provided a huge pocket for Kyle Rowley on his first completion of the game.

Got a seat on the wall? You’re basically a part of the action – the kid in red in this picture is closer to the tackle than LB Remond Willis (No. 28).

Game Night: Portland Thunder vs. Tampa Bay Storm

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).

2014 #ThunderTopPlay Champion Announced

It took a couple of months, but we did it! We determined the single top play of the 2014 season for the Portland Thunder.

Fitting for a defensive backfield that had three players in the league’s top 10  turnover forcers, the top play of the Thunder season was Eric Crocker’s interception of the Tampa Bay Storm’s B.J. Hall, which turned into a 23-yard touchdown run by Varmah Sonie.

The play involved one of the EIGHT fumbles between both teams in the game, six of which were picked up by the opposing team.  Tampa Bay’s Michael Lindsey forced three of them, the top mark for the AFL in 2014, including the one that sent Sonie into the end zone.

“Not again!” said Crocker, when asked about what he was thinking as the ball was poked out by Lindsey. “But Varmah was Johnny-on-the-spot, and he has great return skills, so once the ball hit his hands, I was like ‘He’s going to score anyway.'”

The cap to the play was Sonie’s roll across the end zone from the T of Tampa to the Y of Bay before Coach William Mulder stopped him and pulled him up to celebrate.

“I was just happy I got in the end zone,” said Sonie. “I think that was my first touchdown of the season on defense, so I was just excited.”

Check out the full interviews with Crocker and Sonie below.