*DSFL Power Rankings from Siberia! Weeks 1-3

[majesiu]

Welcome, straight from Yakutsk reports Vladimir "Siberian Swatter" Fyodorovich. Hopefully as a rookie (not uncommon) and a person that watched six times more DSFL games than actual football games (6 v 1 - math checks out) I'll bring unique perspective. Unfortunately as it comes with inexperience my judgement might be far from perfect, also please forgive potential mistakes in terminology!

Let's get his started, unusually from the bottom:

6. Tijuana Luchadores 0-3
Luchadores are unfortunately only team without win in first three weeks. What strikes me most is that they rely a lot on their Pocket Passing QB Sam Penner. He is having decent ratio 3 TDs to 3 Interceptions, but would surely benefit if other teams defences stooped focusing him solely. Another funny stat is that they are yet to attempt a field goal. I really hope they will turn around their season soon!

5. Norfolk SeaWolves 1-2
As I was recently enlightened this is one of the two teams that don't have active players. I wonder if during my NLSF/DSFL day we might field 6 team with roosters full of potential prospects - and maybe in long perspective give more than just one season to develop in lower league. Back to the point - Seawolves won their only game against Luchadares relying a lot on Passing - 228 yards and only 77 yards from rushing. It seems both these teams have similar problem of unbalanced offence.

4. * Palm Beach Solar Bears 1-2
As you can probably guess this team is my favourite in terms of design - FREAKIN S(P)OLAR BEARS - sign me up (at least after this team can contract active players - it's our 2nd bot team)! At first I struggled between choosing two positions - kicker or cornerback - as you can see I choose the former career, but still have huge sentiment for Kicker position. As it stands for now reward for the longest Field Goal Made would go to Kevin Butler who made 52 yard one. Palm Beach won one tightly contested defensively focused game against Coyotes 10-7. Their defence seems to keep other teams in check, but offence is yet to score more than 16 points in the game.

3. Kansas City Coyotes 1-2
Kansas City made quick work of Tijuana in season opener 37-7 (almost repeating pre-season result of 34-3), but after that stumbled against both Solar Bears and Marshals, failing to score more than TD+XP in each of these clashes. What strikes me most was number of penalties - 15 for grand total of 155 yards against Palm Beach and 7 penalties - 50 yards against San Antonio. If they clean up these problems they should climb up (or more probably solidify themselves at 3rd spot) rather easily thanks to balanced offence and rock solid defence, which is yet to allow more than 2 TDs in the game.

2. San Antonio Marshals 3-0
Now it's the hardest task - writing about the team I'm part of - I'll try to do my best while maintaining objectivity. Our greatest strength seems to be dynamic duo of QBs Mike Vick and Ryan Applehort. They provide two very different styles of play designed to confuse enemy defences. Judging by offensive numbers it's definitely working. Defence is where we have a lot of room to improve and where I plan to make an impact. So far aggressive schemes resulted in league-high 17 denied passes and 5 interceptions.

1. Portland Pythons 3-0
Thus we have our first leading team. They without a doubt deserve the spot bolstering both best offence and defence in the DSFL. What makes them so good? Both of their running backs - Shawn Ariel (294 yards, 6.3 avg), Borro Gore (327 yards, 5.5 avg) - are tearing it up! Why they are so good on the other side of the field remains mystery for my - they have lowest number of tackles and none of the other defensive stats stands out (other than tied lead of 5 interceptions). Conclusion is only one - whatever they are doing is working and I doubt they'll stop doing it next week.

That'd be all. It was really fun and also first experience of writing anything football related for me. Hope you enjoyed the piece and didn't mind my personal digressions.

Lack of logo is intentional? I've made one and while it's far from perfect (basically just a resize of big one) it's still better than nothing.

[Roly]

Awesome power rankings! Great write-ups and work

[AzhekAhriman]

This is great! Glad to have Rookies making professional quality media and looking forward to reading these each week. We'll see about the Coyotes lol, :ninja:

[Daybe]

applause

[SwagSloth]

Good stuff!