Mid-Season Review:
Every four games Bill likes to take time away from the daily grind to reflect and review his performances for each game. It is a process which allows Bill to grow as a player, learn from his mistakes, and speak about his goals for future games. Without further ado, I present Bill’s Quarterly review of games 4-8 of Season 31 of the ISFL, which also happens to be his rookie year with his team, the Orange County Otters.
Week 5 vs New Orleans Second Line
I’m not going to lie, I knew since the start of the season that our week 5 matchup against the Second Line was going to be one of our biggest games of the year. Ever since I was drafted, it was engrained in me that the Second Line were some of our biggest rivals in the league. Bender Rodriguez couldn’t stop telling me just how much he hated that team. So going into this game I felt a lot more pressure than usual. The recent history between these two clubs isn’t something that I was overlooking either. I knew we had been getting beaten almost every time we play them, they are a tough team to beat. And they proved why they are so tough to beat in this game. It was a tough fought battle and one that wasn’t decided until the final drive. However, despite our best efforts, we lost another heart-breaker to a team that has vested us so many times before. I could see just how much these games meant to my teammates. I could see tears rolling down Bender’s face as he knew he had just been defeated by his biggest rivals. Seeing all this emotion and passion caused something to develop within me that I couldn’t explain at the time. It was a big heavy chip on my shoulder that I felt start weighing me down. Never had I let a loss affect me like this before, and I was shaken to my core that I had let this happen. This loss stung, but instead of let it get me down, I tried using my anger to help motivate me in my preparations for the next game.
Week 6 at New York Silverbacks:
Our week 5 game against the Silverbacks is a game I would like to soon forget. I cannot remember the last time I played in a game that I felt we lost in the first quarter. But this was that game. It was over before it started. Too many offensive and defensive mistakes left our team in a hole that was too big to climb out of. On a personal level I played like shit. There were so many missed tackles and blow assignments that I wasn’t even able to sleep later that night to too overthinking about all of the mistakes I made. I don’t even have a good excuse for how we played either. I thought we had a great week of practice and that the coaches prepared us properly to put up a good fight against this great team. But it just wasn’t our day. We got outplayed in every part of the game including offense, defense, special teams, and even coaching. Our coach was furious with us after the game and ended up giving us practice the next day instead of our usual rest day. I can’t say that I blame the man, I mean we just embarrassed him in front of a national audience and put his coaching career in jeopardy with that lackluster performance. We held a players only meeting after practice the next day and discussed what we had to do as a team to get us out of the rut we were in. After a lot of finger pointing, arguing, and yelling, our players were able to come together more fired up than ever determined to change things around for our flailing season!
Week 7 at San Jose Sabercats:
First and foremost I must begin my review of this game with this: this was an absolute heartbreaker for me personally. Going up against the Sabercats, I knew this would be a great opportunity for us to finally snap our losing streak and get a great win and morale boost for our team. I must hand it to the Sabercats, they fought with everything they had. However, going into the fourth quarter with a comfortable lead and then relinquishing that lead in a matter of minutes is never a good feeling. It was a gut punch and a big reality check for our team. No team in this league is an easy or guaranteed win. We played a lot better against better teams and it seemed we kind of played at the Sabercats level in this game. It’s so tough to see that and it was a miserable way of trying to comeback after getting beaten down by the Silverbacks the game prior. All in all, this game was a huge morale blow to the whole team. It was the lowest we all felt all season and something drastic was needed to get done in order to turn things around. After the game, nothing was said in the locker room. Complete silence as we all got changed and left. No one said a word but everyone already knew what was going to be said and what needed to happen to prevent this from happening again.
Week 8 at New Orleans Second Line:
Here it was, the rematch I’ve been craving ever since our week 5 matchup. Coming into this game following a big losing streak, it was important that we made a statement early. We came out firing on all cylinders and were able to get a nice 20-0 lead before they would respond. And respond they did, putting our lead at jeopardy of being squandered. Fortunately our guys were able to stand firm and hold onto our lead despite a vigorous attack from the Second Line. More like Second Wind, they would not let the foot off the gas until the end. Luckily we held tough and were able to set off a crazy celebration. The fans stormed the field and I even say Bender ripping helping to rip down the field goal posts. Personally I think I played decently that game. I had a few nice plays but I still felt that I could’ve played a lot better. I got a couple of tackles for losses, but enough about myself I’m really not the bragging type. After we won and the celebration cooled down, the team went out to hit the town and celebrate properly. Next year hopefully we are able to win both of our regular season games against them so we can have the ultimate bragging rights. Finally, I have this big chip off of my back and I feel 50lbs lighter. I’m fired up for our next game, hopefully we can extend this win streak and finish the season strong!
Every four games Bill likes to take time away from the daily grind to reflect and review his performances for each game. It is a process which allows Bill to grow as a player, learn from his mistakes, and speak about his goals for future games. Without further ado, I present Bill’s Quarterly review of games 4-8 of Season 31 of the ISFL, which also happens to be his rookie year with his team, the Orange County Otters.
Week 5 vs New Orleans Second Line
I’m not going to lie, I knew since the start of the season that our week 5 matchup against the Second Line was going to be one of our biggest games of the year. Ever since I was drafted, it was engrained in me that the Second Line were some of our biggest rivals in the league. Bender Rodriguez couldn’t stop telling me just how much he hated that team. So going into this game I felt a lot more pressure than usual. The recent history between these two clubs isn’t something that I was overlooking either. I knew we had been getting beaten almost every time we play them, they are a tough team to beat. And they proved why they are so tough to beat in this game. It was a tough fought battle and one that wasn’t decided until the final drive. However, despite our best efforts, we lost another heart-breaker to a team that has vested us so many times before. I could see just how much these games meant to my teammates. I could see tears rolling down Bender’s face as he knew he had just been defeated by his biggest rivals. Seeing all this emotion and passion caused something to develop within me that I couldn’t explain at the time. It was a big heavy chip on my shoulder that I felt start weighing me down. Never had I let a loss affect me like this before, and I was shaken to my core that I had let this happen. This loss stung, but instead of let it get me down, I tried using my anger to help motivate me in my preparations for the next game.
Week 6 at New York Silverbacks:
Our week 5 game against the Silverbacks is a game I would like to soon forget. I cannot remember the last time I played in a game that I felt we lost in the first quarter. But this was that game. It was over before it started. Too many offensive and defensive mistakes left our team in a hole that was too big to climb out of. On a personal level I played like shit. There were so many missed tackles and blow assignments that I wasn’t even able to sleep later that night to too overthinking about all of the mistakes I made. I don’t even have a good excuse for how we played either. I thought we had a great week of practice and that the coaches prepared us properly to put up a good fight against this great team. But it just wasn’t our day. We got outplayed in every part of the game including offense, defense, special teams, and even coaching. Our coach was furious with us after the game and ended up giving us practice the next day instead of our usual rest day. I can’t say that I blame the man, I mean we just embarrassed him in front of a national audience and put his coaching career in jeopardy with that lackluster performance. We held a players only meeting after practice the next day and discussed what we had to do as a team to get us out of the rut we were in. After a lot of finger pointing, arguing, and yelling, our players were able to come together more fired up than ever determined to change things around for our flailing season!
Week 7 at San Jose Sabercats:
First and foremost I must begin my review of this game with this: this was an absolute heartbreaker for me personally. Going up against the Sabercats, I knew this would be a great opportunity for us to finally snap our losing streak and get a great win and morale boost for our team. I must hand it to the Sabercats, they fought with everything they had. However, going into the fourth quarter with a comfortable lead and then relinquishing that lead in a matter of minutes is never a good feeling. It was a gut punch and a big reality check for our team. No team in this league is an easy or guaranteed win. We played a lot better against better teams and it seemed we kind of played at the Sabercats level in this game. It’s so tough to see that and it was a miserable way of trying to comeback after getting beaten down by the Silverbacks the game prior. All in all, this game was a huge morale blow to the whole team. It was the lowest we all felt all season and something drastic was needed to get done in order to turn things around. After the game, nothing was said in the locker room. Complete silence as we all got changed and left. No one said a word but everyone already knew what was going to be said and what needed to happen to prevent this from happening again.
Week 8 at New Orleans Second Line:
Here it was, the rematch I’ve been craving ever since our week 5 matchup. Coming into this game following a big losing streak, it was important that we made a statement early. We came out firing on all cylinders and were able to get a nice 20-0 lead before they would respond. And respond they did, putting our lead at jeopardy of being squandered. Fortunately our guys were able to stand firm and hold onto our lead despite a vigorous attack from the Second Line. More like Second Wind, they would not let the foot off the gas until the end. Luckily we held tough and were able to set off a crazy celebration. The fans stormed the field and I even say Bender ripping helping to rip down the field goal posts. Personally I think I played decently that game. I had a few nice plays but I still felt that I could’ve played a lot better. I got a couple of tackles for losses, but enough about myself I’m really not the bragging type. After we won and the celebration cooled down, the team went out to hit the town and celebrate properly. Next year hopefully we are able to win both of our regular season games against them so we can have the ultimate bragging rights. Finally, I have this big chip off of my back and I feel 50lbs lighter. I’m fired up for our next game, hopefully we can extend this win streak and finish the season strong!
“My name is Dauterive comma Bill, I am also insane.”
![[Image: zsCh4Gj.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/zsCh4Gj.gif)
