S2 - Ultimus Week

[Sweetwater]

Offensive Comparison:
For our offensive comparison, lets take a look at the ASFC Champion Arizona Outlaws, and the NSFC Champion Baltimore Hawks. I'll start with the Outlaws. As the top seed from the ASFC, it was expected to see them in the Ultimus game, and a lot of that was due to their high powered offence. They are ranked 1st overall in the league for points per game, 2nd in the league for rush yards, and 4th in the league in both passing yards and overall yards. With Quarterback K. Bronko at the helm the Outlaws put up a league toppling 25 passing TDs, and a significant number of those going to receiver M. Jackson, who put up an impressive 1200 yard season. Leading the backfield is running back R. Mackworthy. While he may have had an arguably low 3.3 yards per carry this season, when you run the ball almost 350 times, you're gonna get results. With his longest run at only 15 yards, he is a true ground and pound, and that 1000 yard season shows just how much power he has. Arizona's offence got it done last year, can they have a repeat performance?

Time to look at the NSFC Champion Baltimore Hawks. The Hawks suffered a large blow this season when they lost their star tight end (who shall remain nameless) due to findings of his abuse of performance enhancing drugs. Nevertheless, they have moved on to the Ultimus. Now, S. Kyubee is not the best QB in the league, and he actually threw more interceptions than he did touchdowns, but he is not the star of this offence. That honor belongs to the NSFL leading rusher D. Farlane. Farlane had an incredible 1267 yard rushing year, but with 376(!) carries and a 3.4 average, we have to question how much more abuse he can take. The team will need to really amp things up if they want to take it to the incredibly tough Outlaws defense.

Defensive Comparison:
Time for our defensive analysis. Here we are going to compare two players who could make the difference for the big game. I am going to be comparing safety turned corner back for the ASFC champion Outlaws, Isaiah Rishard, and star corner back for the NSFC champion Hawks, Antoine Delacour. Both Pro Bowl locks, it's safe to say they are elite players and capable of shutting down a star receiver or an entire half of the field.

Isaiah Rashad finished the season with 60 tackles, a league leading 6 interceptions, 19 passes defensed, a forced fumble, and a defensive touchdown. Impressive stats for someone playing out of position, and a constant threat to make turnovers. On a personal note, I can say the sim loves him. In my testing he will make a big play basically every game, so look for that to happen in the Ultimus.

Antoine Delacour had an insane season. 65 tackles, a sack, 2 forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, 5 interceptions, 13 passes defensed, and 2 defensive touchdowns. He is a terrifying opponent or even the best receivers, and a lenace to QBs. If the Hawks want to win this year, they are going to have to have Delacour keep up his numbers and make some big plays when it counts.



Bottom Half:
There were 2 teams this season who have had equal and opposite reasons for not having made the playoffs. The first is the San Jose Sabercats. The Sabercats started out the season strong with a 3-1 showing, but soon fell to a 9 game losing streak. In the midst of this turmoil the GM, Royal, had a plan. He was able to trade two major players looking to move on during free agency for future picks and one of the biggest and best motivators, Wide Receiver Darren Smallwood. Smallwood set forth a chain of events which lead the team down the path to a full rebuild. The team was almost guaranteed to miss the playoffs when trading 2 active players and having received players who would either go inactive or retire.

The Las Vegas Legion had a similar plan, but the other side of the coin. The Legion decided to go for broke and move most of their capital to try to make a push for the Ultimus this year. This unfortunately backfired when several of their players either became significantly less active, or disappeared altogether. As expected, less active players leads to lower team performance, but with the added downside of losing several draft picks (including the season 3 first overall pick) in the process. The team went all in on a pair of aces only to have the house pull a straight flush.

Playoff Review:
The NSFC Championship game was an offensive matchup for the ages, or at least, it should have been. With the Yellowknife Wraiths having an aggressive areal assault, and the Baltimore Hawks an old school ground and pound option, you would think we would have seen back to back to back touchdowns. But we ended up with one of the lower scoring games of the series. Yellowknife, despite having 2 of the top ranked receivers in the league, Josh Garden and Bailey Cook, both coming off 1000+ yard seasons, supplemented by a ferocious running back in Bubba Nuck, only managed to put up 14 points and 191 yards on a Hawks defense that usually landed in the middle of the pack. Whereas the Hawks offence, while able to put up tons of yardage, 452 of them in fact, were only able to put up 16 points. The Hawks would have a steep hill to climb to come up with the Ultimus.

The ASFC Championship game was much closer. The two most arguably complete teams having it out with a good old fashioned game of football. Both teams had a turnover, multiple sacks, and close yardage. The biggest difference was the penalties. If it weren't for the fact that the penalties are most likely determined by some sort of random number generator, one would think the refs had it out for the Otters. They totaled 70 yards of penalties, which makes up the majority of the difference in their total yardage when compared to the Outlaws, and arguably cost them the game.

The Ultimus was a totally different type of game, in that it was a total blowout. Kyubee was sacked twice for safeties, all of the Hawks points came from 2 field goals, the Outlaws just dominated and showed why they totally deserve to be the S2 NSFL Champs.

Championship Game Recap:
The biggest play, or at least the one that seemed to set the full momentum of the Arizona Outlaws total domination of the Baltimore Hawks in motion, came during the second quarter of the game. To set the scene, the Outlaws had just made their way down the field, only to be stopped at the Hawks' 1 yard line, a big stop for the defense holding to only a field goal. Down 10 but with 40 minutes still left in the game, the Hawks prepared to answer on the next drive and hopefully bring the score to within 3 points. Ronaldo kicked off and landed the ball at the Hawks 6 yard line, with no chance of return from Dermot Lavelle. With first and 10 on their own 6, the Hawks called a pass play to try to get away from their own end zone, but corner Isaiah Rashad had other plans, and sacked Kyubee for a 4 yard loss on a corner blitz. Now facing 2nd and 14 from their own 2, and for our play of the game, the Hawks went bold and went against common practice: They decided to try and pass again. Kyubee took the snap, dropped back, started to go through his reads, and sensed something coming. Knowing he was in his own end zone and had no passing options, he attempted to escape, but it was too late. Defensive tackle Arbin Asipi came blasting through the line and sacked him in the end zone for a safety. This play was the true momentum changer for the game. The Hawks were no longer down just 10 with possession of the ball, they were now down 12 and on defense again. The free kick ended up not going nearly far enough and with the return, the Outlaws were almost in field goal position again, and just a few plays later, they were now up 15 to 0. The Asipi safety lead to a 5 point swing, but more importantly, a huge momentum swing. They players were fired up and would go on to rack up 13 more points before Baltimore even got on the board.