After 12 long, grueling weeks and 10 games later, we reached the playoffs. At the start of the year every division had their favorite to win it all, but as the season went along things started to change and those favorites weren’t so favorite anymore.

This week we saw a few upsets and, yes, some were real upsets and some were based off teams being given exceptions for players to be allowed to play. A few players and I were talking afterwards on Saturday, and all agreed that players need to play at least 5 games to qualify for playoffs and if they don’t then they shouldn’t be allowed and we should stop allowing subs in playoffs. It should be up to the team to make sure they have enough players eligible to play or they need to play shorthanded or forfeit the game all together or do what Tannantes did and asked to be removed from the playoffs and then you can either bump up every team and add the next team in. You could give a team a bye game or adopt the NBA style play in game between the last team in playoffs and the first one that missed out. I know it might get a little complicated to do that, but this way it makes it fair for everyone. I know with subs we always say we will give an average to lower caliber player for that division, but I say no more subs for playoffs and play as is. (ed’s note: this doesn’t really work for a non-professional league)

 

Playoff Recap

 

Division 1

 

Gros Coqs vs Centurions (12-42)

I can tell you like most people I never saw this coming, we all thought it was going to be a close game. Then when you take a closer look into it you start to notice that Gros Coqs used 2 subs and were given an exception for 1 player who only played 1 game, if that much, and it wasn’t much better on the other side either. Centurions were missing players and had Meis sub along with a guy Francois Hamel who pretty much eliminated Gros Coqs by himself. Francois only made 9 catches for 85 yards, but had 3 TDs and 2 1-point converts to go along with his 2 picks on defense. This right here is why subs shouldn’t be allowed in playoffs, especially when the team knows the player and asked for them specifically. Both teams were missing players all over and both teams did earn a playoff spot, but it just sucks when it turns out this way and you don’t really get to see the two teams really play one another.

 

Division 2

 

Marvels vs Outlaws (28-44)

I know very little about this game and won’t be able to say much about it. The reason for this was the games that were at 9:30 had an issue where the phones needed to be updated and that meant games needed to be loaded up manually and stats do not appear on site. Marvels made the playoffs and were going to be playing without their QB Max since he was going away for vacation. They were given Jason Rossie as a sub, and I can tell you from playing against Jason before multiple times it wasn’t a bad trade off the only issue Jason would have is the field size is a little narrower than he is used to and that he doesn’t know the players he is playing with. At the half, the Outlaws were up by 2 scores and I just happened to hear from Jason Edwards who was leaving early that with 10 minutes or so left they were up 3 scores and that the game was in the bag.

 

Division 3

 

Bines vs Jagerbomb (6-56)

What do you say about a game like this? Bines struggled all game long. I spoke to David for a few seconds after the game and he says how can we beat these guys, they are bigger(taller), faster, know the game and are all over the place. I said you have to pray and hope that you get a few lucky breaks and as you can see from the score that never happened. Jagerbomb were on fire all game Simon looked unstoppable and JF was catching passes all over the field from 1 yard drags to deep corners and it didn’t matter who was around, every time Simon put the ball near JF he came down with it, the only ball I saw JF drop was on defense that he would have easily taken in for a score. This was early in the game so didn’t have any impact on the outcome. The only thing that baffled me was how few passes went towards Simon for Bines. Last fall he was such a great runner, why not get him the ball more and let him make something out of nothing using his legs? At least try it out, you had nothing to lose.

 

Old School vs Idaho Udapimps (12-27)

Dahic was still out dealing with a concussion, and it really hurt them, at least on defense. Dahic is normally good for at least 1 pick, but more than that he forces QBs to think twice about throwing the deep ball and it allows his guys to jump short routes and make plays on balls. Even without Dahic, Old School still managed to pick off Brady twice and kept the game close, but what they couldn’t do was stop Jerome and Kyle from catching 21 of Brady’s 25 completions. For me the play that turned the game around was a penalty on the last play of the half which then allowed Idaho another shot at the endzone from 20 yards away where Brady threw it in Jerome’s direction, and he came down with it for 1 of his 3 TDs on the game. At half the score was 21-6 instead of 15-6. With Idaho starting with the ball in the second half they easily went down and scored and then played defense the rest of the game before surrendering a TD on Old School’s last drive of the game.

 

Division 4

 

Phoenix vs Canal Club (25-0)

I’m not going to say much about this game because it really wasn’t a game at all. If you wanted to see an offensive game, look away. If you were there for the defense you also needed to look away. But if you wanted to learn what not to do or where not to throw as a QB, this was the game to watch. There were a combined 15 picks thrown in this game. I can tell you that has never happened in an MFL game before and might not ever happen again. Francois had 2 really nice runs making players miss as he scampered into the endzone and that was basically all the offense as neither team was able to get over 100 total yards. I might not win the title this season in D4, but I will have my name beside Francois in the record books and this record will be hard to beat and should last for years to come. One last note about this game is that everyone who played on defense for Phoenix had a pick.

 

Bouchers vs Super Friends (12-13)

This was one of those games where the team that played better didn’t win. Super Friends were such a hot team a few weeks back where nothing they did went wrong and over the last few weeks, they haven’t looked the same. Maybe they just don’t feel the burn anymore knowing their QB will be leaving after the season and not willing to drive 5 hours each way every Saturday to play football with them anymore. Lukas came out and did everything right, except 1 throw that Jacob picked off and returned for a score. With a bit over 2 minutes left Super friends were only up by 1 point, and they were able to score but not get the convert. The score was now 13-6 for them and Lukas had time so there was no panic on his side. After a few short completions and two first downs Lukas saw that Thibault had a step or two on his defender and threw it to him in the endzone and he was able to come up with the catch and the score. Bouchers elected to go for a 1-point convert and tie it up instead of going for 2. Sometimes it’s the right call going for 1 and other times it’s not, it will depend on the players you have and what type of QB as well. In this case going for 1 was the right call, since Lukas was able to get 5 to 6 yards on most of his completions. Lucas looks right, comes back left and throws a pass to Felix who is down on his knees and falling forward to try and make the catch, but the defender did just enough to get a few fingers on the ball and it fall incomplete. Some say it was a penalty for contact, some say it wasn’t, and at the end of the day there was no flag. If you want to watch the last few seconds of the game, you can see it on the Facebook page for players where Willie has posted it up.

 

Weakest Link vs Super Friends (0-39)

After scrapping by in the previous round, Super Friends weren’t going to go through that again and came out on fire with everything going their way. The game started off with Marvin throwing a pass to his receiver where they bobbled it and knocked it right into the defender’s hands and he walked in for an easy score. You know when the game starts like that it can only go up from there, right? Not in this game. I can’t tell you how many drops the receivers had for Weakest Link in this one, but it was more than you can count on one hand at least. The Cinderella story for Weakest Link had to come to an end and when the magic ran out it, really ran out. A few weeks back we all figured they had no shot at playoffs and after winning a bunch of big games against teams that were better than them, it was a miracle they lasted this long.

 

Division 5

 

Heisenberg vs Phoenix (6-19)

This was the matchup between the number 1 and 8 team where the 8-place team should have had the advantage. Just so you are all aware of why I said that, Phoenix was only playing with 5 players and Heisenberg had 6. The only reason why Phoenix won this game was because of experience. Heisenberg made it easy for Phoenix on both sides of the ball. Offensively they kept going to the same side of the field and on defense they kept playing soft and weren’t getting a solid rush every time. They should have had Ian rush and it would have put more pressure on me. I was able to exploit the mismatch all game long and when they did make an adjustment, I had time to find someone else open. I also used my legs to run and had a few good plays that way as well, but what had to be the smartest move of the day was using every second of the play clock on every play (ed’s note: oh, he’s so smart!). I know it wasn’t fun and at the start of the game my team did want me to go faster, but after the game they were all saying that wasting the clock being only 5 was the right move. Khalil had a big game scoring all the points for Phoenix, but to me Joey was the big difference maker catching everything and always finding that open hole. I explained to Heisenberg after the game what they needed to do differently in the game to have a chance this way they will know for next time. I can tell you that if we had to play a second game that we would have been dead. All game Ian seemed to be attacking me and he really shouldn’t have as I was able to pick off 3 passes and had 5 pass defenses which could have easily been 6 or 7 picks (ed’s note: if Kevin was a good player). Finally, on the last play of the game Ian mixed up the formation and ran a post and a chair and I went to much with the post leaving Angie open in the endzone for an easy score. The convert was denied and that was the game.

 

Titans vs Knight Triangles (18-26)

This was an upset in the making. The Titans had a 6-point lead at half before it fell apart for them in the second half. Everyone was walking around talking about how Titans were going to pull it off and wondering what happened to Knight Triangles and I can tell you the reason for Knight Triangles struggling was they were without Victor who might be the best player on the team and it took them some time to adjust to him not being there. As for Titians how do you, Robert, only get the ball twice to your best player in Austin? And I know Steve was having a good game, but when you had the lead you should have tried to get Austin the ball more, he is the difference maker on your team and needs touches. First half, Titans moved the ball almost uncontested and in the second half they only got 1 first down you can’t have that happen when you are playing better teams as this allows them to get back into games and to take momentum. At the end of the day Knight Triangles figured it out and wore down the Titans into submission.

 

That’s it for this week’s playoffs games and if you want more, tune in tomorrow to MFL Total Access with Terry and Willie to see what they have to say.

 

Players of the Week

 

Because we have less (ed’s note: fewer…) games to pick from, I will only be picking 1 player per division and this time around you need to win to get your name up here. It’s playoffs and you don’t get points for trying. I know some of you won’t like it that I’m only picking 1 player a division since you only play one side of the ball, but if you balled out and put-up good numbers that won’t stop you from seeing you name up here.

 

Division 1

- Gabriel Archambault went 26 of 35 for 229 yards, 6 TDs, 4 1point converts, 1 2point convert and ran 4 times for 26 yards.

 

Division 2

- Vincent Deziel caught 4 passes for 50 yards and 1 TD. On defense he made 6 tackles, had 2 picks and ran 1 of them back for a TD.

 

Division 3

- Jerome Hovington made 10 catches for 114 yards, 3 TDs and had 1 pick on defense.

 

Division 4

- Tyler Znoj had a total of 2 catches for 27 yards and 1 TD. He also made 10 tackles 7 of them were sacks in two games on Saturday. He also accounted for all but 1 of his teams points in a 9-6 win.

 

Division 5

- Gregory Spino grabbed 5 balls for 50 yards and 1 TD. On defense he had 3 tackles and 3 picks.

 

 

I know I couldn’t put everyone I wanted up here, but I had to make a few hard choices and I tried to stay away from games that were blowouts since most of the time they are complete mismatches and I don’t like to give recognition to players that beat up on a much weaker teams. I have also said I would announce the player that I have picked for winning player of the week all season, but I am still waiting on a few things to come in so it will have to wait until next week.