TSE ArenaBowl Preview - San Jose vs. Columbus

It all comes down to this.

ArenaBowl XXI will begin in just about 48 hours from posting and will pair two teams with one another that, given the AFL playoff landscape four weeks ago, shouldn't have had anything to do with one another. The first team, the mighty San Jose SaberCats, advanced to the league's championship with little in the way of opposition. The 63-49 beating of Chicago in the conference finals two weeks ago was just another of their impressive 12-game winning streak heading into Sunday's contest. They are led by Mark Grieb, the veteran ball thrower who has thrown for over 4000 yards and is one TD shy of 100 for the season. Wowzers. One would think that San Jose's dominance over the last two thirds of their AFL season would all but wrap up an AFL title for the SaberCats. But there are three opponents in the National Conference who would beg to differ.

Tampa Bay. Dallas. Georgia.

All three teams were decided favorites in their AFL playoff games. And each succumbed to a confident, underrated and downright awe inspiring underdog from the capital city of Ohio. For three straight weeks, the Columbus Destroyers did what no one thought possible; beating the overdogs and advancing to ArenaBowl XXI. They've looked better and better in their three wins this postseason, much more so than during their five-game losing streak which was snapped in the season's final week, securing Columbus their spot in the playoffs and sparking this remarkable run.

The major story of this game is between two very different veteran QBs. Grieb has been leading the 'Cats for nine years. Elements of his receiving corps has been intact for longer than Columbus has been in the league. Grieb's been around in this league, winning championships in 2002 and 2004. The nucleus of the SaberCats hasn't changed much since he began throwing passes for San Jose and it's that stability and experience in mind that San Jose will put it's hopes in the 33 year old QB.

And then there's Nagy. He has led the Destroyers through these playoffs with ease and grace, doing much more than anyone asked or ever expected of him. He has WR Damien Groce to thank for some of his success but most can be attributed to Nagy's growth as a QB. He was sandbagged in Georgia for ineptness late in games and that cost him the starters job there. With Columbus, he's hit his stride and looks poised, both on and off the field to lead his team.

So who wins? San Jose is (again) the better team on paper. Defensively and offensively, they outmatch the Destroyers. San Jose is still riding an impressive 12-game winning streak and has played each game tougher than the next. This is a talented team that looks more than good enough to bring San Jose a third title in six years.

But I'm keeping my faith in the Destroyers. Like the Cardinals in the World Series last year, even great teams can fall victim to good teams in their stride. Columbus is in just that. And if there's one team that can break Ohio out of it's recent sports funk (OSU football, OSU basketball, Cleveland Cavs basketball, Cincinnati Bengals arrest records) it's the Destroyers.

Final Score: Destroyers win 56-49.

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It's happening...

"Do you believe in Miracles?  YES!"

" The Giants win the Pennant!  The Giants win the Pennant!"

"I don't believe what I just saw!"

There's something new to add to the list:

"THE COLUMBUS DESTROYERS ARE GOING TO THE ARENABOWL!"

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You Arena Football Conferece Championships Preview

Yep - it's that slow a day here at TSE. JTBI is job-hunting and Seaward, well, God alone knows what he's doing. Me? I'm just trying to get to 5pm so I can go home. So in order to kill some time, I present your AFL Conference Championship Preview.

American Conference

Not surprisingly, since my last post on the AFL, popularity for the league has skyrocketed.* People from all corners of the world are clamoring to see what will happen during this week's conference finals and I am chief among them. The American Conference seems to have the better match up on paper, but as the wise man once said: "games aren't played on paper, they're played inside televisions".

*(probably not, I can't back that up)

The Chicago Rush have been one of the league's best teams throughout this unpredictable AFL season, finishing with three wins to catapult them into 2nd overall in the conference. The quick and able WR Bobby Sippio has been the lynch pin in the Chicago offense and we shouldn't look for that to stop this week. In last week's 52-20 drubbing of the Los Angeles Avengers (how do you score only 20 in an AFL game?) he was all over the offensive side of the field, taking snaps at Quarterback from time-to-time but usually sitting pretty in his role as WR #1 for QB Matt D'Orazio. He's the big play guy for Rush and if he has a strong game, so should Chicago.

Standing in their way, of course, are the San Jose Sabrecats, the conference's #1 seed, who haven't lost a game since the middle of April. The win streak rests firmly on the back of the Sabercat D, which gave up a whopping 400+ yards to the Colorado Crush last week. This wasn't the norm for the 'cats, who gave up 67 points last week, which was the most they've given up at home, where they are undefeated, or on the road all year. If the defense shores up, and and QB Matt Grieb can continue to lead the offense at the 72% season passing clip, then this should be a very close, if not low-scoring game.

Prediction:
San Jose has more weapons, but Defense wins championships. Chicago 51-47.

National Conference

Coming into this game, the [my] Columbus Destroyers are the talk of the Arena Football world, stunning, in consecutive weeks, the Tampa Bay Storm in Tampa and the #1 seed Dallas Desperado's IN big-D. Pundits are calling Columbus one of the more unexpected, nigh stunning teams in AFL playoff history. They will look to QB Matt Nagy to continue the run to ArenaBowl XXI in New Orleans.

They run, headlong this time, into the Georgia Force, who are easily the National Conference's most talented team. Defensively, no one hits harder, as has been the case all season and if Georgia can plant Nagy into the turf early and often, the budding star might lose enough of his shine to make mistakes. Combine that with Georgia's quick-strike offense and it could be a-lot-to-a-little very early into the game.

How can Columbus hope to stack up to the now 15-2 Georgia Force? They'll need some of the same luck that got them there in the first place: luck. They've had it on their side in the first two games and everyone in Columbus is banking on it again. Nagy has been stellar this year and his 75-15 TD-INt ratio must be on display. If WR Damien Groce can elude the Force secondary and get in a few scores early, Columbus is as good as anyone in the second half, outscoring Dallas 24-0 to open the third quarter last week.

Prediction
Like I said, I'm riding this Columbus bandwagon all the way to ArenaBowl XXI. They beat the Force once before this year and I don't think lady luck has stopped singing for the Destroyers yet. Columbus will humble Georgia 62-48.

Your thoughts and predictions in the comments. more...

I, for one, welcome our new AFL overlords

Seaward is right: this is an unbearable week for sports. No real baseball (even though the All Star Game "counts" now) until Thursday and no football for another 6 or 7 weeks. Yes, there is the WNBA but I'll cut off my balls with a rusty spoon before watching that. Yet in the midst of all of this boredom comes the lone beacon of home to get us to real football season.

The AFL, of course.

Through two weeks, things are heating up en route to ArenaBowl XXI. The Dallas Desperados were supposed to run roughshod through the playoffs and bring a title to the Metroplex with relative ease. But they forgot to ask Matt Nagy and the rest of the Columbus Destroyers what he thought about that little plan. That's right, just like last year, a 7-9 team is running rampant through these playoffs. The next two sentences are so incredible, so iconic, they get their own paragraph.

The Columbus Destroyers are one win from ArenaBowl XXI. They are two wins from bringing home Columbus's first professional sports title since the Columbus Quest made it rain in 1997-98.

So it's official: I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Sure, Columbus has their work cut out for them in the persons of the Georgia Force, who rumbled through the regular season at 14-2 and crushed the Philadelphia Soul by 26 yesterday. But Columbus put the hurt to Dallas, scoring 24 points to begin the second half. And if there's one thing that these playoffs have taught us so far, it's that the smaller field levels the scales. And if Matt Nagy, the wily AFL veteran who has methodically guided the Destroyers past better teams for two consecutive weeks can find a rhythm, then me and the rest of the Destroyer DieHards will be booking tickets to New Orleans for the big game in the very near future.

Now a lot of you may not care about the AFL's mutant brand of football. It isn't "Now" (though it is publicised and commercialized to death on the WWL) and it even falls behind the NHL in national popularity (probably). But for the uneducated (read: everyone) I can say from experience that there are a lot of similarities between the AFL and it's cooler, older brother with the car, the NFL. Some details:

- The playoffs are arranged in similar fashion: wild card round, divisional round, conference championships, league championships. There's even that incredibly annoying 2-week wait between games!

- Shitty teams can back into the playoffs and make a splash. The Chicago Rush limped in at 7-9 and won four straight road games last year to win the ArenaBowl title. The Steelers of the NFL did the same thing just weeks earlier in Super Bowl XL.

- Defense? The AFL don't need no stinkin' defense. Last year's ArenaBowl had a final score of 69 (giggity) to 61. So defense doesn't necessarily win championships, but then again neither do the San Francisco 49ers of this decade. Or whatever.

Seek out your AFL playoffs - you won't regret it. And with nothing else on, it's either that or episodes of "John from Cincinnati" on HBO On Demand. And alien football is better than surfing aliens any day of the week.

Note: the tags are all in caps, thus negating the "excessive use of WordCombinationUsingCapitalLetters" tag I so awesomely came up with. Just so you know. more...

Playoff Pageantry and Drama... Somewhere

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By: Paul Teeple

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It all comes down to this: two of sport's oldest and most furious rivals to do battle for one final playoff spot in each team's last game of the year. The arena is a mad house, alternately ablaze with blue & white and red & blue. Each team is trying to best the other while holding off a hard-charging third contender that is moving in fast from the outside. It's all the drama that makes the end of the regular season worth a six month physical and emotional grind. It's the kind of night that reminds you what it means to be a sports fan.

Too bad you'll never see it.

Tonight at Air Canada Centre in Toronto, the hometown Maple Leafs host the arch-nemesis Montreal Canadiens in the last game of the regular season. Montreal leads Toronto by what amounts to a half game in the Eastern Conference standings and tonight's game could clinch the final playoff spot for the Habs, catapult the Leafs into 8th by themselves and/or possibly give the Islanders new life with one game remaining on Sunday. And thanks to the NHL and their ludicrous television deal, you need to either live in Canada, purchase the NHL Center Ice package from your TV content provider or live close enough to a major Canadian market so that you can pick up CBC with your bunny ears.

Why go to all the trouble? Shouldn't such massively important games be nationally televised, if not over-the-air then at least on a nation-wide cable carrier? Well, come to think of it, yes. Yes they should. But they won't be.

	You'll never find a similar button on ESPN.com

These are the days of a hockey fan's life thanks to the NHL and their nonsensical cable television deal with Versus (nee OLN). Versus, which is supposedly so enthusiastic about its NHL television deal, only has one (one!) national telecast per week, and it's on Mondays -- gravity of the games be damned. So when the season ends on a Sunday and there are huge games on a Saturday night... nothing. In fact, you know what's on Versus at 7pm? A show I've never heard of named "Holy @#$%*!" which is apparently like "Real TV" but for 'extreme' sports. You know, for all of the Worldwide Leader's misgivings, when ESPN carried the NHL they had games on multiple nights and if games at the end of the regular season had heightened importance they'd bump their billiards coverage on ESPN2 and find a way to bring the huge games to the masses.

Let's also take the NHL's contract with NBC out of the equation. Over-the-air national networks have never and will never change their schedules for sports.

When the NHL made their short-sighted cash grab with OLN in 2005, everyone who even had a cursory knowledge of sports and/or television knew that they'd screwed themselves. When a sport has marginalized its relevance with an increasingly boring product (at the time) and a decimating work stoppage, it's probably a BAD idea to move your national cable contract from a sports network in roughly 95 million households nationwide to a "sports" network with 65 million households nationwide. And that's just looking exclusively at the numbers.

Let's be honest: the difference between ESPN and Versus is WAY more than 30 million households. One network is THE name in sports broadcasting in America. Love 'em or hate 'em, when you're bored and want to watch sports, the first channel you go check out is ESPN. Not FSN, not CSTV, not FOX, not CBS, not NBC, not ABC. And most certainly not freaking Versus. ESPN is what TV people refer to as "destination viewing." For a fun way of telling the difference between ESPN and Versus, go to your buddy's place tonight to do some pre-gaming and ask 'em: "What channel is ESPN?" Then ask, "What channel is Versus?" You can make a drinking game out of it: five drinks if your buddy says "What the hell is Versus?"; chug if he says "Channel 608."

	With a TV contract on ESPN, apparently ANYTHING can be a well-covered sport.

Admittedly, ESPN drew criticism from "hockey people" south of their border from their general disinterest in promoting their hockey broadcast and at the time the criticism was well deserved. But in this modern era where the Worldwide Leader goes out of its way to promote ANY sport they're broadcasting, I have extreme difficulty believing the NHL would suffer a similar fate today. All you need for solid proof of this thought is the Arena Football League. The past four years, ESPN went out of its way to discredit the AFL and treat it like less of a sport (deservedly so, might I add, it's a piece of crap). This year, however, ESPN has erred in the opposite direction, aggressively pushing its AFL broadcasts during its shows, running all AFL game highlights on SportsCenter and running AFL promos during high-profile NCAA, MLB and NBA broadcasts.

Additionally, a lot of hockey pundits advocated the NHL use the NASCAR blueprint for regaining a foothold in the American sports psyche. Well, who do you suppose has the NASCAR cable contract these days, which they are summarily promoting the living crap out of? You guessed it.

What it boils down to is this: everybody knows the NHL dropped the ball on its TV contract. What they need to do now is make it right by their fans; swallow your pride, Commissioner Bettman, and go back to ESPN. more...