We start this week with the 1-0 Green Machine taking on the 0-1 Gorrilaz. Green Machine was looking to add on to their thrilling first walk off win against Semi Pro and Gorillaz looking to even up their record after a disappointing first loss to Stogies. The table was set, the players were ready. GM took the ball first and after going for it on 4th and short, could not convert. Gorillaz now had a short field to try and strike first, but four shots into the endzone that land incomplete ended their first drive as well. That’s when Avenger started picking up the pace. Hitting quick curls to dax and ice and using his legs. On third and goal from the 11, avenger rumbles behind oppen and ice to sneak by the pylon and give GM a 7-0 lead after the conversion.  Lego would answer right away with an absolute strike down the sideline to captain rook. The extra point was missed making it 7-6. Unfortunately for GM, that lone score early on was their offense for the day. Now that’s not to say they didn’t have some nice plays and good drives, but the wind picked up and the passing game disappeared. Gorilaz defense was swarming and the avenger couldn’t find any running lanes either. Speaking of running….Lego took captain knish’s advice and decided why throw the ball. Lego took off again and again and the GM defense was nowhere to be found. On one play in particular lego ran right past dax who appeared to look at lego, shrug, and continue his colorful conversation with Goldberg. Lego would finish the day with three rushing tds, each one more impressive than the next. GM eventually scored again at about 9:27 but it was too little too late. The game was well out of reach at that point. Gorillaz win this one 24-13. Jewball to Lego for the electric running and huge flag grabs on defense as well. Other notable play was oren being an absolute wrecking ball on d line to the tune of 2 sacks and 1 “sack” and Mighty doing mighty things with a pick and a sack.

One other note from this game was while I was trying to line judge it seemed like there were arguments every other drive. Unfortunately, as I learned on Sunday, reffing two games is impossible. Trying to get videos of both games while reffing two games is futile. I don’t know what all the disagreements were about, but as I heard from some guys afterwards, it makes the game unenjoyable. It’s a part of the game that there will be arguments, and in a weird way it’s a good thing because it means there’s a game on the line that’s worth fighting for, but it shouldn’t rise to the level of constant fighting. That’s when it becomes too much and ruins the game. So whether you absolutely need to make a call bc you just cant help yourself or you need to insist that the line of scrimmage is six inches further than where the defense spotted it… don’t let it become a fight. Really really ask yourself whether the win or loss is worth this fight before doing it and then go ahead and play ball. not saying don’t make calls– but be absolutely sure you would have made the play but for something illegal that the other team did.

Onto the other side of the field where the 1-0 stogies were looking to continue their hot start against blop who was playing their first game. Blop short handed after losing Spira for the season and not having Ernie in this one, got off to a rough start. After blop stalls on their first drive, cool yaron takes his first play of offense and throws a dump off to dk who takes it 70 yards to the house. DK just ran through the defense and nobody stopped him. 6-0 stogies. blop took the ball back but could not get anything going at all and the stogie defense was all over the place. Whether they were catching picks or hurting zinn, the blop offense was nowhere to be found early on. Yaron gets the ball back and rifles a throw into ross for a 12-0 lead. Suddenly a fire was lit under dachs and co and the offense started clicking. dachs hits zinn on a deep ball to put blop at the 1 and a short td to prime made it 12-6. Then arguably the greatest catch we’ve seen in leagues happened. Yes there is no film… I missed it bc who the heck films extra points but dachs dropped back and threw it high and behind zinn coming across the back of the end zone. Zinn jumps up, inverts his right hand 360 degrees and just absolutely sticks it one handed while somehow landing with his feet in bounds. It was jaw dropping and surreal all in one. 12-7 stogies. Cool yaron never took his foot off the gas though and marched right back down the field with a td to daxxy to make it 18-7. Blop answered right back with a prime rushing td to make it 18-13. not one to be outdone yaron takes the snap and throws a five yard curl to blitz. Now whether blitz was inspired by the zinn catch from earlier or whether he just put the team on his back, he started to rumble. After a zinn missed flag, blitz was off to the races. 2 minutes later and he was in the endzone on a bumbling, rumbling and stumbling trek from 70 out. You can almost hear Chris Berman yelling “he… can …go… all… the… way”. 24-13 stogies. On the next possession dachs hit zinn on a gorgeous deep ball to make it 24-20 and we had ourselves a game. dachs gets the ball back with a chance to take the lead at 9:26. The drive stalls out and now yaron takes it back with a chance to ice it. A score and stogies move to 2-0. In one of the most methodical drives we’ve seen from yaron, he made throw after to throw to march stogies down the field and capped it off with an absolute dart to the back of the endzone to blitz who made an incredible fingertip catch (yes i dont have the video of this either) to end the game. A valiant effort by blop -but not enough- and stogies move to 2-0. Yaron had himself a game and in two games with stogies has matched his league win total from the past two seasons! The trash man is on a mission. While yaron deserves a jewball, blitz had himself a day with some huge flag grabs on defense and the two tds on offense. Jewball to the blitz. Captain stella another league game, another two ints for him. After being laughed out of draft night….stogies are the team to beat and in sole possession of first place with four games to play.

Game 2 was a weird one. Maybe it was the new guys, maybe it was the randomizer or maybe it was giving the ball to the wrong team on two straight drives. It was the colors of pray, bin, bert, kagan, prime, rook, and zinn vs. dark of yaron, jerry, gronk, stats, tom, werz, and whiskey. colors took the ball first and scored immediately with a pray to prime strike. after a 3 and out colors got it back but pray and yaron forgot they were not on the same team and after exchanging ints to each other, it was pray lateraling to rook after the int for a 60 yard pick six. 2-0 colors. yaron finally found the endzone a few drives later by hitting stats in the back left corner. 2-1. Unfortunately for dark that’s when the game went out of control. pray lost his pants and yaron throws a curl to werz who tries to put the moves on prime and either after realizing he wasn’t going to escape or being mesmerized by primes incredible tailoring of prays pants, he laterals it back to….kagan who turns around and waltzes into the endzone for a fumble recovery td. 3-1. The next drive for colors pray hits rook for a td to make it 4-1. Gronk had a rec td for dark at some point to make it 4-2 but after a kagan short pass that turned into a 70 yard score it was all but over for dark. except….gronk wanted to get in on the action of throwing it to the other team and after orchestrating one of the best drives of the day for dark throws a pick six in the red zone to zinn to end the game at 6-2. I don’t know if we can have multiple jewball winners from one game but the line play of rabin, kagan, and bert was just awesome. 6 sacks combined between the 3 of them. regardless….jewball to rook for coming off a huge league game in game 1 and then turning around and bringing it again in game 2 with a rushing td and rec td and just all around hustle all over the field. never Settle down rook.

Week 8 is here. Bowl season starts next week. best time of the year for football. Come get it. IJWT

Week 6 started off with some light sign ups. Some say it was due to Mighty hosting the degel flag football invitational tourney and others bc rain was in the forecast. Either way jewball was still played with one early and one late game.

In the early slot we had feit, E, mighty, prime, ross, schiffer and stats vs. Yaron, pray, bert, tbd, logan, steveo, and zada. Game started with a methodical drive by cool yaron capped off by a td to pray. Feit got the ball back and marched right back down the field with a td to mighty to tie it up at 1. cool yaron went back to the formula for the day and hit pray for another td to make it 2-1. feit right back to it hits prime on a nice catch and run to make it 2-2. that’s when the old yaron showed up for a minute….the one that takes long in the huddle and says he doesn’t throw that many interceptions. In a play call that hasn’t worked in a number of years… yaron throws a backward pass to pray in an attempt to catch the D off guard. Unfortunately, everyone saw it coming and pray threw it back to yaron only to be intercepted by prime and put colors right back in the redzone. However……feit could not take advantage and gets picked off by pray on the next play. cool yaron came back and again marched his team down the field finding pray again to make it 3-2. colors then stalled and it looked like yaron and co might jump out to a 2 score lead to break the game open. yaron drops back and throws a dump off to pray who shockingly was not expecting the pass and taps it up into the air and into the diving arms of feit. Except colors stalled yet again in the redzone. No harm no foul for the int by yaron/pray. the next drive, Yaron broke the game open to make it 4-2 with a td to pray. colors kept it close with a beautiful deep ball to ross from feit to keep it a one score game but yaron was just in sync and marched down the field again to make it 5-3 after a rushing td by pray. not to be outdone mighty takes a short pass by feit to the house tiptoeing down the sideline to keep it a one score game. 5-4 and dark ball. If colors gets a stop they have a chance for a tie. but on 3rd and long yaron throws up a PRAYer and ball gets tipped bounced around and into the arms of pray who donuts to the endzone to ice the game. 6-4 final dark over colors. while yaron and pray had a solid day to say the least, the real star of the day was kagans racist, three legged dog on the sideline, and after seeing the backwards pass play early on in this one took his frustrations out on the field…… IYKYK. It was at that moment that team dark was inspired to play better and pulled away with the W. Jewball to peeve.

In game 2 it was pray, daveo, kagan, mighty, special k, whiskey, and newcomer werz vs. avenger, davenger, berk, tom, spiegel, legs, and blitz. as opposed to the high scoring affair of game 1, this game was all about goal line stands. If memory serves right, there were 6 stops inside the ten yard line. three for each squad. Dark opened the scoring first with a td from pray to kagan to make it 1-0. and the game stayed that way for about 45 minutes. avenger was doing his patented jukes and spins and getting his team inside the ten but for whatever reason could not punch it in. the first goal line stand ended with a werz int. dark got the ball back and methodically moved down the field only for pray to the throw a redzone int to berk. back down the field avenger went, only to get sacked twice – once by mighty and once by daveo to knock them out of the redzone. the other story of the game was the deep balls just not dropping in. but finally avenger drops one into legs for a 45 yard strike to tie the game at 1. a few more defensive stops later….pray finally was able to break one with his legs and run it in from 60 out to take a 2-1 lead. next drive avenger dropped back and decided to just throw the ball higher than anyone else can reach……anyone other than tom who just started eating up chunks of yards on the elevated throws. but again stalled drives in the redzone and no points to show for it. as the game was winding down avenger dropped back to pass and was under an immediate rush of mighty and whiskey. whether legs pushed him or whiskey took a swing no one will know but avenger went down. avenger is a gamer though and popped right back up to finish the game…concussion tbd. on one of the last drives of the game avenger made it back to the redzone and called a pitch play to berk to try and punch it in for the tie. thats when the rat took over. mighty split the gap quicker than his vibrator on his hammys and tackled berk for a loss of five. next play mighty did it again with a huge sack on avenger to effectively end the game. jewball to mighty for the 5!! sacks on the day.

Two monster league games for week 7. GM v. defending champ Gorrilaz and Stogies v. Blop. Regular jewball to follow. Who wants Week 7. IJWT.

Can’t believe that we’re already 1/4 of the way through the Jewball season but after months of anticipation throughout the summer, the jewball season seems to fly by.

On the one side of the field we had zinn v gronk, two guys who kept begging to play qb showing off what they can do. And with yaron MIA it was finally their chance.
Zinn and dark had zada, prime, dk, blitz, kagan, and vegh. While Gronk had colors with bin, bz, mk, rook, oppen, and steveo. Game was a low scoring affair with what seemed to be not much movement of the football. I saw a lot of zinn running and a lot of gronk doing his patented hip move but both teams struggled to move the ball. eventually zinn ran one in to make it 1-0. Gronk eventually tied the game up with a td to mk. Shortly after with time “running” out prime had himself a rushing td to give dark the 2-1 lead and the win. While zinn should prob get the jewball with the rushing td and an int on defense, there was a guy on his team who was putting up numbers but was struggling to get that all elusive W. before this game prime was 0-7 and hope was slowly fading. Prime jewball to you for the rushing td and picking up the first win of the season.

In game 1b it was pray v dach. An all time jewball showdown that probably has more ties over the last few seasons than any other matchup. This game would be no different. After a couple of last minute team changes. it was colors of pray, press, ice, goldberg, tom. bert, and justin vs dark of dachs, dobs, mighty, schiffer, O, berk, and spiegel. Dachs took the ball first and after an impressive first drive hit a td to mighty to open up the scoring. colors answered right back with a pray strike to press in the back of the end zone to tie it up. right back at it dachs hits berk on a long ball to take a 2-1 lead with dark again answering right back with a td to ice…..but instead press rips the ball away from his teammate 2-2 now. That when the defenses started attacking. O turned back the clock and was a force racking up three sacks and forcing a bad throw that led to a berk pick. Not to be outdone the three man rush of goldberg/tom and justin and bert had dachs running for his life as well. After a few stalled drives pray hits iceman leaking from tight end on a 50 yard td to take the 3-2 lead. it seemed like pray may just finally pick up his first win of the season at qb…. however dachs dropped back and hit berk for his second td of the game to tie it at 3-3. colors had their last licks but couldnt get anything going and we headed to Jewball OT… four plays from the 25. Dachs took the ball first and dropped back to throw a quick slant to mighty…iceman charges in and barely misses what would have been a game winning pick six (a sign of what was to come in game 2….) mighty grabs the ball and scrambles in for a td on the first play of OT. all colors could hope for now was a tie. after a sack and a couple of runs, colors was down to their last chance. 4th and goal from the 23. not exactly sure what happened but the entire defense converged on press….leaving ice standing by himself in the right corner of the endzone and easy catch and throw to tie it up. a really incredible ends yet again in a tie. No jewball but dachs and O had themselves a game for dark and press and ice for colors. Goldberg was there also ;).

In game 2 it was avenger v pray, where pray would try yet again to pick up a W at qb. It was colors of pray, kagan, prime, zinn, stella, tom, and oppen vs. avenger, dietsch, legs, portal, gronk, whiskey and ice. this game similar to game 1 had both offenses absolutely struggling to punch the ball into the endzone. Avenger scored first on a td to gronk and colors tied it up on a wacky wacky play- a flip to prime that gets batted by legs, then batted by prime, then caught by tom who takes one giant step over the goalline to tie it up. Avenger answered with a long drive and another redzone strike to gronk to make it 2-1. after a long time of no scoring pray hits prime on a seam route right down the middle to tie it up at 2-2. i dont remember when exactly but oppen got hurt and gronk was bored so they both left leaving us with a 6 on 6. thats unfortunately when the game was marred by some calls. dont need to get into it here as it was discussed all week but after a few controversial ones the game was left in a tie and jewball OT would be played again. On the first play of OT avenger rolls all the way to his left and throws back across his body to dietch. Except zinn is never too far away from a ball to make a play on it. Zinn scoots in and reaches for the ball….pray would finally pick up his first W as all zinn needs to do is secure it and walk into the endzone for a game winning pick six. Zinn grabs the ball but the ball just doesnt stick…pops into the air where zinn tries to catch it behind his back somehow and lands softly to the turf…..dark would survive one more play. the next play avenger hits a strike to iceman to take a 3-2 lead. colors takes the ball for their chance at OT but could not get anything going. after a failed trick play it was 4th and goal from what felt like the 50….a wild play where pray flipped backward to tom and tom then back to pray and a hail mary launch down the field that zinn almost came down with ends this game at 3-2 and a dark win. Jewball to legs for the clutch calls down the stretch….jk jk jk….legs was a force today. racked up 3 sacks and was just a menace all over the field with his pass rush. colors couldnt move the ball well and legs played the biggest role in that. shoutout to gronk for the 2 tds and dietch for making sliding grab after sliding grab to keep drives alive for dark.

Who wants week 6!!

Week 4 Recap

Waking up early on a sunday morning just feels different on a league week. It’s like the first week of the season all the excitement and adrenaline but on steroids. Whether you blame your captain or not, you’re coming out to prove something- to prove that your team has what it takes to win a chip. To prove to yourself and to everyone else why the place you were drafted was not too high or was too low. To prove the haters wrong and show everyone what your made of.

This year leagues started with some double header side by side action with Captain Stella’s Stogies taking on the Defending Champ captain rook and his gorrilaz and on the other side Kut’s Semi Pro’s taking on the Daveo Green Machine.

We’ll start with the game I was a part of.  Green Machine was the talk of the town after the draft as Daveo compiled a team of assassins on paper. Semi pro and kut not to be outdone assembled his own killer squad. Unfortunately Semi pro was missing their captian for this one (although he brought donuts) and it showed early on. While Semi pro initially jumped out to a 6-0 lead on the second play of the game it unfortunately was called back due to a holding call. Green machine then started hot and put up two immediate scores one to berkowitz and one to ice to secure an early 13-0 lead over Semi Pro and we looked to be on our way to a blowout. But just then everything changed. Stats started racking up catch after catch for SP and stuck one with three fingers to bring SP down to the five yard line to be capped off by a vegh td. SP tried a hurry up extra point but was unssucessful, 13-6 GM. one play later Portal from d line bats a levinger pass straight up in the air to which solo grabs and walks into the endzone and just like that it’s 13-12. Not sure if it was the pick six or something else but GM’s offense grinded to a halt. There were bert fumbles and throws to nobody. SP takes the ball back and drives 75 yards down the field for a smooth little td to portal leaking from tight end capped off by a stats two point conversion to give SP a 20-13 lead. but then avenger started cooking hitting all his wrs and finishing with a td to kagan. a missed extra point on a back of the end zone throw to ice kept SP in the lead 20-19. GM’s defense started swarming then and SP could not move the ball down the field to ice the game for two stragiht drives. Finally, GM gets the ball back with their last licks. Score and they go home 1-0. Lose and a lot of their confidence from draft night goes out the window. Avenger methodically moved the ball to midfield and on 2nd and 15 throws a pass to….stats… all that needs to happen is for stats to secure the pick and the game is over. Except pray comes racing from across the field eyeing the ball as if its a donut and wanting to make sure no one else gets it. pray swats the ball away and turns around in disbelief. a miscommunication and GM has a second chance. two plays later on 4th and 2 avenger evades two flag grabs to just barely pick up the first down. the very next play avenger rolls all the way to the right and throws back to left corner of the endzone for a sweet sliding grab by berk to end the game. 25-20 GM over SP in an absolute back and forth nail biter. had SP held on portal would have had himself a jewball with the absolute dominant play on o line and d line when his team needed it the most he stepped up and was a force. but sp didnt win so Jewball to avenger for the 4tds and absolutely brilliant throw at the end to win it. Shout out berk also for the two tds as well as kagan for making play after play and one really incredible extra point while getting leveled by storm.

Onto the other side of the field and Stogies were looking for blood. Stella was questioned at the draft about some choices and he was ready to set the world on fire. Gorillaz on the other hand came out of the draft looking like the biggest steal of draft night went 3rd overall. Lego was lighting jewball on fire game after game and by the looks of it was going to run away with jewball leagues as well. But of course in true jewball fashion that wouldnt be the case. Jewball is the ulitmate equalizer its the bell curve of all bell curves and just because someone is hot one week, jewball can cool you off in an instant. the opposite is true as well and Stogies were looking to prove it. Based on the videos and some of the plays i caught from that game it appeared to be just as intesne and just as much of a nail biter as the other league game. except something was different. stogies were different. stogies would not let themselves be bullied. I believe the scoring opened up with a dump off from yaron to dk who took it to the house to make 6-0 early. Gorrilaz answered right back with a short throw to mighty who did mighty things and zig zagged his way through the defense to make it 6-6. Stogies answered back with a yaron special backward throw to gronk who then threw back to yaron for a sweet grab (maybe you were really born to be a wr…just saying) to set up a td to gronk. But then gronk pulled a mighty and left early and the question was would stogied be able to hold on. The answer was… of course. Stogies absolutely wrecked Gorillaz high flying offense to the tune of 4 ints (2 for wilmer and 2 for mk) and 4 sacks (2 apiece for daxy and dk). the only other score for gorillaz was a volley ball tip drill of a td that landed in rooks hands in the back of the endzone to keep the game close. Stogies scored one more time on a td to ross to cap an 18-15 victory. a lot of options for jewball in this one because yaron played masterfully and dk was a wrecking ball. but its gotta be captain stella with a stellar performance on defense as well as just overall having his team fired up and ready to go to move to 1-0.

In game 2 it was the return of someone we hadnt seen for a while… hockey dachs. Just kidding. dachs started off this game pretty hot leading his crew of pray ernie spiegel/storm whiskey prime and special k against yaron bin kagan legs zinn stats and rook. yaron jumped out to an early lead on a rook td but dachs immediately answered with a pretty corner route to prime to tie it up. after a dachs int to rabin, yaron answered right back with a rushing td to take a 2-1 lead. after a few three and outs, dachs answered with a masterful drive using his legs to extend the drive and then hitting pray in stride to tie it up. after a few yaron misfires, dachs got the ball back and went into attack mode. using all his weapons to run one in from 15 out to give them a 3-2 lead with 15 minutes left. Yaron then hit a td to zinn to  make it 3-3. all colors needed was a score and a stop and theyd have the vicotry secure. dachs dropped back and threw a gorgeous throw to ernie, and whether its because hes a muppet or kagan has something against singers, he absolutely decks ernie and the ball falls to the ground. a great play by kagan to break up what likely would have gone for six. one play later, dachs gets picked off by yaron and yaron throws a td to rook for his second td of the day and gives dark the 4-3 lead. next possesion with a chance to tie, kagan picks off dachs to end the game – a 4-3 victory by yaron and co. Another game with a lot of worthy jewballs but kagan its all yours. bartender made play after play at multiple positions and while he only finished with a sack and int, he was all over the field. love em or hate em, i dont know if there is anyone who out hustles kagan on every single play. Cheers bartender.

I didnt think we would have another in both player so quickly but as much as we hate the guy… he threw 6 tds, had 1 rushing td, and added 1 int on defense to lead his team to two W’s. Yaron has alway been an in both player but we all know he only actually played game 2. hed let the other team have their way and then settle in for game 2 and light it up. Sunday was different. Sunday was a guy who matched his league win total from last year on the first week of leagues. Sunday was a yaron who only threw one int ALL DAY. Sunday was a real in both yaron and for that hes the in both player of the week. weather is getting colder and mexico is calling. Who wants week 5?