Cronies 6 – FCFT 3

Twas at the dawn of the sun on that auspicious day. Thine families gathered within their broods preparing for the epic battles which were destined to be waged that fateful morn. Thus the hot eye of heaven doth shine unto the clear fields of Lawrence, thine fields both lined up in unison.  Thine Cronies vs thine Feit Club and Lionhearts vs BOPeth. Twas unknown how bloody the battles would become and how many bodies would be left on the field on what will forever be known as Red Sunday.

Tis a tale of great glory between the Cronies and Feit Club. Thine Cronies were barely able to scramble a team together in what was the first tragedy of the day, Logan, we’d later find out was having a most painful stomach virus. (picture the bathroom scene from dumb and dumber) Gronk, Solo, Munch, Klink, Maor, Jordon and Waldo on one side, facing Feit, O, Kut, Storm, Vegh, MK, Rabin and Rook. There was a lot of talk going into the game, would Feit Club finally come together as a team? Would Munch and Solo continue to wreak havoc on the QB’s? Would Maor actually show up? How high would Klink be? Would Vegh get any passes from Feit?

Right from the start, it was clear that people were amped. As if the bloodlines were filled with flagons of heavy wine flowing strongly, beating like a thunderous rain, through the cold veins. Cronies scored early with a long Gronk pass over the top to Solo, catching the FCFT with their pants down. 1-0. In a quick and methodical response, Feit marched back down the field and with a beauty of a pass over the defense, MK makes the first of his ridiculous diving catches. 1-1. In a string of solid defensive plays, FCFT gets a pick but fails to score on the ensuing drive. Cronies make a few plays but then try and go for it on 4th and short and fail to pick up the first. Feit uses the opportunity to go up 2-1 with a deep pass to speeding Rook. (let’s give credit to the kid who showed up week in and week out, not knowing if he’d even be playing. He will forever be known as Rook but he will go a long way if he keeps bringing that fire and passion) It would be the last time FCFT would have the lead. In what could have been a game changing play, Gronk lobs one up and it hits Feit smack in the chest, only to bounce away, along with hopes and dreams of Feit Club.  In the next drive, Gronk once again hits an open, leaking Solo who takes it 70 yards before being brought down. A well-drawn play by Gronk has Waldo speeding across the middle of the end zone and makes a great catch. 2-2. It is a great battle at the line between the top lineman in the league Munch and Solo vs Kut and O, it lives up to the hype. Each down would be hard fought and would dictate what would happen in the rest of the play. Solo finally learned to pull a flag and got 1 sack on the day. Munch would have a lot of pressures and end with two sacks on the day. Kut managed to find his way to one sack and O had his share of pressures on Gronk. Gronk managed to create another scoring opportunity and took the lead for good, going up 3-2. Feit club was able to get a few drives together but couldn’t get down the field. The game was close, each play, each set of downs would be important, each catch and each drop would be integral to a win or loss. On a 3rd and long, Gronk is feeling the pressure of the rush and somehow throws a laser over the defense for a back shoulder pass to a streaking Waldo, who makes the catch and manages to hold on as he goes down hard into the sideline. (Gotta give credit to Bentzi, it’s great to see a guy develop and improve right in front of you. End of last season and beginning of this season, his hands weren’t there. He was quick, had height, but couldn’t pull the ball down. But, like rook, he put effort in, he stayed after games to practice and learn from guys like Yaron, Ivry, Feit, and Jordan. He worked on himself, and we are now seeing the fruits of his labor. MVP of vets/rooks, and a great game on Sunday.) Well as we said, he went down hard. His shoulder was hurting, but he tried to get back into the game for the next play. No bueno. This time the pain was too great, he tried to come back, but it was too late. This led to a conundrum on the Cronies, they were down to 6 players with no subs available. Unless…. “Hey Steve-O, you only have one hand, but can you at least pretend to play?” “Hey Goldberg, you’ve been standing on the sideline yapping away for an hour, you wanna get in?” ultimately, it was Steve-O who would sacrifice his body and Shalom bayis for the love of the game. (He magically had his cleats with him, so that tells you something.) After getting Goldberg to tie his laces, (seriously, guy had only one usable hand.) Steve-O joined his Cronies. No Gronk, you can’t put him on the line and hope that we’ll feel bad attacking him. On that same set Gronk finds a leaking Solo once again who manages to stiff arm his way to the end zone for another TD. 4-2. Feit takes the ball on the 5 and puts together a couple short plays. 4th and long, have to go for it, MK comes into the huddle and says, “give me a back shoulder at the marker.” Feit draws up a play and manages to throw a bullet to MK who makes another incredible diving, back shoulder catch at the first down marker. Building on that momentum, Feit marches down the field and ends the set with a pass and great catch by Rabin for a TD. 4-3. Gronk gets the ball back and wisely calls run play after run play to eat up the clock and with heavy pressure coming after him, escapes the sack and throws another TD. 5-3. What would be the final score of the game. Feit club had a chance to make it a closer game. A great ball to Vegh with a tackle/flag pull by a one-handed Steve-O gets them to mid field. Another beauty of a lob looked like it was going to land right in the hands of Vegh streaking down the left sideline, only to be picked off by Gronk, who reached out at the last second to end the drive and the hopes of a FCFT win.

Jewball is tough here, and since the season is technically over, is there even a Jewball to be awarded? I’m open for discussion, but I think it has to go to Solo, guy was amped, body literally shaking with the pre-workout he chugged before the game. He had 2 TD’s, 1 sack, lots of pressure and countless plays. His stiffarm is deadly and he’s very difficult to bring down.

The game was truly a hard-fought battle, both teams played well. Feit Club had its chances, but just couldn’t pull through. They needed to play a perfect game, but alas, twas not. There were injuries on both sides, Feit had a badly bruised knee, Waldo’s got a fractured shoulder, Kut’s got a sprained finger, Solo could only do half a workout, and everyone who played is in just general soreness and exhaustion from leaving everything on the field.

This however doesn’t compare to what was happening in the BOP vs. lionhearts game…..

Lionhearts 3 – BOP 2 (5OT)

A PJ’s Dazed and Confused Perspective!

The postseason In every sport presents itself with the best teams from the regular season. In Jewball, while everyone makes it, that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be there. Every Jewballer plays with heart and soul. We embody our leader J, and the leaders before him. Sunday which will be given the name “Bloody Sunday” or “Red Sunday”, for so much that occurred on the field, will be a day that Jewballers will be speaking about for another decade. This recap will focus on the Lionhearts vs the defending champions, Birds of Pray, aka BOP. This is also the championship rematch of Yaron vs Pray. However this time Dobs will be on Yarons side after Yaron snatched him in the 6th round of the draft. More on Dobs later.

These two teams match up so well on paper and the regular season provided the same evidence. BOP won the first game of the season 2-1 and they tied
2-2 in the fourth game. Although, LH were never at full strength for those games, BOP was 1-0-1 against them and Pray has had the edge on Yaron in league games since it’s inception. Yaron has yet to beat Pray in the league. The # 2 seed Lionhearts are led by their QB Yaron and he lines up with Singer, who was voted by his peers as the MVP of the season, Ivry (TD leader), Jack, Zada, Dobs (MIP of the season), Beast, Big E (late scratch sort of!), and Sam. #3 Birds of Pray are led by their QB, Pray who lines up with his first round weapon and the co-TD leader and possibly the most dynamic Jewballer for the last 12 years in Mighty, Prime his bestie and most reliable stiff arm, Legs the killer( more on that!), Salem, Dave-O, PJ’s, and Eddie. Tom who was lost for the season was very missed! These two teams know each other and you knew this would be a battle for all 90 minutes… cough cough, 3 hours!

Pray starts with the ball but goes 3 and out after some short yardage plays to Mighty. Yaron gets the ball and BOP defense knew they needed to play at their best. And they did. Yaron gives it right back. Pray goes back to short game but it doesn’t work. Yaron gets the ball back and starts getting some throws to Ivry and they get the games first, first down. But they eventually give it back. Pray starts moving the ball and it starting to work but he’s got a 3rd down at the 50 and launches it deep but is picked off by Zada at 20 yard line. Yaron begins another drive with getting the ball to Zada for yards. Then find Jack over the middle but Dave-O thinks he has a INT, Jack holds on but is tripped and hits his head on the ground. Jack didn’t look good. We helped him off the field but his day was done. Yaron’s troops were worried about Jack but it was 8:40 and they needed a win. Yaron finds the man who took him down in the championship last year in Dobs for the first score of the game. PJ’s is pumped up and Pray can sense it. He finds PJ’s open down the sideline for a big 35 yard reception and a first down. The next play Pray runs for a 30 yard TD to tie the game.

LH would get the ball back but this time Dobs is coming off the field and enter in Big E(shh his wife can’t know!!) in his regular clothes. LH were down to 6 players and he stepped up. Dobs and Jack on the bench. Yaron stalled on his next drive. BOP gets the ball back and are trying to take the lead until Sam calls Pray for being over the line in the first controversial call of the game. BOP gives the ball back. Yaron and LH just cant sustain drives. BOP knows they have one Mighty drive left until the siddur play. Pray has wanted to hit Mighty deep all year and he finally connects! 2-1 BOP and it’s 9:15. Mighty Walks off the field assuming the championship is in sight next week. BOP is down to 7 players. Dobs back in the game, Big E gone as well. Kudos to E, he was sick and found a way into the game to help his team. Yaron knows he needs to tie. So he finds a weakness in the defense and hits Singer for 40 yards and gets great field position. Yaron is positioned to tie. He gets a few short yardage plays to get another first and now it’s first and goal. On first down he runs it to get close to the 10. Second down Eddie calls Yaron over the line which is a very questionable call and it’s a loss of down. And he can no longer run. 3rd down he finds Ivry who can’t hold on in a tight pocket throw. 4th down, game on the line, the ball is going to Singer. Singer makes a PI call just before the ball hits off singer and Prays hands and falls incomplete. Everyone is confused. Singer never makes a call and if he does it means it’s legit. A call is made and must be respected even If BOP doesn’t agree. LH get another chance and Ivry one on one with Salem makes a nice Catch to score. Game is tied. Both teams get one last chance to score but BOP fails to do much. Lionhearts are now driving to win the game. This is where things get crazy. Yaron hits Singer for a big first down. Then Yaron takes one himself and PJ’s tracks Yaron before the first down marker but Legs who is trailing Yaron collides with his teammate head to head both players are on the ground and laying on the next field. Legs appears to have gotten hurt as well but PJ’s holding Yarons flag in his hand. Pj’s is hurt and is concussed, but he tells everyone that he is ok when he is clearly not. First down and goal. Yaron throws to beast who drops it. Second down Yaron is sacked by Legs. Third down Ivry calls PI on Prime but prime argues that Ivry was out of bounds. LH get another 3rd down. Yaron goes deep to Ivry, who beats pray and drops the game winner. Tough catch to make over Pray but it’s down to a 4th down play again. Yaron once again will target Singer but Pray once again is their to stop it.

First Jewball playoff overtime. BOP gets the last licks and Yaron starts with the ball at his own 5. He throws a screen to singer and he gets some yards. On second down Yaron rolls out and looks deep but Legs hits the ball as he throws it. It’s a helicopter in the air and Pray the leader in INT’s picks it off. Pray runs it back to the 18 yard line and BOP with a chance to walk off and win the game. However, on the run back, Beast took a shot and hurt his shoulder really bad. He had to leave the game. Klink comes into the game and on first down grabs a nice flag on a QB run. 2nd down Pray hits a screen to Prime and they get down to the 7 yard line. 3rd down, Pray rolls and finds a wide open Salem who can’t hold on Because he thought he might go out of bounds. Salem is a great dude and he brings so much to Jewball and BOP, but it’s not on him, yes he should know the out of bounds marker, but just like it wouldn’t have been on Ivry if LH lost. BOP would have another chance.

But at the same time of the drop, a collision happens and it’s a scary one. It involves this author and prime, yes teammates. The video is weird to watch. I lost a good 10 minutes of my life. I’m told that I was out cold for 4 minutes but I only remember being in ambulance and feeling all confused. I should’ve left the game after the Legs collision for the sake of my family. But dammit you Jewball fam, thank you for calling Hatzhalah and 911 and ensuring that my life and safety were in the right hands. I’m thankful to all of you for the photos but mostly by informing my wife of my condition. Yes a part of me wishes I had woken up on my own. But I had given BOP everything I could as I promised. My health and safety needed to come first. I was told Prime took a good shot as well. Luckily he was ok to continue….

But why?? Why didn’t anyone stop this madness?  More on this for TBI! It’s 10:30 and Legs needs to leave and ambulances take PJ’s off for what might possibly be his last game! BOP needs 2 players and Rabin and Jordan come in. Sam needed to leave and LH got a replacement as well. We finally resume play and on 4th down Yaron and Singer bottle up prime at the 1 and the continuation of Overtime happens. I will not go into this back and forth in OT. These were not the same teams or players who started. But In college overtime #4 and at 11 am, Dobs came down with the game winner a 15 yard TD from Yaron. Dobs is the MVP of the game. Played hurt and applied pressure on Pray all game. 2 TD’s and the game winner!Yaron made the right draft pick and Dobs rewarded him!

This was a rough one to win for the Lionhearts in terms of the injuries and the rosters and it’s not how they drew it up. injuries and people leaving will diminish the battle between these two teams. Both Yaron and Pray did everything they could do to get their teams the W, Some feel a rematch should happen… But Lionhearts get the W and they earned it!! They will do battle with the Cronies at a TDB time for the chip….stay tuned to Kut’s recap on that game!