Week 13 – Recap

Coming off the heels of an amazing Jesus Bowl in which green took the W from red by 1/2 a td…. we were on to week 13. The weather was up in the air but it smelled like snow. It tasted like a tackle game and by 7 am on sunday morning, we knew tackle it would be. On dark, it was pray, rabin, prime, zinn, logan, daveo, tom and oppen and on colors it was yaron, bert, landy, mighty, avenger, legs, steveo, and bz. Unlike the last snow game this was not a back and forth masterpiece but it was an incredible tackle game nonetheless. Colors started with a 3 and out and Dark took the ball and did the easy thing GIVE THE BALL TO PRIME. prime just ate up yards and brought dark into the redzone. a slant from 20 out to prime and a few broken tackles laters 1-0 dark. Colors put together a nice drive with handoffs to avenger and landy but on 3rd and short yaron throws an easy dump off to bz leaking from tight end….except the big nose tackle in rabin jumps up tips the ball to himself and falls down immediately, cradling the ball in his surgical hands. a dline int and dark with a chance to take control of the game. one play later it’s a 55 yard bomb from pray to zinn to make it 2-0. Another good drive by colors put them within striking distance and after a screen pass to legs with no one in front of him it looked like he would score. However, snow is wet and slippery and legs slips, gets back up and zinn out of nowhere scoots in and strips the ball… now normally this would be meaningless, but in tackle snow games…..fumbles are live. tom scoops up the recovery and gives dark the ball back yet again. 3 plays later its daveo in the back of the endzone with a sliding grab to make it 3-0 and the game is getting out of hand. after a 3 and out by colors, dark struck again with an oppen out route and carries steveo like a backpack to make it 4-0. colors still unable to get anything going on and its darks ball again with a chance to put the nail in the coffin. after a good defensive stop by colors it was 4th and 1 for dark from their own 24. In other words…when playing tackle…it was tush push time and indeed dark did in fact push the tush. With the whole team behind oppens backside he picked up an easy 15 yards for the first down. 3 plays later it was pray evading a sack and hitting logan who took it in from 25 out to make it 5-0. finally colors scored on their next drive on a beautiful strike from avenger to bz to make it 5-1. colors would score again on a slant to mighty who broke every tackle for a 70 yard score to make it 5-2. It was just too little too late. Rabin took over for dark and orchestrated a beautiful 8 play methodical drive capped off by a td to zinn on a wacky back and forth lateral play to make it a 6-2 final. A lot of worthy candidates in this one for jewball but it’s going to none other than the dad of jewball – Bin. Not only did Rabin have an int that we spoke about before….he had 4-5 huge catches throughout the course of the game taking on hits and knees to his back to keep drives alive. Capped off by the game ending drive td to zinn. Congrats Rabin! show these rookies what jewball snow games are all about.

Who wants New Years and Week 14. IJWT.

Week 12 Maccabowl brought us back to regular jewball following an incredible snow game from the prior week. We had white of Yaron, Bert, Kagan, mighty, O, prime, Stella, and zada vs Blue of Pray, BZ, goldberg, kut, steveo, tom, and zinn. The scoring got going early with Blue orchestrating a long drive with catches by Goldberg and steveo to put them inside the five. A quick curl to zinn made it 1-0. Unfortunately for White, they could not answer. Whether it was the pressure of BZ and Kut or just the extra donuts weighing yaron down it was long drives to the red zone that kept ending in turnovers on downs. Fortunately for Blue they moved the ball methodically with short passes to goldberg, kut, steveo, and tom and ended each of the first three drives with tds to zinn to take a 3-0 lead. Finally, yaron started clicking with his wrs and screen passes to mighty and prime led white down the field and culminated in a bert td to make it 3-1. Blue would answer right back with another long drive and it was pray to tom for a 4-1 commanding lead. But just like the story of chanukah, white would not be defeated so easily. Mighty started making people miss and miss some more and ended in a long td to make it 4-2. all of a sudden the game was in reach. after a great drive by blue to the redzone was intercepted by zada on 4th down, the opening was there. on 4th and forever yaron heaved a 55 yard pass up the sideline for stella, who secures the grab and walks in to make it a 4-3 lead. Blue would stall in the redzone once again and just like that the scene was set for a miraculous comeback. on 4th and 32 and white on their last chance to tie up the game, yaron dropped back, rolled to the right and heaved a chanukah miracle up the field. Zinn and goldberg and steveo all right there for blue to knock it down and walk away with the victory…..except like an oily latke the ball slipped by everyone and somehow landed in the lap of mighty for a first down. The game would continue for at least a few more plays. three plays later though it was 4th and 15 and an int by tom would end it. Blue takes the W 4-3. Shoutout to bz for 4 sacks in this one and 2 on the last drive that were so clutch. Jewball to zinn for the 3 tds.

In the late game it was the return of a QB who we had not seen or heard from in a while. The Self proclaimed greatest QB in jewball ever- Key. It was Blue of Key, rabin, pray, O, prime, rook, and Jesus (the cincinnati one) vs. White of yaron, justin, kut, mandelbread, tom, zada, and zinn. and what a back and forth game this one was. Blue scored first with a screen pass from key to prime for an early 1-0 lead. White answered back with a td to zada to tie it up. key right back to it was methodical, moving the ball down the field and then hitting rook in the back of the endzone for a 2-1 lead. Yaron answered immediately with an impressive drive of his own ending in a kuti td to make it 2-2. Eventually white got a defensive stop and took the lead the following drive with a long ball from yaron to zinn (unclear whether it was a receiving td or int and then fumble but a debate for a different day). Zinn ripped the ball away from pray and it was 3-2 white. However, the next drive after a flip from key to pray, pray rumbled in from 50 yards out after getting huge blocks from rook and O to make it 3-3. Yaron kept answering though and after a long drive flipped it to kuti in the back of the endzone for his second td of the day to make it 4-3. But this was a day that key was determined to prove he is the best and on 3rd and long threw a bomb over the middle to rook, who extended, dove, made the grab and got back up to score on a 65 yard td to tie the game up. it was 11:12 and it would be one more drive for each team. Yaron worked his way down the field hitting zada and mandelbread for a big gain and on 3rd and goal from the 2 tosses a quick out to zinn to take a 5-4 lead. Blue was now playing for the tie. A chance to at least not get that dreaded L on the stat sheet. Unfortunately, White’s defense had enough and 3 incompletions later it was 4th and forever to try and keep the game alive. A flip back from key to pray and pray scrambling and launching a deep ball to rook……just out of his reach. There would be no late game hail mary heroics like in the early slot. A valiant effort by rook to almost make another insane diving catch but the throw was just too far away. 5-4 white victory.  a huge shoutout to key for balling out. 3 tds no int and a bunch of Key runs to keep drives alive. A great game from the younger bro and hopefully we see more of him on the field soon. Another shoutout to big O with a bunch of sacks and an int on yaron and like 3 batted balls. Unfortunately both were in a losing effort. Jewball to captain knish for the 2 tds and just racking up catch after catch in this one.

Which now brings us to the In Both player of the week. We haven’t had one of these in a while (mainly bc i forgot) but this week there was one guy who picked up two W’s and just utterly dominated the entire game. Someone who is not new to the in both club but certainly most deserving. Zinn  you are this week’s in both player of the week. A total of 5 tds in both games on like 8 catches and threw a sack on the top of that as well. Good stuff Scoot!

Week 11 was supposed to be one league game and one regular jewball game but as the weather changed overnight and the snow started coming down the first jewball tackle game of the season and the first one in two years was looking like a real possibility. Fields would still need to be checked and sign ups need to be taken for the tackle game to become a reality but at 6:57 am on a blizzardy Sunday morning the scene was set. Tackle football was on. it was white of yaron, kagan, kuti, tom, landy, berk, e, zinn, and steveo vs. Blue of pray, prime, mighty, tbd, sam, bz, bert, and werz. The boys rolled up to the pristine white field and were ready to roll. White took the ball first and after a few short plays went for it inside their own territory but a mighty tackle stopped the first down and it was blue’s ball with a short field. Now when playing tackle football it’s sometimes nice to be playing with a guy who actually padded up and played in his past and with prime standing 7 yards behind the center, it seemed all but certain that a hand off to prime was a likely conclusion. However, Blue caught the defense off guard and play action to prime, who sold the fake, and mighty running a streak up the left sideline ended in a one play quick score to make it 1-0. White got the ball back and started moving methodically. yaron utilizing the speed of berk and zinn to create small gains. unfortunately berk went down after a tackle and would miss the rest of the game. Heal Up berk! that didn’t stop white though and after a hand off to E for a big gain, it was landy on a breakaway score to tie it at 1. Blue answered back immediately with a pray option toss to mighty who took it 65 yards for a 2-1 lead. yaron then hit steveo on a short pass and steveo breaks away from the defense for his own 65 yard score. 2-2. Blue again deciding that one play drives were working, flipped a toss to prime who broke 7 tackles and scores from 70 to make it 3-2. But white would respond each and every time. The next few drives were landy, landy and more landy. Yaron kept feeding him the ball and Landy kept breaking tackles for huge gains. Eventually he found the end zone again and it was 3-3. That was when the passing game for blue started clicking. pray hit bert on a beautiful corner route and bert was off the races, except the hunter became the prey and bert gets stalked down from behind by zinn on a forced fumble. Luckily Bert jumped on it to keep the ball. Next play it’s a mighty out route that he takes in for his second receiving td of the day and third td overall. 4-3 blue. Yaron and white went back to the same recipe and moved the ball down the field with Landy to bring it inside the redzone. After a short catch by E and a punch to prays nose, it was looking like White would once again tie this game up. However, next play yaron throws a prayer up into the endzone and mighty takes the ball away and seems to have a clear lane for a pick six but once again zinn tracks the ball carrier down and makes a td saving tackle. After a BZ incredible catch over yaron, bz caught a quick curl to make it 5-3. yaron answered right back to keep the game in check and it was landy again breaking tackles to make it 5-4. Blue decided to go back to jewball resident RB in prime and kept giving him the ball to grind out the tough yards. After a pray pass to TBD to bring them down to the 10 yard line it was looking as if blue would go up by two scores and effectively end this game. After some confusion in the huddle, blue came to the line with no play in mind. A same play of sorts. except Kagan got a great rush and had pray wrapped up. pray flipped the ball to Sam who tried fighting for extra yards and the ball got poked away. A fumble. Kagan scoops it up and is off to the races on a 75 yard fumble recovery td to tie the game up at 5-5. 15 minutes to go and just like that all the momentum swinging in white’s favor. blue gave the ball to prime for a few runs and it was now 3rd and long. pray heaved one down the sideline. it was landy and werz 1 on 1. Landy had the positioning but instead of catching it decided to knock the ball down. the safe play if you will. except with snow pup not out there, today was the day of the snow rat or the snowdent. mighty takes the tipped ball in for the score and snow angels ensue. 6-5 blue. Yaron dialed up a pretty nice drive and this time it was zinn for the score. 6-6. Blue had their chance at last licks. After a few runs by prime and catches by bz and werz, pray rolled out to the left and threw it deep saying “f it either prime or mighty are down there somewhere”. and on this day…the day the snowdent was born… it was the case. Mighty hauls it in for his 4th rec td and 5th td of the day. 7-6 final for blue. doesn’t even have to be mentioned but mighty with back to back jewballs just makes sense for our reigning mvp. Shoutout to the rooks who showed up to play tackle- landy, werz, berk. Landy no doubt would have had a jewball if white took the win.

We got chanukah party Tuesday, followed by week 12 maccabowl, followed by jesus bowl, week 13, and 2026 bowl. So much football over the next two weeks. In Both All. who wants week 12. IJWT.

Week 10 had one of the biggest games of the season on tap. Semi Pro v Gorillaz. Both teams coming off huge wins to even out their records at 1-1 and now being given the chance to jump into a three way tie for the 1 seed with GM and Stogies at 2-1. The storylines were set with Pray going up against his former team and the new rookie phenom in Lego trying to prove to his defending champ captain Rook that he can QB the Gorillaz to the promised land as well. The game started off how Lego ended the last one against GM, by running the ball. A LOT. three big runs by Lego plus one mighty scamper on a screen…ending with a quick slant to mighty for an early 6-0 lead. But Semi-Pro have some real battle tested vets on their squad. Led by guys like solo and storm, SP marched down the field using quick pass after quick pass and pray hitting solo on an out route in front of lego to tie the game at 6. Gorillaz offense took the ball back and did not change the recipe… runs, runs, and more runs and on 3rd and goal from the 15, lego fakes a handoff to mighty and bootlegs it himself to take a 12-6 lead. a strike to Captain TP for the extra point made it 13-6. SP again took the ball back and knew that they would have to up the energy if they wanted to hang around with Gorilaz. Enter DJCP. Portal, a sorta super rookie because he played some games last year, is nothing if not an energizer bunny. Whether it’s because he can’t stop talking or because he’s all over the field. Portal took catch after catch on this drive and ended up with a 12 yard strike to the back of the endzone for a td. After a vegh toe tap extra point it was again tied 13-13. Whether SP’s defense couldn’t hold up or Gorillaz are just a tough offense to stop, it only took one play for Gorillaz to make it 20-13 – a mighty screen goes for 70 to the house. Game was anything but over and SP marched right back down the field and into the redzone for a chance to tie it up once more. Pray dropped back, gave a quick shoulder pump to Werz who was filling in for stats, lego bites, Werz flew by him and all that’s needed is to secure the catch to tie the game up. Except sometimes things don’t work out as expected, the ball goes through his hands and it’s a turnover inside the RZ for SP. Lego made quick work to take a two touchdown lead and it was a 35 yard strike to rook up the sideline for a 26-13 lead. It was 9:15 and the game appeared to be over. At least that’s how the conversation seemed to have gone between pray and zada. but SP was determined to FIGHT back (get it bc of the fights :))). On 4th and 13 Pray heaves up a prayer down the field to storm who secures the catch and brings it inside the 15 yard line. Two plays later Mr. Meta goggles himself brings in his 6th catch and 2nd TD of the game to make it 26-19. SP is right back in it. Gorilaz take the ball back with a chance to ice it. If they score its over, if they dont SP has one final chance to try and go win the game. On 4th and 2 from their own 23, Gorilaz decide to go for it. Lego drops back and takes off to the right…he has a clear lane to pick up the first and continue their drive but perhaps it was some crazy jewball foreshadowing of the discussions that would take place during the week, it was ROY on ROY and portal dives to grab his flag just before the first down marker. New life to SP. 4 plays to punch it in and walk off the win. 1st down pray takes a shot into the endzone to vegh but its broken up by rook. 2nd down pray hits storm on a quick curl, storm breaks a tackle and takes the ball just inside the 10 yard line. SP has their chance. 3rd down pray takes the snap and starts rolling to the right. The plan is to hit vegh on an out, let portal unseat lego as the ROY on a block, and SP goes home with the W. Except Rabbi BZ had other plans. He somehow blows by the SP line and has pray in his crosshairs. Pray tries reversing the field but BZ was already calculating the exact amount of force in which to throw the pas hab’ah b’kisnin donut man to the ground (that’s for Rabbi BZ). BZ pile drives pray down for a 10 yard sack. It’s now 4th and goal from the 20 and win percentage for SP just went about as low as goldbergs hand gets on a flag guard call. On 4th down, pray drops back and gets flushed all the way to the left, throws it cross field to storm who breaks a tackle and has a lane, there’s daylight to the endzone and SP may just have a chance…. unfortunately the sea closed up pretty quickly and gorilaz grab storm at the 2 ending the game and securing their victory. An absolutely incredible game that will be remembered just for that and nothing else. 26-19 Gorilaz is the final. So many worthy jewball candidates for this win but it’s going to our reigning mvp and my bath buddy Mr. Mighty Rat. Showing just how elusive and quick he still is with the YAC and two tds in this one. #statsfortherat.

In Game 1b it was dark of yaron, zinn, bert, landy, steveo, and stella v colors of avenger, berk, oppen, prime, big E, and Eggo. Before we get into the game we have to talk about time…..this game started close to 8:30. Simply put, that is unacceptable. Nobody wants to be standing around in the cold waiting for the last few people to trickle in so the game can start and that’s especially true when it’s a 6 on 6. When we say the early game is at 8 that means cleats on at 7:55 throwing the ball around. Not getting into your car or finishing your coffee or taking a dump. It’s one thing to give a buffer of a few minutes but 830 is egregious and simply wrong. If you can’t show up at 755 then don’t play the early game. Now onto the game….From what I was told this was a back and forth battle as well but yaron had the win in hand until chumash plays called and zinn threw a pick six to Eggo to secure the Win for colors. I did see a really cool trick play that zinn threw back to yaron and berk picked off to return to the house as well as avenger on a 4th and forever just evading the entire defense to pick up a first with his patented stop and starts. Jewball to berk in this one for the 2 receiving tds, 1 rushing td, and pick six. doing it all for colors to pick up the W. Put Berk in the ROY convo!

In game 2 there was a lot of passing but not a lot of throwing…..maybe we will save this for Pray’s puzzles on TBI coming soon…..

Who wants week 11. IJWT

Week 9 was the return of leagues. We had SP v. BLOP two teams in desperate need of a win. BLOP took the ball first and went three and out. SP took over and went to work, methodically moving the ball down the field, resulting in a td to vegh….without his two feet in and four plays later resulting in a td to vegh with his feet in. Extra point to stats made it 7-0 early. Blop then had arguably one of their best drives of the day and got the ball to the 1 yard line. After a defensive PI, Dachs dropped back and threw a patented curl at the pylon to…..not mordy…..instead it was Zinn and whether the connection on the curl isnt there or the ball floated away, pray jumped it and returned it to the other 15 yard line setting up a td to storm to make it 13-0 SP. Similar to their last league game though, you cannot count the combo of Zinn, Dachs, and Prime out. Eventually they punched the ball into the endzone with a pretty toe tap by dobs to make it 13-6. SP answered back right away and after a portal catch and run and a solo catch and run, pray ran it in to make it 19-6. It was 928 and the game all but over but dachs hit landy on a quick crosser and landy took it the distance to make it 19-12. SP took the ball back with a chance to ice it but decided that after their defense had put up 5 sacks by solo and 2 ints, they would play it safe. Three run plays and they gave the ball back to BLOP for their final drive. The first play of the drive solo did what he had been doing all day and racked up his 6th sack of the day. two plays later a 3rd int by pray ended the game. 19-12 final. Jewball to Solo for the absolutely monster day. A Myles Garret like performance, absolute dominance.

On the other side it was GM v. Stogies. Stogies looking to continue their undefeated start and GM looking to shake off a tough loss to Gorilaz. Unfortunately for stogies this just wasnt their day. a final score of 31-6. Some say it was because DK wasnt there and oppen wasnt supposed to be there but there is a cute irony in the fact that Oppen aka Mr. RT took down stogies to ensure that BOP continues to remain the only undefeated team in jewball history. A team that both Captain Daveo and Stella were a part of. I truly saw no part of this game other than hearing it was violent. I believe ice scored twice and avenger ran a few in. Also saw the tail end of gronk catching a few balls over steveos head deep down the field. I also believe that Ice got his second look at qb for a little while in this one. The details are a bit fuzzy but Avenger disappeared and Ice ran one in. Eventually ice will realize that qbs are supposed to throw the ball. Jewball to avenger for the three tds thrown, 1 rushing td and 1 int on defense and most of all for not pulling a peeve on the field.

In the late game it was dark of yaron, bz, kagan, prime, stats, gronk and new guy mandelabum vs. colors of pray ice, storm, tom, dobs, rook, and new guy ezra. This game was a close one to start out with yaron hitting stats on a deep ball td and pray answering right back with a td to ezra. Yaron jumped out to a 3-1 lead with tds to bz and gronk. Pray answered with a td to ice but then stats went down and popped his shoulder back into place. The guy who is known for his flag grabbing, grabbed the flag so hard that his shoulder stayed with the flag RS Stats! and the game would go to 6s. Whether it was the stench of the league game that took over for yaron and gronk or the high that pray ice storm and tom were feeling the game got out of hand quickly. Pray hit rook for a td and ezra for another and ice ran one to make it 5-3. dark scored twice more in “garbage time” and colors capped it off with a trick play passing td by ezra or chad chinnenburg as some were calling him to rook for a 6-5 final. The final score in this one does not tell the full story. Feels weird to give a jewball to someone who isnt in jewball just yet but 2 receiving tds and a passing td would deserve it. instead its going to rook for the two tds scored and just bringing tremendous pressure all day as a third rusher and batting down balls right and left.

Week 10 is here and we are just about halfway through the Jewball season. Who wants it IJWT.

Turkey bowl came with a few last minute team/game adjustments but at the end of the day we could not have asked for a better Turkey day than what we got. Yes were some of the games less than desirable in terms of the football- sure. but the fact that we got jewballers past, present, and future out to the field to play some football, eat some turkey, wings and donuts, and just overall experience a beautiful jewball thanksgiving was beyond gratifying. In one game Ice played qb and led his team to victory on a jump throw game winner to daveo (yes the OT rules were slightly changed for Turkey Bowl). On the other side it was Lego v Avenger. Again, didn’t see much of the game but I believe Avenger pulled out the W in a tight contest. Lego unfortunately didn’t have a great day throwing the ball but hey when you’re not throwing tds you may as well throw picks. But even in the losing effort highlights of the day may have been Lego scoring a rushing td and Hingle Mpringleberrying the td pumps to perfection.

The early games ended, the traditional jewball pic was taken (thank you Sheriff) and kut arrived with trays of steaming wings and turkey legs. Game 2 eventually started and other than taking some turkey leg eating breaks was pretty uneventful. It was pray (orange) v. gronk (brown) and seemed like mighty for brown and sheriff for orange were just running wild all over the field. There were trick plays, there were laterals to the wrong team, but all in the spirit of good turkey bowl fun. Brown scored 5 i believe and remember socks just running the entire field towards the end of the game to tie it up. But i believe the final score was 6-5 orange after a flip to schiffer for the game winner. Regardless, after the donuts and turkey….. we were all winners. Truly was a remarkable showing and can imagine we made jewball proud. Really showed how the melting pot of jewball works with all people of every background coming together towards one goal.

There’s no world that exists where Prime and I would become best friends let alone even know each other. There’s no world that exists that people who maybe a few months or years ago were absolute strangers would be eating off the same turkey legs as each other…. true story. but that world does exist. It exists right here in our island of Jewball. For better or worse there are people who live next door to you or co-workers or other friends who we will never have that same connection with. There’s no rhyme or reason to it but just gratitude and thanks to one above for leading us all here and continuing on this crazy Jewball adventure.

Of course there was a part of Jewball missing without Jordan there and Amy’s pecan bars but as we hopefully follow along on jordans newest football journey in the holy land, a part of Jewball is now there to create more and more jewball connections. I heard that there was a Jewball turkey bowl in cleveland last week. Imagine, as crazy as it sounds, that wherever you go there is a Jewball connection and something bringing you back to this island. Imagine one of the new rooks who played on thanksgiving, even if we never see him again, may one day bump into someone and they’ll realize the connection they have back to this place. with a little WWJD (what would J do.. for spira) it really is possible. We’re almost at the midpoint of the season. Let’s make this second half just as awesome as the first.

Week 8 started with the jewball usual of two early games side by side. On the one side it was the OG matchup of pray v yaron and the other side it was the Avenger taking on Feit.

Unfortunately for the first game, we had some late cancellations and the game started with dark of pray, E, DK., Ice, POrtal, and Stella taking on colors of Yaron, Steve-O, sam, oppen, logan, bert, and storm. The game was close for a little while but bc we were playing 6s instead of 7s there was just too much speed on the field for dark leading to long tds by ice, portal and a pray rushing td. Colors fought back with yaron throwing tds to storm and bert and a late game bullet to the back of the endzone to sam who toe tapped to stay in bounds. but that was all that colors would put up. Dk was a monster for dark with three sacks and E was racking up catch after catch in the middle of the field to keep dark’s drives alive. Ultimately Stella would score and portal and ice would each get one more to end this game 6-3 dark. One play that absolutely needs to be mentioned is portal taking a tipped ball 99 yards to the house….except Dk BERTcalf stalks him down and grabs his flag at the one. Just a crazy hustle play all around but bert saved a td (dark scored on the next play but that’s not important). As we all saw on the glasses recap and stats machine, Portal had quite the day. Jewball to portal for the pick and 2 tds.

Onto the other and seemingly much more exciting early game. It was dark of avenger, bz, landy, mighty, prime, schiffer, and stats v. Colors of feit, justin, rook, zada, zinn, daveo, and berk. This game was a pick fest with avenger throwing 2 to berk and rook and feit throwing 3- two to stats and one to landy. In true TBI fashion I dont know how the game flow went at all but it seemed like a tight game throughout the contest. Avenger was spreading the rock around throwing tds to landy, mighty, schiffer, and bz (we will get to that in a second) and feit throwing a td to daveo and zinn and feit each running one in. The one play I did see was certainly the most impactful. With a tie game and dark on their last chance to try and win it…. avenger dropped back from the 5 yard line, bought himself some time with his patented hip twists, and threw a cross body floater to bz who corralled it with one hand and secured it for the go ahead score. Jewball to bz for the game winner and 5!! sacks on the day.

In the late game it was colors of yaron, bin, bk, dk, stats, rook, and zinn vs. dark of pray, dietsch, kut, logan, oppen, prime, and storm. This was an absolute blood bath. Don’t know if dark ever got a stop on defense and I believe cool yaron scored all 7 times he touched the ball. hitting zinn, rook, and stats for 2 a piece and one to dk. As ugly of a blowout game 1a was, this one was somehow worse. a 7-2 shellacking and a jewball to yaron for the 7 tds thrown. Unfortunately for storm, logan and oppen they were on the losing side of both these blowouts. Fortunately for DK he was on the winning side and racked up 5 sacks on the day and was just an absolute menace chasing people down and making sure that no one escaped his sacks. add to that a bunch of catches and a td and DK you are the in both player of the week. The lone highlight for dark in this one was a forward lateral receiving td by oppen that just counted bc it needed to… it was that type of game.

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!!