Ballistic Bowl X Recap

In week 16 the eSFL ended it's 10th season with the most exciting championship game in it's history as the D Crownholders squeaked by a tough Texan Bruisers team by a score of 166.88 to 164.24, extending the losing streak for the Appalachian Division/conference in the big game to four games.




At 2300 hours Est on December 28th, 2009, with 13:20 left in the Monday Night Football game, the Crownholders' Visanthe Shiancoe caught the game winning pass to lead the team to their first ever eSFL championship. What appeared to be just another catch turned out to be so huge not even the head coach could hold back his excitement after the game. "Visanthe made a great catch for us, at the time we was looking to get him more balls to secure the victory without any doubts, but it turned out to be his last catch, wow", he stated during the post game celebration. He was referring to the fact Visanthe soon left the game with injury and never returned to action, just enough to lead the team to the title. Somewhere in fantasy football land his performance was not enough and his team came up short, but in the eSFL title game it was just what the Crownholders needed for victory. Quarterback and game MVP Tom Brady watched with excitement as Visanthe fell to the ground with the game winning catch, and afterwards pronounced himself the games second best player. Fans and league officials didn't agree and voted him Ballistic Bowl X game MVP with his four passing touchdowns for 43.98 points. On the other side, the Bruisers gave it everything they had all the way up to the final catch. They was able to hold off two good players on Sunday and Monday nights and were just seconds from victory. They were led by linebacker Brian Cushing who had a monster game with 25 points, but their running game play ended up being the difference. The team only had 23 points from their starters, while on the bench Darren Sproles sat with almost 29, ultimely that decision cost the team their first championship. "I don't know, coach felt like I wasn't the guy this week, go ask him", Sproles stated when asked about his benching for the title game.



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The Crownholders were led to victory by a 43.88 point effort from Tom Brady, who was named the games most valuable player. He had 267 passing yards and 4 passing TDs, making him the number 1 ranked overall fantasy scorer for week 16. They also got help from a 30.00 point effort from Chris Johnson, who beat up the Bruisers defense for 142 rushing yards and 1 rushing TD in addition to 37 receiving yards.



"This team shows a lot of poise, we didn't let the highs and lows effect us, not today, not all season" D Crownholders coach Jordan Kizima said.



Texan Bruisers were helped out in a losing cause by a 26.24 point effort from Matt Schaub with 286 passing yards and 2 passing TDs. They also got help from a 25.00 point effort from Brian Cushing, 9 tackles and 1 interception.



"We only have to look in the mirror, we congratulate the opponent, but I take total responsibility for the loss with my decision to sit our sparkplug running back this week" Texan Bruisers coach Chaz Templin said.



Coach Templin was referring to Darren Sproles and his 28.60 points on the bench that would have led the Bruisers to a win.



The full box score and info can be found on the commissioner site, to be posted soon.

Ballistic Bowl X Preview

Starting this Friday night in the eSFL, the D Crownholders will attempt to proclaim for the Global division total dominance over the Appalachian. If the Crownholders win Ballistic Bowl X, they will have won their first ever, and extend the unbeaten streak for the Global 4-0: the 2006 Temp's Texas Boy's, 2007 Frost Furrious Flurries, and the 2008 Boot Hill Balut have beaten the Appalachian opponent in the title game. By doing so, they will take the all-time Division/conference lead with four Ballistic Bowl titles to zero. And, if the Crownholders can pull off the feat, the current Global division will have six Ballistic Bowl champions in the division, compared to zero in the Appalachian.


The Appalachian representive, the Texan Bruisers, have been one of the favorites for Ballistic Bowl X most all season, but a month ago the idea that the team would face the D Crownholders seemed completely ridiculous. As we all know, that's no longer the case. Over the past three games, the Crownholders have seemed like a completely different team compared to the one that struggled through the last half the season and didn't clinch the GFD final playoff spot until the final week, backing in with a Zima loss. Are they really a different team? Let's accept the premise that trends and splits from the entire regular season won't show us how the "real Crownholders" might do against Texan this week. In that case, we need to answer two questions:



1) Which aspects of the Crownholders postseason performance represent significant improvement, and which aspects just show the team going back to their performance level at the end of the regular season?


2) What are D's current strengths and weaknesses, if we expect their improved postseason play to continue into the Ballistic Bowl, and how do these match up against the strengths and weaknesses of the Texan Bruisers?



Those are the two questions we're going to try to answer in the rest of this Ballistic Bowl preview.


In an attempt to answer our questions about the Crownholders, we will split the season into four parts:




•Weeks 1-6: This is when D was playing very well. The Crownholders went into week seven at 4-2.
•Weeks 7-9: Crownholders cooled down a bit, getting handled by Appalachian opponents, going 1-2 

•Weeks 10-13: The Crownholders collapse, getting stomped on by Zima, Frost, and Pardue while beating the hapless Boot Hill Balut.

•Weeks 14-15: Crownholders get their act together in run through the GFD playoffs, beating Temp and frost to advance to the Ballistic Bowl.
 
The chart below show the teams performance broken into four seperate parts of the season. We've also taken those week-to-week ratings for Bruisers and separated offense and defense points as well, so you can get a better idea of how the teams played in each facet of the game during different parts of the season. We are not running the basic stats for the teams, because that will can easily be found in the official stat section. Unlike D, Texan has been basically the same team for the entire season. (The Bruisers graphs also represent total offense and defense)
 

The Crownholders have won two postseason games in two different ways. They beat Temp by playing a strong defensive game (67). The Frost game was all about decent defense (37.5) and decent offense (103.5), especially considering the poor play from Frost. When we look at the Crownholders offense over the course the season, it seems pretty clear that the offensive game has never really suffered an extended slump. What is interesting is weeks 7-9, the teams non division part of their schedule. In those weeks their offensive production was the best and their defensive output was their second best. They went 1-2 in those games.

                                   

                                         

The Texan Bruisers won this year with defense, although only ranked in the middle of the pack with 484 points, as you can see by the chart, they needed it to win. On weeks where the defense didn't perform well the team usually loss, a sharp contrast to the Crownholders. Weeks 7-9 they were 3-0, and the playoffs 2-0, all their best defensive performances fell into those games.

Let's look at each teams Value Rank based on each offensive and defensive position:

Texan's offensive value rank of 10.575 was evident in weeks 7-9 and the playoffs, resulting in all five games as a win. Even with a defensive value rank this season of 4.9, the teams offensive play was able to overcome those numbers and get wins, only with in depth analysis can one see the defense stepped up on those weeks. Compare those value ranks with this weeks opponent, the Crownholders was a 10.92 and 4.25 respectively. However, the teams defensive output varied little, but was at its best in weeks 1-6 in which the team was its best 4-2. It's pretty safe to say that the team that will win will have it's defense outplay the other by a significant margin.

Each team finished the season in overall Value rank, Texan at four (58.1) and D at five (54.2). The greatest margin of position for Value rank belongs to the Crownholders at the running back, leading all eSFL teams in that area with a 21.2 rating. The Texan team was also led by the running back position, however, their ranking was a mere 10.2, pretty weak compared to that of the Crownholders.

So, you ask how can the Crownholders have finished with a poor 6-7 regular season record with all these great numbers and seemingly a huge advantage in this game? They did and the don't. They finished 6-7 simply because their team performance relies on the 5th best ranked quarterback and the number 1 ranked running back, and the 9th rated tight end, period. Brady and Johnson are the only threats on the team, and a huge game is needed from the defense and tight end position for the upset win in Ballistic Bowl X.

The Texan Bruisers will feature the 4th ranked quarterback, the 2nd ranked tight end, 2nd ranked linebacker, 5th ranked defensive back. A solid core of mid ranking teammates round out a strong team that should easily handle the Crownholders, unless they get 50 from each from Johnson and Brady.

Enjoy this weeks games, I believe the Appalachian division will win their first Ballistic Bowl, 163 to 148.

Merry Christmas.

Fields Set eSFL Single Game Scoring Mark, 2009

The Fields Fanatix set the eSFL single game season points record with 241.5 points, breaking the old mark from 2007 of 240.32. Coach Fields could not be reached for comment as of press time but has a press conference scheduled for 1100 Est today. The previous mark was also set by coach fields.

League announces contract extension with Fanstar

The eSFL league office has announced they have reached an agreement with Fanstar as the leagues official stat keeping service for the 2010 season. The league was rumored to have been exploring other options, but after a serious battle between the two different services a decision to remain with Fanstar was reached late Wendsday night. Terms of the agreement are for one year worth $54.00. "We simply couldn't overlook the value of the service at Fanstar compared to any other service. With thoughts of some positional changes for the upcoming season we explored our options and decided to remain with Fanstar, who i might add, has been totally reliable over the past seven years. Our positional changes are still under review and we will consider other options and those options have not been totaly ruled out", eSFL commissioner Terry Rhodes stated.

2009 award info

The eSFL league office has released the 2009 award info. It can be found by following the link here....
http://www.estandoutleague.com/awards109.htm