Great Year FloF-ers!

Great year everyone in FLoF!

Two things I wanted to say before we all enjoy the off-season:
1) Congratulations to Tim on a not only a great season (and even greater playoff run) but for turning a terrible team into a force to be reckoned with. It takes a lot of work, and in Tim's case, really smart drafting. Lagers will be a good team for a long time. Great article too.
2) Congratulations to Steve for getting to the FLoF bowl despite losing Peterson and having a mess at the QB position. Despite my sore-loser-induced smack-talking, the Beavers may have been the second best team in FLoF this year, and deserved to be in the Championship. By the way, I would've played Tebow also, especially after what he did against the Steelers, Tim just wasn't giving anyone a chance in the playoffs this year.

Iron City Celebrates First FLOF Title

Bushkill residents left to wonder "what if . . ."

(UPI - January 15, 2012) The Iron City Lagers earned their first ever FLOF title with a resounding 86-4 victory over the Fightin' Bitin' Beavers. Led by Matthew Stafford, Arian Foster and Calvin Johnson, the Lagers jumped out to a massive lead early and never looked back.

"This is simply a wonderful day for the franchise and for our fans," Iron City owner Tim Mossman said following the game. "When we moved the team to Iron City, we had a three year 'vision' to resurrect the downtrodden Bushkill Brawlers franchise and bring them to a point where we could be contending for championships. Today is a validation of that plan."

The Lagers just completed their 3rd season in Iron City after relocating the Brawlers under new ownership. Only Matt Cassel (currently on IR) remains from the roster that moved from Bushkill, although former Brawlers Brian Urlacher and Trent Cole did return to the roster this year.

Last year, the Lagers reached the championship game, but ran out of gas against Malleus Maleficarum.

This year, the Lagers fought through some key injuries in the regular season to claim a wild card berth to the playoffs. Once the playoffs started, however, Iron City caught fire and advanced through the Rednecks (106-12) in the wild card round and then avenged last year's defeat, downing Malleus in the semi-finals (45-28), before advancing to face the Beavers in the title game.

The Beavers franchise was also playing in its 2nd ever title game, but its first appearance since 1998, when they defeated Roger's Ramjets 33-0. The Beavers defeated the Lagers twice in the regular season, but failed to find any answers to slow down the team that was playing its best in the waning days of the season.

"Despite today's result, I'm very proud of the season that our guys posted this year," Beavers owner Steve Schillinger said. "We did a very effective job in slowing down Roddy White, but maybe we focused too much effort on White."

"After we fell behind by so much, so early, we hoped a little Tebow lightning would strike again. But it was not to be."

Stafford, a 2009 first round pick of the Lagers, led all scorers with 34. Foster, the 2010 Lager first round selection, tallied 27. Johnson, acquired in 2009 via trade from the Beavers for Marques Colston, posted 25.

Meanwhile, in sleepy Bushkill, the former Brawler faithful were left to wonder what could have been.

Written by Tim Mossman.

Lagers blow away Beavers for their first title

In just 3rd years, the Lagers have appeared in 2 FLoF Bowls, and winning their first title this year. The game wasn't even close as Tim's team pilled on the points last week and sent the Beavers into a hole they never recovered from. Even though the Lagers scored practically no defensive points, the offensive output was more than enough from an offensively-challenged Beaver's squad, and this will offically go down as the most lopsided championship game ever.
Congrats Tim!

The FLOF Bowl that should've been

I know you are all wondering: "What would have happened if the best teams had been playing in the FLOF Bowl, instead of Steve?" Well folks, we would have had the best game in recent memory. The current score as I write this the morning before the last games, is Malleus 79 (92-16) to Lagers 80 (109-29), with Ray Rice being the only player left to play. Anyone who thinks that Tim would have easily won this year with his streaking team, would probably be wrong. This is why I wanted a rematch. The Hammer will see you next year Tim.

In other news, Steve decided to play Tebow, and why not? it's not like he's going to win. Unfortunately, Tebow scored a whopping -2 vs. Alex Smith scoring 29 and my prediction of Tim winning my 60 is off by 30 points in the wrong direction.

Weekend Update

Seeing that the prescient Haydn waited until Monday to make his pick for big game, I thought I would revisit my prediction score, inconveniently timed BEFORE the actual games were played.

It does appear I may have overrated Steve’s chances here. I thought Stafford and Johnson would do pretty well, but with Foster chipping in a considerable amount on top of monster games from the 2, this game appears to be done before it got going good. I like Steve to post a strong defensive score, but it appears that it won’t do much good in a Lager’s route. Not thinking Smith and Grant will do much of anything to help close the gap, despite the fact that Tim looks to have a poor showing on D.

Revised prediction: Lager 67 – Beavers 28.

Update: Assuming Steve plays the other QB, Lagers 67 - Tebows 33. I do happen to think Smith is a strong play at home with N.O., but Tebow will be able to cover some of the rushing yards that Grant will likely not see. You know, seeing as how G.B. loves to rush the ball and all. Honestly, at this point, how much will it help?

Belated FLOF Bowl Prediction

I know this is going to look like I already checked the scores for my prediction, but after reading John's post I think it's a little generous to the Beavers. I was going to say Lagers 80 to Beavers 20, but now it looks like the Lagers D is going to need some help to keep the margin of victory over 60. :)

The Stafford, Megatron, Foster combo looks pretty lethal right now. Alex Smith and Ryan Grant? Not so much. I do like Steve's D, but climbing out of a 80 point hole (and Tim still has Akers - and don't laugh, he scored 17 points last week) seems nigh impossible.

For anyone worried about playing Tim next season, it's okay, someone will eventually figure out they should actually cover Megatron: 3 games in a row with over 150 yards? No one can be that good every game. Without Calvin, Stafford is average at best. Foster though? Yeah, this team is scarier than I thought they were.

FLoF Bowl Prediction

Sorry for the lack of recaps/predictions here of late. Between vacation and a pretty serious hospital stay, I really haven't been able. But no matter, here are my thoughts on the upcoming FLoF Bowl.
The Lagers come into the game with a full 5 point advantage in terms of power. The largest discrepancy is in offense, where the Lagers are in the top 3, while the Beavers are near the bottom. However, the Beavers make up the difference in the Defense, in where it is exactly the opposite situation from the O.
The Beavers are making their second appearance in the bowl game, but the gap is large, since he was last there in '98. This is the 4th year in the league for the Lagers, and they are making a second consecutive appearance in the big game. At 8-6, with the win the Lagers would have the lowest winning percentage of a Bowl-winning champion since the schedule went to 14 games.
From the lineup it appears that Tim will run out most of their players this weekend, so Steve should have a good idea the hole he will have to crawl out of. That being said, I am afraid it is going to be a pretty good size hole with Stafford and Johnson posting what appears to be big numbers. Steve should be able to hold his own a little, but other than Graham, I am not too big on his match ups on offense this week or next, regardless of whoever Smith and Grant eventually play. I think you will see from these 2 team exactly what you see in the above power ratings: the Lagers will post big number on offense with little D, while the Beavers will counter with a strong D, but little on O. In the end, I like the game to be competitive, but for Tim to pull away for his first championship.
Predicted Final score: Lagers 30 - Beavers 19. Good luck to both teams.

Playoff Re-Cap in slightly more detail...

Beavers and Flannel were unsurprisingly both less than mediocre, Beavers slightly less so, and so they get to lose to Lagers in the FLoF Bowl next week.

Lagers and Malleus were both ridiculous and had every high score in every position but were playing each other and Malleus goes home after the best ever season in FLoF history by losing a playoff game with a score over 100. Both Malleus and Lagers scored more than Flannel and Beavers put together, individually.

Am I bitter? Maybe a little. Would I like a rematch with Tim - yes, yes I would, but that will have to wait for next year. For now we'll see how badly he beats Steve's sorry team.

(ps. sorry Steve, but you know my team is better than yours, but hey, good luck next week, it would be an awesome upset if you beat Tim.)