Week Three of AF1 action showcased teams continuing to refine and find their identities. Some teams solved some problems. Some teams found new problems.
There were big hits. There were big passes. There were big mistakes and an absolutely enormous amount of accumulated penalty yards.
With each passing game, the AF1 rounds into shape and shows the promise of what could be a very exciting league in the near future.
This weekend however can maybe best be summed up by a quote SW Kansas Storm Coach Gary Thomas gave at the half of the Storm’s Sunday night game against the Oregon Lightning.
He said, “We’ve gotta clean a lot up. Their whole existence is our mistakes.”
If he only knew how prophetic that statement would prove to be a little over an hour later.
Let’s get into the weekend’s highlights.
Tritons Sweep Salina in Home Back to Back
The Corpus Christi Tritons and the Salina Liberty had the unique challenge of starting their season playing one another back to back. In their Week One matchup, the Tritons dominated. They held the Liberty to just one offensive touchdown and won 40-12.
One thing that was abundantly clear by the end of Tritons vs Liberty 2 on Friday night, is that these Central Division rivals are tired of looking at each other.
Tritons Continue to Flex on Liberty
In the first half of Friday night’s game, one could be forgiven for thinking that these two teams were pretty evenly matched.
The Liberty humbled the Tritons’ dominant defense by scoring on their opening drive. In fact, the Liberty defense came out hungry to put on a show themselves. In the span of about two minutes and five plays, Liberty Linebacker Kerry Starks, was flagged for Illegal Defense and Unsportsmanlike Conduct. He then notched one sack and recovered one fumble.
This was maybe the last time the Tritons defense would be outshined. In the very next possession the Tritons would sack Liberty QB Javin Kilgo twice and would force a turnover on downs; giving the Tritons’ offense the ball back at the Liberty four yard line.
The Triton offense struggled to get much going at all in the first half. QB Fred Payton Jr. couldn’t quite connect with his receivers and the team was flagged for a few uncharacteristically careless penalties, including two consecutive offsides calls on the High Motion Man.
They were down 24-16 at the half.
In the second half, Payton seemed to iron out most of the wrinkles. In the Tritons first possession of the third quarter, Payton completed three consecutive passes to tie the game at 24 all. The Tritons would go on to score touchdowns in four consecutive drives.
One of these scores would be their second use of “The Corpus Collapse.”
It’s Corpus Christi’s version of the Philadelphia Eagles’ “Tush Push.” It’s proving just as effective for the Tritons. The Collapse was two for two in the Tritons 57-21 win.
Liberty Offense Continues to Struggle
The Liberty come out of Week Three 0-2. They were able to put more points on the board in this Week Three game. In the first half they were able to seize what few opportunities the Tritons gave them, but by the end of the 2nd quarter you could feel the Liberty losing control of their game.
The Liberty have only played two games this season and it’s possible the Tritons defensive scheme is just the perfect scheme to shut down their offense. Right now, it’s difficult to find a lot of bright spots on either side of the ball for Salina.
With the exception of Ed Smith Jr., who is currently third in the league for average receiving yards per game, no member of the Liberty are coming up with the big plays they need. If there are any playmakers on their roster, their offense and defensive design is failing to reveal them.
Starting quarterback Javin Kilgo has got a fine arm and can move, but this Triton defense leaves him with almost no time to execute. The design of the Liberty offense is classic Arena Football. You can see it executed perfectly by Billings. It’s lots of throwing. Then they run when nothing else is working.
The problem for Salina is I’m not sure they have the personnel to run a classic Arena Football offense. In two games, Kilgo has managed to throw just three touchdown passes and eight picks.
According to their stat sheets, the whole team has only rushed for 41 yards on 15 attempts. To put it in perspective, that team number is lower than the four top individual rushers in the league; including Billings Fullback Shawn McFarland, who’s only played one game.
If Coach Heron O’Neal can’t find a way for the Liberty offense to better incorporate running back Tracy Brooks or more efficiently get the ball into Ed Smith Jr.’s hands, I don’t know how they’re going to put points on the board.
One thing I’ve learned in this young season is that in this league there are three types of Quarterbacks.
There are the system guys: the guys for whom the quarterback position is like a distribution machine. The ball needs to be at a certain place, at a certain time and these guys execute it incredibly reliably. Look to Braden Wingle in Billings or Fred Payton Jr. in Corpus Christi for good examples.
There are the workhorses: Think Jalen Morton at SW Kansas or Dalton Cole at Oregon. These guys are just gonna put their teams on their backs and score no matter what.
The third type is Sam Castranova in Albany. He seems to do all of the things.
I say all of that to say, we’re two games into their season, and I’m not sure which one Kilgo is.
The Tritons and Liberty will finally get a break from each other this weekend. In fact, these two games were their only meetings of the season.
The Liberty will go home and battle for their first win of the year against the undefeated Albany Firebirds on Sunday in Vice TV’s game of the week.
The Tritons have a bye this week, but will be back in business on Sunday, April 13, when they’ll travel to Washington to take on the Wolfpack.
Firebirds Claw out Win in Music City
No two teams have had a more different start to the season than the Albany Firebirds and the Nashville Kats.
The Firebirds made their season debut last week and absolutely torched a then undefeated SW Kansas Storm. They executed exceptionally on both sides of the ball, notching four sacks and 4 interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns. QB Sam Castranova broke a league record by scoring seven touchdowns. The Firebirds would end up winning by nine touchdowns and some change.
The Kats did not execute as well. They played in the League opener on March 8, coincidentally also against the SW Kansas Storm. The Kats only lost by 14 points which is impressive when you consider that they had seven turnovers.
In between that early loss 21 days prior and their game against the Firebirds Saturday night, the Kats made A LOT of personnel changes, including losing both Quarterbacks on their roster.
They entered the game against Albany very much starting from scratch.
Firebirds Stiff-Arm Kats
On the opening kickoff, Firebirds return man Maquel Wade fumbled at the Albany 12, giving the Kats perfect field position for a quick score. This started a long day of back and forth scoring for Albany and Nashville.
With the exception of that early fumble, Albany started this game with the same intensity they finished their Week Two matchup against SW Kansas. They scored touchdowns on five of their first six possessions.
That’s Albany’s strong suit. They execute. They’re not perfect, but they rarely make silly mistakes. They didn’t have another turnover in this game until the fourth quarter.
I feel like Coach Damon Ware’s Firebirds are the ultimate “Trust the Process” team. They have a game plan. They are going to execute that game plan.
Castranova had a pretty light night when compared to his Player of the Week award winning performance last week. He went 12-28 and threw for 127 yards. He threw four touchdowns and had three receivers gain double digit yards while the Firebirds walked away with a 42-34 win.
This less than awe inspiring performance from Castranova can largely be attributed to the Kats defense finding a major chink in the Firebirds armor.
Let’s talk about that Firebirds offensive line.
Castranova spent a great deal of Saturday’s contest on the run. The Firebirds don’t run a lot of QB keepers, but Castranova was forced to tuck it and go eight times against the Kats compared to only twice against the Storm.
He was also hurried into a lot of his 16 incompletions. The Firebirds don’t have much of a running game. So, if Castranova doesn’t have time to execute, they’ll struggle to move the ball like they did in stretches of Saturday’s game.
Despite coming out of this game on top, it’s possible the Firebirds major Achilles heel has just been revealed. Only time will tell if this was a one off.
Fortunately for the Firebirds, they got a lot of help defeating the Kats by the Kats themselves.
New Look Kats Show Promise
As mentioned above, the Kats came into Saturday with a whole new look and attitude. Perhaps the biggest reason for this shift was the addition of starting quarterback Rakeem Cato. Cato signed with the team on March 26. He started for the Kats on March 28.
Given this tight turnaround, there was no reason to expect a lot from Cato. It’s unlikely that he’d even learned everybody’s names, much less the playbook.
Cato, however, did not approach this opportunity cautiously or with any trepidation. When he and the Kats took over at the Firebirds five yard line with 14:45 left in the first, he attacked like a man shot out of a freaking cannon.
The Kats were in the end zone less than two minutes later.
There were of course growing pains. This is a brand new quarterback after all. There were underthrown routes. There were dropped passes. There were miscommunications on the line but Cato proved himself to be a brilliant mid game problem solver.
He ran. He faked. He pushed the Kats into the end zone over and over again.
Cato had a huge night. He was 22-34 and threw for 239 yards, including three touchdowns. He clearly felt a connection with receiver Robert Jones Jr. who had nine catches for 102 receiving yards. Jones would score four of the Kats five touchdowns.
Cato’s night was far from perfect. He did throw two picks. He did finish the game with negative 11 rushing yards, but that’s not why the Kats lost.
The Kats were driving to tie with 30 seconds left in the game. Cato kept them in it.
What beat the Kats tonight were penalties. The Kats totalled somewhere between 80-100 yards worth of penalty yards tonight. They had two on their return team that backed them up. They had three on their offense and seven on their defense; which included an illegal defense call late in the fourth that allowed the Firebirds to retain possession, kick a field goal to give themselves an eight point lead and burn an additional two minutes and 20 seconds worth of clock.
Take away that one illegal defense call and the Kats get the ball back with around four minutes left and only down six.
The Cato Kats have a lot to clean up, but they’re certainly moving in the right direction.
The Kats and Firebirds will run it back on Saturday, May 10 in Albany.
This Friday, the Kats will stay home and look to grab their first win of the season against the 1-2 Oregon Lightning.
The Firebirds will travel to Salina to test their unbeaten streak against the Liberty on Sunday in ViceTV’s Game of the Week.
Storm Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
The SW Kansas Storm and the Oregon Lightning are two very similar teams that have achieved very different results. The Storm came into Sunday’s game 2-1, having just suffered their first loss of the season to the well rested and the high upside Albany Firebirds.
The Lightning entered the contest 0-2. They were absolutely destroyed by the Outlaws in Week One, but only lost to the Washington Wolfpack in Week Two by seven points.
They have two very specific things in common.
One, they’re messy. These two teams don’t make anything easy on themselves. It could be bad gameplans. It could be penalty yards. Who knows? If there is an obstacle to victory, they will find it.
Two, their quarterbacks are freaking beasts. Coming into Sunday night’s game, Oregon Quarterback Dalton Cole led the league in both yards (483) and touchdown passes (7). SW Kansas QB Jalen Morton led the league in rushing yards and has scored six rushing touchdowns. He’s also thrown six touchdowns.
In just a few games, these two guys have proven they’ll do whatever it takes to put their teams in a position to win.
Lightning Strike in Nick of Time
It’s pretty common for Arena Football offenses to almost constantly run in shotgun. The Arena field is smaller. There are only three linemen. You want to put as much space between your quarterback and the defense as possible.
This is totally fine of course… unless you can’t successfully snap the football. It took about three snaps for the Lightning to show us that they still cannot snap the football.
The Lightning did manage to score on their first possession, but Dalton Cole literally had to jump into the air to catch the snap. For the rest of the first, the Lightning struggled to do anything right at all.
There was an Illegal Formation penalty and a face masking penalty. There were two turnovers on downs and one pick. There were two fumbles and at around the seven minute mark in the second quarter, the Lightning were down 33-7.
It was around this time the ViceTV cameras cut to the notoriously “chill” Cole on the sideline reading his team the riot act. This was a man who wasn’t ready to give another game away.
Less than a minute later, Maurice Ashley scored his second touchdown of the day for the Lightning when he ran a kickoff all the way back.
In the Storm’s next possession, Jalen Morton had his own issues holding onto the snap while backed up in the Lightning’s endzone. The Lightning defense knocked the loose ball out of bounds to score the safety.
It was 33-17. The Lightning were alive.
By the end of the half, the Lightning had cut the lead to ten points.
After his emotional outburst in the second, Cole had clearly decided that this team was going to go as far as he could carry them. He would eventually run the ball a team high 11 times, racking up 44 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.
He threw for 258 yards and three more scores.
The most impactful of all of Cole’s exploits would come with less than five seconds on the clock and with the assistance of some horrible clock management decisions by Storm Coach Gary Thomas.
With ten seconds left in the game, and up 40-35, the Storm took a delay of game penalty on third down on the Lightning four yard line. The commentators speculated that it was literally just to give their team time to breathe. The Storm were out of timeouts and you could see they were out of gas. They had no confidence that they could punch this in. They were just trying to eat clock.
The delay of game penalty stopped the clock. Storm back up five yards. It’s third and goal on the Lightning nine. Ten seconds left.
Bad snap. The ball bounces off of Storm QB Jalen Morton’s hands. He immediately throws his body on the ground to retain possession. Loss of seven yards. Fourth and goal on the Lightning 15.
With no forward progress on the play, the game clock also stops. There’s eight seconds left.
It’s here that Arena Football Hall of Famer, and game analyst Sherdick “Sed” Bonner literally pleads with the Storm offense, “Get under center and take a snap. I’m about to lose my mind right here.” They did not.
Morton snaps. It’s a clean snap. He throws well short of the endzone. It’s complete but it’s not enough.
It’s Oregon ball with four seconds left.
First play, Oregon’s offense is getting set. Cole is surveying his team. Is everyone in the right spot? Time to go.
Whistles blow. Flags fly. Delay of game. This is the Oregon Lightning way.
It’s first and 15 from their own ten. Nicolas Brassell is the high motion man. He sprints for the line of scrimmage.
The ball’s snapped. It’s a clean snap. Not a lot of time. Cole’s rushed out of the pocket by the Storm defensive line.
He steps forward and heaves it to the endzone.
Somehow, Brassell, a speedy defensive back playing both ways tonight, has gotten behind all three Storm defensive backs.
After a long night of rushed passes, bad snaps and pointless penalties, Cole has dropped the ball right into Brassell’s arms.
Touchdown.
Lightning win 41-40.
This is the only time Oregon and SW Kansas will meet this season.
In Week Four, the Lightning will travel to Nashville to face the winless Kats.
The Storm will have a much-earned bye week but will return to action in Week Five when they travel to Salina to play the Liberty on April 12.
That’s all for Week Three. There are three more games on the schedule for Week Four including one on Thursday. We’ll see a Western division showdown and we’ll get to see Salina play someone other than Corpus Christi.
