Arena Football thoughts and other stuff

I went to my third ever Arena Football last night, seeing Colorado and Arizona play. Previously I’d seen the Milwaukee Mustangs (1994- 2001) on the 50-yard carpet, but couldn’t begin to guess what year, not that this matters. My previous memories were from an entertainment perspective about a five, on a scale of 1-10. Sort of like a TV show that your wife or girlfriend is watching, not bad, just not anything you would invest time on regularly.

Arizona has already wrapped up playoff spot and needed to, since new ownership group “guaranteed” the Rattlers would make the postseason on a money back promise for season ticket holders. Colorado used to be a AFL power, but is 5-10 after beating Arizona and is still in contention for playoff spot (don’t ask how, please) heading into the final week of the season.

I’ve watched snippets on TV over the years, but here are general observations. I can see why veteran quarterbacks have so much more success in this league. It’s about making one or two reads and getting rid of the ball. They more flick the ball than throw it, which coming out of college would be a problem for any quarterback trained to play differently. Many throws are off-balance, thus the Kurt Warner’s are few and extremely far between.

Because it is eight on eight, three defensive linemen and a roving linebacker rush the passer. Granted Arizona and Colorado are not the crème of Arena Football, but I was perplexed why defensive linemen just bull-rushed each time and never got their hands up. With the ball being thrown so quickly, chances for a sack are few, thus a batted or tipped pass seems nearly as valuable as sack.

If any AFL team has one really good DB, they have a real chance to limit opposition and make the field smaller, because of cover skills. The motion receiver is used to run clear-outs (at least by these two teams) and was surprised neither team ran more post patterns especially on early downs. Not that an NFL general manager would do this for many reasons, however if my team ran West Coast offense, and had a receiver I wanted to develop in the slot, or a pass-catcher that was non-starter who needed work on how to get open in passing game under 10 yards, playing Arena ball could develop those skills.

The funniest thing I’ve seen in years at a sporting event was a sponsored event by Buffalo Wild Wings. Six guys had 90 seconds to eat as many wings as possible to earn a year’s supply from BWW. They were introduced, all smiley faced and seemingly anxious to chow down. Though the number eaten by the winner was never announced, the looks on these guys faces was hilarious, trying to choke down these wings and I’m sure this one dude yakked once he got off the field. Great stuff. Last time I saw something that funny was at a Chicago Bulls game and they had probably 20 babies on the floor for a race to crawl from free throw line to midcourt for some sort of prize. At one point every kid was crying, as parents were prodding them to keep crawling, hysterical.

As NFL Hall of Famer and CBS analyst Dan Dierdorf would say, “Gutsy” move by the New York Mets to fire Willie Randolph and a couple of coaches in the middle of the night Eastern time in L.A. While the Mets and Randolph were blamed for no heart in September collapse last year, which evidently had carry-over affect, it’s clear the front office has many of those same qualities.

This Javon Walker story in Vegas is bounded to have more juicy details.

Bill Walker from Kansas State decides to stay in the NBA despite injuring knee in work out at Golden State camp. Just what the NBA needs, another 6’6 power forward with limited offensive skills, with bad knees, who lacks mentally maturity. (Check K-State websites and blogs)