Week 3

Admirals @ Barcelona 27-30

By: Velcro & Teflon

For an explanation of the shovel rating system, head here.

The important game
by Velcro

There was no report for the week 2 game as the entire Trench Crew relocated directly from Berlin to Barcelona. Most - if not all the comments fron the Barcelona game are relevant to the Berlin game, so there is no separate report.

Coming into the game it looked like it should be easy for Amsterdam at 2-0 to win from Barcelona who were 0-2 and conceded over 100 points total in their first two games, but as usual things are not as simple as they appear.

Offense
We actually ran the ball against Barcelona reasonably well, 74 yards are 5.3 yards a carry. In the second half when we were chasing the game we had to abandon this method of attack and launch the air raids via the arm of Kevin Daft. There was a downside to the running game though - last week Frankfurt racked up 300 yards on the ground against the same defense. Our running game is competent but not that great at this point. The passing game was its normal efficient self. Several big plays and a game ending TD throw was only inches away from being caught by Marcus Knight.

Quarterback

Kevin Daft start out throwing some pretty poor passes in the first and second quarters. The pass that was picked off was absolutely horrible. It hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity and the DB would have had to try pretty hard to drop it. Later on he settled down back into his rythmn and was finding his receivers with regularity. Still cool under pressure he moved around the pocket well and when necessary took off. He was sacked three times, but that wasn´t really his fault. 26 of 44 is a fair days work. The pick was costly as that allowed the Dragons to take their first lead of the game, and maybe with 8 seconds to go he could have tried to work the ball into position for a game tying or even winning Field Goal attempt. The defeat was by no means in the hands of Kevin, but that is now his third interception in three games - the same number as he had in a whole season in Scotland. He continues to lead the offense and look round the receivers ( catches by 6 different receivers ) shows that he continues to progress. The 53 yard pass off play action was well done. A three rating this week is what he gets.

Running Backs

Rafael Cooper returned after missing the game in Berlin. He looks to be pretty much 100% and did an effective job against the worst run defense in the league. He had one catch out of the backfield to add to his 74 yards rushing and a touchdown on a sweep play with extra effort. He shows continually that he has the speed to get to the outside corner and turn upfield. However between the tackles he has a worrying habit of running into his own blockers and getting caught in the middle. He has shown a talent for picking holes when they are there, but all too often there are none. A couple of dropped passes in the game hurt us though. 3 shovels.

Tight Ends

After his game winning TD catch in Berlin last week, Ryan Collins continued to impress with another TD catch in the clutch with 49 seconds to go in the game to level it up at 27 all. A couple of plays earlier he got a big Pass Interference call as he beat a safety. Showed his versitility in the first quarter helping to block paths for running game. The running game was steady against a poor run defense so Collins needs to continue to help out here. Again a couple of dropped passes and a false start penalty on the first play from scrimmage hurts his rating - 4 shovels.

Receivers

A couple of drops can be aimed at this group as well but the biggest crime is their lack of help in the running game. Simply put, on sweep plays they have to blocl people and they just aren´t getting it done. At least one of the three sacks and a couple of scrambles by Kevin Daft were due to the receivers not getting open. When you realise that The TE Ryan Collins was the leading receiver this suggests even more that they aren´t getting open when they need to. Joey Getherall picked up another TD, but not a super performance by the team speedsters. They contributed steady but not at the level they need to if we are to make it to the World Bowl. On the last play from scrimmage no one could get open to win the game. A slightly shaky 3 shovels here.

Offensive Line

Good pass protection again. Daft was sacked on back to back plays again but generally he is getting pretty good protection. The run blocking however is not getting the job done as we would like. The Dragons gave up 300 yards last week and we got only 77 yards. This is proving to be a steady group of hardworkers, but they aren´t yet bowling people over the way you want a dominante line to do. They need to do a better job of opening holes up for Cooper to exploit between the tackles. On a couple of screen passes they tended to be too eager to get downfield and the ball carrier was being tackled from behind. A respectable job - 3 shovels.

Defense
Against the Pass we are not to shabby, but our run defense was absolutly horrible. Some soft zone coverage gave up a lot of completions in the secondary, but they stiffened well in he Red Zone and created turnovers.

Defensive Line

JOn passing plays they get good pressure on the Quarterback, 4 of 5 credited sacks going to the Linemen ( 3 for Mike Sutton, including a forced fumble that was recovered by the Dragons ). On outside sweeps they pursue well. However up the gut - especially at the Right Tackle spot they are getting absolutely blown away. The Dragons obviously saw the same thing as we had the previous weeks against Berlin and Rhein as they attacked that one spot mercilessly all game long. Only when near the goalline when safetys were commited to run support was the running game stopped. 191 yards at a 6.4 yard average is way to high and against other teams that have shown they can run, like Frankfurt we could be in big trouble. 2 shovels based mainly on good pass defense.

Linebackers

This group also must shoulder a fair share of the blame for the running game woes as they seem to get caught up in the blocking schemes that the opposition uses resulting in three of the teams leading tacklers being Defensive Backs. This group must quite simply do better in getting to the ball carrier and brnging him down. They were active in the passing game batting four balls up in the air, unfortunately only one of them was picked off. 2 shovels verging on making it one. Paris Lenon´s interception saving them from that indignity.

Defensive Backs

This unit seems to be doing more than its fair share of tackling right now, Blackwell, Jennings, McElmurry & Perryman all in the 5 leading tacklers on the team, only Mike Sutton was stopping this being an all secondary show. Legarius Jennings was busy again and Kory Blackwell was again good. The longest pass play for the Dragons was 39 yards, but that was an important one as it got the Dragons into Field Goal range at the end of the 1st half for what was eventually was the deciding Field Goal. They seemed to play more zone coverage than in previous games content to wait on the Dragons to make mistakes. Unfortunately only one interception to show for everything. 4 shovels for doing all the work.

Special Teams

The Special Teams had the Good ( kickers Joe O´Donnell and Silvio Diliberto remain perfect on the year ), the bad ( kick off coverage was atrocious ) and the ugly. Punts and punt coverage always looked ready to collapse but never quite did. One bright spot was a special teams turnover on a Barcelona Kick Off Return that led the Admirals to a 10-0 lead in the 1st quarter.

The kick off coverage needs to be fixed in the worst possible way. The kick offs have in general been too short and too low and then the coverage is breaking down time after time. One return, a 56 yarder was only ended when Andy Baynes, the kicker, made the tackle. The average start for the Dragons was on their own 40 yard line, meaning only 60 yards away from a Touchdown - a full fourteen yards closer than the Admirals begun. Sorry but the good can´t cover for the bad, one shovel.

Coaching
It really looks like the defense is playing the pass first and trying to contain the run, and against the Dragons it just didn´t work. The last drive by the Dragons in each half led to them getting 6 points ( A Field Goal on each occasion ) that proved decisive in the end. Something needs to be done to stop the continuing successes of our opponents on the ground. The offense is being steady without really being able to get the running game going as well as we would like. There is plenty to work on this week before we tackle the 0-3 Thunder on Friday Night. We aren´t helped this week by a number of players getting banged up against the Dragons and with the short week till Friday we may be missing people this week.

Fans
After a very special night in Berlin last week several interpid fans decided to go for Barcelona. A whole story could be attached to weird travelling tales, but I´ll suffice it to say that two fans in particular travelled by road and rail changing in Brussel, Paris and the Spanish / French Border in an 11 hour epic journey. The game atmosphere was again one of whole hearted support for the team. Something that the players acknowledged by visiting with fans immediately after a heart-breaking loss when I´m sure most of them would rather be alone in the locker room. I must comment on one report that surfaced after Berlin, that the travelling support there had really helped the team be ready to play - the goal of any away support any time. This week in the ArenA the fans again must help the Admirals in every way we can.

Trench Crew Week in Barcelona.
You know its going to be a good week when you step off the plane on a Monday afternoon with not a cloud in the sky and the temperature registering in the mid-twenties. The Trench Crew together with the Hell of Shame headed on to our beach front hotel in sunny Sitges. When the sun is shining and the beach is 10 seconds from your hotel then nothing more is needed other than a football, and of course beer. A night was spent with John & Montse, the organisers of the Sitges Sack Dragons Fanclub - drinking beer catching up with old times and generally laughing a lot. The night was topped off with a round of free drinks in Tito´s which Teflon managed to miss due to a prior appointment with a pillow and a mattress.

Tuesday was absolute chill out day. Football on the beach, Lunch in the restaurant of the Dragons Players Hotel, one of whom actually asked us why we were there so early. A brief indication to the every improving - if such a thing were possible - weather soon put him on the right track. Dinner in the Italian restaurant and then our first brush with the dominant drink of the week, Sangria.

Wednesday. Despite all the years that Velcro has been going to the games in Barcelona he has never seen anything of Barcelona other than the inside of the Olympic Stadium, something that was to be changed right here, right now. With the aid of a reliable map the bold investigators took off to investigate the delights of the Olympic Park and the old town of Barcelona, all culminating with an afternoon spent seeing `The Sights´ of La Rambla and drinking simply huge beers. The orange shirts were noticed by many an alluring young lady, including one who demanded that we pose for photographs with her. This amazing occurance required beer drinking to be abandoned for the day. Only to be replaced with Sangria. A retiral to Sitges followed swiftly afterwards and that was followed by a swift collapse due to too much booze and too much sun.

Thursday. The play called was go back to Barcelona and and visit the Dragons training session. The play finally executed was more sightseeing, beer and Sangria - accompanied by the arrival of Bas. A handy hint for those of you who want to go to Barcelona, 25 hour long bus trips are bad. While Michel and Bas returned to Sitges to drop off Bas´s stuff Niki and Velcro proceeded to spend 3 hours wandering around Barcelona looking at stuff - and not stopping for a beer at any time on this Marathon of Barcelona. The remainder of the day really mirrored the previous day as we then decended on La Rambla for Beer, Women, Wine and Song. OK we can´t sing and the Wine was contained in Sangria jugs, but the general idea is clear. I´m not sure what Teflon did that day, but siffice it to say he was in bed when I left in the morning and was in bed at night when we returned. There was no evidence available to suggest that did anything else that day.

Friday, Rest up for Game Day Day. Yet another lovely Sunny Sitges Day. More beer, more Sangria, more drinking with John and Montse whom we met in the Highlander Bar in Sitges, where there was a Scottish guy working. This gentleman, it turned out, once owned a bar in Rotterdam once. John and Montse obviously working to a secret Dragons plan then showed us how to party by drinking till well after 5:00am. So much for being tired at the start of the night.

Saturday, Game Day, Party, Party.
For reports on the game see above. As usual there was no pre-game party in Barcelona, but with a 5:30pm kickoff that isn´t a huge problem. What was the problem was dealing with the close loss. Everyone in the Admirals team, office or in the stands had a long face for a long time after that game. Especially as we then indulged in another tour of Barcelona to get back to the train station as the security guards had shut all the gates before we had said goodbye to the players. After reacing Sitges however it was time to put a brave face on everything and head to Montse´s Birthday Party. The beer was cold and called Schlosser and then came the magic Montse Sangria that killed us stone dead by the time the party was over. As befits monsters on tour we held out for a whole 4 liters of the stuff before we ran up the white flag, and had Teflon not decided that the Pillow and Mattress looked better after the 1st liter maybe we would have managed 5.

Sunday, There is always an advantage to having someone go to bed early. We make sure that we got up at 07:30 to go and get the plane home. Nothing of any great interest there to report.

Trench Crew Moments of Madness.
A week in Sitges offers up many chances for fun and laughter, and here are but a few to chortle on as we wait for next week.

First off, Niki gets the gameball for trying to turn half of his body into a human BBQ ready for the game next week. The other half remained resolutely white thus leading to a very interesting two tone effect set off to perfection with his red Houston Texans Cap. Hey Niki - The Texans shirt is Blue not Red.

Flag on the Play to Velcro for actually daring to go to bed before Teflon once.

Admiration to Teflon for eating Breakfast every day & alarm clocks to everybody else who didn´t bother.

Brief impression on the not so important games
by Teflon

Already dreading the upcoming triple header, but I will do my best to update my impressions on the other teams after three weeks. The coming weekend I will see them all play, so finally will be able to get a much better feeling for the strengths and weaknesses.

Dragons
As expected, Jack Bicknel did not allow them to continue their horrendous performance. I am sure some skulls got cracked in the locker room and at training! However, they still seem to make quite a few elementary mistakes. Away from home and against a motivated team, they should lose. Had the Admirals been playing in the ArenA last week, the score line would have been very different. I doubt these guys will make it to the final.

Berlin
Lost again at home and against a pretty bad Fire team too. They simply don't seem to be motivated enough. They need to shape up in a big way in order to have any change. But since they are playing in the ArenA this week, I predict they will go 0-4 and that should be the end of their WB hopes.

Scotland
"See you next week for more bullshit Claymores football" was the content of a Preston SMS to the Trench Crew after week 3. They appear to suck tremendously on the road, even more so than last year (4 completions against Frankfurt?!). I think they will continue to win a couple of games, probably only at home and might be an outsider for the WB. But honestly, at this stage I won't put money on them.

Fire
Ah, the always battling Fire. Last year they were pretty bad, but homefield advantage counted for a lot. They also always seem willing to fight to the end, even if they aren't very good. I actually think this team isn't any better than Berlin, but I am guessing they will be a good contender for the WB. They won two games which they just as well could have lost and in a short season such as this, that might mean the difference between a WB spot and flying home after week 10.

Frankfurt
3-0 start to the season so they have to be current favorites for a spot in Dusseldorf. Considering the competition (I can't point at any one team and go "these guys are great!") they have my money for clinching the first spot. In fact, I am hoping for it! Frankfurt playing the WB in Dusseldorf ought to mean an instant 20 thousand fans for whichever team opposes them. And hopefully, that will be Amsterdam.