Life is messy, complicated, full of tough choices, ugly, and at times it’s just plain mean. But more than everything else, life is very very confusing, the world seems to move faster everyday.
To cope with the ever increasing craziness that is life everyone finds their own way to deal with the world around them.
For me, that thing this time of year is Arena Football. No matter how fast the world seems to be moving or how crazy things get, a touchdown is always worth 6 points, the sideboards are always there and my Orlando Predators always make the playoffs.*
So I was shocked to receive a tweet that the upcoming weekly Friday night telecast of Arena football on the NFL network was in jeopardy because an AFL strike was looming.
I was even more shocked to learn that this wasn’t the first AFL strike of this season. How could a strike occur in the league I love so much and I not hear about it?
Hang on kids, from here on out it gets weirder. Don’t worry if you don’t follow along, because I don’t either.
The “Strike” took place the first week of the season and only two teams participated in the “strike” but they both played the game....
I know what you are thinking, how could it be a strike if teams played their games anyway? The answer? I have no frickin’ clue. Did they use replacement players? Again, no idea.....
Although I did read an article saying that the strike “resulted in a very sloppy game”. That’ll teach ‘em! Good thinking AFL players union! Just play like ass! They’ll be ready to negotiate in the no time.
Prior to last week's second so called “Strike” articles were posted that only confused the matter.
Apparently, the AFL players’ union only requests that Cleveland strike,...yep, now we’re down to just one team striking....and the rest of the games that night would be played, as well as the games the rest of the weekend just not the one on TV....
And Cleveland might use replacement players, or their strike might not start until after the game that night, or they’ll have to forfeit. All of this contradictory info in the same article that I’m not even going to bother linking because your brain might just ‘splode if you try to read it.
As it turned out, Cleveland did forfeit, yes forfeit.....for some reason the AFL players union was cool with just one team not playing and letting them forfeit a game, so that week's game wouldn’t be televised. Canceling the only televised broadcast on tv for the AFL.
Can you imagine if a more traditional union did this?
I think it would go something like this:
Union: We’re going to have to go on strike
Members: Well, it will be rough but we can do this together!
Union: No, not all of you, just Gary.
Members: Won’t they just fire Gary?
Union: Yes, but trust me, this will work...I know what I’m doing....
Members: That makes no sense, but as long as you know what you’re doing...
Gary: Um,...I have a ques-
Union and Members: SHUT UP GARY! GO ON STRIKE! WE HAVE IMPORTANT UNION STUFF TO DO!
Gary: :-( okay......
Union: This is working perfectly! Just to be safe though we should try this again in a few weeks.....
Last night came a more sensical message from the AFL itself. It laid out in plain english what they were offering the union. I’m not taking sides here, but at least they took the time to explain their position, and wrote it in english and stuff. Also, they seem to know what the hell they are doing.
The scary thing for me, is unlike a strike in any other pro sport, I get the idea that the money might not be there to pay the players what they should be paid. Teams and owners just don’t have the unlimited funds to give the players like in the NFL, MLB, and NBA. Not that long ago, the league shut its doors for what they said at the time was financial difficulties. They came back a year later, but watching the games, the stands looked pretty bare. I’d hate to see the sport I love disappear completely.
I’m starting to think the indoor league the Omaha Beef are in is actually more financially stable. Even though the IFL is a step down from the AFL, traveling to Grand Island, Sioux Falls, Wyoming etc, has to be a lot cheaper than flying teams to mostly major cities all over the country, as is the case with the AFL.
In the same release, the AFL also said that the game of the week would be tape delayed to the following Saturday, a disappointment to me, as it gets harder and harder to not hear the final scores ahead of time (faster world remember?).
And today came news that the two sides were close to a deal. The AFL is willing to compromise with the AFLPA if, you know, they could figure out what the hell AFLPA was trying to do. Perhaps they’ll have Cleveland forfeit again, that went well.
* well, not this year, they’re like 1-12 or something, first time missing the playoffs in about 12ish years :-(
As I write this, this years Arena Bowl is about to start in about a half hour or so. Why write this now? Because I plan on watching the game tomorrow, and I’m assuming all my readers (hi mom) aren’t going to watch the game anyway, so I can safely prognosticate all over this blog (ewww! Not on the rug! gross!).
Last week Arizona beat Georgia at home, I watched the replay of that game on the web. One of the radio announcers for Arizona sounded as if he was annoyed by everything and I mean EVERYTHING, fans, players, officials, Sirius satellite radio, when the game cut for commercial....you name it, he was whining about it. He really got on my nerves....I really didn’t have a point about that, just felt the need to mention it. You suck Arizona color commentator guy!
I also watched the Jacksonville Sharks take down the Georgia Force a few days later. I felt bad for Georgia, fighting the good fight with a back up QB. A QB with a huge gash on his hand butterflied up to try and control the bleeding. Georgia looked as if they were fighting an invisible wave of relentless energy from both the other team and the fans. All to try desperately to stay in the game against the Sharks who seemed to score with ease.
Those Shark fans got on my nerves though. One of them actually reached over the boards in the end zone and grabbed onto a Force player and HELD him there....all in the noble pursuit of trying to steal a game ball....you sir, are a douche. Thanks to him Jacksonville got a 15 yard penalty against them, but who knows how far the Force player could have run without being held by some drunk in the stands. There were a few more fan interruptions in the game, but that one really pissed me off.
Expect another blog venting my annoyance of grown men, most of whom are older than I am, fighting/scratching/clawing/knocking little kids over to get a football in an indoor or arena game or a foul ball in baseball. I just don’t get it....more on that another time though.
Anyway back to that game.... The rowdiness/loudness of the crowd added to the general feeling of inevitability of a Jacksonville win. I had that feeling about last year’s Arena Bowl in Spokane whose arena is cleverly referred to as “Deaf Valley” due to the loudness of the fans. They seem a little better behaved though, so they have my respect.
The Sharks fans obviously do not, but Jacksonville is going to Arizona for the Arena Bowl, so they’d have to live without their fans “Help”. This continued sense of inevitability of a home team playoff win is why I might end up rooting for the Sharks.
Another mark on the side of Jacksonville is Aaron Garcia. Aaron is like the Brett Favre of the Arena League (minus all the interceptions, yearly annoying retirement talk and text messaged photos of his weiner) and he is going to to the Arena Bowl for the first time. He’s been around for 14 years and never been to an Arena Bowl despite holding about every record the league has. He’s on the short side (which is why he was never NFL material I’m guessing) but he’s one of the toughest S.O.Bs to ever play ball. He’s the kind of guy you can’t help but root for.
On the other hand Arizona is one of the few Arena League originals that has managed to stay around and intact after all these years. The others being Tampa Bay and Orlando. So it’d be good to see an old school team like them win the championship.
So who do I think will win?
Jacksonville just played a game on Monday in Jacksonville and has to fly all the way across the country to play on the road today (Friday). Arizona has the best record in the league but almost blew a huge lead against Chicago and played uninspired at times. Trandon Harvey is a question mark for them as well. He was mysteriously absent during their victory against Chicago.
I’m guessing based on the game being in Arizona I would pick them to win, but wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. To summarize, I don’t see a clear winner and I don’t even know who I’ll be rooting for. But that’s arena football for you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, especially for the Arena Bowl, what a way to end the season.
Looks like I was 3-1 with my predictions. My Preds did exactly as I thought they would. Not a close game but not a blowout either. Not as many penalties as I though they would commit, still a lot by any normal teams standards, but not bad for them. I blame coach Pat O’Hara...speaking of which......Penalties and fumbles are usually the sign of bad coaching and I was never really high on Preds Coach Pat O’Hara, I was hoping he would get let go. Low and behold I just visited the AFL site to double check the brackets while writing this and apparently he’s been fired, dismissed, @#$^ canned outta there. I am somewhat pleasantly surprised as they made the playoffs both years he was head coach but the Preds always seem to be winning in spite of him instead of because of him. Hopefully they don’t hire some total gomer and can keep things going next year for hopefully their 20th straight visit to the AFL playoffs in their 21 years of existence.Sorry,...got a little sidetracked there...back to the prediction recapMy only miss was the Georgia/Cleveland game as I said in my blog predictions thingy, “I could see this one going either way”. So good for Georgia for picking up a win on the road, tough to do anytime, but especially in the playoffs.Thankfully Chicago knocked Dallas out of the playoffs, they earned the right to be rooted for by me for the rest of the playoffs and for the foreseeable future, although I can’t see myself being too disappointed if #1 seeded Arizona knocks them out in the Conference Championship round. Arizona did beat the defending champ Spokane Shock in the first round but it was a close one. I would have liked to have been able to see that game, certainly less painful than watching my Preds lose. Before I go around gloating at my prediction skills I believe I said something like “I’ll flip a coin and go with Arizona as they are the home team” so just got lucky on that one. Now to conference championship predictions, I’ll take Arizona over Chicago, although a Chicago upset wouldn’t surprise me. I haven’t seen that much of Chicago this year, but what I’ve seen of Arizona I’ve really liked. But this is arena football, anything can happen.On the other side I see Jacksonville keep on trucking past Georgia. This one would surprise me a bit as I’ve never really been big on Georgia all year, but they just keep hanging around, I see that ending for them this weekend though. So there you have it, I’m looking in the magic Smitty Crystal Ball (tm) and seeing a Jacksonville/Arizona Arena Bowl this year. I promise I am working on a non-sports related blog,...thanks to everyone who suffered through another sports blog.
