Week 17 Summary - A classic - its raining hard and we have 9 on 9 - that's dedication (or insanity . . . hard to tell). In any case, it was our 2nd wettest games ever (we had a game about 7 years ago when it poured hard the entire game). Still, it was mighty wet - even after it stopped raining. Final score of 3 to 2 Yellow over Red.

Couple things came up that I wanted to talk about. First, for the past few months Leo's teams have been running a hook and ladder play once or twice a game that involves Leo throwing to a receiver on the line and then coming behind for a pitch. After it was run twice in a row this week, a question was asked as to whether or not that was pushing the "QB can't run rule." This is a good question but I don't think that it does. This play is not like having a player hand the ball to the "real QB" so he could run or throw on every play (which a couple of guys tried doing last year) for two reasons: 1) because it involves a forward pass and a pitch back. The QB doesn't have the option to throw or run. He threw and then took the pitch to run. We do hook and ladder plays to other players, including linemen (who are otherwise ineligble to advance the ball) 2) The pass could be dropped by the WR or intercepted by a really alert defender OR the WR could be flagged before the pitch OR the pitch could be dropped or intercepted by a really alert defender. So there is a higher element of risk in this play than in simply handing the ball to a stud Vince Young style runner/QB. I think the risk of little to no gain makes it more legitimate. So running it once or twice a week doesn't seem unreasonable any more than running half-back options or running Hook and Ladders to a lineman once or twice a week. They are fun plays and as long as they are not the staple of the offense, I don't see them violating the spirit of the rules by having otherwise ineligible players running the ball. Thoughts?

Another thing I needed to do was apologize for getting pissed off when I ran up the middle on a draw and Matt tackled me. It was a totally legitimate play. I was running up the middle, he got in the way and grabbed me to stop me, I went down. It’s just I hit a puddle face first and the cold water gave me a jolt so I reacted without thinking. I was wrong to complain about it.

Finally, I am really sorry about my forecast. It really looked like the rain was going to pass by 9:15 or so. And it did pass . . . only it was more like 10:30 before it did.

BTW - Kudos to Leo and Ray for struggling through the worst throwing weather in years.

Week 18 Preview - Weather.com shows a sunny day for Saturday with Wednesday being the only day for the rest of the week with a chance of rain so hopefully the field will have dried out.