Season 15

This is the start of the 15th full year of this flag football game. It is not the same game that it was when it was formed but that's a good thing. While it has always been a good game due to the attitudes of the players and the type of game we've tried to make, the actual quality of the game play has gone through the roof, particularly in the past 4-5 years. The larger games, the incorporation of meaningful line play, the addition new players who bring new experience, ideas, and skills to the game.

Here's what we're looking at for the new year. We will be running practices on the 29th and 5th at 8:30 in Paterson Park - (off Airport, just East of 35). For those of you who attended practice last year, you know that they can be fun. There are several goals for practices:

1) Get people used to running in cleats again - you know how sore your normally are when you first start playing? Well practicing for 90 minutes for a couple weeks will help reduce that initial soreness you'll feel after the first few games.

2) Get QBs used to hitting receivers running real routes. While some of the QBs may have thrown the ball around some this summer, I'm sure that they'll appreciate the chance to practice without the rush in their face for a couple weeks.

3) Let people knock some rust off. Even if many routes are on 3/4 speed, it's good to get some get used to cutting, covering, and catching again.

I would also really like to see some offensive line work for players who need it. Biscuits says he has some things he learned in HS football that could help people how to better play line and I think our games will be much more fun for everyone if we improve offensive line play - there have been lots of debates about whether the defensive line rules need to be modified this summer but for now, I want to focus on improving line play.

Most people may not enjoy offensive line but if you want the QB to have time to get you the ball when you're in a route, you're depending on the other guys to buy the QB that time and you should work hard to try to do the same when it's your turn on the line. It's part of the social contract of the game.

Obviously practices, like games, are not mandatory but they do help and they are fun, particularly when we do our version of the 7 on 7 passing drills (4 on 4). We rotate guys in and out of positions to keep them fresh and keep the tempo up. We want to squeeze in as much passing as we can in 60-90 minutes without killing ourselves so ideally we get 12 guys or so out there.

After our 2 practice weeks are out of the way, we start Season 15 games at 8:30 at McNeil. Our season starts with early games for several reasons:

1) It's hotter out so starting earlier helps

2) College football is on and there are often early games that people want to see so starting at 8:30 allows us to play until 11-11:30 and still people home early enough to jump in the game without missing anything if they were smart enough to DVR it and then skip commercials.

After temperatures start to get more, we'll move the game back to our normal 9:00.

In addition to looking for improved offensive line play this year, I'm hoping we see better participation. While last year was great in terms of game sizes (we only had two games with less than 12), we had to get a lot of new players who did not stick it out to keep our numbers up. We certainly found some great new players who should be regulars this fall (BB, Gary, Charles, and others) but I'm really hoping that this year we'll have less turnover. Bringing in new guys who are going to stick it out is great but it sucks to play with someone who seems like a good fit and blows us off for the most part after that.

By my count we have about 25 guys who are likely to attend at least half the games this year. We never seem to have trouble with attendance early in the year (other than sometimes having too many people show up) because people are really excited to be playing again and seeing it on TV helps inspire people to play as well. However, I'm sure we will be eventually looking for some more regulars this year. As we look for them, here are some things I'd suggest we consider:

1) Guys who, if they are still into hitting the town and the bars, will still get up to the field on time the next morning;

2) Guys who are should be able to play offensive line (don't mean huge, just means of average size and willing to do it); and

3) Friends of people in the game. While I found a couple great new players last year via Craigslist, bringing in friends helps new guys fit in faster and extends their connection to the game.

Of course, I'm sure that we won't have problems to start the season and it will be some weeks before we're looking to add players (once we see who moved away or had other conflicts arise) but keep people in mind.

Look forward to seeing you at practice or games this fall.