Around the League

[Paul-London]

OHIO

Late in the game with Ohio driving for a potential game winning FG, WR Cliff Russell made the worst mistake of his career.  A personal foul pushed Ohio back 15 yards and facing 1st and 25 late in the game, QB Mike Pawlawski did get some of the yardage back but the Machine defense held and took over the ball.  Without the penalty the Glory could have been driving.

MEXICO

HB Eric McCoo isnt one of the most popular names amongst FWL fans but McCoo could be setting records this year.  McCoo has an incredible 86 catches for 905 yards and 8 td's receiving, and rushing he has 768 yards and another 5 td's.  Some players have been close but no one has ever got 1000 yards rushing and 1000 yards receiving in the same year.  McCoo should get 1000 yards receiving becoming the first HB ever to do that but if he can average 80 yards rushing in the final 3 games he will also have 1000 yards on the ground !

ORLANDO

Former 1st round pick (2nd overall) QB Kliff Kingsbury got his first real taste of the FWL this week, he didnt play well but kept the game close and made enough good passes to keep the job for another week.  Kingsbury was nearly traded earlier this year but stayed with Orlando and now has 3 games to show if he can be the starter or not next year.  Tony Romo was one of the top QB's last year but this year due to a dreadful defense his team is 0-10 and a change had to be made.  Romo is a very good player and look for some teams to go after him in the offseason.

FRANKFURT

The Galaxy have lost 4 straight games to fall to 4-7 and nearly out of the playoff race.  GM Marco Lambert last week admitted his team needs some major changes, with the trading deadline over look for the Galaxy to get a big name WR and some other players on offense.  QB Rohan Davey is a great QB but has been in a flunk this year and needs to rebound.  WR Marcus Knight can make big plays but seems better suited to WR2.

BERLIN

HB Avon Cobourne has shut the critics up the last few weeks with some sensational games, this week he ran for over 150 yards and scored 2 long td's in the 4Q in a vital win.  Cobourne was originally a 3rd round pick by Mexico at the end of Season 11 but with a great draft crop that included sleeper HB Eric McCoo in the 7th round the Aztecs felt they could trade Cobourne.  He moved to Berlin for a 2nd round draft choice but had just 1 carry for 4 yards in his rookie year.  Season 13 he was the forgotton man and had no carries as veteran Michael Black had a great year.  Season 14 he saw some action and had 123 yards and a touchdown but the following year had 2 carries for 0 yards.  Even in Season 16 with the retirement of veteran Michael Black, Cobourne was the forgotton as veteran Omar Bacon became the starter and Cobourne had just 26 yards at a terrible 1.4 average

The high 2nd round draft pick looked a waste until this year when he was named the surprise starter and Cobourne after some poor early weeks (for 5 straight games he never had over 50 yards) he exploded this week for his first 100 yard game of the season with 172 yards against Barcelona.

With 15 touchdowns and a 2 pointer in 11 games this year he is currently the highest scoring non-kicker in the league.  Great decision by GM Andreas Born to start him

NEW YORK

Congrats to WR Jim Turner who moved into 3rd place all time for receiving yards with 10,481 yards moving ahead of Riders legend Stepfret Williams.  Just over 1,500 yards will move him into second place.  Turner is still 4th all time in receptions and the 10 year vet will hope to carry on playing for New York for several more seasons.  He is still however 345 catches behind Vance Blundin which shows you what an amazing record Blundin set !

RALEIGH-DURHAM

HB Curtis Alexander had another huge game sunday with 3 td's and is now 1896 yards away from Bobby Phillips all time yardage record.  He is still 2000 yards away from the all time rushing record and needs just under 500 yards next year rushing to become the 2nd all time leader.  With 3 td's this week on the ground Alexander now has 95 touchdowns rushing , 15 away from tying the all time record by Bobby Phillips.  He is also 64 points away (11 touchdowns) from beating Phillips all time non kicker scoring record of 892 points !

SCOTLAND

Veteran LB Brennan Swanson had his best game of the year with 5 tackles and 2 sacks (his first two sacks of the year) as Scotland won a vital game over Rhein.  The 5 tackles gives him 795 for his career and he needs just 5 to become the 5th player all time to have 800 tackles or more. 

[Marco_Frankfurt]

Actually I am planning to offer WR Marcus Knight to trades after the season. He just seem not to work well with our Franchise QB Davey.
The losses we do not blame on him alone, but it is certain that we need a more reliable WR1.

A position that also needs a change is our K. If Mr Kastle would have made the 2 FG, we would have won the game.
He has not lost all games for us but I think it is at least the third time his misses made the difference.

Other positions we still need to improve will be OL and DB.

If we make the change by drafting or trading we will see at the appropriate time.

[Paul-London]

This year there has been 13 blocked punts.  10 by one team !  What team is that ?  Rhein !

The last two weeks Rhein have blocked 6 punts, 3 in each game and DE Clenton Ballard has blocked all of them !  Ballard has really come onto his own the last two weeks rushing the punter and as a DE he has 28 tackles and 6 sacks.