The Games (Home in Bold)
Champions Indoor Football:
Omaha Beef 44, Wichita Force 22
Duke City Gladiators 72, Oklahoma Flying Aces 6
Texas Revolution 61, Amarillo Venom 46
Indoor Football League:
Green Bay Blizzard 60, Nebraska Danger 50
Iowa Barnstormers 55, Bismarck Bucks 16
Arizona Rattlers 55, Tucson Sugar Skulls 41
San Diego Strike Force 40, Cedar Rapids River Kings 34
National Arena League
Carolina Cobras 54, Massachusetts Pirates 22
New York Streets 52, Jacksonville Sharks 41
Orlando Predators 42, Columbus Lions 40
Norling: IFW – Green Bay win highlighted the weekend
Last week I raved about the competitiveness of the CIF over the IFL. Well, the football gods showed no mercy and made me eat those words when Duke City murdered Oklahoma 72-6.
On a lesser extent to the ass-kickings in the CIF last week Omaha crushed Wichita by 22 points. Texas also kept themselves unbeaten with a 15 point win over Amarillo at home.
The Indoor Football League continued to show some great – and with some teams god awful – football.
Green Bay, who’s been one of the worst teams in all of indoor football the last few years, took a 10-point win over Nebraska at home to extend their winning streak to 4 games.
Unsurprisingly, Iowa pummeled Bismarck, and unless a f*cking miracle happens the Bucks WILL go winless this season.
Tucson was actually much more competitive against Arizona than I expected, losing by just 14. For being an expansion team playing Arizona 4 times I am pleasantly surprised by the Sugar Skulls.
Wrapping up the week was the Battle of Woes between 0-6 San Diego and 1-5 Cedar Rapids. The game started out really well for the worst two teams in the league playing each other with seven straight drives ending in touchdowns.
The Strike Force would open up the lead with a 45 yard TD pass to end the first half with a 34-21 lead. The River Kings would not be able to get back in the game as San Diego would hit two more field goals in the 3rd quarter bringing the lead to 40-21.
Cedar Rapids would score two unanswered touchdowns, one late in the 3rd and the other late in the 4th to finish the game with a 40-34 score.
Week 1 of the third season of the NAL was actually really surprising as the New York Streets handily beat Jacksonville on the road 52-41 in their inaugural game, a score and result I did not expect coming in.
Another upset saw the Orlando Predators, in front of a very very sparse unannounced number of people, take down the Columbus Lions 42-40 at Amway Center in Orlando.
Orlando using three different sets of graphics bugged the sh*t out of me. The current logo, which is a modified version of their 1998-2000 logo on their uniforms, the turf using their 2001-2010 style, and the transition logo on the broadcast is the black one from 2011-2016.
I can totally understand the turf as that is hard to switch but seriously get your shit straight on the rest of it. Lastly the defending champion Carolina Cobras got a great start with a heavy 32 point win over the Massachusetts Pirates.
The “News”
My biggest criticism of the IFL currently is San Diego and their attendance. I understand that this isn’t the Mid-2000’s anymore and we won’t see 8,000+ crowds anymore, but the Strike Force’s numbers are just embarrassing.
The numbers say they’ve drawn 3,248 to their first game against Tucson. Game 2 against Green Bay saw a reported 1,817 people enter the building and in Game 3 it got worse with only 1,603 coming in.
Yes, the Strike Force were set up late but an average attendance of 2,222.67 is just awful when the Gulls have 5,709 and the Seals NLL lacrosse team, who are also in their first season, have 8,063 fans coming through the gates.
Sadly unless something changes and soon I don’t see the Strike Force surviving in San Diego past the end of the 2019 season.
