I know our elementary school teachers told us not to judge a book by its cover, but I'm going to do that anyways. After spending the first 23 years of my life in South Carolina, and the last 5 years playing, officiating, and supervising Intramural Flag Football at Clemson University, I watched my first Pittsburgh Flag Football League games this Sunday.
I have only had minimal experience with 4v4 flag football, usually playing 7v7, but this weekend I liked what I saw. My first thought as I walked up was, "Damn, these are very nice fields." The fields are so soft they are just asking you to dive all over the place to pull flags and catch passes. Unfortunately, I didn't see too much of that. I only watched 2 games, but in the coming weekends I fully expect to see the intensity ratcheted up a few notches with players laying out to make plays on defense and offense. This league is full of good athletes, so let's see some Top Ten plays.
The fields are long and wide, and the quarterback has enough time to take the snap, contemplate what he's going to have for dinner, check for any hot girls on the sidelines, and still have plenty of time left over to wait for one of his wideouts to find a hole in the defense. Ten seconds is an eternity to cover a wide receiver, but if you rush the quarterback, then he has plenty of room to run. I have never seen a league geared towards offense so much. The defenses don't stand a chance (The New Team even managed to score 36 points with just 3 people against the Hammerheads!). I like it. Who wants to watch or play in a 7-6 flag football game anyway? I want touchdowns, and I want a lot of them. These 21-20 games aren't even enough scoring for me. I want to see the 49-41 game the Stingers had against Plan B. Offenses, come ready to put up some points. Defenses, good luck.
I liked the running plays. Teams almost never run the ball in 7v7, but the end-arounds were effective this week. It adds another wrinkle making it almost impossible to play defense.
But, there is one thing defenses can do, and it's not let the QB sit there for 10 seconds to find an open receiver. Defenses, if you want to have any chance of slowing down these offenses, you've got to get after the quarterback. If I had 10 seconds to make a throw, I would complete a pass if I had just one receiver to throw to, even if all 4 defenders were covering him. Defenses need to get some pressure on the QBs, and force them to make a play. Otherwise, even an average quarterback will sit back in the pocket and pick you apart.
My first weekend of games was fun to watch, but I expect the coming Sundays to be even better.