mbsports
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Well gents, I finally managed to get a day off of work and we know what that means... Going to do some work on the MBCFL that's what!!!
First things first we're up to week 10 in Season 4 of MBFL and so it was time to write some stories to get us up to date there.
HTML clipboard Big Win Keeps Toronto In It
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A huge 31-3 win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders has kept the Toronto Argonauts in the running for an Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Argos knocked Kerry Joseph out of the game and then Darien Durant went down with an injury later leaving Marcus Crandell with the ball, which didn't end up working out well for the Riders. Toronto got on the board early with a 25 yard Jamie Boreham field goal followed by a 36 yard TD pass from Michael Bishop to Dominique Dorsey out of the backfield. Bishop would later find Allen Crenshaw for 17 and a score and Dorsey would take on the final TD with a 1 yard dive. At 5-5 Toronto now sits 6 points back of Ottawa in the Lakes Division but their key issue will be catching the Quebec Bulldogs who hold a transfer spot at the moment that would keep Toronto out of the Grey Cup playoffs.
Renegades Continue Their Roll
The Ottawa Renegades are continuing to hold their position of power in the MBCFL with a 29-16 win over Calgary on Sunday. Gary Novak led the team by going 15 of 21 for 317 yards and 2 scores while Henry Burris struggled on the day for the Stamps going 6 of 20 with 131 yards and 2 scores. Ottawa got a standout performance from receiver Chris Doering who caught 8 for 175 yards and a score. The Renegades host Toronto and then travel to New Brunswick. The Toronto game looked like a sure win a few weeks ago but the Argonauts have shown some quality lately and now look to be potential challengers. Gary Novak struggled to make big plays early in the season but he's bounced back and now sits 3rd in touchdowns and 6th in passing yards. With Chris Doering as his preferred target the Renegades are again in contention for the Great Lakes division and again have a good shot at advancing in the Grey Cup playoffs.
Bulldogs Bust Up Silvertips
Home Field is supposed to mean something but on Sunday the Victoria Silvertips were outplayed and outworked by the visiting Quebec Bulldogs. It was a San Jose Sabercats reunion of sorts as a few members and former members of the AFL team were on hand. Victoria got on the board first as AFL Refugee Mark Lewis hit a 17 yard field goal. Quebec would answer less then two minutes later as Mark Grieb hit Gerald Schwind for a 12 yard score to make it 7-3. Schwind would later score on a 1 yard run to make it 14-3. Buck Pierce would tie the game up on a 29 yard pass to Brock Ralph, who is having a career year for the Tips. At 14-10 Victoria was playing the Bulldogs tough, that would end in the 2nd quarter when Jon Cornish added a 4 yard run and Grieb found Chris Getzlaf for a 19 yard score. With 17 unanswered points in the quarter it was 31-10 and Victoria never could make an attempt on the game. Grieb would strike again early in the 4th with a 38 yard pass to Schwind to seal the deal with the final score on the west coast 41-20 which cost the Silvertips sole possession of the Pacific Division lead.
Jackson Closing in on 100
MBCFL has now been around for 4 seasons and while the pace of play and the style of play has changed Jarious Jackson is been consistent and prolific for the B.C. Lions and in the next few weeks we'll see Jackson become the first MBCFL player to throw for 100 touchdowns. Jackson added 1 in a week 10 28-23 loss to the Sabercats which dropped the Lions to 3-7, worst in the Pacific Division. The Lions could use a few more Jackson passes and with the season sliding away B.C. might not be able to match the comeback that saw them reach the playoffs a year ago.
Montreal and Ottawa on Pace
With 3 seasons completed only 2 teams have made the playoffs each year, the Montreal Alouettes and the Ottawa Renegades. For the Als they dominated the East for the first 2 seasons but for Ottawa the cross-over was their avenue as they made it to the playoffs in Season 1 and Season 2 by pipping the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who had their first playoff berth last year. With Ottawa and Montreal both in position for a playoff spot it brings to mind that only a few teams haven't made the playoffs. Those teams that haven't include the expansion group of Thunder Bay, Saskatoon, Newfoundland, and Windsor who joined the league for Season 3 and this year's group, of course, of Yellowknife and New Brunswick. The only team that has managed to miss each of the 3 playoffs is the hapless Edmonton Eskimos. In Season 1 a 7-11 record let Ottawa into the west with an 8-10 mark. In Season 2 Edmonton went 8-9-1 and missed out to Calgary with a 9-9 mark. Last season it was a 6-12 mark without a sniff. This season though they've managed to look a lot better with Ricky Ray finding a rhythm and at 6-4 they have a good chance of making the playoffs.
I didn't write up a Mykal news story but one thing to note is that MBCFL runs a little similar to a solo league when there isn't a GM in place so it really doesn't hurt so bad when we lose a GM. I'd love to have every team with a full time guy working trades, signing FAs, drafting players and setting up the team, but the CFL is our secondary/tertiary league so I really don't want to place that level of expectation on anyone. The CFL league was started to be my fun creative outlet and hopefully we'll have some guys who want to compete as well. I know I certainly am always trying to get my Stampeders tweaked, but alas we suck so cheers to the GMs who have managed to boot my butt constantly over the past few months, Mykal included as we lost a critical game to his SaberCats. If MyKal is alright with allowing us to continue leasing the stadium and having the team in caretaker mode then I have to admit - happy as can be with the team that plays in Santa's back yard.
One thing that I've been working on is a direct converter from Madden to MaxFB as we utilize both platforms for what we do and the MBFL Universe needs to be more streamlined so that a GM can see what the rating is for a FA without an NFL contract. That is now up on the site as I modified a Free Agent php in order to properly pull that information and wrote a converter for it as well. It's sortable and does contain each current MBFL player. Best of all the converter is a cheap excel file that I put together and it doesn't make the NFL guys so good that they'll blow away the CFL just as in real life if you come over you're probably not going to be an All CFL player just b/c you were an NFL bench warmer.
Another thing that I started to play with was importing some uniforms into Madden utilizing texmod. I am, somewhat notoriously, the commish who utilizes quick sim a lot more then the live play mode of MaxFB and therefore pulling screenshots becomes just a little quirky and tricky from MaxFB. Given that I have a ludicrous amount of experience setting up pretty screenshots in Madden and I have a nice roster file of all the CFL rosters already in Madden putting in uniforms and pulling out some screens works rather well. I plan on eventually putting all MBFL Uniforms in Madden so that I can work with both platforms seemlessly. One thing to note is that despite the graphic limitations of MaxFB the guys in the community here put so much effort, time, and attention to detail in their uniforms that they transfer to the higher graphic level of Madden incredibly well with some Photoshop work.
Finally on the CFL Front just a little update on the draft
I've enjoyed doing some scouting from our BCS, FCS, Division II, and CIS universities over the last week and currently have just shy of 50 players listed on the draft page as prospects for the next draft. My focus for tonight aside from writing up some CIS details will be scouting some WRs, DBs, and Special teams players. Eventually we'll have 100 players on the list, which allows for much more freedom for teams then in the past where we had only slightly more players available then spots to draft. The addition of Division II was huge for this because it allowed a Kelvin Donovan in where I would be scrambling to come up with someone who had done ANYTHING at the Division I level.
On totally unrelated fronts I wish everyone a happy holidays and a wonderful New Year. I have a whopping 5 of the next 6 days off and about a month of vacation time so I'll be seeing you guys around as I slack off from work for a change. 2008 was a mindblowingly busy year as I spent January-April developing a software package that launched. After that... I been everywhere man - Kansas, Minnesota, Maryland a few times, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, and of course home in Michigan. Somewhere along the way we launched a CIS league, finished Season 2 & 3 of the CFL as we race to get it onto a normalized schedule with everything else, had a tumultuous go at a basketball sim that I discovered was a pain in my butt and I'd rather stick to football, lost my favorite sport in Champ Car racing, worked at one place while the wife has had 5 jobs this year, and took care of two very adorable terriers that look like teddy bears but are total pains in the rump. Quite frankly 2009 can't get here soon enough!
So I will be spending some time over the next week launching a few new sites, doing some updates, and getting ready for the future of the leagues in general. The week of Jan 11 is a schedule off week but we'll have some CFL action as we move it back onto it's normal schedule. We're going to be on schedule to get our 4th Grey Cup run on February 8th, our draft on the 22nd and Season 5 will kick off March 15th with things slowing down so that the front part of the season will be the only time where we have multiple weeks occuring at a given time. Also will be uploading the DB for downloading to the site so guys can do that easier then they can today.
So the mission of simulating the football world and have fun while doing it continues. I'm having fun while doing it still and will be looking for GMs in every league for 2009. Overall the scope of what we're doing is probably akin to insanity with 512 teams in MBFL Leagues. Yes 512
32 NFL, 27 CIS, 20 CFL, 119 NCAA BCS, 120 NCAA FCS, 148 NCAA Divisin II, 16 AFL, 30 AF2
It's a practice of insanity but one that has gotten almost turn key in a lot of ways. I've learned so much over the past 12 years by running sports leagues and it still remains a hobby that I have some passion for...
Happy 2009 and thanks for making 2008 hectic but really good.
-Mb
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