Riders press day

[Guest]

well as a crappy season winds down its time to reflect on the year.

one of the few highlights Isaac Andrews is 1 sack away from being the all tiem leauge leader in sacks

4th round pick Rick Barrett has played well in spots looks to be a good pass rush investment

and last years 5th round pick Donovan Hopper has also fillied his roll 4 hurries and 2 sacks in spot duty

[Guest]

well as a crappy season come closer to ending a few bright spots worth mentioning.

Isaac Andrew is the #1 all time leader in sacks with 106.5

also the #1 all time defensive player!


Will shumway is 101 yds away from joining the 10,000 yard club (not one of the 10 best indeed) also his 1st year in 8 that he wont have a receiving td

Alfred Morrision puts up 1200 90 and 10

[Guest]

the 2021 season was an abject failure! after and 11-6 season earning a first round bye expectations were high in the desert and we fell flat on our faces in our band new stadium. where to begin

the injury to tom skeen in the preseason and the only slightly medicore performance of lamont emmerson forced us to play Frodo. in a way it was good becuase his bars dont seem to match whe hes good at. it took me far too many games of gameplan tinkering to figure out how to use him. by the time i did it was far too late.

the offensive line got younger and in my opinion better BUT that was clearly not the case evidenced by will shumways finishin outside of the top 10 in rushing for only the 3rd time in his 8 years. however we did only allow 26 sacks this year compared to the 37 times skeen met the turf in 2020 partly the line and partly Frodos ablity to prance to and fro. also donlad oglivies move to C went smoothly and he should be a good fit to replace the aging J.b. Mahon


the defense while still good, just could not stand the constant onslaught of 3 and outs. in fact phoenix lost 5 games by 4 or less points, the offense averaged only 17 points a game (7 off last years average).


the draft class was very good 4th rounder Rick Barrett proved to be a good value with 3.5 sacks 26 tackles 2 ff and 1 fr. also the rookie linemen RG Ernie Morris and LT Eugene Lockheart did yomen work starting 15 games and eah allowing only 3 sacks. Morris had 18 KRB's and 1 pancake and lockheart made the switch from RT to LT well. 4th rounder Leo Sheperd only saw action in 1 game and assisted on a tackle and had 1 hurry.

our RFA crop seems to be promising as well with WR Cris Schonberger making the IMT hauling in 11 catches 6 were for 1st downs no drops he looks to be an effective slot WR to replace the aging and trouble Harvie Beattie. DT Earnest McQuaig played in spots and was serviceable hopefully with some work and mentor DT Trevor Puitt the green will go away and if not no biggie. Te Roman bell didnt quite wrok out so he wont be back next year.

[Guest]

2022 Outlook

Seems like the team is living up to its mascot the mythical Phoenix, after soaring to an 11-6 season we burned up into ashes and had a horrible 2021 going 3-13.

The Riders come back for work Head c0ach Roger Kinney is back but only after luring Defensive coordinator Ted Woods into the fold one of the best minds in the OSFL for defense.

The team itself has come back intact for the most part and they have managed to get younger, oddly enough they have the oldest defensive line but one of the youngest offensive lines.

on D Isaac Andrews is back for 1 more year and perhaps 1 final title run. In fact that seems to be the teams motto with 14 players 29 or older. Most notably Tom Skeen is back this year tho there will be a competition for the qb spot as 2nd year qb Rico Oglethorpe will look to improve on last yuears performance.

the outlook is bright in the desert this year if Skeen wins the starting job we know what he can do and if Rico wins the job that means he gotten that much better and the coaching staff has figured out his comfort zone. with the addtion of Te's Norbet Edwards and Kelvin Douglas the short passing game will be much more effective.

and Will Shumway enters this season only 101 yards short of 10,000 becoming only the 14th player to do so (Aj Mcgee will be the 15th soon) and if Tom Skeen starts hell have a chance to break 30,000 yards needing only 3,046 yards to hit the mark.

[Guest]

so as the preseason winds up we feel very good going into 2022 and beyond with the trade that landed Rosie Bennett who will have a year to learn from one of the best (all time pancake leader) J.b. Mahon. also were pleased by the devlopment of our Wr corps with the decling skills of Will Shumway whoever starts at Qb may have to throw it 30 times a game.

the defense can only get better after being in the bottom 5 in pass defense, yards per rush and takeaways and dead last against the run, so it cant get much worse. the goal this season is 400 points scored and no more than 350 allowed. and a playoff berth

[Guest]

week 1 Phoenix 26 Los Alamos 1o

first some news of note Will Shumway goes over 10,000 yards for his career (still not one of the best rb's?) and Tom Skeen marches closer to 30,000.

tough win vs a division rival, no rest for the wicked now on to Yuma this was once a bit more of a rivalry but weve sucked


the good

we got a win and didnt turn the ball over

the bad

too many penalties 8-45 2 of them 3rd down bailouts

the ugly

FG's in the red zone gotta score tds ESPECIALLY against Yuma

[Guest]

also singed RB Louis Manningham a monster between the tackles he will be the perfect complement to the aging Will Shumway. he averages 4.65 ypc in limited use in north liberty didnt play at all last season, we will surely put him to good use our only worry is can he take the pounding at 5'10 206 he may be fragile


more importantly i kept him away from division rival Utah, last thing i need is for them to have a running game.

[Guest]

litmus test game for us with Yuma today. Since ive taken over Ive had an o'fer against then, not much of a rivalry if only 1 side wins. i dont like the fact that were the game of the week i seem to recall losing most of those games

[Guest]

phoenix 13 yuma 34

as we say here in Hawaii i got some dirty lickins! game was over before it started when your opponet get back to back holding penalties and converts a 3rd and 29 its gonna be a long day.

the good


ummm no dropped passes?

the bad

i game planed for the other guy buy im not sure it would have made a difference

the ugly

skeen throws 2 picks and we fumble it once

[Aston]

Dirty lickin's?

sounds ... dirty. You and Julio take it easy back there

[Guest]

phoenix 28 ohio valley 31

tough loss for us, game was back and forth with damn near no defense played got every opportunity benefiting from 11 ohio valley penalties and 1 turnover. still couldnt earn the W

the good

tom skeen is back in the groove 126 qb rating for the game the running game was most effective over 200 yds at 4.76 per attempt.

the bad

defense was porous as walter andrews had a day, but he is one of the better young qbs, still tho very disappointing.

the ugly

off to a 1-2 start and having to play new orleans who we are 1-7 lifetime against. and utah is scoring 40 a game and now they have a damn good RB for the next 5 to 7 years

[Aston]

I was thinking more like 3 to 4. 5 is iffy, 6 is almost out of the question. RBs can drop real early. Blades was at about this level in year 6, and he was 56/56 in year 9 and 50/50 in this year (10). More than that, his numbers fell off big time starting at year 9.

I admire your offensive scheme, by the way. What you are doing with Skeen is awesome.

[Guest]

remember hes only 27 and very low mileage, never had more than 250 carries in a season.

will shumway is 32 IIRC and only dropped 1 point. even if gaing loses 10 points at 30 hell still be a animal

the flip side of that is Aj McGee 2 years younger than Will but Spock rode him into the ground averaging over 360 carries a year, yet at the age of 30 hes hitting the wall. and at "the wall" he's still 50+ rated and a danger in the passing game

[Guest]

I admire your offensive scheme, by the way. What you are doing with Skeen is awesome.

says the guy scoring 40 a game LOL

the sympathy starts early, how kind of you to cushion the 35 point win youll have in week 6.

[Aston]

Haha, to be fair, I had a ST TD this week and the yardage is inflated by the DEN game. But I just don't get how you throw downfield the way you do with Skeen. Noticed this back in '20 and have been trying to figure out your tricks since!

I wonder how much the riding into the ground part of it really matters. There is a RB who is still 70/70 in year 9 in my other league. He's averaged around 400 carries a season. Dice rolls probably determine a lot more if your guy will have a flash-in-the-pan stud career or if he'll just keep going. This 70/70 guy is very rare, haven't seen anything like it!

Manningham should be real good, by the way. If I couldn't get him, wish someone else had.