SHOW NOTES
Start with the Quarterback
Steven Hofrichter
1/1, 64 yards, 1 TD, 0 interceptions, 0 sacks
Terrible mechanics
Shoulders square
Like a dude playing catch in his back yard
Ball was going about 5 miles an hour
Truly a beautiful play
Nick Tiano
Passing
19/34, 194 yards, 1 TD, 2 Interceptions, long 32, 2 sacks for 12 yards
Rushing
8 carries, 51 yards, long 12
1 rush was a knee
3/7 were for 1st downs
Second play was 11 yards
Made amove to make a guy miss
Dude knows how to run
Clunky slides
Took a big shot to the head
Was not called
Dude might not know when to run
Tucked it on 3rd and 11 for 3 yards
Lead to Hagemans first missed FG
Not on stats was his 2 pt conversion
Put the team onhis back there
Back to passing
Very not good.
Handful of good throws
Maybe 3 out of 34
Also the OT throw to Hakeem Butler
1 Ball on sideline to Ateman on scoring drive
Catch for 24 yards
1 Ball on Sideline to Ateman on first INT drive
Cath for 11 yards
Best was 32 to Hakeem butler for TD
Right down the middle of the field
Middle of EZ
Great ball and on time
2nd OT play
Crosser to Butler
Issues
So late for every throw
Affected everything
Missing Proehl in every direction (2/6)
First INT was waaaay behind
EZ
Deep ball
Missed 2 guys by 5 yards
Over threw Shepherd on sidelines
Bad INT in EZ
Underthrows Shepherd
Cover 2, not hard to read
DB high Points it
Not hard to do on that throw
Sucks because Shepherd had his guy cooked
As he is wont to do
Last thing
Don’t want to pile on a back up
Hospital pass to Shepherd
Went out
IDK if he came back
Good things
Clutch runs and a few decent throws
Stayed calm throughout the game
Showed he wanted to win over the team
Wide Receivers
Marcell Ateman
4/6, 67 yards, long 24
Sideline catches were good
Bailed out Tiano a few times
Bad balls he turned into catches
Showed off his skill set
Arms are very long
20 yard contested catch in 3rd quarter
Confidence builder for him
Good for the last few games
Gary Jennings
1 catch, 64 yards, 1 TD
I didn’t know he was so fast
Great angle on his TD run
Turned the returner into soup legs
Helps that he was an offensive guy
Hakeem Butler
3/5, 36 yards, long 32, 1 TD
TD was almost all of his yards
Now tied for 1st in TDs in XFL
Great hands on OT TD
He’s dropped those before
Screen passes
He’s hard to tackle
Not shifty when he’s flat footed
Let’s stop those and get him moving
Maybe a motion
Maybe a swing pass
Maybe someone else
Austin Proehl
2/6, 12 yards
As fans we want him to get the ball alot
Not great bc he’s smaller4
2 catches were with a lot of guys around
I wish he was better
23/37 on the year
Darius Shepherd is 36/51
He gets deep shot that are low % passes
Proehl is high percentage passes
Might be something to that
Darius Shepherd
2/6, 23 yards, long as 14
AJ would’ve hit him on long balls
Hope he’s good for the stretch run
Gonna need him next week
Steven Mitchell
1/1, 7 yards
It’s the block though
Used all his speed to get the only guy capable of catching GJ
Not a great passing game
Jovani Haskins dopped an easy catch in the flat
Running Backs
Brian Hill
Brian x3
Rushing
10 carries for 35 yards
Receiving
6/7, 37 yards, long of 14
These are starting to get out of hand
Also hurt a little bit
End of Q2
He did get the TD in OT
Helped out by penalty
I guess someone on the sideline MF’d a ref?
Mateo Durant
No rushes
Love that
1 Reception for 12 yards
Love that
Get him in space
Absolutey leveled
Kareem Walker
No stats
He did a lot of pass protection
He was open for some check downs that Tiano didn’t take
Offensive Line
Another good game by them pass protection wise
Only 1 penalty
Dallas Warmack
In for Steven Gonzalez
1 sack was their fault
JJS got Bulldozed
Other sack was a coverage sack
Vadal Alexander did good at getting second level blocks
Moving downfield with steam
Blocked for a B Hill 1st down reception
Just a good game when nothing glaring stand out
Vegas has a good D line with good edge rushers
Offense as a whole
They ran the same offense for a different QB
Yeah there were more designed QB runs that went well
Tiano got 51 yards in 1 game
AJ has 90 yards on the season
Perfect example of why athleticism doesn’t make a QB good
Tiano is not a 1/1 swap for AJ
I know that’s a rare thing
Ravens with LJ and Snoop Huntley
Tough situation
Can’t rely on run game
They got to have some RPOs in the playbook
Take the pressure off of Tiano
Bootlegs
They showed empty sets but then motioned into shotgun
Give him more options
Again I understand the situation they were in
Tiano is just flat out not a good QB
Maybe come in for a drive or 2
Not a starter
Sucks to see a guy squander is opportunity
I do think this was a good game for the team
Marcell Ateman is going to have to demand attention
They showed that they are a team that doesn’t need the best QB in the league to win
Especially since Vegas did the “Own the clock” game plan
That’s not an easy game to win
If AJ was in this game
I think it’s fair to say this game ends at least 28-17
Take away 4 points from OT
Take away at least 1 INT, and turn that into a TD
Change 1 FG to a TD
3rd down efficiency
54.5%
That’s really good
Last 5 weeks
54.5%, 61.5%, 33%, 22.9%, 36.3%
They can force feed the ball to guys with this offense
Receivers have good chances to come down with the ball
Bummer that this was a Nick Tiano game, but a win is a win.
Becht
Kind of a dumb challenge
Illegal use of helmet
Now, I think every challenge he uses is a dumb challenge
Dean Blindumbo on broadcast
He has conversations throughout the week with coaches throughout the week.
I assume Dean officiates the Battlehawks differently because I also assume Coach Becht called him a blind dipshit inbred fuck.
Because I’m rational and that’s what I always call him.
Seems like that would make sense
Fatso nuts on the fake punt call
Probably wasn’t totally on Becht, but still. Big old hoonkin donger on that guy.
Broadcast Notes
Hey, maybe scrap the sideline interview with Deestroying
Really really really wasn’t going well
Couldn’t hear anyone
But they sure did keep on trying to talk to him
Certainly don’t make the interview go for a full 15 minute quarter
Broadcast said that this was a postseason clinching game multiple times
It was not
I’m smarter than both of the Acho brothers
Defensive as a whole
No matter what I say about this defense
I want it to be on the record that this defense played well
Only 2 TDs were on Short fields
48 yard line
27 yard line
Held Offense to a field goal on a 9 minute 87 yard drive
Held Offense to a field goal on a 7 minute 55 yard drive
Jalan McClendon had this defense spinning
Rushing
13 carries for 62 yards, long 18
A lot of those were 3rd down runs
The game plan was to make him throw deep, and when he did they played well
For the most part
Young QB who’s not the most accurate
They were going to give up screens and short route but for low yardage
If the the pass was complete
Pressure the QB a lot
Be patient and make tackles
Only 1 big mess up
Ended up being a TD
When they didn’t it was scary
Turns out the QB run game is still an issue
Only one huge gain
That’s better than when they played Ta’au who got 3 or 4 of those each game
Again
It was not getting off the field on 3rd downs
41.7%
Not good
Only 1 3 & out
Good takeaways from this game
Kinda something we knew a little bit
Stay strong on long drives
Can halt a QB run game
Good going for Seattle game and if we see DC in the postseason
Front 7
Did great stopping the runningbacks
27 carries for 146 yards
4 different runningbacks
They were fresh
Also hurt and shitting their brains out?
Lovett out with general illness
Stopped most inside runs.
3rd Quarter was shaky
Crowd noise started to really affect the Vipers
A false start or 2
Delay of game/ had to call a Time out
Willie Harvey
9 tackles
Kinda normal for him
1 TFL
Part of the big goalline stop in OT
Carson Wells
Hell of a game
8 tackles
.5 sack
Swatted a ball or 2 down
Was really good in coverage
Stopped some intermediate area completions
Typically a weakness
Helped on 2 TFLs after the Non-INT from Lavert hill
Forced a FG that was missed
Travis Feeney
A real playmaker
8 tackles
2 TFLs
1 sack
1 pass deflection
1 strip sack
Vegas was doing another time killing drive
9 plays, took 6 minutes
Gets his shot at McClendon
Rips it out
LaCale London grabs it out of the air
Leave no doubt on those
Front 4 were made McClendon make bad decisions
Force the ball out
Freedom Akin Mole a Dun
Defensive backs
Guys who are out
Ben Deluca, but we knew that
Nate Meadors got concussed
Jonathon Alexander went out with a leg thing
They got tested
Most of the game was outside the numbers
Screens were about 50-50 for getting significant YAC
The TD they got on the screen
Geronimo Allison was untouched
Chris Cooper was way out of position
-If you’re going to force screens
- You gotta stay disciplined
D Line stopped everything inside
Biggest gains were when the ball bounced outside
Most McClendon runs went outside
John Lovett had a 24 yard run
Embarrassing to let a guy who’s shitting himself to do that.
Chris Cooper
Not great on TD play
Missed a tackle for a 39 yard pass
Arm tackle
Stopped a TD in Q1
Rod Smith tried to hurdle at the goalline
Got blasted out of bounds
By a safety
Lavert Hill
Doing pretty good for a back up
INT was great
Read that play perfectly
I’ll get into this in my game awards
Brendan Sebastian
Great pass defense
Got a PBU to force a fake field goal
Also in with Willie Harvey on OT goalline stop
Elijah Hamilton almost got a SICK diving pick
That’s kinda it.
The running game hurt the defense, but they limited big plays
McClendon 13/23, 159 yards, 1 TD, long of 39 yards,
Most of those 159 yards were YAC.
His longest pass might’ve been 15 yards, MAYBE
Special Teams
Donnie Hageman
1/2, miss from 47, good from 34
Firmly plants himself as a “Just fine” kicker
He’s immune to jynxing
GAME AWARDS
Ka KAW of the Week
Sterling Hofrichter
He has no business doing this
XFL punter
Just trying to show off his leg
Uh UH of the Week
Nick Tiano
2 EZ INTs
Ka KAWord of the Week
Rod Woodson
Challenging for an illegal hands to the face on a sick INT
So ticky tack
They have nothing to play for
Eliminated from the post season
Ball don’t lie
Missed FG
STL gets ball on 33
INT was in the same spot
Also for his punts
Punt 4th and 6 from STL 43
Touchback STL gets the ball on STL 35 yard line
Punt 4th and 2 from Vegas 43
Punt 4th and 5 from 50
Touchback STL gets ball on STL 40
Jerry from Hazelwood by way of Granite City Of the week
Jerry from Hazelwood by way of Granite City
Got some screen time
You said what now? Of the week
Coach Becht
Nick Ty-ano
You’re also painfully Italian
Knew it was gonna be a touch game for him
Miss Teen South Carolina of the week
Jalan McClendon
Play his interview
You’re a bitch for that of the week
Dean Blindumbo
For taking away the INT
Immodium Loperamide Hydrochloride Multi-symptom Relief Caplet player of the game of the week
Johm Lovett
You ever run 30 yards with diarrhea?
Didn’t think so