“N.A.F.F.L.E. Season 2 - Round 3, Game 2 (Frenzied Founding Fathers had a BYE in round 2)

Coming off a pretty rough game against the Sandsea Slayers and without the services of team Ogre, George "Brickhouse" Mason, the Frenzied Founding Fathers (FF Fathers) were not exactly jumping for joy to see a large group of mean-looking, well-developed Ogres across the field from them. To be fair, the Brew Pork Jints had also played a very tough game against some Amazons, and their goblins suffered for it. The good news for the Jints was that both niggling goblins showed up for the match. The bad news was that they were the only 2 goblins the team would be fielding and they were giving up a handicap for the privelege of 3 goblins sitting comfortably on the bench for the match. The handicap was Bribe the Ref!, which did get used but to little effect.

The Jints won the toss and elected to receive. The first few turns they played well and didn't suffer from many bonehead failures, but the handoff to an ogre failed and was the beginning of the team's woes. The FF Fathers surrounded the ball as best they could, pushing and shoving anything in their way to get the ball into a better spot. The goblins were surprisingly resilient, only succumbing to stuns or KOs and returning quickly from both. But the ball was eventually picked up by new lineman, 'Vehement' Gouverneur Morris, and he scored. So the FF Fathers kicked again, and it was more or less a repeat of the first kickoff. Except this time, the Jints were failing a LOT of bonehead rolls. Neither team accomplished much in the way of injuries, with the worst being some KOs that were coming back quickly. I guess both sides were excited just to be on alive and wanted to get back on the field. The second score was by veteran lineman 'Big' John Hancock.

2nd half saw the FF Fathers getting the ball kicked to them, as opposed to stealing it from a goblin or picking it up at the feet of a confused ogre. For whatever reason, the Fathers weren't quite as organized on offense and the ogres seemed more coherent on defense. It took a lot of shuffling and moving, but eventually 'Big' John Hancock broke free, and chucked a nice pass to catcher 'Jumping' John Jay who ran in and made it 3-0. The Jints had gotten a measure of revenge, though, as they sent the Father's kicker, Edmund 'the Eliminator' Randolph, off to the SI reserve area with a niggling injury. This must have rattled the Fathers as the ensuing kickoff flew out of bounds and the Jints gave the ball to star ogre, "G.T" Gore-rinse Taylor. The Fathers looked at the scoreboard, then at one another, and said, 'SCREW THIS!'. They quickly opened a wide hole in the middle of the field to allow G.T. easy access to the endzone, choosing instead to cover the flanks and pick off any stragglers. On this drive, the ogres stayed focus and didn't leave many stragglers, only missing 1 or 2 bonehead rolls. The Fathers dropped a few norse back in coverage in front of the endzone in the hopes that the ogres would lose focus sooner or later but it never happened. So they kicked a few goblins, ganged up on a lone ogre or two, and basicly watched G.T. amble into the endzone to make it 3-1. There was just enough time remaining for the Fathers to score one more TD so they set up for a nice pick-up, move, hand-off, move, pass, score combo being able to hit either side of the field. Everything worked except the 'score' part of the combo. With time running out, the Jints put up a very tenacious effort and put a bunch of tackle-zones on catcher Paul 'Raging Equine' Revere. The Fathers saw a chance to score, but they needed to give Paul some maneuvering room so they set up a series of blocks to open a running lane. Unfortunately, that series failed on the first block when blitzer 'Green Mountain' Ethan Allen rolled double skulls and stunned himself. To be fair, Ethan hadn't done much all game, failing several dauntless rolls at crucial times and eating up team rerolls. But at least he didn't brain himself in the process. The Jints threw a few blocks in the hopes of knocking the ball loose but Paul refused to let go of it and so the game ended.

There were surprisingly few casualties when you consider 1 team had Block on every member, and the other team had 8 players with St 5+ and Mighty Blow. The bad news for both teams was the pathetic turn-out and even worse pay-out. I suspect the 3 goblins who sat on the bench made off with the bulk of the gate and blew it on ale and goblin-wenches, but I can't prove it.

Very fun game, LordVader82. If you ever get that Ogre with +AG, your handoffs should go better. G.T. is already a beast.

Skills (0) - 17 SPPs, but no one got a skill. The team is well set for next game, though.”