arenafootball2 Playoffs Continue, Media Turns to Meaningless NFL Exhibition Games

As every sports fan in America ignores rising pennant races in baseball to watch NFL exhibition games played largely by guys from second tier Division I-A schools, Fringe Sports Central wants to call your attention to arenafootball2 playoff games played largely by guys from second tier Division II and III schools. The schedule has been out for a while, and FSC now brings you its overanalysis of those match-ups. Basically, this is a misguided effort at predicting the games.

Friday
Memphis (e)Xplorers at Green Bay Blizzard – Memphis is ranked higher on scoring offense than Green Bay (4th v. 11th) and defense (1st v. 4th). The defense is almost a laughable comparison. That axiom “Defense wins championships” is as applicable to games in the af2 as Leviticus is to the common law in Tehran. Offense wins everything in the af2. Memphis takes this, 44-38.

Saturday
Manchester Wolves at Florida Firecats – I’ve used a very detailed statistical overanalysis to determine the outcome of this game: one team is from New Hampshire, another is from Florida (you have no idea how many man hours of research got outsourced to India finding that information). Wolves win, 52-40.

Arkansas Twisters at Tulsa Talons – In the af2, when in doubt, bet on the team that rushes less. Tulsa rushed for 25.2 yards a game, which sounds bad until you find out that Arkansas rushed for (and I’m not making this up) 7.4 yards a game. They literally rushed the ball less than 5 times a game on average. I bet their RBs cry themselves to sleep at night. Arkansas, 38-30.

Bakersfield Blitz at Spokane Shock – I like Spokane a lot in this game. Their turnover margin was almost 3 times greater than Bakersfield’s in the regular season. Spokane, 49-35.

A couple things to look for:

• Let’s all hope that Arkansas doesn’t attempt a single rush. Not one. And I want plenty of pictures from local media of their running backs looking despondent.
• Second or third tier celebrity sightings. This is my new thing in all sports. I want every sport – now matter how fringe – to get celebrity fans. And there should be rules. The more fringe the sport, the more obscure the celebrity. I think af2 and Doug E. Doug are a great match.