10/22/19 – Eddie Brock, Freelance Investigative Reporter - In an Occasionally Intermittent Bugle Exclusive and after weeks of exhaustive research, we are reporting that the 2019 BSL season is now just over half-way to the end of the regular season schedule. Several trends are emerging but overall the races seem to be wide open across each league. Well, wide open may be an overstatement. While last season was the closest from top to bottom we have seen in a very long time, the gap from the better teams to the not-so-better teams seems wider at the mid-point this season than in recent seasons but there are still a lot of close races for divisional leads and overall leads in each respective league. Going into Week 7 there was a single unbeaten team remaining in each league. After Week 7, there is just a single undefeated team league across the 3 leagues. Let’s take a look at each league as we move past the Ides of 2019.

Starting as usual in the CDL, the Killer Tomatoes went into Week 7 with a (6-0) record but ranked 5th overall in the power rankings, an unusually low ranking for being undefeated this late in the season. Their Rivalry Week opponent is the Uncanny X-Men and while they came in at just (4-2) they were 3rd in the power rankings averaging almost 10pts a game more than the Tomatoes. Something had to give and it was the Tomatoes that got squished. The X-Men scored 10pts over their average, the Tomatoes 12pts under theirs and the X-Men are now (5-2) after the 24pt victory. The Tomatoes are now tied for the CDL’s best record, and sit with a still impressive (6-1), with the Kashyyyk Kommandos who won their 6th straight game in Week 7 and sit 1 game ahead of the X-Men in the Madden-Knox division. The Kommandos were leading the CDL in offensive and defensive scoring going into Week 7, the X-Men were 3rd in both. That race will be fun to watch with 6 games left and the X-Men currently holding the tie-breaker as the 1 loss for the Kommandos in Week 1 was to the X-Men. While the Tomatoes lead the Shula-Landry, and the Kommandos lead the Madden-Knox, the Lombardi-Brown division has the Guilder Dread Pirates atop the standings at the moment but with just a (4-3) record. Luckily the rest of the Lombardi-Brown are all now (2-5) or worse. That division is NOT having a good year so far. The CDL has been the most even of the 3 leagues this season with 6 different teams having taken a Team of the Week award, with only the point leading Kommandos taking multiple awards. We will have to watch and see if anyone picks up steam and starts to pull away.

Which leads us to the FSDL in which while a few teams seem to just be better than everyone else the records from top to bottom are closer. Like the CDL, we went into Week 7 with 1 remaining unbeaten team and 1 remaining winless team and both are no more. The China Open Faces got off the pot and finally won a game this week to move into a last place tie with the Midway Monsters at (1-6) and in the more dramatic game of the week was the matchup of BSL’s own power couple. The Hebrew Hammers entered the week at (4-2) and were 2nd overall in scoring, the Scarlet Widows were undefeated at (6-0) and 3rd overall in scoring and the nightmare scenario came true for the Widows owner Andi Krakower who told us, “I would rather go the season with 1 win and that be against the Hammers than finish with only 1 loss and it be to the Hammers.” Well, after a resounding 133.99-162.58 defeat and now the sole blemish on the record, we can only imagine how dinner in the Krakower household will be this week. We are guessing Dave better like BP&J! The Widows drop to (6-1) and have to now keep an eye on the top scoring team in the league a bit more, the now (5-2) Sinister 36ers. The 36ers are now just 1 game back and took home their 4th Team of the Week award of the year already. The race for the Halas-Noll Division between the Widows and 36ers should be fun to keep an eye on. With the Hammers now also (5-2) and leading the Bryant-Stram, the Jedi Knights also continue to roll, with a little luck this week after only putting up 119 pts this week. However, they are now tied with the Widows overall at (6-1) and have a comfortable 2 game lead over the Florida State Seminal Vesicles (4-3) in the Allen-Walsh Division. With 6 games remaining little is decided but the 36ers, Hammers, Widows and Knights seem to be a bit ahead of everyone else at this point and we would be surprised if the 2019 Champ didn’t come from this group to be honest. But, we have been wrong before so stay tuned.

Now to the TLSL and the apparent runaway story of 2019, The Avengers. The now LAST remaining undefeated team in the 2019 BSL circuit at (7-0), it isn’t just that they have dominated the 1st half, they have done if with some separation from the other teams we aren’t sure we have ever seen before – with 4 ToW awards, missing out on 2 other by .56 pts in Week 5 and 2.66 pts in Week 6 and on top of sitting WR Chris Godwin in Week 4 and his 3 TD game or they could conceivably have been ToW 7 times. They have been that strong. In the overall power rankings, they entered Week 7 scoring 18.22 points more PER WEEK than the #2 team, Clown Show, and then came out increasing that as they were again Team of the Week in Week 7. We aren’t sure if this is a sign of things to come or just a REALLLLLLY good and/or lucky start but it is starting to look ridiculous on the stat sheets. They have a top 3 RB, DL and DB, with just about all their WRs and LBs scoring in the top 10-12 range, TE is their only weak spot with the loss of surprising Wil Dissly. Can The Avengers keep this up? History says unequivocally NO. But as we have noted previously, we have been wrong before. Elsewhere in the TLSL things are interestingly either/or. The Avengers division, the Ditka Division, has the (7-0) Avengers and the now (4-3) St. Pete Minutemen and at the bottom the Magical Fish (3-4) and Sea Dragons (2-5) drop off. In the Reeves-Levy-Grant, the top has the (5-2) Evil Empire and the (4-3) Five Moves of Doom the bottom has two 1-win teams in the Basket of Deplorables and Electric Mayhem who are having an uncharacteristically bad season so far. Lastly in the Gibbs-Parcels Division, even though the top 2 teams came in with just 1 loss and both lost this week, the top is still heavy with the Clown Show and Omaha Players sitting at (5-2) and the bottom with the (3-4) Cossacks and (2-5) Nittany Lions. The TLSL has a wider separation between teams overall than the other 3 but still has very close races (aside from the apparently dominant Avengers). Too bad Dr. Strange isn’t around to see if the Endgame for these Avengers is a 2019 undefeated title march… we will just have to keep watching to see how things shake out. We will see if the Avengers can keep it up against the (5-2) Evil Empire to keep the streak alive?!