Six Games remain in the 2024 A7FL Playoffs until one team walks out from a season of smoke, fire, and viral highlights as A7FL’s champion!
Matt Ryan, A7FL Announcer
On Sunday, June 23rd in Asbury Park, we open up our day with what can be considered one of the biggest games in A7FL history, as the standard bearers of this league for the majority of our 10 seasons, The Paterson U, and the team that looks to be the one who takes the torch for the next ten years, The Tampa Nightcrawlers.
While you cannot argue the Tampa Nightcrawlers may be the most athletic, fastest, and even most fun team to watch in the league, as long as Quatrel Huffin is behind center for the Paterson U, it is nearly impossible to count them out.
The reigning MVP returned to the U from cross-town rivals the Silk City Animals (more on them in a moment), and except for their lone loss to the BIC in the regular season, no one has been able to stop them.
Are they the Legion of Doom that wrecked shop of the league winning more championships than any other team in our history?
Yes and no.
The only thing that’s undefeated is time. And for a Paterson U team that has more 10-year vets than two-year vets, one begins to think is a new day dawning in the A7FL?
As Logo Davis and Mark Bagway walk onto Asbury Park Stadium’s turf next Sunday, it’ll seem as if none of that matters to either man, as everything they do on the football field seems effortless, but…. They know the pressure.
For the third straight season, they face a defining game in unfamiliar territory against an opponent they should beat in any other scenario.
But one Baltimore special and a Bunac Blessing or two later, the NightCrawlers have one Championship appearance, a lot of airline miles, and frustration over both.
Walking into the fourth quarter in this first of two games out east, I predict we will see the new rule surrounding throw-off become the deciding factor.
Why?
Both teams have Quarterbacks who can throw 70 yards on the fly and have defenders that move and hit like Express trains and a lot can happen between the back of the endzone and the 20-yard line.
This could be the way Huff and the U neutralize the NightCrawlers return team… but the same can be said for Nightcrawlers, especially if NFL veteran Dominique Rodgers Cromartie is apart of the return defense.
And then in our final New Jersey game, with a second chance at shocking the world, the Silk City Animals, a team that has become beloved by many fans of the Creator Sports Network’s Dan Gheesling, will face off against the top-seeded Trenton BIC.
David Tender, Larry Wingo, and others have sixty minutes to take Sterry Codrington and a BIC team off guard as opposed to their earlier meeting in 2024, where Tender and other starters were sidelined with injuries.
Then there are moments like this return from Quanny Morgan, who has the nickname Ghost for his ability to move as if he were an apparition of violence.
The BIC return team on both sides of the ball can be just as cutting as Morgan or his Animals teammate Divine Epps, with the BIC featuring Ashante Worthy, Marcellus Pack, Kason Campbell, Trey Cohen, and former Las Vegas Insomniac Trey Robinson, all of whom are a threat to return the ball to the end zone during what I consider to be the most exciting play in football.
BIC’s desire for perfection, similar to that of Cell of the Dragon Ball series is that of justifying your reason for existence. Much like Cell, the BIC was developed by mad scientists intended to dominate teams like the Paterson U or Union City Chiefs who’d held the top honors in our league before and after we went from Town Beef to the A7FL.
And now in what has to be the most perfect form we’ve seen this team take on, they now face a mirror image of their younger selves as the Animals have a blend of offensive firepower and grit that matches the 2021 BIC team that challenged all but the Paterson U for the top spot in the league.
With a second chance at life and with fans like Dan Gheesling watching on CSN and across the A7FL network of partners, what can the Animals do with it?
Our final game goes LIVE from Las Vegas at 11PM ET/ 8PM PT as the top-seeded SickWidIt look to remain perfect as they battle the fourth-seeded Over The Top to decide who will face the Insomniacs in the Western Conference Championship.
SickWidIt seems to be on a redemption run from their initial A7FL campaign where they like all other opponents fell to the defending National Champion Insomniacs.
For Over The Top, this feels like they’re reaching the top of their potential, as questions at quarterback and defense stymie a club that features some of the fastest humans we’ve seen in a league that as seen above has more than enough guys that can move the football from the return position.
In this matchup, watch for the passing game of SickWidIt to take form against the OTT secondary, utilizing the big bodies on Sick’s offensive and defensive line to set the tone under the lights when A7FL is after dark on A7FL TV.
The action begins at 1PM ET/ 4PM PT on A7FL TV, YouTube, and all our partner stations – CLICK HERE FOR WHERE TO WATCH!
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