NFL Play of the Week: Tebow Time

Well, Tebow did it again...

His GM was calling on him during the week to be more aggressive and pull the trigger and on the first play of overtime he threw a perfect spiral that tore a hole in the Pittsburgh secondary. Was this divine intervention, or was this home field advantage really kicking in?

The Broncos came out in a double tight formation and motioned a receiver into the formation. During the game the Steelers had been keying this motion and rolling the safety down to counter the run play it often predicated. Ryan Mundy came charging down into the box to give the Steelers the numbers advantage.

The play action drags in all the linebackers leaving a huge area ehind them for Tebow to get the ball to Thomas. Originally the look given by the secondary was Cover 0 with no safeties high in the middle of the field (after Mundy rolled down into the box). However on the snap both corners take outside leverage on their recivers and start bailing to the hash. This is clearly not supposed to happen with no deep help in the middle of the field.

BUAFL Breakdown: The MAC

With so many teams in the MAC we decided to split it in half and release our breakdown over two days. Keep a look out on our Facebook page tomorrow for part deux.

Loughborough Aces

A by-product of the best sporting university in the UK it’s not hard to imagine that Loughborough University will be strong at American Football. Lead by powerhouse running back Adam Hope Loughborough run a triple option pistol offense that is effective against inexperienced defences. They are effective on the dive down the middle with a tall and wide offensive line making large running lanes for Adam Hope to run through. 

The offence sometimes struggles when the ball is put into QB Nick Jacquets hands. He has an unusual arm with a nice spiral, but tends to throw the ball very high in hope that his receivers will out jump DBs. 

The Aces defence are reknowned as one of the best defences in the country. Linebackers Anssi Saari from the Helsinki Wolverines in Finland and Jonathan Varney from Tamworth Phoenix are the core of it and thanks to their two big linebackers they have proved so far they are nearly impossible to run against, conceding no rushing touchdowns. 

During the game with Derby, Loughborough’s pass coverage was a little shaky and this may be the difference between them and the Birmingham Lions in the big battle which is yet to come.

Birmingham Lions

Tristan who?  If anyone thought that the Lions would be tamed by the loss of one of BUAFL's few truly stellar players, they have been firmly put in their place by Brum’s relentless scoring.

The bright lights and big occasion may have slightly slowed Varney's replacements Jonny Glover and Sope Dirisu in the XpLosION clash with NTU, but since then the Blue Crush (yes, I just made that nickname up) have swept aside their opponents like flotsam and jetsam, putting up a gaudy 207 points in their four games so far.

Only the two Nottingham sides have scored on the Lions, with poor old Coventry Jets not even mustering a first down against a simply dominant defence.  There are big names wherever you look on this Lions team – Conroy, Burrows, Brown (I really could go on all day) – and trust me, they haven’t got to that stage just on hype.

Having not had their supremacy challenged thus far, the 18th February clash with Loughborough will have the eyes of the BUAFL nation upon it, with the winner likely to take over as favourites to at least make the bowl game.