Wrath of Champions

SUPER 16 – Fans of the Super 16 League enjoyed another close championship as Super Bowl VII was decided by just 10 points when the AF#2 WRATH OF ODIN (14-1-0) capped of a dominating season with their second lague championship, beating AF#26 1 Eye Til I Die (11-4-0) 209-199 in the Week 16 final.  The Championship was the second meeting between these two this season, and the fourth time the franchises have faced each other altogether.  Their earlier 2018 match-up was featured as the Week 12 Game of the Week and was 270-191 blood bath as Odin went berserk on the Western Raiders, but Super Bowl VII proved to be a much closer contest as the two barbarians stayed nose to nose, trading blows throughout the game with the Norse Gods ultimately outlasting the One Eyed Bandits.

1 Eye got on the boards first with their a strong showing that included a pair of interceptions and a defensive score from their Titan Defense in the early Saturday games, but Odin bounced back to get on the scoreboard with a couple of IDP players in the late game.  Going into Sunday, the teams were essentially even but slowly, Odin began to pull away.  When Odin’s hometeam Vikings took the field, they accounted for a total of 84 points for his squad, but most notable of them was his quarterback Kirk Cousins who posted 42 points on a 253 yard 3 touchdown performance.  At the offensive skill positions, though, the black and silver took a slight edge over the Norseman, scoring 28 points on the ground with CJ Anderson and another 20 through the air to Davante Adams, while Odin had only one 20+ point perfromance, Doug Bladwin and his 22 point day.

Defenses win championships, and the Western Warlords came into Super Bowl VII sporting the most formidable defensive unit in the league.  Built around a linebacking corp that was nothing short of monstrous, 1 Eye Til I Die rostered 2018’s #1, #3, #8, and #9, ranked linebackers in the league as their starting 4, averaging 20.25 points per game, each throughout the season.  None of 1 Eye’s Super Bowl starting linebackers reached that 20 point mark, turning in totals of just 10, 12, 17, and 18 points.  In a decision that will haunt 1 Eye’s Coach Mac throughout the offseason, the black and silver chose to bench LB#4 Jaylon Smith in favor of reserve back Khalil Mack, who despite reputation was the 33rd ranked linebacker in the league and 3rd among Bears linebackers this season.  In the big game, The Great Khalil scored just 12 points while Smith posted 41 points on the bench in the 10 point Championship loss.  Odin, by comparison, played above their rating on defense, getting double digits from all but two positions.

Playing from behind on Monday night, 1 Eye had the last players on the field – their hometeam quarterback and kicker – in their attempted comeback, and despite the line-up misteps on defense, were down just 37 points and had a Super Bowl victory within reach.  In the historic final game at The Black Hole in Oakland, the Raiders emerged victorious, 27-10 over the hated Denver Donkeys, in a win that produced 2 field goals and 3 extra points for 1 Eye’s kicker to post 9 points from.  With the weight of the One Eyed Bandits’ entire season resting on his arm, Raider QB Derek Carr needed 28 points to secure a black and silver Championship – he averaged 29.73 points per game through the season and scored 28 or more in 8 of 15 outings all year, but unfortunately, Carr managed to engineer a Raider win but a 1 Eye loss, throwing for just 167 yards and no touchdowns for 18 points.  Just 3 more completions, 38 yards and a single touchdown – in the Raiders’ 3 touchdown win – would have been enough to put 1 Eye Til I Die into the history books.

Instead, WRATH OF ODIN held on to cap off the most dominant season in Super 16 history with a Championship crown and a Lombardi Trophy.  It’s the second Lombardi for ODIN’s Coach Flavius and will bookend the trophy marking the 2014 Super Bowl III win and League Championship by BEARMINATORS prior to their relocation to the Vikings before the start of the ’18 season.  The win and championship marks 5 of 7 S16 championships that have been won by just two franchises – 3 for Birds of Prey and 2 for ODIN/BEARMINATORS – with the Northern Fins and Arizona Firebirds taking the other two.  But with teams like 1 Eye Til I Die and The Dawg Pound long being perennial powerhouses, with the relatively recent additions of teams like The Who Dats and Steel Curtain that have been championship contenders from their opening games in the league, with hot up and coming franchises like BIGDOGINTEX and WTF HOUSTON that suddenly made their opponents worry this season, and with NFL free agency and it’s potential to stack any given S16 roster with talented hometeam players prior to next year’s draft, there’s absolutely no telling who will challenge WRATH OF ODIN’s reign in 2019 when the road to Super Bowl VIII begins.