Indoor Football Weekly #15

Credit: Topeka Capital-Journal

Week Five on Indoor Football is coming up this week. A full month after the Indoor Football League and the sport kicked off the 2017 season, all leagues finally enter the regular season. Yes that's right the last league to start, the National Arena League kicks off this week!

Last week we covered 2003, this week we step into our time machine going back to 2004. This would be the first season in the history of the sport that more than two leagues we're active in the same year. Both the APFL and NIFL would return from 2003, they would be joined by the Texas-based Intense Football League. The APFL after having 3 clubs in 2003 would go to four for the 2004 season as the Iowa Blackhawks and Texas Thunder we're added after the St. Joseph Explorers folded. The NIFL would see the league jump to 25 teams and the Intense Football League would start off it's existence with six brand new teams all based in Texas. In the American Professional Football League with the Koyotes looking to repeat as Champions they would face the Missouri Minutemen once again for the title. This time it was an even worse beatdown as Kansas would win 64-6 over Missouri to finish the season 9-0 once again. The Intense Football League would see four of it's six teams qualify for the playoffs after playing a 16 game regular season. Intense Bowl I would see the Amarillo Dusters take down the Lubbock Lone Stars 62-47 and win an Indoor Football championship before heading off to arenafootball2 for 2005. Finally after another marathon 14 game season in the NIFL, which saw four teams fail to complete the entire season, 12 of it's teams would make the playoffs. Indoor Bowl IV would be the first time that Sioux Falls would make a league championship, however they dropped the game and NIFL Championship 59-38 to the Lexington Horsemen. As of 2017 only Amarillo (now the Venom in the CIF), Omaha, Sioux City, and Sioux Falls still exist.

Credit: Indoor Football League

The IFL's Week 4, for the first time all season had all 10 teams play in one weekend. Saturday saw three of the five games being played on that night alone. Wichita Falls would move to 4-0 on the season with a 42-23 road win over Cedar Rapids. Sioux Falls for the second time this season barely squeaked away with a last minute 42-28 road win over Nebraska. And in the final game Arizona hosted the Colorado Crush, and in blowout fashion won their first IFL game 71-27. Sunday afternoon saw our IFL Game of the Week played for Week 4, the Iowa Barnstormers traveled to Green Bay. At the Resch Center on Sunday afternoon Iowa took down the Blizzard 49-30 to move up to 2-1 on the season. And on Monday night a closer than expected game was seen when Spokane edged out Salt Lake 41-35.
Now on to the IFL POWER RANKINGS by Banana Cat, no positions have changed since last week so at #1 is Sioux Falls Storm (3-0), #2 Wichita Falls Nighthawks (4-0), #3 Spokane Empire (2-1), #4 Iowa Barnstormers (2-1). In the bottom six: 5) Arizona, 6) Nebraska, 7) Green Bay, 8) Salt Lake, 9) Colorado, 10) Cedar Rapids.
For Week 5 we have 6 teams playing 3 games. On Friday night Spokane heads to Colorado to take on the Crush at 8PM CT. With no games on Saturday the next matchup sees Green Bay (1-2) head to Cedar Rapids (0-3) at 3:05 PM CT. Finally it wraps up again with the IFL version of Monday Night Football when Sioux Falls (3-0) hosts Iowa (2-1) at 6:00 PM. And of course all the games are LIVE and FREE on YouTube!

Credit: Champions Indoor Football

In the CIF's Week 3 we got treated to plenty of games and some GREAT football from Champions Indoor Football! It opened on Friday with the only game of the night (from any league) when Omaha crushed Salina 76-44 at the Ralston Arena. The busiest day was definitely Saturday with three games, starting with Bismarck and West Michigan. In a very close game between two of the four expansion teams Bismarck took the game 40-33. Up next was the CIF Game of the Week for Week 3 between Wichita and Dodge City. In a back and forth game that would take until the very end to be decided the Law beat the Force 42-39! And wrapping up Saturday Amarillo traveled to Albuquerque taking on the Duke City Gladiators. Duke City, who was wearing uniforms honoring the old AAA PCL Albuquerque Dukes, lost in overtime on a 2 point conversion 70-69 to Amarillo. Wrapping up the week was the CIF's version of Monday Night Football when Bloomington headed to the Silverstein Eye Care Centers Arena to play the Kansas City Phantoms. The expansion Phantoms managed to hold their own against Bloomington, but fell 43-37 to the Edge.
Now for our CIF POWER RANKINGS thanks to Banana Cat, staying at the #1 spot (thanks to signing legendary IFL QB Chris Dixon) is the Texas Revolution, Sioux City has moved up one spot to #2, Bloomington has also moved up one spot to #3, and Amarillo has moved up one spot and into the top 4. The next 10 are: 5) Dodge City (up one spot), 6) Wichita (down 4 spots), 7) Omaha (up one spot), 8) Kansas City (up one spot), 9) Duke City (down two spots). The bottom five, 10) Bismarck, 11) Dallas, 12) Salina, 13) CenTex, and 14) West Michigan, have all stayed the same.
Jumping now to Week 4 we finally see all 14 teams play this week. Friday again sees just one game when Sioux City heads to Bismarck at 7PM. Saturday sees a whopping six games and that all starts at 5PM CT when Wichita plays on the road at Duke City, 6PM will see another all expansion game as Kansas City will travel to Muskegon, MI to play West Michigan. Yet another all Kansas showdown for Dodge City as the Law play in Salina at 6:30 PM CT. At 7PM CT alone, Omaha at Bloomington, Texas Revs (and QB Chris Dixon) play their first game of 2017 against CenTex, and last but not least Dallas will play the Venom in Amarillo. All games are viewable on Eversport.

Credit: National Arena League

And now the last league to kickoff it's 2017, and in this case inaugural campaign, the National Arena League opens play this weekend. Before we preview the games let's take a look at our NAL POWER RANKINGS by Banana Cat. at the top spot is the former AFL club, the Jacksonville Sharks, at #2 is the 2015 PIFL and 2016 AIF Champion Columbus Lions, #3 is the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks, and at #4 is the Monterrey Steel who have just signed former NFL'er Jacoby Jones. In the bottom four is 5) High Country Grizzlies, 6) Corpus Christi Rage, 7) Georgia Firebirds, and 8) the Atlanta based Wolfpack saying their from Dayton. Now for anyone who is new to the NAL or to Indoor Football Weekly, let's clear up the Atlanta/Dayton Wolfpack. Dayton had been announced as an expansion club for the then named Arena Development League, the ADL would change it's name to the NAL when Jacksonville joined the league. Nothing had ever been announced of an official lease for Dayton to play in the Nutter Center, the only Dayton area arena left that could host indoor football. Just about one month ago the Dayton Wolfpack we're folded by the National Arena League and replaced by an Atlanta based travel only team playing under the Dayton Wolfpack name. This had the effect of the league going from each team playing 12 games to Dayton playing 7 and other teams playing between 10 and 12 games.
Now that the Atlanta/Dayton fiasco is out of the way let's go to the games. Now another drawback to the NAL (other than it picking up where the AIF led off) is that each team controls their own streaming, not the league like the CIF and IFL. *UPDATE* As of around 6PM (CT) on 3/15/17 the National Arena League announced that they would partner with YouTube for the 2017 season. All games with the exception of Lions home games will be streamed on YouTube, Lions home games will be streamed via CTV Beam online at a price of $9.99 per home game or $49.99 for the season. The NAL opens play with by far it's biggest game of the year on Friday at 6PM CT when the Columbus Lions host the Jacksonville Sharks. Saturday has two more games played as the High Country Grizzlies travel to Albany, GA to play the Georgia Firebirds and the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks host Atlanta (playing as the Dayton Wolfpack). The NAL also caps off the week with it's version of Monday Night Football when the Monterrey Steel host the Corpus Christi Rage.

For the first time this season all three leagues have a Game of the Week. Kicking off our games this week is the Friday Night Showdown in the National Arena League between the Jacksonville Sharks and Columbus Lions. This game is being played at 6PM CT at "The Jungle" the Columbus Civic Center, it's the first ever meeting between these teams and first game in NAL history. The Sharks first non-AFL game against a two time defending champion team, in a new league with new rules. You can watch the Lions vs Sharks online on CTV Beam. The CIF Game of the Week will be on Saturday night at 7PM when Chris Dixon comes back for the first time in two seasons to lead the Texas Revolution against the CenTex Cavalry at the Bell County Expo Center in Belton, TX. The CIF game of course will be on Eversport. And finally we end with the IFL Game of the Week, a Monday Night Showdown between the Sioux Falls Storm and the Iowa Barnstormers. Sioux Falls has never lost inside the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center and Iowa has never beaten the Storm, however the Storm do NOT look like an unbeatable goliath and have barely edged out two of three wins. On the opposite side the Barnstormers look to have their best team since their 2010 af2 playoff appearance. Sioux Falls vs Iowa kicks off at 6PM CT and can be seen LIVE and FREE on YouTube. And as always if you want to try the challenge you can pick the games here.