Player Chatter: Week 6

May 31, 2023
By Daniel Cohen

“Player Chatter” is a new series consisting entirely of player quotes, thoughts, and feelings from around the league. All current AUDL players were sent a handful of prompts earlier this week designed to be as open-ended as possible. Additionally, players were asked to vote in a single-question, multiple choice survey.

Week 6 Survey Results

Who's winning this Friday night, the Carolina Flyers or DC Breeze?

Carolina Flyers: 28.1 percent of votes
DC Breeze: 71.9 percent of votes

Week 5 Reactions

“Breese Stevens [Field] continues to be the best and most difficult crowd to play against.” Sam Kaminsky, Chicago Union

“Chicago with two impressive wins! Big shoutout to Andrew Sjogren on his first AUDL W!” Jeremy Hill, Toronto Rush

“I guess Chicago is not as weak as they looked in Week 3 vs. the Cats. Maybe my preseason prediction was right after all…” Clint McSherry, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds

“Philly and Pittsburgh should play every year for the Commonwealth Cup. Game was electric!” Connor Tipping, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds

“That was a tough first quarter for the Wind Chill.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Matt Smith with another big game for the Hustle.” Jeremy Hill, Toronto Rush

“Surprised to see Dallas leadership continue to let guys on the field that disrespect the game. Particularly hopeful to see the league do something about that second quarter shove, even if the refs wouldn't throw ‘em out during the game. Super lame.” Kyle Henke, Austin Sol

“Houston sideline looked super defeated by Atlanta refs throughout the game. Brutal!” Kyle Henke, Austin Sol

Thoughts on New Pulling Rules

“The guy who has to receive these bladey pulls should have a performance bonus incentive in his contract. So much pressure to not drop the pulls.” Jeremy Hill, Toronto Rush

“Way more difficult to receive; it puts a lot more pressure on offense to catch an often bladed pull and get it moving quickly.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified)

 
“Past seasons, pullers were just trying to get the pulls down the field. Now there’s much more strategy to them. Watch how Sam Berglund of Minnesota pulls. It’s also offensively different. Receiving a pull and stopping rolls are a skill that players genuinely need to have/practice.” Sam Kaminsky, Chicago Union

“Not sure why every team is still floating pulls. Throw some big OI rollers and trap teams in the back of the endzone. Props to Pittsburgh for making their small field smaller.” CJ Colicchio, Philadelphia Phoenix

“I think the new pulling rules have been a massive success. The game isn't fun to watch when there is no pressure from the defense. The new rules allow for more pressure, and high pressure earlier into a point. Offense is easy, [and] I'm all for rules that make it harder. It will be fun to see how things evolve as teams experiment with new pulling strategies over the next few years.” Jack Dowling, Austin Sol

“I thought the new pull rules would make the field feel a lot longer offensively, but I can hardly tell a difference. It definitely makes pullers more valuable—OI roll to the back of the endzone is deadly, if you can get it there.” Kyle Henke, Austin Sol

Season Impressions

“[UNC] Darkside would beat the Sol in a seven-game series.” Suraj Madiraju, Carolina Flyers

“Union still cruising without Pawel.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“End of third quarter, Chicago vs. Madison. Absolute chaos but so much fun to watch.” Chicago’s Sam Kaminsky, on the biggest surprise thus far

“Walker Frankenburg putting up a ton of goals in his rookie season!” Jeremy Hill, Toronto Rush

“Paul Owens has to be Defensive Player of the Year. He keeps taking teams’ best players and locking them up.” CJ Colicchio, Philadelphia Phoenix

“Chris Bartoli has been a menace in the backfield.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Boston at 3-0 and in second place in the East is my biggest surprise so far. But I'll parlay that with the ‘hot take’ bet that they don't beat another American team all season and miss the playoffs.” Clint McSherry, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds

“Madison starting off 0-3.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified), on the biggest surprise thus far

“Jake Radack is moving the first pass to a downfield cutter in a position to make easy throws so well—he often doesn’t touch the disc again because Austin is off to the end zone.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Jacob Blackman from the Atlanta Hustle has made some impressive contributions in the weekly player chatter. You love to see the determination and grit to pull out his keyboard every week and bang out some hot takes.” Jack Dowling, Austin Sol

“What’s the record for calling timeouts for your offensive line? Asking for Bex.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Despite being outside the top five in completion percentage (10th), huck completion percentage (19th), hold rate (7th), and O-line conversion rate (10th), the Colorado Summit somehow have a stranglehold on the number three spot in the power rankings. They either play in the West or have some incredible D-lines.” Jacob Blackman, Atlanta Hustle

“Tanner Barcus has had a really good start to the season. I've been really impressed by his output. After six blocks in his first four career games, if he can get just 163 more this weekend against Chicago, he'll tie the Drost brothers for most all-time blocks in league history?! With the numbers he's putting up this year, I think he can do it!” Clint McSherry, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds

On to Week 6

“Hopefully Philly can get their momentum going with a big home win over Carolina.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Huge game for Philly to establish themselves as contenders in the East. They lose this and it will be hard to make the playoffs.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Carolina cruises to a 2-0 road-trip and a statement game against DC.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Carolina needs this win to keep pace with Hustle and Sol.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“The Flyers are about to walk into James J. Ramp Athletic Field Complex and give the Phoenix what-for after taking the Commonwealth Cup last week. Maybe I even slip a few singles to some Flyers personnel and we'll see if that cup gets.....misplaced.” Clint McSherry, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds

“New York has one close game on their double header weekend and it’s not Montreal.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Oakland’s road trip ends up with two losses, neither of them are close.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Madison drops the ball to Pittsburgh.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified)

“Depends on the active roster, but I can see Pittsburgh beating Madison this weekend at Breese.” CJ Colicchio, Philadelphia Phoenix

“New York +15 against the Royal.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified) 

“Parlay of the week: Empire, DC, Sol, Nitro. Alleycats, Empire, Union, Phoenix, Havoc, Shred, Growlers, Radicals, Summit.” Anonymous AUDL player (verified)

“LA vs. SD 18-16; SEA vs. POR 19-18; SLC vs. OAK 22-17; COL vs. OAK 18-15.” Michael Kiyoi, Los Angeles Aviators

Water Cooler

“If you put the top 10-14 alum currently in the AUDL against each other, which school wins? 

There are other colleges that should be on here, I just can’t put enough names to each school: UNCW, UMass, Texas, BYU, any of the Cal schools, etc. Grey Duck with the last 3 MVPs…*shrug emoji*” Sam Kaminsky, Chicago Union

“The league needs to organize a cross-divisional game between Dallas and Detroit. Really whoever finishes closest to the Mechanix in the power rankings any given year (or is also winless) should be rewarded with a game against them the following season. That way one losing streak is guaranteed to end, and it'll be Detroit's best shot at overcoming...themselves at this point I guess.” Clint McSherry, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds

“Jason Vallee update: he's still hurt AND not returning my calls. For both reasons, I am also hurt. Surely Pawel will share his phone number with me soon so I can stop cold-calling phone numbers with Chicago and LA area codes. What if he has some other, random area code? That'd be so weird.” Clint McSherry, Pittsburgh Thunderbirds

 

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