Drusseltein Lawn Gnomes offense has had a good season, 42 points a game, 500 yards a game and scoring on over 50% of their drives make for some good scores. A lot of it starts with that offensive line and Rassmussen getting the ball to the receivers. Breaking 31% of tackles is not particularly great, about average and this certainly cost them in some matches at the start and in the last match. With only 8.68% of their plays being broken up by pressure their offensive line was the best and Rassmussen was also the most accurate in the league as well. All told they got the ball into the hands of their receivers on over 55% of drop backs - a league high. Now less than a quarter of their drives ended up with a broken tackle TD but 35% of the remaining drives ended up in the end zone so they had little issue building long drives for scores. Just a lack of the spectacular will limit the upper bounds of what the offense does even if they have an exceptionally solid base.


defense: The Gnomes defense really choked out teams allowing less than 30 points a game and only conceding on 34% of drives. Getting pressure on 16% sounds pretty good but it was a season of two halves for the Gnomes. As soon as they made a switch at DE their numbers jumped up, just look at the amount of games they got 20%+ pressure in during the second half of the season in the individual matches section. At 30% their tackling was good if not incredible. Allowing a broken tackle TD on 4% of plays is the right side of the main pack. If they stop a broken tackle TD then they only allow a TD on 21% of drives which is second best in the league and the heart of what made the defense tick.


stars: Rassmussen was obviously the star of the offense. Complete enough passes and you will score and he completed 60.28% of the passes where he picked out a receiver. Hinrich Volmann was the pick of their receivers scoring on 14% of targets. Definitely good but on the lower side of what a top receiver should return. With Rassmussen his catch rate was high and did break tackles 35% of the time. Brian Kjoller revitalised the defensive lines production when he came in at DE but Carl Abilgaard put up the big numbers. He was the leagues sack leader at 2.34% and 3rd in pressures at 7.74%

Gladiator: As in their last visit to III.5 their offense never really got going - only twice going above the 30 point mark. Their line did a great turnstile impression at 16% pressure rate on the qb. Even with time on the ball Perez only found his man 44% of the time and then the receivers only had broke tackles less than a quarter of the time (league average low 30s). This resulted in only 2.25% of pass plays going for broke tackle tds and less than 10% of drives ending up that way. With a low completion % only about 10% of drives without broken tackle tds ended up in the end zone. Realistically this offense needs a complete overhaul to survive consistently in division III.

Defense was a strength for the Gladiators before but not any more. They did get pressure on the qb 11% of the time and only allowed a 52% completion rate after that meaning 46% of the plays against them went for a completion (league average 47%). However they did miss 44% of their tackles which meant that over half the drives against them went for tds. Most of which were from broken tackle tds (35% of drives against them- second highest) but in terms of stopping the slow build tds they were bang on average. Something to build on for a team that will likely find itself back in division III pretty quickly.

Stars: Perez did not do outstanding work at qb. Dudas (awesome name) was their best receiver but was definitely below par. Last argues was above average getting pressures on 5.42% of plays. They can also take solace from the great work their defense did to get an upset against Bulls and drive Nantes close.