The Billster MWS Insider

Blitzing......A Necessity?
By The Billster (AKA Dominion NOMB)...Special to Corradocardoso.info

While I have officially retired from the sticks and the commissioner's roll this year, I still had the opportunity to ball with my fellow NOMB brethren on occasion, thus I still had access to the shared knowledge base the NOMB has. While many believe the Southern Heat is something folks just decided to come up with in the lab "just because", that isn't what prompts it. Quite simply, without heat most guys in N.O. can ring up an 80-spot on the regular!

I have not put in regular lab time since October, but my boyz can tell you ... with major stick control, an understanding of reading defenses and the TIME TO READ THEM, I and many of our guys cannot be stopped. (I'll take this opportunity to put in a plug for my Ace and I ... that massive stick control you guys saw up there from the NOMB? ... me and Mitch AKA Big Poppa were "stickin" it 2 weeks after the 2002 game came out while the whole world was still computer catchin' ... and it wasn't long before word got around the NOMB about how to "do it right" ...WADDUP MITCH!!!)

With the danger posed by controlling the receivers and using the D-pad to direct the pass, it was obvious that offense was going to be "business as usual" ... hence the need to counter it. We have found that with time, any half-decent baller should be able to score every time down. The heat made it more of a chess match. As any of you fellas may have noticed that watched the following games: Trap vs. Will, Trap vs. Lou, and Lou vs. Ice, those games became more of a "pick your spots to gamble" affair. Blitzers don't blitz other blitzers all the time ... they know where the weaknesses are and how to protect themselves. That is why the scores in all of these games were more reasonable.

I look at it the same as I do College Football: Do you think Oklahoma would blitz a Notre Dame squad as much as they would, say, Bowling Green? No, because Notre Dame is likely to have played the tougher opponents, practiced harder and longer, and paid the price to bring a "Plan B" to the table to counteract anything their opponent would bring. Well right now, the South is Notre Dame and there are a lot of "Bowling Greens" out there because of that knowledge gap.

Well, guys like Lou, Ice, Ellis, Will Turner, Trap, and Candy log some stupid miles to play topnotch competition all over the place. They put in the lab time and actively seek competition from as many opponents as possible to ensure there are no surprises come Nationals. While most of the folks on the board over the past few months were responding to heat warnings with "we'll see" attitudes, these guys would have made a special trip to see 1st hand, get their hats handed to them if that's what it took, then come home to work on countermeasures. THAT'S how to maintain championship level of play.

Most guys out there lab hard, but it's the SAME LAB. These guys are seeing DIFFERENT LABS!!! Additionally, we design our league play as close to where the Nationals rules are going to be so we can avoid "adjustment failure" during the National Tourney. In essence, everything we do is designed to win Nationals.

With that said, I cannot really sympathize with someone who got drove because they haven't "seen" something. These guys have "seen it all" because they went the extra mile to see it all and have played all year with the Nationals rules ... and thus have in every way earned that advantage that they enjoyed when Nationals rolled around.

I started the NOMB in 1998 and never dreamed it would end up with the talent and level of play that it currently houses and let me say I have never been prouder of those cats and feel that it is in solid hands.

Unless you fellas across this great nation of ours want the: (1) National Title (2) Runner-up (3) Best League Cup (4) 2-on-2 to come right back to N'awlins next year, I suggest you check your frequent flyer miles, catch up on your AAA membership payments, and start hittin' the road ... because that's what champions do.

The level of play (and the stakes) has been raised ... who shall join us?