“K, I watched the match again and I have a few pointers.

Turn 1

a) You set up too far back on the opening drive, and didn't get to blitz. Even so, you ran up a guy to assist the blitz that never came, giving me a free block, and thus armor roll, on you. Yes your armor is good, but with all the dodges, GFIs, and blocks you gave up, it was going to get tested and not always pass the test.

b) Don't do straight-on line-blocking. Block diagonally. Proper line-blocking would have gotten you another armor roll and prevented me from setting up a good defense. As is, you let my entire defensive line reposition at will.

c) Caging is not a bad idea in general; you definitely have to protect the ball, but a good screen is better than any cage. The game is about controlling space. You should have dedicated just one guy or two guys to protecting the Thrower behind the screen, and more guys to keeping me from wrapping around you and forcing you to make a play to the side of my choice. You're the offense, take control of the drive! ESPECIALLY when you've got a Riot so you only have 7 turns to advance the ball. As the game went on you left a man in that back corner position, where I was never going to go. You could have used his Tackle Zone elsewhere.

Turns 2-4:
Graham Hideouslightning (or somebody) needed to be ready to protect the backside of the play, to give you room to redirect. He was instead playing cage corner.

Turn 6:
Having lost on the edge, you should have redirected for midfield. At this point you were up 11 men to 10, and while your AV rolls hadn't been great, up to that point in the match you hadn't thrown a lot of blocks. Bash team offense is about spatial control, and you surrendered position for a shot at, what, more scrum as the clock winds down. I would have blitzed with Bogakh "the Tiny": a push would have allowed a followup block from Quugug "the Hated", giving you 4d on my guy. This would have left you a space to cage up at midfield, and hope that you could break free to the left OR the right for a mad endzone dash on turn 7. Instead you were stuck in position.

Turn 7:
You'd already lost the drive, but this is where you lost the game, and it wasn't your fault, sorta. I did 2 casualties to you on my turn 6, then on your turn 7 you did one to yourself. Yes, yes, dumb luck, but by that point I'd thrown about 25 blocks, and 2 casualties from 25 blocks against AV9 is within the realm of reasonable possibility. Then you tried that desperation dodge to I-know-not-where, and like so many unnecessary dice it ended disastrously. I know you were trying to get downfield but it was already too late.

Turn 11:
You didn't need to mark my carrier with your Thrower, you could have saved the GFIs and just been in position to force me to redirect the play. This is a minor sin, but the little thing separate the Emerging Stars from the Legends. By this point it was 10-on-8, there wasn't much you could have done.”