NLTP NewsRoom Hub - DOW vs. MB8 (A)

After getting swept in W1, DOW rebounded quite nicely with a sweep of GEH to get their record up to 2-2 and right in the middle of the standings. They went from 12th in the community power rankings after W1 to 7th after W2, which is a big jump. Now they're going up against a solid MB8 squad.

MB8 split MIA last week to bring their record to 3-1 and at the top of the standings. I had questions about their defense but HYPE is as solid as ever, which makes this team very dangerous.

Will DOW be able to sweep in back to back weeks, or will MB8 take the series here?

MB8 seemed to clean up DOW easily and get the sweep, winning three of the four halves and winning with a cap diff of +8. MB8 won the first half 7-1, and then won the two halves of G2 by a combined score of 7-3. MB8 is definitely a solid playoff contender this season with this sweep.

kool aid and Zion had good days again, though not as dominant as their previous outings. kool aid had five caps and 472 hold, while Zion had five caps and 365 hold. Together kool aid and Zion averaged a 76 ONISH. Looking at DOW's stats though, it looks like the offense struggled a bit. OD GOD had four caps and 388 hold, while ScrubJay had three caps and 411 hold. Together the DOW offense averaged a 53 ONISH, which is pretty low. The MB8 offense was way better than the DOW offense this week.

For defense, all of the defenders had a DNISH greater than 68, so that's nice. AD had the 96 DNISH with 693 prevent and 54 returns, ranking 4th and 7th for the week, respectively. HYPE had another solid week with the 77 DNISH, 563 prevent, and 41 returns. Meanwhile the DOW defense performed slightly better than the DOW offense, with Porps getting a 92 DNISH with 571 prevent and 60 returns. Those 60 returns were ranked 3rd this week. El Sacko had the 69 DNISH (nice) with 504 prevent and 42 returns. I think DOW's defense had more returns while also getting about the same prevent, so that's a positive to take from this match, if any.

There's only one stat category that's colored red for MB8, while for DOW there's only one stat category that's colored green. Is that a bad sign for DOW? Probably. MB* had six more tags, 13 more returns, 186 more seconds of prevent than DOW. They have four more pups than DOW, really good HA, and ranked 4th in P/HA this week with 0.355, which is 0.09 more than DOW's P/HA. MB8 had a better KD by 0.08, but had only 29 NRTs, which ranked 10th this week. MB8's biggest defensive advantages over DOW though were with five categories ; QR, KR, RIB, RIB%, and QR%. MB8 had 55 QRs, 6 KRs, and 58 RIBs, coming 2nd in each stat this week. Meanwhile DOW had 37 QRs, 4 KRs, and 41 RIBs, ranking 10th, 8th, and 8th for the week, respectively. For RIB%, DOW ranked 9th for both RIB% and QR% at 24.70% and 23.58%, while MB8 ranked 2nd for both of those same stats, with a 35.19% RIB rate and a 32.81% quick return rate. MB8 averaged a rank of 2nd for those five stats, while DOW averaged a rank of 9th for those stats, and that ended up being the main difference.

On offense, MB8 did end up almost doubling DOW's cap amount, with DOW coming dead last in caps this week. MB8 had 170 more seconds of hold and had eight less pops than DOW too. MB8 really excelled in four stats ; Score%, H/G, F/G, and LH, which to be fair is like most of the offensive stats I have here in these two tables. While DOW had the second lowest Score%, at 4.75%, MB8's 9.75% score rate was the third highest for the week. For H/G, DOW had 5.905 seconds, which placed 11th, while MB8 had 7.8025 seconds, ranking 4th. DOW had a F/G ratio of 0.349, which was dead last this week, while MB8 placed 2nd with their 0.219 ratio, meaning that MB8 averaged 1.3 less flaccids every 10 grabs. MB8 also had eight more long holds than DOW, ranking 4th while DOW came 11th. A lot of 11th place finishes for DOW in the stats this week, which is concerning.

HYPE hasn't lost a step since he last played in S10. He's just as amazing as ever, and with 563 prevent and 41 returns this week he's continuing to pair well with AD and create a great defense. But the main reason why he got a card this week was due to his offensive output that went with his defense. HYPE had seven caps and 271 seconds of hold, which means that he accounted for more than 40% of MB8's caps, and outcapping both MB8 offenders in the process.

CONCLUSION

DOW now has gotten swept in two of the three weeks this season and find themselves at 2-4 and in the bottom half of the standings. Their offense and defense struggled quite a bit this week, coming last or second to last in a lot of stats. For MB8, with their second sweep in three weeks they go up to 5-1 and joint first in the standings. The defense is pretty strong, while the offense is also pretty competent. They're going to be a difficult team to win against, and I'm interested to see if they keep their top two seed until the playoffs.