AF1 Week 10: What We Learned

Week 10 is a wrap and we are OFFICIALLY in the home stretch of the inaugural AF1 season. We've got four regular season weeks left in the year, and a lot is still up in the air with the playoffs: Albany has locked up the #1 seed & it looks like Southwest Kansas is in position to secure a playoff spot very soon -- but the other 2 spots are fully up for grabs right now.

Nashville 3-3

Corpus Christi 3-3

Oregon 4-5

Billings 3-5

Salina 2-5

You can make a legitimate case for 4 out of 5 of those teams (sorry CC) to make the playoffs this year and that is going to make some of the head to head matchups between these teams oh-so-exciting over the next month.

But what did we learn around the AF1 in Week 10? 

Southwest Kansas Storm @ Billings Outlaws

Result: 65-56 Southwest Kansas

What We Learned: Southwest Kansas is on pace to host a home playoff game & Billings isn't quite where we thought they were

Heading into this game, Southwest Kansas was coming off of a bye week surrounded in slight uncertain with QB Jalen Morton getting signed to the Birmingham Stallions, but he was released after one game and rejoined the Storm -- and supposedly didn't even miss a practice with the team. The Storm looked really, really good in this game and this was Jalen Morton at the peak of his powers. He looked comfortable and in control for damn near the entire game, spreading the ball around to his playmakers while being smart with the ball and using his feet -- but not too much. He found WR Charles Hall IV for four touchdowns (which is fitting), and hit WR Shiloh Flanagan for a couple more.

Nearly everybody on this Southwest Kansas offense was not just involved, but thriving in this game. This was super encouraging to see from the Storm, especially coming out of a bye week when you can see some teams come out sluggish or struggle to get back in rhythm -- but that just wasn't the case here.

The Storm are a near lock for the number two seed in the playoffs and somebody is gonna have to make the not-so-fun travel arrangements to beautiful Dodge City, KS very soon.

For Billings, they jumped out to a very quick 9-0 lead (touchdown, XP, deuce) and it looked like they were ready for a shootout -- which is exactly what this game was in the first half, when they went into the half tied 37-37.

For reference, when these teams played a few weeks back, the FINAL score was 49-31.. so this was going to be a track meet and something for those arena football purists of days yonder drool over. The offense was a major problem for the Outlaws for the most of the season leading up to this game, but the additions of WR Darius Prince & QB Malik Henry reversed their fortunes and have turned this into the team's strength.

..but unfortunately that makes the defense this team's weakness. As DB Dwayne Hollis mentioned in last week's episode of Off The Wall, it's a young group that is still learning on the fly -- and you could see that with how blown some of the coverages were in this game. "Blown coverages" are not typically words you see associated with a Cedric Walker defense, but it's been a consistent problem since the first game of the season for the Outlaws.

The offense was able to score points and get the ball in the end zone, but two key turnovers ended up being the difference in the game -- one happening late in the first half and one happening towards the end of the game. The offense is there for Billings, now it's time for the defense to get it's act together.

Washington Wolfpack @ Oregon Lightning

Result: 52-20 Oregon

What We Learned: Oregon is either a good-bad or bad-good and I'm not sure which & Washington is exactly where we thought they were

To cap off the small two-game AF1 slate, we were treated to the 4th installment of the "Oh My God Somebody Please Win This Game" series in the Pacific Northwest between these Cascadian rivals -- where Oregon was able to even the series at 2-2 in the rivalry's first full season.

Oregon played well in this one, but I can not understate how poorly Washington played in this one -- but we'll touch on that later. The Lightning were very opportunistic of the the Wolfpack's misfortunes and their offense was able to score points in bunches yet again, with QB Dalton Cole scoring 6 total TDs on the day (5 passing, 1 rushing) and connecting with WR Phillip Harding 7 times for 110 yards and 3 first half TDs.

The offensive production from just the first half would have proven to be enough for the Lightning in this one but they were able to really. The defense for Oregon played well and was able to force multiple fumbles, attack both Washington QBs and force them into making bad decisions all game. This Oregon team has the playmakers on defense to make things very interesting down the stretch and could be a fiesty playoff team if they can finish out the season strong.

The Lightning are currently riding a 3-game winning streak and have back-to-back 50+ point games in their last two games -- but face a big test in the Nashville Kats next week.

For Washington, this is not going to be a fun read -- so if you are a Washington fan or associated with the Wolfpack organization, now is your chance to stop and X out of this tab.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Oh you're not leaving are you..

Alright, well here it is.

I'm going to need a visual aid in order to demonstrate how poorly this team has been played this year.

The Wolfpack are currently last in the AF1 in points per game on offense. But it doesn't stop there, the offensive production has been so bad that it has put the defense in unwinnable situation after unwinnable situation -- resulting in the defense ALSO being last in points per game. The longer you look at this graphic, the worse it gets.

• Corpus Christi has played 6 games and scored 224 points

• Washington has played 9 games and scored 212 points.

The Tritons have played 3 less games, yet somehow have scored 12 more points. It's just a sad state of affairs in Washington. In this most recent game against Oregon, they were jockeying between multiple QBs again and could not get into a rhythm with either Dom Shoffner or Adam Kruse.

The only touchdowns scored by the Wolfpack were on busted plays where the QBs just had to run for their lives and hope to make something happen. Washington had a medley of errors in this game, including multiple fumbles at the wideout position, where have to play a near perfect game in order for this team to have a chance at winning.

I really like what the Washington organization is doing to build this team and this program off the field, but man this on-field product is a brutal watch. They've gone through multiple QBs experiencing the same issues and at a certain point you have to take a step back and look at things from a macro level. There's growing pains with any team and I fully empathize with that, but when the offense has produced the following numbers so far this season:

33, 35, 23, 21, 20, 41, 9, 10, 20

Something's gotta change.

What were your biggest takeaways from Week 10? Follow Off The Wall on Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok & BlueSky and let me know!