IFL 2026 Week 1: What We Learned
- Trey
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Week 1 of 20 is in the books! Games 1 and 2 of 119 are completed. And what a fun week of indoor football it was. Only two games in the slate, with the IFL debuting on both Yahoo Sports Network & Overnght. Yahoo Sports Network broadcast looked amazing on the replay I was able to catch and the broadcast in Green Bay had some anticipated hiccups given the weather conditions that delayed the game by 24+ hours, but all in all I think it was a very successful debut on each platform.
Let's dive into the two games.
Quad City Steamwheelers @ Fishers Freight
Result:Â 45-27 Fishers
What We Learned:Â Fishers is a major threat in the East & Quad City should be fine, despite the loss
I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to this game in Fishers, IN and experience the Freight home field advantage in the flesh... and that arena was ROCKING! What a great atmosphere and culture they have developed in just their second year of existence.
Fishers came out strong and were very efficient working their way down the field, getting their two stud WRs JT Stokes & CJ Windham in the end zone to get things going.
But the real story of the game was the Fishers defense and their ability to put pressure on Quad City QB Daquan Neal. The Quad City O-line was an area of concern for me heading into the season, and Fishers was able to really get after the QB early and often.
The defense put the clamps on the high octane Steamwheelers offense in the 2nd half and even got a safety to add to their tally. Wrap it all up with a perfectly captured deuce, and this was a one hell of a season opener for the Freight.
For Quad City, this is by no means a "hit the big red button" game. This was a rough one to start the season, but there was some promise. Newly signed WR Quian Williams scored 3 TDs in the first half to open his account with the Steamwheelers and Daquan Neal was able to find Keyvan Rudd in the endzone for his 4th passing touchdown of the day..
...but unfortunately the points stopped flowing after the 9:09 mark of the 3rd quarter. Nearly 25 minutes of scoreless football to end the game.
Neal had a couple of throws that looked rough and a couple that led to interceptions, and they were able to get the QB run game going a little bit but just couldn't finish drives late in the game. This Steamwheelers is uber talented and will still be a big threat in the Eastern Conference, but they just met a buzzsaw in this Fishers Freight team that just seemed to have all the right answers.
Vegas Knight Hawks @ Green Bay Blizzard
Result:Â 37-35 Green Bay
What We Learned:Â Vegas is feeling their offseason departures & Green Bay might be in trouble.. despite the win.
Going into this game, both teams were rebuilding with their rosters being picked apart by outdoor league promotions and rival team & league scavengers swooping in on their rosters.
But it felt like Vegas should have had an edge with their QB1 (IFL National Championship game MVP) and All-IFL WR1 coming back, and the rest of the offense being supplemented by All-IFL talent at RB & WR. But the Knight Hawks just came out flat.
It took a while for Jayden De Laura to settle down and the offensive line was allowing a lot of pressure and getting cooked in the run game by the Green Bay front 3. WR Quentin Randolph got on the board a couple of times, but reigning IFL OPOY RB Josh Tomas coughed up the ball two times -- including a BACK BREAKER with less than 20 seconds left in the game to seal it for the Blizzard.
Vegas looked extremely rusty and will have a bye week ahead to get back in the lab and figure things out before heading to Tucson in Week 3.
What a win for Green Bay! They came out firing on defense and held this dynamic Vegas offensive roster to only seven first-half points. They were applying a ton of pressure at the line of scrimmage and clearly threw off the gameplan for Vegas.
But the Green Bay special teams unit deserves some love as well, as the kick return game and missed field goal return early in the game by Isaac Ross set them up really nicely to hop on a double digit lead in the first half. QB Liam Thompson made his debut as QB1 for the Blizz and had a great impact on the ground, with 59 rushing yards & 2 rushing TDs to go with his 98 passing yards & 2 passing TDs.. but you got the feeling that this offense was a bit limited. It seems like they were extremely content with a more conservative running attack and didn't really dial up much of a passing attack outside of hitch routes and a crosser.
It feels like there is a ceiling on the offense we saw tonight, so I'd like to see more out of the passing attack next week when the Blizzard take on the Freight to see if this was just 'shaking off the cobwebs' in Week 1 or if this is who this Green Bay actually is.