X League Under the Friday Night Lights

IBM Big Blue vs, Tokyo Gas Creators
7 pm on September 13 at the Tokyo Dome

Autumn Friday nights in America are the best, and none can compare. In America, we take autumn, football and Friday night lights for granted, for they are part of those non-constitutional civil rights that all fans, be they right, left, black, white, north, south, east or west, know is enshrined in the spirit of the constitution. Be it the high school, college, or Canadian pro flavor (the NFL is apparently barred by a 1960s federal law from playing on Friday in autumn), we Americans have an abundance of options on Friday; however, in Japan, it isn’t the case. For us, Friday nights are for baseball and Korean dramas, at least in my house where we still live in the 1980s and rely on over the air antenna.

Thus, we expatriates here in Japan, who religiously follow the X League (all ten of us), this Friday, can rejoice knowing the lights will be on at the Tokyo Dome, as Mike Phair leads the Big Blue of IBM on to Japan’s most famous sports stage to battle the Tokyo Gas Creators, in a battle to show the league that there is more to the X League than simply Fujitsu, Panasonic and Obic.

For those both in and outside of Japan, the only way you can watch the game is on American Football Live by rtv, which is a reasonably cheap way (compared to the money people, including this writer, to watch the NFL online).  Sadly, the days of free over the air of team sports, especially baseball, is all but gone, for most of the baseball is now on DAZN (as well as the NFL International Game Pass), except for Hiroshima Carp games and the Japan Series. But more later on how to watch the gridiron games in another post, let’s talk nw about the upcoming week two showcase game of the ‘ 24 X League Super season, which starts under those fabled Friday night lights.

Coach Phair brings his 1-0 team into the Dome to face off against a Tokyo Gas team that cannot be taken lightly, for they had chances to take down Obic, which had they, it would have been the biggest upset in years in the X League. An upset and statement game of which, is sorely needed, as the league is now basically a Japanese version of the old Big 10 back in the 20th Century when every year it seemed like it was either Michigan or Ohio State going to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl.  The X League needs a competitive and exciting game like the one we will hopefully see, on national television, with IBM and Tokyo Gas (I know I am crazy to think so, but hey, a man can dream). 

Clearly IBM knows how good of a team the Creators are, and vice versa, and the talent on both sides appears on paper to be equal, and if the game on the field matches what is on paper, it will definitely be an entertaining night for us gridiron fans here in Japan. While obviously the players to watch are the quarterbacks, Jerod Evans for Tokyo Gas and Dimitrios Sinodinos for IBM, the running game on both sides will need to step up and compliment the passing talent both teams possess. 

The need for more of their quarterback will be especially important for Tokyo Gas as Jerod Evans was a pedestrian 50 percent on his passes for 116 yards against Obic; whereas Sinodinos was 10/17 for 197 yards. The defenses for both teams will be expected to be tough; however, of the two, only Tokyo Gas has really been tested this year in their battle with Obic. It remains to be seen though just how talented the IBM defense is this year; however, if they play as well as they did against the Lions, expect an old school defensive game where the team who makes the least amount of mistakes leaves the Tokyo Dome victorious.

Image by freepik