Canton Recap: Gridiron Games (and more!) at the Pro Football Hall of Fame
It was another fun-filled weekend in Canton OH for "Gridiron Games at the Hall of Fame" event, the annual football board game gathering hosted by the APBA Football CLub's Geoff Giordano. Here's a recap of the weekend from the PLAAY Games lens...
I arrived in Cleveland Friday afternoon, drove to Canton, a little more than an hour to get there. The first familiar face as I parked the car? Mark Miller! Mark's a long-time PLAAY gamer from waaaay back (like, from the beginning in 1999). We visited a bit, good to catch up. Walked into the hotel and there was "The Man” himself, Geoff Giordano! Geoff was visiting with Mike Gibrall about a number of football topics, I joined in for about fifteen minutes and then Al Wilson arrived! Yep, the crowd (and fun!) was QUICKLY starting to build!
I had dinner with Al, there's a lot of excitement at his 3d6 Games about the new FAC version of Fast Drive Football! Especially fun is the new two-player draft version (see photo below). Al's created a set of cards representing a couple hundred memorable pro players from which you and an opponent each draft five. Each player is given a point value and you are operating under a salary cap. The qualities on those players make up the qualities of your team. Pretty neat. In our head-to-head demo game, I went with a defense-heavy team (Ronnie Lott, Mike Singletary, etc.) vs. Al's offense-oriented team (starring LaDainian Tomlinson and kicker Adam Vinatieri). Defense won this time, 30-13.
Fast Drive Football FUN! Identified by jersey number: Al Wilson (#21), Paul Salzgeber (#32), Micah Wimmer (#10), Cooper Gilbert (#12).
Back to the hotel, there was a group of a couple dozen guys busily engaged in equal parts gaming and gabbing. Mark Miller had brought all of the PLAAY NOW games, and Vinny Mancini talked about wanting to see how "We Have A Problem, Mr. President" worked. Game ON! The game is designed to re-create the escalating pressure of decision-making in a national crisis, and it did NOT disappoint! I chose the "Congressional Clash" episode--not the easiest, not the hardest challenge. We managed to pull out the win--barely. Everything went relatively well until Day Ten, when the president disapproved of that days action plan. Same thing happened on Day Eleven. That put us "On Thin Ice," one more disapproval and we're FIRED. We went with a risky action plan that had a lower chance to succeed but a greater chance of approval (knowing that it was over if the president disapproved). Long story short, we pulled it out, against the odds. Whew!
After that, Joe Cards wanted to see "First Contact: Your Town," one of the original PLAAY games from our launch in the year 2000. We retired the game in 2012, brought it back for a 20th anniversary edition, and the again for the holiday sale a couple years later. So, Joe had seen/heard about it but never played. Things started out tenuously when he drew the Delinquent Kid as the starting townsperson--physical strength "D," credibility "F." Tough way to win the game. It looked pretty bleak until about 10pm (game time), when we started to get a few townspeople convinced. It came down to the final turn, and we needed two things to happen: first, somebody needed to destroy the alien hiding in the church. Second, the last remaining unapproached townsperson--the farmer--had to be a human. We didn't know, and we had no one available to confront him. Well, we got rid of the alien and flipped the Farmer's card--HUMAN! An epic win for humanity (and a lot of fun!)
(Alas, we never got around to playing the fishing game!)
Saturday morning, the football began.
I had organized a SECOND SEASON “Express” tournament with the 1985 USFL teams released earlier this summer. I figured we'd get maybe a half dozen folks, but as it turned out all fourteen teams were taken! So as not to monopolize everyone's time, I elected to break down the event into TWO tournaments. The eight teams who actually made the real-life '85 playoffs were matched up against each other in the "playoff bracket," and the six teams who didn't were matched up against each other in the "consolation bracket." Here's how it turned out (coaches name in parentheses)...
1985 USFL Playoff Bracket
First Round
• Baltimore 21, Oakland 16: (Steve Lenker, Mark Kroynovich) A re-match of real-life championship game participants. Kelvin Bryant's short TD run with a minute to play gave the Stars a come-from-behind win!
• Tampa Bay 48, Memphis 35: (James Hart, Phil Raia) High-scoring shoot-out! John Reaves was on fire!
• Denver 25, Houston 25: (George Rousos, George Kaldis) Upset! Gamblers led the entire game, until the end--game-winning field goal at end of regulation for Gold!
• Birmingham 39, New Jersey 33: (Mike Canestrari, Roy Paeth) Late Jim Smith long TD catch-and-run proves to be the winning points.
Second Round
• Baltimore 16, Memphis 13: Showboats were in position for (at least) tying field goal, (possible) winning TD at end--then, FUMBLE! DEEP in Baltimore territory. Stars hang on to win.
• Denver 28, Birmingham 20: Late Stallions TD pass makes the score closer than the game really was.
Championship Game
• Baltimore 28, Denver 14: Early offense explosion (tied 14-14 at end of first quarter) settles into defense/field position game. Fusina TD pass after Gold fumble puts Stars up 21-14 at half. Fusina's third TD pass provides insurance in third quarter.
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1985 USFL Consolation Bracket
For this bracket (six teams), the winning team with the worst record earned a berth in the championship game....
First Round
• Los Angeles 26, Portland 23: (Bruce Berkowicz, Bob Corsarie) Breakers K Tim Mazzetti misses tying field goal at gun, Express escapes with upset win!
• San Antonio 51, Jacksonville 42: (Brien Aronov, Cory Highfield) Rick Neuheisel throws six touchdown passes for Gunslingers!
• Orlando 41, Arizona 14: (Manuel Martinez, Cooper Gilbert) The "upset" of the day, Renegades race to 27-7 lead, Reggie Collier stars passing and running.
Second Round
• Orlando 17, San Antonio 13: Big offense of first round disappears for both clubs, mostly. Renegades score twice in the first quarter, defense makes it stand up.
Championship Game
• Orlando 34, Los Angeles 17: Express took a 10-7 lead into the half, 17-13 at the end of three as Renegades offense stayed quiet. Collier's TD pass put Orlando on top early in the fourth quarter, 20-17. With three minutes to go, Bledsoe crashed across the goal for the Renegades, followed by a pick-six by Orlando DB Victor Jackson for the "coup de grace."
Conratulations to Steve Lenker (Baltimore) and Manuel Martinez (Orlando) our TWO ‘85 USFL Tournament Champions. (FWIW, Steve and Manuel talked about getting together at some point before the weekend ended to play a “champion of champions game,” wish we could have made that happen!)
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After lunch, it was time to play the 2025 Second Season Football College All-Star Game, featuring the 2024 College All-Stars (players chosen in this year's pro draft) vs. the reigning 2024 pro champs, Philadelphia. I arranged to play this game with Mark Kroynovich, as sort of a throwback to a 2015 event I'd put together in Cleveland where I met Mark and several other PLAAY Gamers for the first time. We met at Underhill's Games in Cuyahoga Falls, and after conducting an "all decade" tournament, Mark and I played the 2015 College All-Star Game, vs. New England. (Photo from 2015 event?) This is from my online event recap of the 2015 event...
"...Mark coached the college stars and I handled New England. In last year’s (2014) game, I also handled the pro champs (Seattle), and Chris Palermo humbled me by leading Blake Bortles and the college stars to a last-second upset win, 24-20. So, I had good incentive to bring my “A” game!
The game began as you would expect the first quarter of exhibition season play to begin—ragged, sloppy, penalty and mistake-filled. New England moved to the All-Star five yard line on the opening drive, only to see Tom Brady get served a bad snap, LB Vic Beasley recovering for the All-Stars to kill the threat. The shoe was put on the other foot in the second period, when the All-Stars got a 53-yard punt return by Bryan Jones to the New England 6, only to see Melvin Gordon fumble away the ball on the next play. By the end of the half, each team had managed only a field goal, and it was 3-3.
The Patriots got a huge break to start the second half, when the All-Stars’ RB Ameer Abdullah fumbled on the second play after the kickoff, recovered by New England’ LB Dont’a Hightower at the All-Star 16 yard line. Brady hit Brandon LaFell for the touchdown, and New England led 10-3. The next two New England drives resulted in Stephen Gostkowski field goals, extending the lead to 16-3. The college stars managed to drive deep into Patriot territory, sparked by Jameis Winston’s 26 yard run and a couple of pass completions. With a first and goal from the New England one yard-line, Winston was dragged down for a 3-yard loss by Rob Ninkovich, and then on the next play, a miscommunication between Winston and center Cam Erving resulted in the ball sailing over Winston’s head, Winston chasing it down for a 12-yard loss. Two incompletions followed, and that, as they say, was the ball game.
For the game, Winston played pretty well: 12 of 17 passing for 141 yards and an interception, sacked twice. Todd Gurley was the All-Stars leading rusher, with 39 yards before leaving the game with an injury in the second period. The game featured five turnovers and seventeen penalties for 144 yards.
2025 College All-Star Game Post-game handshake (well, HUG actually), me and Mark Kroynovich!
The 2025 game was similarly uneven. Mark and I exchanged coaching roles for this rematch, with ME taking the college stars and Mark coaching the pro champs. Philadelphia's starters made child's play out of the college kids, with Saqoun Barkley running roughshod through the all-star defense. The Eagles first possession went 75 yards for a touchdown. The All-Stars offense went three-and-out, and punted. Philadelphia then drove 71 yards for another score. Ten minutes into the game, 14-0 Philly, the Eagles had run 20 plays for 156 yards, the All-Stars had run three plays for -4 yards. Uh, yeah.
We have a rule for this game that the pros play their starters for the first quarter, and the reserves come in for the second and third quarters. If the game is close, the pro starters can return in the fourth quarter. Mark mercifully pulled the Eagles starters after the first two possessions. Predictably, the game got a lot more competitive. Tyler Shough directed a 63-yard drive against the Philly back-ups, hitting Travis Hunter for an 11-yard touchdown pass to make it 14-7. Late the third quarter, TreVeyon Henderson broke loose on a 22-yard scoring run that tied the game.
Back came the Eagles starters as the fourth period began, and it was a repeat of the first quarter, with Hurts, Barkley, Brown and company manhandling the college defense. Hurts found Barkley on a 24-yard TD pass early in the fourth to regain the lead for the Eagles. Surprisingly, the college stars fought back. After an exchange of punts, the All-Stars defense managed a stop and Cam Ward returned at QB (after Jaxon Dart had played several series, ineffectively). Ward generated a methodical drive against the Eagles defense starters that got all the way to the Philly five yard line. That's when Ward make his "rookie mistake," though--picked off in the end zone by Cooper DeJean to end the threat. The All-Stars never got the ball back after that. Final score, 21-14.
Statistically, Barkley was the star: 13 rushing attempts for 86 yards and a TD, 2 catches for 32 yards and a second TD. Hurts was 11 of 14 for 153 yards and a touchdown. Remember, these guys only played half the game. For the college stars, Tyler Shough (Saints) started at quarterback, was the team's top passer, 7 of 11 for 63 yards and a TD--not bad. Ashton Jeanty (Raiders) had 67 yards rushing on 20 carries, TreVeyon Henderson (Patriots) had 66 yards and a touchdown on just eight carries. The College stars collected 19 first downs to Philadelphia's 14: again, they played respectably against the Eagles backups.
About the time the College All-Star game ended, former Steeler and current Hall of Famer Alan Faneca dropped in on our gathering to say hello--such a nice touch. This is part of the hall's residency program, where they try to have an enshrined player or two on-premises as often as they can so as to make the fan experience even richer. We knew he was coming, a number of guys brought stuff for him to autograph and he got to see "his" card in a number of different football game platforms.
After that, I broke out Fury Football and the new 2025 Pro Season Fury card with Cory Highfield and Michael Balch. I took the Saints against Cory's Bengals, grabbed an 18-6 lead after my third possession. But Cory scored on each of HIS last two possessions to make it 18-18. Weirdly, neither of us converted on ANY our our six touchdowns! We'd tried a variety of conversion distances, but none had scored. So we went to overtime (a RARE occurrence in Fury Football!). Each of us would get an OT possession, and after that it would be sudden-death. We decided we would allow the kicking option for this.
Cory got the ball first in OT at the midfield stripe, but a big SACK knocked him out of immediate scoring range. I took over deep in my own territory, drove to the Bengals 6, tried a game-winning kick--and missed! Now "sudden death." Cory's Bengals then drove deep into MY territory, and HIS kick scored for the win!
Cory then took on Michael Balch and his Fury Bills (pictured above). Maybe because he was familiar/comfortable having played (and won) a full game, Cory directed the Fury Bengals masterfully in this one, building a 33-12 lead going into the Michael's final Bills possession. But as fans know, "no lead is entirely safe in Fury Football!" Buffalo got into the end zone on a Josh Allen run, making it 33-18. Then Michael went all-in on a low-percentage but game-winning sixteen-point conversion (yes, you can do that in Fury Football!). He got a LONG GAIN result, which got him ALL the way to the Bengal's 3--alas, not QUITE enough!
That wrapped up the Saturday activities at the hall, a bunch of us went to an on-site brew pub for dinner, another group descended on a local Waffle House, and some of the locals went home for the evening.
I had an afternoon flight out of Cleveland Sunday, so I could only stay until about noon for the second day of activities. That was plenty of time, though, for me to check out most of the other football games being played over the weekend. I watched Vinny Mancini and Joe Cards play Season Ticket Football, got a quick tutorial on ST Patrick's Matchup College Football from Brien Aronov, sat in on a couple of drives with James Hart playing Breakaway Football, sat down with George Rousos to look over Jerry Kramer's football game (gifted me by Mark Kroynovich!) and try out an obscure game called "Legends of Football" from the 1990s. Mike Gabril had brought a copy of Buffalo games' Tecmo Bowl football game, Cooper Gilbert played a game with me to show me how it worked. I thought it was pretty fun. Finally, with my noon departure time rapidly approaching, I got Paul Salzgeber to sit down for a couple of series of APBA football, with the 1982 Browns and Saints.
And then? It was time to go…
Many thanks to Geoff Giordano for arranging this event! If you're on the fence about attending, DO IT! You'll have a great time. I'm already looking forward to next year!