Anthony Kelly the culture guru, why Thanos would love the Waterdogs, and it's the Whips title to lose. Plus, a few words on player safety. PLL Week 3 Overreactions

Thanos would love the Waterdogs

The Dogs had it all working in their home yard. Philly’s offense is an amoeba. It can flow or move to initiate from all over the field. It just about always features Michael Sowers, but that’s the only constant. The rest is movable, adjustable. It is perfectly balanced, as all things should be. It’s one size fits all, but the thing it fits is the gaps where the defense isn’t. Sowers ran two man games at X, he ran off razor picks at GLE, he went over and under picks from the low and high and wings. And with all the buzz of activity that Sowers creates as a ball carrier, at the end of the day he almost functions as a diversion. Everyone look at the speed, the elusiveness, get ready to slide, and while every eye in the building is on #22, off the ball players like Jake Taylor are picking the slide defender, or Thomas McConvey is screening for a cutter to swing high to low to the post. The Cannons have 14 eyeballs on their defense and frankly that just isn’t enough. Coach Holman said some goals were due to communication breakdowns. At the end of the day, it’s just a damn hard offense to deal with. In game two of the double header, Thanos actually looked a lot like Logan McNaney, and he snapped away half the Dogs goals, but the offense still can execute well. 

Kenny Brower is the best defender from the 2024 draft

The Duke product missed all of last summer due to injury. Coach Bill Tierney said that in a way, Kenny’s really still a rookie. He’s now logged three PLL games. Game number two was this weekend against the Cannons. He drew the matchup with Marcus Holman, one of the most prolific goal scorers in PLL history. Yada, yada, yada, Holman had one goal (a fluke-ish BTB goal on a rebound in front) on five shots, despite leading the Cannons in touches. Brower had four CTs. It was a repeat performance on Saturday night against Brennan O’Neill. The Outlaws star had just one goal, and it came in the 4th quarter, on 40 touches. I watched Brower during pregame, the footwork drills he puts himself through are rigorous, and it shows up in the game. He plays angles perfectly and always has his feet and body just where they should be. He’s got footwork that would make a ballroom dancer jealous, and he uses it to stay glued to his matchup all night. In the second week of his pro career, he’s already doing it against future Hall of Famers. 

Anthony Kelly is the Coach of the Year

There was a lot of talk this week about the Redwoods, courtesy of some power rankings and the always running lacrosse hot take machine. The Woods came into the weekend 2-0, but with wins against Carolina and Denver. Expectations are low for Carolina, and Denver has struggled early. In Philly, the Woods would take on the defending champion Archers with a chance to make a serious statement. Was this team for real? Did they beat up some weaker teams and fool everyone? No better way to find out than the play the defending champs. Early on, the haters and doubters were basking in it. It was 5-0 Utah in the first eight minutes. We’ve seen Redwoods teams get into that hole in the past, but we’ve never seen a Woods team rally like this. They would outscore Utah 6-1 over the rest of the first half, including a halftime buzzer beating two pointer from newly acquired Sam Handley, to tie things at six. The Woods were within two goals of the defending champs the rest of the way. Ultimately they came up a goal short; they lost 12-11. But TD Ierlan was tremendous. Dylan Molloy’s unreal start continues. Handley hit that big two pointer. The magical story of Josh Balcarcel continued as he had another goal. You can see from the way they play, the way they talk, they just have aura of a team that believes. They fight. This is not a team that will ever implode and fall apart. And that comes from the coach. Kelly has brought a balance of focus and confidence to them. They are for real. 

It’s the Whips title to lose

The Atlas were up 6-0. Six. To. Nothing. At one point they held an 8-1 lead. In the post game, Coach Stagnitta joked he thought ABC might switch over to showing cornhole or something at that point. Maryland had tinkered with their lineup coming into the game, taking Matt Rambo off the starting attack in place of Matt Brandau. The Whips, out to an 0-2 start and down 8-1, were looking like they might end up making an early season shift to rebuilding mode. But then Brendan Krebs made a few quality saves. Colin Heacock, back in the lineup after being inactive last week, scored a natural hat trick and the Whips first three goals. The Atlas offense was held to just one goal over a quarter’s worth of game clock as the Whips went on a 6-1 run. Entering the 4th quarter, they were down 10-7, a remarkable comeback in its own right. They would put up a nine spot in the final 12 minutes, including scoring the games last eight goals. They ended the game with those eight goals in 6:51 of game clock. TJ Malone, Aidan Carroll, and Heacock had hat tricks, Adam Poitras had four goals, Rob Pannell three assists. Matt Dunn held Jeff Teat to one point on an assist. The Whips midfield has been where the production comes from, and they got a good break as the Atlas were without Danny Logan and their only natural SSDM that dressed was Payton Rezanka. Max Krevsky, Jake Stevens, and Bryan Costabile took SSDM runs, but were overmatched. When the Whips broke the dam, their midfield did it. The attack is a work in progress. Rambo still hasn’t looked great, and Pannell picked up an injury. Asked about what it might look like next week, Stagnitta simply said that he knew Malone would be part of it and that was it. But the effort from the weekend showed you that nobody is safe.  In the east, Boston, Philly, New York, or Maryland will miss the playoffs. All four of those teams are playoff good. 

Time to get serious about player safety

This is not a broad statement about the city itself, or a commentary about the reputation of their fans. There’s just something that happens when the PLL is in Philadelphia. Last year, Bryce Young was hit with three personal fouls for hits in a Cannons vs Waterdogs game. Bryce Young is not a dirty player, he got five penalties all of last year and three were in that game. He ultimately, although this was not publicized, was fined for it. This week in Philly we saw some more rough conduct. Graeme Hossack (again, not someone who to my knowledge has a reputation as a dirty player), broke his stick over the helmet of Chris Kavanagh with a big swinging chop of a check while Kavanagh was falling to the ground. Zac Tucci (not known to be dirty) head butted Michael Sowers, a player with a concussion history. And then in the Saturday night cap, a lot of physical play between the Outlaws and Waterdogs ultimately led to Pat Kavanagh getting leveled by Ben Wayer, followed by pushing and shoving by both teams. There weren’t a lot of penalties called over the weekend, but when they happened they were no doubters. 

The PLL has a Discipline and Conduct Committee that can review these plays. The committee has five members, and is chaired by the VP of Lacrosse, Rachael DeCecco. Head Coaches and members of the committee may submit plays from the weekend for review. Any player involved and their players council representative are notified when a play is reviewed, and they can submit a statement to the D&C committee to be considered before any action is taken. Players can appeal the decision made by the committee if they want. When they make a decision, the committee considers severity of the offense, prior fine history, precedent of similar penalties committed, and anything that’s a point of emphasis in the rulebook (most recently this was defenseless players). A fine can be up to a full game check, and there can be game suspensions too. Jack Rowlett received a game suspension a year ago for a high hit where his stick broke on a player’s helmet.

The Hossack play has been submitted for review. I haven’t confirmed it, but I imagine the Tucci play will be reviewed as well. There was no flag thrown on the Wayer hit on Pat Kavanagh, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be reviewed by the committee. I would just offer this. Michael Sowers and the Kavanaghs are star players. They are players that fans buy tickets to see. I realize that shouldn’t technically have anything to do with the decisions made here. But if you don’t set a precedent to protect players from violent collisions to their head (all three of them had that happen this week), then you’ll see more of it. And if you see more of it, these guys won’t be on the field for long. Pro sports now is star driven. If the stars are on the sideline with a concussion that could be prevented by falling maybe a little on the stricter side of the rules, then that’s a problem. There will be plenty of internet tough guys suggesting that these players are soft, and back in my day we used to hit guys like that, and the hit wouldn’t have been a foul back when I played. This isn’t back in anyone’s day. It’s 2025. It’s today. We know enough about injuries, particularly brain injuries, in pro sports to know that every possible precaution should be taken to prevent violent blows to the head. It’s why the league made defenseless player fouls a point of emphasis a year ago.

The committee meets on Monday, and the process will play out as it does. In the past, fines weren’t publicized but suspensions were obviously made known. I’ve had conversations before about the benefits of making fines public, even just their occurrence and not necessarily the amount. Just to make it clear that these players are being penalized for hits and plays the league wants to reduce, and so fans know it’s taken seriously.