AF1 Week 3: What We Learned

The first full month of Arena Football One is in the books!

It was a really solid weekend of AF1 football and arguably the most competitive overall slate to date. Two out of the three games were decided by single digits and it looks like the gap between the top and the bottom shrunk a bit after it was looking like the league was heading for an extremely top heavy season.

Off The Wall was in the building for Albany-Nashville and it was a really fun game!

Nashville had a late start in terms of selling tickets amidst a rough offseason ownership transition, but I gotta say the fans that were in the building were loud and proud!

It took some time for them to get warmed up, but by end of the 1st quarter they were engaged and IN IT. I am excited to see how Nashville grows from here.

Here's what we learned in Week 3 of the 2025 AF1 Season:

Salina Liberty @ Corpus Christi Tritons

Result: 51-37 Corpus Christi

What We Learned: Salina (still) needs a new QB & Corpus Christi might be really good?

Heading into this game, Salina was a 13.5 point underdog and it felt like that was wayyyy overvalued given the quality of Salina's roster and the experience they have across the board. They have a great group of skill position players and at every level of the defense who just had a doomsday scenario blow up at the QB position in Week 1..

..and it turns out trotting the same QB out there again didn't fix things. The game flowed much differently for Salina this time, where they jumped out to a 15-point lead in the first half, but the demons of their Week 1 game reared it's ugly head in the second half and stunted any progress to keep up with a Corpus Christi team who kicked it into gear.

The Salina pass rush was incredible in the first half, but it seemed like Corpus Christi made some adjustments to neutralize it and bought their young QB some time to operate. I'd love to see Salina turn things around and start to compete, but just can't see it happening with Kilgo at QB unless the defense plays LIGHTS OUT for 4 quarters.

For Corpus Christi, they started off really slow in this one offensively and didn't really get things flowing until the end of the first half. They seemed to settle down in this one and really laid it on in the second half, outscoring Salina 34-13 in the back half of the game and getting multiple receivers involved in the action.

Darius Prince, Quintavius Workman, Jarron McGaw & Moe Strong all found the end zone, with QB Fred Payton Jr going 19/36 for 191 yards & 5 TDs on the day. Offensively, the Tritons woke up in the second half as they were able to capitalize on some costly Liberty turnovers late. We'll see Corpus Christi in action on the road in a couple weeks as they travel to Washington state to take on the Wolfpack, but so far the Tritons look really good (albeit it was two games against a very underperforming Liberty team). Seeing what they can do against new competition should give us a better idea of where they are at.

Albany Firebirds @ Nashville Kats

Result: 42-34 Albany

What We Learned: Nashville looks night and day from their Week 0 game & Albany was humanized a bit.. which is great for the league

As I mentioned earlier, I was able to make it to this game and watch in person and it was a blast! (Big shoutout to the Nashville Kats organization for setting me up with media credentialing btw)

Field-wise, the venue looked pretty good and was a more intimate setting seats wise than you would think. I'm sure they are aiming to have more of those seats available for future games, but all in all it was a very fun experience. The Kats came up short in this one, but they came out of the gate swinging and made this a much more competitive game than some folks may have thought. (slowly raises hand out of shame..sorry Nashville)

Newly acquired QB Rakeem Cato was getting the offense flowing and moving early on -- even getting a #BigManTD on the board just for me! (ty) They got into a groove early and before you knew it 40 combined were scored early and it looked like we were poised for an old fashioned arena ball shootout -- but then things slowed down dramatically.

Albany's defense was able to stymie the Nashville attack and really made it difficult in the second half for the Kats offense to really move the ball. Kats are definitely headed in the right direction now, so it seems like they are going to continue to find ways to get better and better -- starting next week with the Oregon Lightning. NOTE: As I am writing this, news just broke that Rakeem Cato was released.

**sighs in Thundering Herd noises**

I was like 10 feet away for this ^ and it was WILD. Cameraman was in great spirits and pumped when I showed him the replay on my phone lol

For Albany, this was a lottttt closer than a lot of folks thought it would be. A win is a win and they all count the same, but it wasn't the best game offensively for the Firebirds. Castronova was only 12/28 on the day, but did find the end zone 4 times -- connecting with Duane Brown twice and Isiah Scott & Darien Townsend once a piece.

I think the biggest area of opportunity for the Firebirds is with running the football. They have the pieces to be a very impactful rushing team (especially with the recent addition of Desmond Maxwell), but to see Duane Brown, Trevon Shorts & Maxwell combine for 7 carries for 15 yards is a little concerning. Albany ran the ball well last year and they are more than capable of doing it again this year, and it would make that offense even more of a headache for opposing teams.

Good win for Albany and -- transparently -- them getting 'humanized' a bit in this one is good for the league as a whole. We were trending in a direction where a couple of teams were at the top and then it was everybody else, but this showed that others teams in the league can put up a fight. League parity is going to crucial for long term success.

Oregon Lightning @ Southwest Kansas Storm

Result: 41-40 Oregon

What We Learned: Oregon is a team of fighters and are getting better week & Southwest Kansas' game and clock management is unbelievably bad takes a deep breath

Where to start. I guess we can talk about the Color Rush uni matchup -- which was RAD.

We were falling into a pattern of 'home team wearing all-black & away team wearing all-white' early on in the season and I am thrilled that they bucked the trend here. The Oregon orange unis popped on screen and getting to see the debut of the home Storm purple look was cool too. The Storm's glow up from 2024 to 2025 is an incredible transformation.

Now, talking about the on-field play -- the Storm were in full control of this game early on, with Jalen Morton leading the way and the team really leaning into their run-first offense identity -- even introducing a new offensive set that put the big RB Logan Wright in high motion behind an extra OL as an blocker behind the line. (see below)

This was a fantastic 'new school meets old school' look in arena football, and even introducing a read option element to it makes it perfect for the SW Kansas scheme.

It was working, it was scoring touchdowns -- so naturally the Storm abandoned it in the second half when they were up double digits and just needed to control the ball and keep scoring.

WHY

It is very obvious that the Storm's strength is in running the ball, but for some reason they kept trying to force the pass in the second half. Idk if they thought they had the game in the bag and it was a good time to get 'real time reps', but they slowly let the Lightning back into the game and then committed some of the worst clock management in a final minute that I have ever seen to give Oregon one final chance with 4 seconds left -- and that was all they needed. An unbelievable collapse by the Storm. #DodgeCityDebacle

For Oregon, they had strong first halves and collapsed in the second half in each of their first two games -- so it had to be refreshing to see the opposite take place in Dodge City. QB Dalton Cole is on fire and earned the Real American Beer Player of the Week nod with 300+ total yards & 5 TDs on the day and he is really making things happen with that Lightning offense.

I would still like to see other members of the Lightning offense more involved and more impactful in the ground game so that Cole can not take so many hits and make it through the entire season, but overall they have done a great job of spreading the ball around to different WRs (3 different WRs with 5+ catches on the day).

But the play of the weekend -- by far -- was the Hail Mary caught by Nickolas Brassell to win it in a walk off.

Oregon is a team of fighters and they are starting to really put it all together. If they can take that next step and get a ground game going with people not named Dalton Cole, LOOK OUT everyone else. They can walk into your crib and sneak out with a W.

What were your biggest takeaways from Week 3? Follow Off The Wall on Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok & BlueSky and let me know!