German Football League 2004

German Football League 2004
master	Berlin eagle
final	German Bowl XXVI
Teams	11
Games	60 + 7 play-off games
← GFL 2003 GFL 2005 →
2nd Bundesliga - 2004 ↓

The German Football League 2004 was the 26th season of the top German division in American football . The champions were the Berlin Eagles who prevailed against the Braunschweig Lions in the German Bowl .

League division

Dusseldorf panther Hamburg Blue Devils Hanover Musketeers Berlin eagle Braunschweig Lions Dresden monarchs Marburg Mercenaries Franken Knights Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns Stuttgart Scorpions Saarland Hurricanes

Teams 2004 GFL North GFL South0000

Overview of the participating teams and their all-time Bundesliga and GFL balance sheets.

Due to the short-term withdrawal of the Rhein-Main Razorbacks , only five teams took part in the southern group. With this withdrawal, the Braunschweig Lions canceled the interconference games. In the northern group, the Cologne Crocodiles were not granted a license, instead the Hanover Musketeers moved into the GFL-Nord.

	team	Years	S.	U	N	home			Selection			TD ratio
GFL North	Berlin eagle	21st	152	5	82	77	2	39	75	3	43	7173: 4118
	Dusseldorf Panther (N)	21st	168	10	63	87	7th	26th	81	3	37	7658: 3479
	Braunschweig Lions	10	78	0	33	41	0	14th	37	0	19th	3753: 2176
	Hamburg Blue Devils (TV)	9	69	4th	29	40	0	12	29	4th	15th	2775: 1735
	Dresden monarchs	1	6th	0	6th	3	0	3	3	0	3	269: 296
	Hanover Musketeers (N)	New	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0-0
GFL South	Stuttgart Scorpions	12	62	5	78	28	4th	35	24	1	43	3256: 2391
	Franken Knights	8 (9)	33	4th	54	15th	2	28	18th	2	26th	2043: 3160
	Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns	6th	22nd	4th	42	12	0	22nd	10	4th	20th	1374: 1786
	Saarland Hurricanes	3	6th	4th	25th	3	3	12	3	1	13	591: 1281
	Marburg Mercenaries	1	1	0	11	0	0	6th	1	0	5	276: 425

• (N) - Newcomers
• (TV) - defending champion

Season course

Regular season

Newcomer to the league Hannover achieved their first win in the first game of the season. The 13: 6 away win at the Saarland Hurricanes should also remain the only point win for the Musketeers. So the Musketeers had to be relegated. And also the Düsseldorf Panthers could not fight for the play-offs for long, the Panthers stranded in the no man's land of the table, fifth place. The German champions from Hamburg got off to a bad start, the Blue Devils suffered three defeats in the first four games, but through an intermediate sprint they even came close to second place, but through license violations and a narrow 21:20 defeat in the penultimate game of the season , against the Dresden Monarchs it was only fourth place for the defending champion. Third went to the Monarchs, who never ran the risk of not reaching the play-offs, but always had room for improvement and could never really endanger the two top teams. The place at the top of the table was made up of the Braunschweig Lions and the resurgent Berlin Adler. Until the eighth matchday, the capital city, until then unbeaten, could stay with the Lions. but a small phase of weakness in the last games of the regular season brought a clear gap in the table, as the Lions only exposed once and had to admit defeat to the Dresden Monarchs.

In the south it was already clear before the season started that there would be no relegation. Of the five remaining teams, four would move into the play-offs. Which that would be it became clear very quickly, because the Saarland Hurricanes didn't get going at all and could only score their first points in their last game of the season. The Stuttgart Scorpions had the best start and were able to make their first two games victorious. A losing streak of four games in the middle of the season washed the Scorpions back to fourth place, but since the Franken Knights could only get one point from their last four games, the Knights ended up in fourth, the Scorpions in third Space. The Marburg Mercenaries and the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns fight for their place in the sun until the end. The Mercenaries, who had been promoted from the previous year and only remained in the first division after winning the relegation against the Simbach Wildcats , followed on from the previous season with two defeats. But then they got 13: 1 points in a row and they could play their way up to the top of the table. The penultimate game of the season against the direct competitor from Schwäbisch Hall is important. A 27:21 victory pulled them past the Unicorns in the table. The last game day did not change at this stand, as both the Marburg and the Unicorns lost their interconference game.

Interconference Games

The interconference result was quite clear with 8-2 ​​wins for the north. With the retreat of the Rhein-Main Razorbacks, the Braunschweig Lions did not play any IC games, only the Scorpions, who beat the Dresden Monarchs at home, and the Saarland Hurricanes, who gave the Hanover Musketeers in Hanover, could defeat the "North". Thus, both the Hanoverians and the Hurricanes closed their home games without winning points and could only land a victory outside of their own group.

GFL North

	society	Sp	S.	U	N	TD	Diff.	Points	Average audience
1.	Braunschweig Lions	10	9	0	1	372: 216	+156	18: 2	9,000
2.	Berlin eagle	12	8th	1	3	306: 223	0+83	17: 7	1,029
3.	Dresden monarchs	12	7th	1	4th	318: 254	0+64	15: 9	2,248
4th	Hamburg Blue Devils	12	8th	0	4th	378: 249	+129	14: 8 *	6,362
5.	Dusseldorf panther	12	4th	0	8th	198: 269	0−71	8:16	517
6th	Hanover Musketeers	12	1	0	11	095: 410	−315	2:22	1,295

^* Because of license violations in 2003, 2 points were deducted from the Hamburg Blue Devils in the 2004 season.

GFL South

	society	Sp	S.	U	N	TD	Diff.	Points	Average audience
1.	Marburg Mercenaries	10	6th	1	3	233: 206	0+27	13: 7	810
2.	Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns	10	6th	0	4th	325: 238	0+87	12: 8	1,018
3.	Stuttgart Scorpions	10	5	0	5	255: 263	00−8	10:10	958
4th	Franken Knights	10	3	1	6th	207: 256	0−49	7:13	520
5.	Saarland Hurricanes	10	1	0	9	162: 265	−103	2:18	1,060
6th

Relegation

There were no relegation games in the south. The Munich Cowboys rose as winners of the GFL 2 South. In the north, the Hanover Musketeers had to deal with the Cologne Falcons . Already in the first game in Hanover, the GFL 2-Nord winner from Cologne made it clear that they wanted to be in the top division. The Falcons won 48:21 in front of 700 spectators in the Rudolf Kalweit Stadium . The second leg was also safe prey for the hawks. The promotion was sealed with a 44-0 success, while the Hanoverians, after only one year in the first division, had to make their way to the second division.

league	Home club	Visiting club	Result	After quarters
North	Hanover Musketeers	Cologne Falcons	21:48	7:14; 7: 0; 0:21; 7:13
North	Cologne Falcons	Hanover Musketeers	44: 0	14: 0; 7: 0; 7: 0; 16: 0

In the north, the Cologne Falcons rise , the Hanover Musketeers rise . In the south, the Munich Cowboys rise without a fight, as there is no relegation.

Play-offs

Quarter finals

Semifinals

German Bowl XXVII - Braunschweig

1N

Braunschweig Lions

57

4S

Franken Knights

0

1N

Braunschweig Lions

34

3N

Dresden monarchs

20th

2S

Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns

24

3N

Dresden monarchs

38

1N

Braunschweig Lions

7th

2N

Berlin eagle

10

1S

Marburg Mercenaries

24

4N

Hamburg Blue Devils

21st

1S

Marburg Mercenaries

7th

2N

Berlin eagle

37

2N

Berlin eagle

42

3S

Stuttgart Scorpions

17th

The Braunschweig Lions didn’t miss anything in their quarter-final game against the Franken Knights and easily won 57-0. In Berlin, the guests from Stuttgart were able to keep up well for three quarters, but three Adler touchdowns in the last quarter raised the score to a clear 42:17. The play-off game in Schwäbisch Hall, where the Unicorns competed against the Dresden Monarchs, was a little more exciting. In front of 1,400 spectators in the Hagenbach Stadium , the home side kept up for a long time, but found no remedy against the outstanding running game of the guests. With more than 300 meters of space gained on the floor, the Monarchs virtually overtook the Unicorns in a 38:24 away win. The suspense highlight of the quarter-finals was the encounter between the ambitious Marburg Mercenaries and the defending champions, the Hamburg Blue Devils. The guests from the Hanseatic city , who were favorites in the game against the Lahnstädter, led to the end of the third quarter with 21: 7, even if they did not offer an outstanding game. But with 17 points in the last quarter, Marburg turned the tide. Nine seconds before the end of the game, the Mercenaries took the lead for the first time with a 19-meter field goal and won the game 24:21. This led to the semi-finals Braunschweig against Dresden and Marburg against Berlin.

In the regular season, the Dresden Monarchs were able to bring the Braunschweig Lions the only season defeat. In the semifinals in Braunschweig, however, they did not make a repetition. The Lions won 34:20 in front of 7,700 spectators. And the soaring of the Marburg Mercenaries was also slowed down. In front of 1,700 spectators in Marburg, the Eagles won a 23-0 half-time lead and continued to build their score in the third quarter before the home side came to the honor touchdown in the last quarter, the final score was 37: 7.

German Bowl

In the German Bowl XXVI, the Berlin Adler and the Braunschweig Lions faced each other. For the Lions it was the eighth German Bowl entry in a row, for the Adler the first final since the defeat by the Düsseldorf Panthers in 1994. The Berliners had the opportunity to celebrate their fifth national triumph, the Lions their fourth. The 17,000 spectators in Braunschweig's Eintracht Stadium first saw defensive rows on both sides that dominated the respective open rows. It wasn't until the fourth quarter that the Lions managed to get points on the scoreboard with a 34-yard pass from Adrian Rainbow to Kelvin Love. But Berlin managed to equalize and after a fumble from Braunschweig running back Kim Kuci they even got possession of the ball one minute before the end of the game. The Adler were able to use this with a field goal 28 seconds before the end of the game to make the decisive 10: 7.

Scoreboard

German Bowl XXVI
team		Points	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Berlin eagle		10	0	0	0	10
Braunschweig Lions		7th	0	0	0	7th
Eagle	Lions	player	Move
0	7th	Kelvin Love	34-yard pass by Adrian Rainbow (PAT Marko Rothaar)
7th	7th	Estrus Crayton	11-yard pass from David Caudill (PAT Benjamin Scharweit)
10	7th	Benjamin Scharweit	33-yard field goal

Individual evidence

1. ↑ AFVD announcement: Razorbacks give back license
2. ↑ Huddle 20/2004
3. ↑ ^{a b c} AFVD announcement: Licensing procedure 2004 ( Memento of September 3, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
4. ^ All games of the Rothenburg Knights in the 1987 season were taken out of the rating, source: www.football-history.de
5. ↑ Relegation: Falcons win in Hanover
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Huddle 39/2004
7. ↑ ^{a b} Huddle 40/2004
8. ^ German Bowl ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

• Official GFL homepage