July 17, 2026
By Alex Rubin

Entering Week thirteen, all twelve playoff spots have been decided. The clear showcase game though, takes place in Utah where the West-leading Oakland Spiders will get to play a competitive warm up game against the Salt Lake Shred before the playoffs begin.

Oakland already clinched first place in the division, which comes with a first round bye and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Salt Lake is locked into the three seed and will face Seattle next week in the first round of the playoffs. At stake for Oakland is still the potential for Championship Weekend seeding. All of the current division leaders have one loss, meaning Oakland is incentivized to win to keep pace and have a chance at the top seed at Championship Weekend should they make it.

And Oakland will be favored to win. The Spiders are among the league leaders on both offense and defense. Defensively, the Spiders are allowing the fewest scores against on both a total and a per game (15.7) basis, and they’re bringing in the most blocks per game in the league (13) and breaks per game (11.2).

Offensively on the D-line, Oakland has the highest break percent in the league (43.1 percent), and offensively on the O-line the Spiders have one of the most dynamic attacks in the country. Oakland is very effective at keeping possession and attacking in small spaces. They rarely look to stretch the field (Oakland’s 59 huck attempts are the third fewest in the league), but when they do they succeed often, sitting with the highest huck completion percentage in the league (75.6 percent).

The strength of the Spiders is their depth. With Leo Gordon, Walker Frankenberg, Adam Rees, and Daniel Ritthaler controlling the offense, longtime offensive Stalwart Evan Magsig has taken over the D-line counterattack. Even with fewer offensive opportunities, Magsig is nearing his O-line numbers of the last few seasons. With a talented roster around him including a few players rejoining the starting lineup after a few weeks away (Anton Orme, Raekwon Adkins, and Dexter Clyburn to name a few), the Spiders are fully stocked with talent and ready to take on the most recent West Division representative at Championship Weekend.

In contrast, the Shred are more star driven. Chad Yorgason (59.8) and Jordan Kerr (57.2) are both in the top five of Shown Space’s Total Expected Contribution, an advanced statistic that measures the impact of every throw and catch on the field and turns that data into a number that represents how much a player helped their team score. It is hard to overstate their importance to the team; they each have more than three times as many assists as anyone else on the team. 

That’s not to say nobody else contributes. Simon Dastrup is also a top five block getter in the league and is one of the nine players this season with double-digit goals, assists, and blocks. On the offensive end, Jace Duennebeil (OUT tonight) and Matt Russnogle have turned into elite goal scoring options. If some of those players can step up and provide enough production to match Oakland’s top end, this game will be incredibly competitive. 

Until this year, Salt Lake had never lost to the Spiders, but so far Oakland has swept the matchup this season. Another win will go a long way to propelling the Spiders to their first Championship Weekend appearance in over a decade, while a win for Salt Lake could build momentum to bring the Shred back to the final four, this time as an underdog.