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The Arlington Grizzlies came to fruition in 2016 as a member of
the Western Washington Football Association when Mark Knapp left the
Snohomish Thunder organization which
shut down and created the North Snohomish County Arlington Grizzly
Semi Pro Football 501c3 umbrella. The Grizzlies struggled as
most expansion teams do in the early going by managed a couple of
tight wins and stood at 2-3 on the season before a Mac truck ran
them over in the form of the "upper echelon" teams being blown out 4
straight weeks to end the season.
With a recruiting push in the offseason and some shakeups to the
roster, Arlington found itself with an undefeated team four weeks
into the 2017 season. Then the
Portland Raiders came to town and showed why they have been the
Northwest's crown jewel for half a decade. A 43-0 whitewashing
later was maybe the wake up call the Grizzlies needed as they
punished the Outlaws the following week and rolled to five
consecutive victories and a 9-1 record heading into the playoffs.
Then their week one opponent arrived and abruptly bounced the #2
seed from the playoffs and any hope of facing the Kings for the WWFA
championship.
A solid start to the 2018 season provided wins over Washington State
Football League foe Tulalip and Renton, but a tight loss to
the Rage did not bode well. Scheduling issues caused the
entire month of May to be without a game, finally resuming play
against the Portland Raiders. Trouncings by the Raiders,
Wolfpack, Mayhem and a 70-point beat-down by the Rage ended the
month of June. Three weeks later another beating at the hands
of the Nighthawks brought a merciful end to the disaster that befell
2018.
An expected contender in the newly formed Northern Cascade League
following the disbanding of the WWFA, midway through March it was
announced the Grizzlies were switching to the reformed Northwest
League joining the Bengals and Ravens there and changing the name to
"Snohomish County", reminicent of the old-NWFL member;
Snohomish County Vikings. A
1-3 start did not seem to bode well, but the NWFL as a whole
suffered some growing pains, and the Grizzlies won their next six
and earned an appearance in the Championship game, falling just
short to the Hurricanes.
The Grizzlies became a Covid-19 casualty as one of many teams that
never returned to the field following the 2020 and 2021 state
imposed lockdowns of sporting events.
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