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+---- Thread: *Darrel's Journey: Part 2 (/showthread.php?tid=22986)
*Darrel's Journey: Part 2 - Ry_ - 06-12-2020
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2606 words, ready to be gradedBack in November of 2019, my second media article in the NSFL was about Darrel’s journey from a poorer community in rural Louisiana to his waiver wire claim by the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers and subsequent appearance as a backup running back for them. Obviously, a lot has changed since then; Darrel has been selected twice in the first round by DSFL and NSFL teams, he won a championship in the DSFL, won a bunch of awards down there as well, and then has since played three solid seasons in the NSFL. He also signed a large contract extension following his third season and is now a popular fantasy pick for running backs heading into the twenty-third season of the NSFL. While that is a quick summary of Darrel’s Journey after his debut games in S18, there’s a lot more to get into. From his quick rise to utter domination of the DSFL in his rookie(asterisk rookie, waiver wire player) season, to his significant drop on draft night in the NSFL, and a whole lot more that this article will disclose.
Darrel’s Journey’s main purpose was simply to rise Darrel’s draft stock heading into the DSFL Draft. While all four(yes, I’m old) teams interviewed Darrel, far and away the most interested was the Minnesota Grey Ducks(recently relocated from the San Antonio Marshals). They had just lost two capped running backs from the previous season, and the DSFL(at least back then, not sure how it is now) was incredibly focused on a strong running attack along with a occasional pass or two to throw off the defense. Minnesota didn’t have the first overall pick in the draft though, as that was actually held by the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers, the team that Darrel had just played two games for. While Frost did interview me heading into the draft, there wasn’t a significant amount of interest shown and Darrel was no lock at that point for the first overall pick. As time got closer to the draft, Darrel trained as hard as possible to raise his draft stock. Darrel bought max equipment, made sure every PT and claim possible was completed, and seemed as determined as any player in the league to max earn for life and become that dream running back teams were looking for. As the draft came closer, I was still unsure whether Darrel would get selected #1 overall. He was far and away better than any other player in the draft class(well, besides Venus Powers), but Myrtle Beach definitely wasn’t willing to commit yet. Draft night came and went, and when I saw Minnesota trade up to the #1 overall selection in the S19 DSFL Draft, I realized what was going to happen. Darrel Williams was selected first overall and joined an elite group of people who were regarded as the best player in their draft class(at least at one point). Sure, it was a class of maybe 20 actives, but it’s still an accomplishment to me and a huge achievement for Darrel on his journey. Immediately the Grey Ducks let me know that Darrel was going to become the lead back for the team and his production was basically expected to single-handedly carry the Grey Ducks to the Ultimini. It was going to be a tough road ahead, but Darrel had already started his career with a first overall selection and was on pace to be one of the better earners in recent memory.
Alright, let’s finally talk football and meaningful games that Darrel played in! Darrel Williams played in the DSFL for one season, which was the nineteenth season of the league. The S19 DSFL Draft was relatively small, so the league had four actual teams and two bot teams. The bot teams combined to go 4-24, so as you can tell they were mainly used as free wins and stat boosters for the rest of the league. Speaking of stat boosters, let’s talk about Darrel Williams’ legendary first game with the Minnesota Grey Ducks. Combined, Darrel Williams and OJ Littlewood combined for almost 350 rushing yards as they absolutely dominated the Coyotes. In the second quarter of Darrel’s first game, he had one of the best runs of his career. Tied up 10-10, the Grey Ducks handed it off to Darrel, where after a few nasty moves, he zoomed his way down to the end of the field for a 78 yard rushing touchdown. This would essentially seal the game for the Grey Ducks, and they started out 1-0. Already this game showed how much the Grey Ducks would rely on the run; they passed for 143 yards and ran for 343. Zack Vega was the quarterback of this S19 Grey Ducks squad, and it was obvious he was playing more of a secondary role to Darrel. It only took one game, but the entire DSFL world was on notice. Darrel Williams was here and he’s here to dominate. The next game for the Grey Ducks was one of their toughest of the season. They were going on the road to face the Portland Pythons, who were the only other real team in their division. In the first quarter, Portland quickly got out to a 16-3 lead, but Darrel slowly worked in yards over a 30 carry day. The Grey Ducks, behind an actually fairly solid performance by Vega, worked their way back to a 16-16 tie. In one last touchdown drive, the Ducks marched their way down to the 1 yard line with a minute left on the clock. Not surprisingly, the Ducks drew up the play for Darrel, and to get that final yard Darrel jumped over the pile, outstretched his arms, and just barely got the touchdown. The Ducks held on and started the season 2-0, while also beating their main inter division rival on the road. The first two weeks could not have gone better for Minnesota, and the contender status was definitely being thrown in the air for them.
It wouldn’t be the perfect season forever, however. Over in the southern conference of the DSFL, arguably the strongest two teams in the Buccaneers and Luchadores were huge favorites to pull out an Ultimini at the end of the season. It was only a matter of which one would get the pleasure to kick the northern conference’s team to the curb. In the next two games, the Grey Ducks would now have to face the Buccaneers and the Luchadores. The Grey Ducks first traveled to Myrtle Beach where due to mainly a horrific quarterback performance they had no chance to put anything together offensively, and the Buccaneers ran and passed all over the mediocre Grey Ducks defense to pick up a victory. Darrel once again broke 100 yards, but he couldn’t find the end zone and was unable to carry the entire offense that day. Next up was a home game against the best team in the league, the Tijuana Luchadores. The Luchadores had almost everything going for them; strong offense, defense, good strategies, and at this point in the league’s history, all they did was win, win, and win. Minnesota actually outgained Tijuana in this first matchup; both teams were very sloppy and the Grey Ducks eventually just became worn down to the point where Tijuana pulled away in the fourth. Home losses are never a good sign in the DSFL, so Minnesota was quickly reeling at 2-2. Thankfully, the next game was against the Coyotes, however, the game was very tight heading into the fourth quarter. Finally, the offense was able to get their act together and scored three touchdowns to make the game seem like a huge blowout, but in reality the cracks were continuing to show in Minnesota’s game. For the time being though, those didn’t show too much. Their next game was against Portland, and Darrel once again had a strong performance, gathering 120 yards and scoring a touchdown. The game was another huge victory over their division rival. Once again the Ducks were down, but orchestrated a strong comeback and picked up another victory. They next got to play against the eventual 0-14 Norfolk Seawolves, and while they did win, it was only by 11. The main offensive producers were once again Darrel Williams and OJ Littlewood.
The offense had been scraping together drives through a ton of high-quality runs by Williams and Littlewood and the occasional strong pass by Vega(along with a ton of incompletions and interceptions). However, between Weeks 8-10, their offense basically died, as they scored a whopping 13 points over these three games. Minnesota first traveled to Tijuana, where Darrel Williams, for the first time in his career, was completely shut down. It was probably the worst game of his entire professional career, and quickly the Grey Ducks realized that if somehow they made the Ultimini, they did not want to play Tijuana, because they knew how to shut Darrel down. Either way, the Grey Ducks could only muster one field goal this game and took their loss and dropped to 5-3. The Grey Ducks then faced the Kansas City Coyotes(a bot team!) and just could not get their offense going. Every time they would begin a good drive, Vega would then take the ball and throw a pick. He threw four picks against the bot team, and a strong 113 yard and one touchdown performance by Darrel was wasted. They then traveled to Portland, and Darrel for some reason was only given 13 carries, even though he was averaging over six yards on those carries. This obviously led once again to offensive ineptitude, and the Grey Ducks lost once again to drop to 5-5 on the year. Their hopes of home-field advantage in the conference championship game were quickly disappearing, and the team had to get the offense back on track. Vega struggled early against the Buccaneers in Week 11, so quickly the Grey Ducks turned to Darrel and Littlewood and they tore up the Buccaneers defense, as Darrel put up 140 yards and threw in another score. They then faced the Portland Pythons in one of the biggest games of the season. Portland at this point was 8-3 while Minnesota was 6-5, so a victory by Portland here would officially clinch Portland as the top team in the conference. However, Darrel had something to say about that, and he once again dropped 150 yards en route to another Minnesota victory. Minnesota then finished off their season against two bot teams, won them both behind strong performances by Darrel, and Portland lost out to finish at 8-6 while Minnesota was at 9-5. They would now host the Pythons in the conference championship to decide who would get the right to play… Tijuana. Uh oh.
Jay Cue vs Zack Vega. Paco McTaco(and Baby Yoda!) vs Darrel Williams. This was going to be a good game, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Darrel would finish this game with one of his finest performances, 160 yards and two scores. Minnesota charged out to the early lead, but Portland slowly worked their way back. The game was tied at 27 all with nine minutes to play, and the Grey Ducks eventually found their way down the field with five seconds left. Silver Banana lined himself up for a game winning field goal, and as time hit 0, he just barely kicked it in. The Grey Ducks were going to the Ultimini! However, they would have to play this Ultimini against the best team in the entire DSFL, the Tijuana Luchadores. The same team that shut Darrel down back in week 8 and beat them in Minnesota in Week 4. They would have to go into Tijuana and find a way to pull out a victory. The biggest thing Minnesota needed to do was to get their running game working. If they were forced to pass too much, it wouldn’t end well. Darrel took the reins of the offense and once again delivered in the playoffs, racking up 115 yards, a score, and after an extremely impressive performance by an improved Grey Ducks defense, Ultimini MVP. It was a massive celebration in the Grey Ducks locker room, as Darrel Williams had led his Minnesota Grey Ducks all the way to the championship in his sole season with the team. It took a ton of luck to get here, and they won both their playoff games by a field goal, but an Ultimini is a Ultimini. You can’t take that away from Darrel, no matter how much he struggles or underperforms in the NSFL.
Heading into the S20 NSFL Draft, Darrel once again had high hopes. The mock drafts throughout the season placed him at #1, the mock draft tasks had placed him at #1 (or at the very least, #2), and a high draft spot was not out of the question. Darrel still was the #1 earner in his class, and the only person close was once again a kicker. Shouldn’t he go #1? Or close to that? For starters, running back is not the most coveted position in the league. Everyone wants to play it, but teams don’t want it. Sure, they want a running back, but they almost always can get a cheaper one later in the draft who will still max earn or get close to max earning. Even if they go inactive a bit after the draft, who cares? They still will perform fairly well. This is the reason, I believe anyway, for why the first six teams in the draft did not even contact me. I was perfectly comfortable with a position switch, had I actually been asked if I wanted to. I never once told anyone or any team I wasn’t going to switch, yet I guess they just assumed I wasn’t? Or maybe I wasn’t a good user. I still never got closure on this, but oh well. Since the first six teams didn’t contact me before the draft, not surprisingly I dropped to seventh overall before the Hawks finally picked me up. I had talked with Baltimore the day before the draft, not realizing the draft was offline, telling them to probably be prepared to select me because none of the teams were interested in me. No one in the league knew this. Literally every mock in the league had me at #1 or #2, when absolutely no one on those two teams even considered me for a second. When I talked to Duilio, telling him to be prepared to see me drop, I didn’t know he already selected me, so he kinda dodged the comment(reasonably, of course). I was happy that I was in Baltimore, albeit my excitement for the team waned over the following few seasons. I was selected in Corvo Havran’s final year before regression, so the Hawks were really getting worse and not better. I didn’t know it on draft day, but I was really just the first player part of a rebuild that wouldn’t actually kick off until S22. Sure, this was kinda frustrating, but the Hawks have drafted well in the past few seasons and there’s plenty of hope for this roster in the future.
I hope you enjoyed Darrel’s Journey Part 2. Part 3 will come out… um… hopefully not seven months later than this one. I’ve been sitting on my confusion of being selected 7th for about five months now, so it’s nice to get it out. Go Hawks!
*Darrel's Journey: Part 2 - benstackinpaper - 06-12-2020
Nice work! I'm glad to have the best running back in the league on my side!
