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+---- Thread: *Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract (/showthread.php?tid=27250)
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*Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - Memento Mori - 11-10-2020
I wrote the last one in character, but this time I need to be clear about what’s happened in the last few days.
Last week, I let Soup know that I wanted to leave the Philadelphia Liberty. I told him that I wanted him to trade me even though I had an option in my contract because they hadn’t done anything wrong and I loved everyone on the team. The fact of the matter is that Philadelphia isn’t close to competing for a championship. We finished 6th of 7 teams in the NSFC, only ahead of an expansion team. But it’s not because we have a young roster full of potential - our QB, RB1, TE1 and CB2 are regressing or retiring. Some of the teams that finished ahead of us don’t have a single starter regressing.
If you look back at some of our recent draft classes, they’re not great either. Two of our S24 players just opted out. Only one player from our S23 draft class is still on the team - Tycker Om, who went inactive during his rookie season. Looking at our S22 draft class, only myself, J0EB and Lightnoir are still active. Some of our users with inactive or retired players are still around the locker room and I love talking to them, but the roster itself is depleted and the team needs a rebuild. Going into my fifth season and having played one playoff game in my career, I didn’t want to stick around for the 3-4 season rebuild project I could see coming. But I wanted to see them come out of that rebuild with the team in a great place and hoped that my final act as a Liberty player could be to ensure they got some pieces for the future that could help with the rebuild.
On Friday, Soup told me that I had been traded to the Sarasota Sailfish. I DM’d Frost, my new (and old) GM and we were both under the impression that I would officially be a Sarasota player once Sarasota was knocked out of the playoffs or won the Ultimus, as Sarasota had been told by HO that that was when the trade could be made official.
On Sunday, I realise that the Philadelphia LR has been really quiet recently. I’ve not had a notification from the server all day. So I open the discord server, and see that my name isn’t where it usually is. I’m now in the “former Liberty” section. I’d been removed from all the team channels without getting a chance to say goodbye, and hadn’t even been sent a message as a courtesy to let me know. That was upsetting when I’ve been part of the team for more than 6 months and had been talking in those channels every day for that time period. Only J0EB has sent more messages than me in the Philly discord server. And, it was also really frustrating. It made it look like I’d tried to leave quietly without saying goodbye, and I hated the idea that anyone on the team might think that. I wrote the media piece you might have read, wanting to make it as clear as possible that I had no intention of leaving without saying goodbye and trying to somewhat respectfully call them out for it.
I got some nice messages from (former?) teammates, but no apology or explanation from whoever actually kicked me. Disappointing after I did most of Philly’s testing in S22-S24 and did some in S25 as well as stepping in as co-GM for the second half of S24 after Hall left, but I tried to move on and look forward to playing for Sarasota instead. I moved the Sarasota discord server out of my ‘ISFL servers I don’t check’ discord folder and onto the sidebar, unmuted it and familiarised myself with it. I took a look at the roster on the TPE tracker and saw that Frost and Sakro had done an even better job than I thought. A few people worked out where I’d been traded and I was close to just asking Frost or Sakro to let me in the team channels so I wouldn’t have to wait any longer to say hi to those I know and meet those I don’t.
At this point, you might have noticed that Sarasota has been knocked out of the playoffs, but the trade hasn’t been posted. About half an hour after Sarasota had been knocked out of the playoffs, I get a DM from Jeff. I’ve been traded to the Orange County Otters. I gather from conversations with Frost and Jeff that Philly decided to back out of the deal with Sarasota, not tell me, then agree to trade me to OCO, and not tell me about that either. Jeff asked Soup to tell me but he didn’t, so I found out through Jeff.
I’m going to go back in time for narrative effect here. When I stepped down as Philadelphia co-GM, I cried. It wasn’t a single-tear-rolling-down-cheek deal either. I was exhausted. It was the build-up to the S25 draft, and no one else in the war room had started scouting. I spent all of my free time after work having scouting conversations, and I still wasn’t done. I felt really unsupported, and that I was trying my best to turn the team around while everyone else was seemingly fine with the 3-13 season we’d just had. I tried really, really hard. I loved that team. I’ve held some of that feeling ever since and it probably contributed to me wanting to leave rather than sticking out the rebuild.
Asking for a trade when the player could leave for nothing isn’t something I’ve seen in the ISFL before - if anyone has any similar experiences from this league or another league I’d honestly like to hear it because I really thought I could pull this off and try and create a scenario where Philly, myself and my new team were all happy. OCO and SAR both offered Philly 1st round picks and players, players who’d obviously be of help to my new team and to my own chances of success. I only wanted to leave Philly if I could leave Philly in a way that didn’t hurt them, or that hurt them as little as possible. I loved this team and loved the people, and my reward for trying to leave on the best terms humanly possible was no communication, being unceremoniously kicked from the locker room, and being thrown into an awkward and uncomfortable situation where Frost and Jeff - two of my favourite users in the league - have both agreed a trade for me. I’ve not spoken about that last point enough and it’s a really important one for me. Frost was my first GM when he and Cory drafted me to Myrtle Beach back in S21, and Jeff was my GM for about five minutes the next offseason before redacted happened. I would have loved to be reunited with Frost. I would have loved to be reunited with Jeff.
But because I asked for a trade to help Philly when I could’ve just left for free, I’ve been put in a situation where I feel guilty and awkward no matter how this plays out. If I keep my mouth shut and awkwardly go to Orange County, I’d feel guilty about how Frost and Sarasota were treated. If I stand my ground and try and re-engineer the Sarasota trade I’ll feel guilty about screwing Jeff and Orange County around. I can’t even be sure that Philly won’t back out and that I’ll actually be traded to Orange County if I wait for things to play out and this doubt plagued what should have been my first conversation with Orange County as a member of the team last night.
Which is why I’m opting out of my contract and becoming a free agent. Whether by design or through incompetence, the management in Philly have acted with complete disregard towards me and everyone else involved. I no longer want them to come out of this with draft picks and players.
My feelings on Monday were that I’d avoid reacting too much to the way I feel my exit was handled and let things blow over. I didn’t want to burn any bridges or hold any grudges. Now it turns out that you’ve wasted my time, Frost’s time, the time of the rest of the Sarasota WR, and the players who thought they were going the other way. If you’re reading this then I still think after sleeping on it that backing out on Sarasota like that 3 days after agreeing a deal was a dick move. I just posted in the free agency thread.
Come get me, bitches.
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - tMuse - 11-10-2020
miss the goold old "mori slow af in claim thread posting" days.
confusing stuff here, sad that things went down like that.
<3
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - Frostbite - 11-10-2020
:eyes:
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - teddyoojo - 11-10-2020
![[Image: PVzQNFg.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/PVzQNFg.jpg)
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - .simo - 11-10-2020
Well Tomato is happy cause it's not the worst Soup anymore.
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - retrospace111 - 11-10-2020
#JusticeForMori
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - Briedaqueduc - 11-10-2020
i'm so sorry mori :(
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - Mooty99 - 11-10-2020
I am really sorry this happened to you, it also makes me really appreciate the amazing war room at Austin. Hope you find a great new home
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - nunccoepi - 11-10-2020
(11-10-2020, 07:24 AM)Memento Mori Wrote: Asking for a trade when the player could leave for nothing isn’t something I’ve seen in the ISFL before - if anyone has any similar experiences from this league or another league I’d honestly like to hear it because I really thought I could pull this off and try and create a scenario where Philly, myself and my new team were all happy.
I've actually seen this often enough, because there's a lot of nice people in this league who don't want to hurt their former team. So it happens, but it sounds like it wasn't your fault that it went down like this. Sorry to hear that happened to you and I'm sure you'll do well on your next team.
RE: Brandon Booker opts out of Philadelphia Liberty contract - White Cornerback - 11-10-2020
fuck sarver