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+---- Thread: *Current NOLA players and all-time leaderboards (/showthread.php?tid=32041)
*Current NOLA players and all-time leaderboards - JuOSu - 05-11-2021
After updating the yearly NOLA top ten lists I wanted to take a look at where some of our current players rank on some all time leaderboards and also what their projection is going forward in terms of where they might end up. I think it's fascinating to look at these all time leaderboards and see how well someone is doing on them. I think I especially wanted to check this out after this recent update because I saw how well Ed Barker was doing in comparison to some of our other legendary players of the past and it made me look up how well he is doing.
But let's look at some interesting cases on our team and their place in the ISFL history.
Ben Slothlisberger is the first person I want to look at. The legendary quarterback has won an MVP in recent times and has had some excellent seasons in his career. His shortened career may end up keeping him out of the hall of fame, but he has had an excellent career. As a former NOLA quarterback, I am always especially curious to compare that. While Ben will not get close to some of the franchise records that Borkus Maximus III set for NOLA, he will likely pass Stan Francisco for 2nd place in the team history. Where will that rank him in the league?
Currently Sloth finds himself at 25th overall in yards. He will have another season at quarterback which should get him to at least 18th in my estimation. If he has an excellent year, he could potentially go a step or two higher but I think 18th is where he will end up in yards. In touchdowns, Ben Slothlisberger is already 23rd, so a bit higher than with yards. I think similar to yards, another season will push him higher still. If he has 30 touchdowns, he would go all the way into 14th overall. With just 20, he would be closer to 18th again. I guess it will be interesting to see where he ends up. My guess is he ends up in 15th. Another great success for him!
Right now, he is also 11th in passer rating. I actually think that Sloth has an outside shot at the hall of fame, even with the shortened career now. I think he had a great career and he has the MVP on top of it. I think he has a chance to make it!
Our running backs are still far too young to look at all time stats, so next we will look at wide receiver and tight ends and we have a couple interesting cases to look at there.
Austin McCormick was a legendary tight end for NOLA and apparently his career is now over so we can look at his final stats. Currently he ended his career with 694 catches, which ranks him 12th all time. He has 7,081 yards which puts him 41st all time. This includes both Wide Receivers and tight ends though. I am sure among tight ends he would rank very highly. He has 43 touchdowns which also puts him in a similar range, 44th all time. Currently there are only two tight ends in the Hall of Fame, Paul Di Mirio and Verso L'Alto. Both had better careers than McCormick I would say. Though McCormick is at least in range of L'Alto in some statistics. I think it will be interesting to see how people vote on him!
On the other hand we have the aforementioned reason for this article, Ed Barker. He has been a beast for NOLA and according to him directly, he plans to play 2, maybe 3 more years in the league. Obviously going through regression means that he might not be as good anymore in the next two seasons. Where does he rank currently? Well in catches he has 549 and ranks 39th all time. Yards wise he is even better. His 9,015 yards rank him 26th all time already. Touchdowns are similar. With 57 touchdowns he ranks 24th all time. He just comes off a season where he had 114 catches and 1711 yards with 14 touchdowns. Even if we assume some regression and say that in his next two seasons he takes a step back, I would say it is still plausible for him to reach something like 150 more catches and about 2000 more yards and about 15 more touchdowns.
If he did reach that, he would get to about 700 catches, which would put him 11th all time. 2000 more yards puts him around 11000 yards which puts him in the top ten already. 15 more touchdowns put him at 72, which equals the top 10 as well. Barker may be further helped by the fact that he probably still ends up as the main WR1 for NOLA next season unless something dramatically changes. If that is the case, I think those above predictions are very conservative and he may end up with even slightly more. And if he decides to add a third season still, even as a WR3 or such, he would be able to add even more stats to that list and likely end up in top 5 spots for some of these statistics. I think we are easily able to say that Ed Barker is going to be a Hall of Famer one day. What a career he has had and continues to have. I can't wait to see where he ends up statistically by the end of his career, really exciting stuff!
Defensively we have some interesting candidates to look at as well.
Andrew Witten currently has 109 pass deflections, which puts him 42nd all time. According to what I have heard, he still has a few more seasons to go, which would definitely push him upwards quite a bit. He had 21 this season. Even if we just assume he will get worse over time, I think it's realistic he could easily reach the top 20 which would need 142, so 33 more. Top ten is a big harder at 168, which would definitely need a few more seasons. Tackle wise he is currently 106th all time, but he just came off of a season with over 100 tackles. I imagine he will reach the top 50 easily and push higher still. Interceptions he has 20 so far which puts him 42nd overall. Top ten would need 32 interceptions. I think this one will be tough but potentially doable if he has a few more good seasons out there.
Mason Blaylock has left time left compared to Witten but has also had a great career. Tackle wise he is currently 57th all time. One more season for Blaylock could push him into the top 50 for sure. For a safety, he has some great sack numbers, and is already in the top 50 there in sacks, currently ranked 50th actually. Another season will hopefully push a few more sacks in there and secure his place there. His 21 interceptions are 38th all time. I really like his career and will be interested to see where he ends up as well!
Wouldn't be an article from me without talking about my own player. Medicinal Toblerone had a great start to his career in the old sim but the new sim has slowed him down tremendously. In tackles, I currently rank 377th, which as a Defensive End is really not my specialty. It will be cool to see how I can climb that rank every season though potentially. Tackles for loss started out as my specialty, as a defensive end. In the old sim that was the best statistic to try and get. I actually had 29 tackles for loss in my first two seasons in the old sim. After the switch, I have only had 9 in two seasons since. The slowdown has caused me to climb the ranks slower than I anticipated. My 38 total rank me 67th already though. My goal was to break the all time record in this statistic, which I think will be very tough due to the new sim. Even the best DE's don't seem to get many tackles for loss anymore. I think we can only really assume something like 5 a season. I guess my goal now is to at least break the NOLA record of Lo Rax who has 82 and is currently 7th all time in the league.
Forced Fumbles seems to be a decent one for me now. I have 6 in my career, also already in the top 100. Hard to predict the future here. In sacks, I have 30 and am 153rd all time. Definitely still also a statistic where I should be able to grow a lot. This year I only had 4 but the season before that I had 12, even in the new sim. I am hopeful I can average something like 8-10 in the rest of my career and climb that list a lot. Top ten is definitely a goal for me here as well and I think that seems doable perhaps. I intend to have a long career. I just need to improve a bit over last season. Even a few sacks every season would help me grind that list a lot.
Looking at the current season's index and also the all time list of records and such I think that we will see a lot of changes to all time records pages. At a quick glance, I could see quarterback stats being one area that could be broken. We just saw the best season ever when it comes to passing yards in a season. Rushing touchdowns is another one that seems to be very very high now all of a sudden. As we see with passing yards, obviously receiving yards would also be up now. That obviously bodes well for Ed Barker but also for a lot of younger receivers that are only just starting their career. Could be a great way to break some records coming up.
Pass deflections are another obvious one, where most of the top seasons came in the last two seasons. In the same way we see the same with punts inside the 20. That one looks like it will be absolutely crushed and it won't even be close. Lots and lots of categories that should see improvements for career records. I think tackles for loss seems to be one of the only categories that has been completely nerfed in terms of league stats.
I wonder if the issue with tackles for loss is connected to the issue of making running backs slightly better when the sim change happened. I remember that was a big deal for a few days when that change happened. It feels like maybe the league can do something to try and also help that category out, otherwise it feels a bit rough for those Defensive Ends and Defensive Tackles in the league.
I am not sure what the league can do to fix that issue while not also fucking over someone else in the process. I guess there is not really an easy fix like there is in the PBE where the sim has very simple ways to adjust statistics and make them more common or less common. I guess there could be a fix if you buff the defensive line positions, but then you risk making running backs worse I guess? I wonder if someone who knows the sim better than I do could tell me what the process is like there or if there is anything that could be done.
I think it will be interesting to follow the career statistics and see who ends up breaking them. I think the people that created players a couple seasons ago or maybe currently, are in a position to really pick what they could achieve. You know, making a wide receiver might end up with some huge career records. Or perhaps a cornerback with pass deflections. Punters will definitely crush some records too, though that is a less popular choice anyway.
I will admit that there is a part of me that wishes I had started my player a couple seasons later and I likely wouldn't have ended up on the defensive line. That being said, I will still continue to try and do my best with my player and will earn TPE as best as I can. I think the sacks list is still doable in terms of some career numbers, and even if I go slow on the rest of the statistics my goal is to just climb the leaderboards as best as I can every season and then see where I end up by the end.
But yeah from what I am seeing, DEs got screwed a bit with tackles for loss and DTs got screwed a bit with sacks. While everyone gets more sacks now, it is still mainly Linebackers dominating those lists, but at least defensive ends are still also a lot better. Defensive Tackles however seem to have lost that strong statistic for their position as well. They don't really seem to be strong in any particular statistic now. So I think a buff for DEs and DTs could be in order, or perhaps just more tackles for loss.
This article has gotten a bit off topic at this point, so I will leave the topic with this back on topic summary: I think Ben Slothlisberger had a great career and could be a borderline Hall of Famer. Austin McCormick had a beast career but will be compared to two insane players at his positions which will make him seem a bit weaker in comparison sadly. Ed Barker is on his way to be a top ten WR of all time, perhaps even top five if he goes for a third season more in the future. And on defense we have some beasts as well still with Blaylock and Witten. Witten especially could be a Hall of Famer depending on how many more seasons he continues in his career.
I also want to congratulate Mattathias Caliban who broke that quarterback record for most yards in a season. That is a pretty crazy and important record to break and I will be honest, until I wrote this article I absolutely had no clue and it definitely went under my radar. I will definitely keep an eye on that guy's career. I wonder if the league needs to do a better job with this kind of stuff though and highlight records and such more. It feels a bit like the NHL not really doing a good job highlighting Connor McDavid right now. I feel like more can be done to do a better job with that kinda stuff. In general, I think the league could put more emphasis on that aspect of the league history. I guess I will probably write more articles about this kinda thing though and maybe that will be a way to highlight these things as well.
RE: Current NOLA players and all-time leaderboards - Nokazoa - 05-11-2021
I'm in this