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*What’s in a Name: Deadly Memes(1/10) - Jaywe88 - 05-15-2022 As the season has started, I find myself having gone too overboard with the betting. I’m not exactly “in the hole” but I do want to buy some equipment eventually. So, dear readers, welcome to one of a few segments that I like to call: What’s in a Name. This is going to be a retrospective I do every once in a while when my wallet is feeling light and the idea of TPE FOMO kicks in (the void calls and I dare not answer it!). Today, I’ll be recapping the career of star RB Deadly Memes (@Z-Whiz). Now I can’t find the wiki for them. I really thought to myself, yeah this is easy. I’ll just spark notes their wiki page for an easy couple million and then check out the sportsbook. NOPE. Nothing. But checking their old update page (and fine, I just asked around), I discovered that Deadly Memes was born under a different name. Let’s dive in~ Gunner Thorbjornsson was 22 years old when they were drafted into the DSFL as a wide receiver. They went to Oregon University(go Ducks). At 6’2” and 210 lbs, they’re a typical WR in today’s terms but they’d use that shiftiness and speed to make a name for themselves in the league. A quick look at their wiki reveals that they were SICK in college but I didn’t go to school there so let me just summarize their college career. Their TD game was nuts as a redshirt sophomore and senior. I hear you saying, but what about junior year, Jason? The tale goes that he mooned the University of Washington Huskies right before the National Championship. This cost his team their leading star WR for an entire season. Pretty severe suspension, egregious on the NCAA’s part. Known for his “Hezzy Hey” juke, Gunner’s YAC numbers were instrumental to his success in his college years. But with such talents, comes the attitude and the DSFL took notice. More specifically, the “Upper Decker of 2035”, cast a suspicious light upon the star WR. Would he be able to rein in his temper? Would he become a liability on the field, even with success? There was no question about his athleticism but his larger-than-life persona was a deep concern as he dropped to the 6th round to be picked up by the Royals with the 46th pick of the 2038 draft. As one of the last WRs on the board, Gunner knew he had something to prove. So he got to work. Freya and Igor Thorbjornsson travelled to Oregon in 2014 for a fresh start after their marriage. The next year, Gunner Thorbjornsson was born in a small town known as Nimrod. Being relatively close to the stadium of the Ducks, Gunner’s fate was sealed. Now having been drafted by the London Royals, Gunner would find himself back on the same continent his family had left all those years ago to play the sport he fell in love with. The London Royals going into S23 were without a few key pieces. Their S22 Linebacker of the Year, Eric Richards and their star WR Nick Kaepercolin had been drafted into the ISFL, leaving the team with holes to fill. Despite going 6-8 the year previous, they actually made it to the Ulti before losing to TIJ in a close defensive bout. S22 did introduce some rookies rising in popularity, namely Colby Jack, Danny King, and Greedy Sly of the 2036 and 2037 Drafts. A little Easter egg on the 2036 draft, we can see Tatsu Nakamura (Remember this name, it’s important to the story) get selected in the fourth round but more on that later. Gunner would slot into the WR3/4 position for the S23 Royals team behind Susan Cash Jr and Tre’Davius J’Vathon  (don’t click that link, it’s a blank wiki page) for the first half of the season. And well… it’s not the prettiest of first halfs I’ve seen. The London Royals are 2-5 in the first half of the year. You look at the passing TDs over the first seven games and go, well there’s the problem. They’ve only scored five through the air so far. Except that’s not the full story. Colby after getting drafted by the Wraiths, is in autopilot and a QB battle with the new rookie QB seems to shake the team in this period of time. Their run game is bolstered by King and Batista so they rely heavily on them for offense. Defensively, the Royals have stars Juan Domine and Busch Light who racks up a combined 20-25 tackles every game. Their secondary is solid with 1OA pick Greedy Sly and safety Bob Bob. The tools of success are all there for the team but they find them scraping the bottom of the standings. In terms of our protagonist, Gunner is buried in the depth chart, there’s not much to say. Week 2 has him break 40 yards though! Week 7 is when we truly start to see a shift. Gunner really starts to pop up a lot more in the post-game credits. Week 7 pits the London Royals against the Buccs. Well, not Bondi Beach but Myrtle Beach pre-relocation. The game will start slow enough with only a field goal between the two teams. A forced fumble recovery by Busch Light and an interception thrown by Colby Jack will be the most impactful action the first quarter sees. A 15 yard pass also finds the hands of Thorbjornsson late in the quarter to help set up the field goal drive. 3-0 LON The second quarter starts out slowly enough with some uneventful drives. The teams seem evenly matched with defense as the main focus of the game so far. A highly intelligent defensive slugfest with no error so fa—wait what is this. But beyond this, it’s fairly uneventful until NOR picks off a pass at their 25 off Colby Jack and drives it in a few downs later to make it 7-3 NOR. Gunner spends this quarter feeling out his corner assignment and dropping a couple hard passes. After another field goal by Norfolk, Sly returns the kickoff for 76 yards in the final minute of the half to put the Royals in field goal range to make it~ 10-3 NOR. Phastbawl, our kicker this story, misses a 37 yarder. Third quarter. London needs to step it up this half if they want to have a chance at the playoffs. Now I want to say that they really amp it up this quarter and take the lead in a seemingly dominant fashion. It’d be really helpful to me as a storyteller for the first significant game for Gunner to be a London win because that really sets him up as a fun protagonist who grows with time. (And boy, with the way I’m writing so far, we’re gonna be here a while.) But sim will sim, right? Anyways, here’s how Gunner helps his team take back the lead in dominant fashion. After another few back and forth drives, we see Gunner catch and run for 33 yards. The most he’s ran so far this season! This drive leads us nowhere but I like to think that it does inspire the sim to trust Gunner more from here on out. The next three-and-out has London getting the ball back after Norfolk punts it on 4th and 1. Gunner grabs a clutch pass on a 2nd and 5 for 20 yards to help set up a Danny King rushing touchdown. The next Norfolk drive gets picked off at the 15 in Norfolk territory to immediately set up another rushing TDs as time expires in the third quarter. 20-10 LON. The London crowd is losing their minds as we get closer to a Royals victory. We see Gunner catch another for 10 yards and that’s that for him this game. London scores another touchdown and field goal this game to secure a 30-10 victory over the Seawolves. I highlight this game as we see the emergence of our protagonist in his WR journey. Gunner leads the team in yards in this game with 78. Sources say this causes a stir in the postgame locker room as Tre’Darius requests a trade. He doesn’t receive it. After this game, we see Gunner lead the team in receiving yards a couple more times as the Royals rally to 7-7 to overcome their first half-of-the-season troubles. Oh hey, look at game 12, Gunner gets his first touchdown of his career against my dear Luchadores team. The royals receiving core is looking really solid going into the playoffs. In the regular season, we see our boy gather 587 yards and 1 TD. Not bad for the WR3/4 receiver he started as. But now it’s playoff time. The Royals have snuck into 2nd place to challenge the Kansas City Coyotes for the NFC Throne! The Coyotes are a “pass first, ask questions later” kind of team this season. They also have a star RB breaking the 1000 yard/10 TD barrier in Kevin Fakon. But the Royals are carried into the playoffs by their stunning defense in Busch Light/Domine/Sly/Bob^2. They finish the session leading in tackles as well as pass deflections. So all in all, it’s a perfect matchup for the Royals. Let’s just ignore that they are 0-2 against the Coyotes this season and call this game what it is. The Revenge game. 0-0 KCC vs LON The first quarter starts rough for the Royals as their backup QB Cortez is sacked in the first drive by Free Safety Jon Bois and they fail to convert on the third down. KCC Quarterback Robert Covington III takes this opportunity to help engineer a slow methodical drive down the field before finishing a 24 yard pass to rookie WR Taylor Cooper for the first score of the game. The rest of the quarter is marred by bad penalties and numerous punts. I’m gonna flip this and say it was a strong defensive quarter for both teams. Our boy Gunner does grab 15 yards in this first quarter so it’s not a total wash. The Coyotes finish the quarter at the London 28 yard line.  7-0 KCC. Second quarter starts with an illegal motion penalty on a Coyote bot. Who knows what they were doing out there, probably Dobbling improperly. This backs up the Yotes to a first and fifteen and would force them to pass to regain yardage. The pass sails through the air and is almost guaranteed to hit the hands of- But who’s there? Why it’s- no way- Juan Domine at the line picking him off! He takes it from the 27 yard line for 59 yards. Coast-to-coast. Little side track here, I looked into his stats at the time. This is an 85 speed linebacker. Insane. But now with the ball in their hands, the Royals have a solid chance of tying the game up. They just… don’t. A couple of small rushes and a sack ends the drive and the FG is good enough to cut the lead down to 7-3. After a weak drive by KCC, the Royals get cooking as they slowly work down the field until receiving a false start penalty on Jacoby Batista. It’s 1st and 15 until Batista makes up for it with a 9 yard gain. Another little rush and it’s 3rd and 3 at the KC 7 yard line. It’s a pass. To who else but the boy, Gunnar Thorbjornsson. His first playoff touchdown. The rest of the quarter is irrelevant as we head to the second half. 10-7 LON. Our third quarter starts off as they usually do. A back-and-forth badminton match of weak drives that peters out. A Royal does get a tripping penalty called on them, which I’ve honestly never seen before in any degree. It’s a 15 yard penalty in case you also didn’t know about it! With the tripping penalty starting off this drive, we get three back-to-back first downs as the Yotes seem to get a strong offensive performance going. On a 2nd and 10, we see a rush. And so does Busch Light as he tackles him and forces a fumble. London ball. The drive starts out with a 12 yard rush. Then, an 18 yard pass to who else? Gunner Thorbjornsson. Unfortunately, we get to a 4th and 1 at the KC 30 yard line and opt to try for a 47 yard field goal. The decision to not go for it on 4th and 1 is a weird choice especially given the field positioning. Especially given the 10-7 score. Especially given that your RBs combine for 2000+ yards. Especially given that giving the ball to Danny King is basically automatic with his league-leading 5.2 YPC(Yards per Carry) average. You get the point. The kick is up and good to give the Royals three. Juan Domine ends the quarter by delivering a huge sack on Covington III. 13-7 LON (sigh). The fourth quarter begins with London up by 6. A touchdown by Kansas would simply be disastrous. I’m just gonna save the trouble and say that Gunner doesn’t catch a ball for the rest of the game. He’s not even targeted. He will finish this game with 48 yards and a single TD. With 90 speed and 70 hands, @Z-Whiz told me that he would joke about not caring about his dropped passes since his speed would make up for it in big plays. Looking at the catches he did have this first season, he’s not wrong. Gunner has a lot of big time catches even if he was buried on the depth chart early on. A 13.3 YPC(yards per catch) is a good start to his career. Games with Gunner making big plays(from my limited sample size of this season) have the Royals winning more often than not. But let’s get back to the game. A few punts back and forth early on give the Coyotes the ball. It takes three minutes for the coyotes to have a balanced attack up to the LON 13 yard line. The Royals need a big stop to preserve the lead. The first pass is incomplete. Second and 10, Covington III finds a wide receiver for 10 yards. It’s 1st and goal as the Coyotes give the ball to their rookie running back Sergio Kitchens. Can you guess what happens next? 13-10 KCC. The Royals run down the field with a slow drive until they fail to convert a third down on their 46 yard line. Punt. It’ll take a defensive miracle to get the ball back. A penalty and a short gain will give KCC 2nd and 5 in their one territory. The pass is in the air until it’s caught cleanly. But it’s not a Coyote. That’s Juan Domine with his second interception of the game to save the Royals season. The Royals start on the 35 yard line with the endzone in view. An initial rush by Colby Jack concedes two yards to make it 2nd and 12. He then spikes it….with 2 minutes to go(??????). 3rd and 12, Colby Jack is sacked to surrender 7 more yards. It’s disastrous. It’s really just hard to watch as they face a 4th and 19. The final pass of the game is thrown by Colby to Tre’Darius J’vathon. But it’s only eight yards. The Royals turnover the ball with 1:40ish to go. With no timeouts, the Coyotes rush the ball three times(and get a first down on the last run just to add insult). That’s a wrap on the Royals season. If you look at the results, the Royals had 99 yards passing and didn’t convert a single time on 3rd down. They had 11 combined receptions on 22 attempts between their two quarterbacks. It’s super hard to win under those conditions. You’d think that pass attempts were blocked at least once but the Coyotes didn’t deflect a single pass. Gunner would end the day as our leading wide receiver. But the Royals defense was doing everything they can to win the game and it just…didn’t happen. The off-season awaits for Gunner as he steps off the field and look to next season. If you’re still reading at this point, I really appreciate the attention span. This series obviously revolves around Gunner but I wanted to highlight the team around him and the key games that shape our boy as he turns into the player we know today. I’m not gonna get to talk about everyone and I’m prepared for your angry pitchforks in my DMs. I think I’ll take this by season so if you’re following along, this is the first season of Gunner’s career. Gunner and the Royals are about to elevate, I promise you. Thanks for reading. 95% to me 5% to @Z-Whiz for answering my questions at all hours lol (surprise!) Words:2795 (besides this) RE: What’s in a Name: Deadly Memes(1/10) - Z-Whiz - 05-16-2022 Hey that's me! Thanks for the article! RE: What’s in a Name: Deadly Memes(1/10) - slate - 05-16-2022 I was hoping this would explain the history of why his player is named "Deadly Memes" RE: What’s in a Name: Deadly Memes(1/10) - Rusfan - 05-16-2022 Bet you won't make an article about Joel Drake RE: What’s in a Name: Deadly Memes(1/10) - zaynzk - 05-16-2022 Imagine spending this much time writing about a bum