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+---- Thread: *The Honolulu Hahalua vs. The Worst Teams of All Time Pt. 4 (/showthread.php?tid=42989)
*The Honolulu Hahalua vs. The Worst Teams of All Time Pt. 4 - nickyvmlp - 01-24-2023
And so here we are. What all of this losing has been building towards. No one actually wants to tank as their first choice, it’s an unfortunate byproduct of the Process. But after it’s all said and done, hopefully these teams can come out the other side and at least be able to show off their shiny new toys that they got from having such good draft picks.
Part 4: Was It Worth It?
We begin, as always, with S38 Honolulu. Their story is still in the process of being told, but there’s definitely at least some signs of progress that you can point to. In the S39 Draft, they cashed in their many picks to land several future stars. At #1 overall, they landed CB Seth Leavitt, who Honolulu’s GM had no problem admitting he was tanking for. At #10, they got an absolute steal in Maxwell Jacob Friedman, someone whose user has been around since the very beginning of the league. At #13, they selected Dick Grayson, a WR who also has a proven track record in the league, and could be in line for a call-up next season. And they even got to spend their second round pick on GM in a spot where finding an active player may’ve been difficult. At #26, they selected Luigi Lanakai, giving them a one-two punch for the future at corner, guaranteeing that nowhere on the field is safe to throw on.
Through 14 games of the S39 season, they’ve already shown improvement, winning against Cape Town, Orange County, and San Jose, and being competitive in a few other games this season. They’re almost certainly going to end up with the #1 overall pick again in this upcoming draft, barring a complete anti-collapse, and there’s some top end talent for them to look at this season. I did say that they should target someone like Liv Elsathelookout, but honestly, trading down would be a pretty good idea in order to fill out the rest of the spots on their porous defense. They do have to use their latest second round pick on their GM again this season, OL Raya Ho’opa’i, and that’ll give them at least some presence along their offensive line, but this draft should mostly focus on defense. For that reason, they might trade away a few of their four third round picks for future picks, since the players in the third this season might take a little longer to turn around and are mostly on offense.
Most of their top level players are active, but there’s just a need for more of them, which is why trading down would be such a viable option for them. Their three best players right now are their offensive core of Nova Montagne, Bean Delphine Jr, and Leek Mai-Heinous. Delphine and LMH are both well over 1100 yards in their respective categories, with Mai-Heinous actually second in the league right now in receiving yards. He’s been going tf off over the second half of the season, and considering his performance in the winless season was almost as good as this one, he’s basically cemented himself as one of the best receivers of this generation. Waluigi Gronkowski isn’t far behind, and has been a solid 2A option alongside Rodka Raskolnikov, an IA receiver who’s keeping Dick Grayson’s seat warm until he’s ready for his call-up. And speaking of future call-ups, I don’t think they were expecting much from late-round RB flier, Henry Oswald-Newman, but since the draft, he’s been putting in the work, and could be called up next season to be a change-of-pace back for Delphine. Not bad for one of the last picks in the S38 Draft.
On defense, it’s still a little rougher. They basically have four active players on their entire defense, those being the people they picked up in the last two drafts. Caleb Hayden from S38, and all from S39, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, Seth Leavitt, and Luigi Lanikai. Hayden is second in the league right now in tackles with 117. Friedman has 14 TFLs, tied for the league lead, and is probably the front runner for Defensive Rookie of the Year. And Leavitt and Lanikai have been good corners, who are still learning the ropes from veteran IA Lip Gallagher. Gallagher might have another season in him if Honolulu really wants to bring him back, but Leavitt and Lanikai will be the undisputed #1/2 corners come next season.
They still have a way to go, though, before they can start making claims of their future success. They’re dead last in the league in a ton of defensive metrics. Points, yards allowed, sacks, rushing yards, forced fumbles, the works. Much has already been said about 54 TPE defensive tackle Howie Dewitt, but even their best defensive lineman for this season is probably about to be auto retired from regression. It’ll have to be addressed at some point this offseason. Less discussed is their safety corps, which has two players hovering in the 300 TPE range, and both are very close to regression. Another big problem to fix. And last up is their specialist, deep in regression, with maybe one more season of viability. Considering where this organization was about a season and a half ago, having solved that many of their problems is a great sign for the future of where they’re going.
Now onto Baltimore, and they too had a pretty hefty draft after their winless season. The Archstone/May trade ended up netting them the #2 overall pick in the draft, to go along with their own #1 overall pick, With those top two picks, they selected two players who are still contributing to the Hawks to this very day, Luke Quick and Busch Goose. Quick is right now in the top 10 all-time in both receptions and yards, and top 12 in receiving touchdowns. His partner in crime, Busch Goose is also right up there as one of the best to ever play his position. Over 15,000 total yards and 120 TDs, he probably has one more season in him if he wants to try and get that 10K rushing yard total all-time, but his legacy is secure right now, and both men are possibly Hall of Fame bound. Also in that draft was another receiver, Chunt the Badger. (That sounds like a swear.) Chunt was a solid receiver for the Hawks, hitting 1000 yards in her rookie season, but by her third season, she was flipped to New York before going IA, and quietly finishing out her career there as a serviceable #2 corner behind Dukburg Quakstak. Makoa Mahi’ai was a solid tight end for a few years, and an even better corner over the last few years of his career. David Ramczyk played for a few seasons for them, and was just an ok DT, and everyone else never made it to the league. But still, that’s a pretty beefy draft in a year that only had maybe three rounds worth of active players. They ended up with two receivers, a running back, a tight end, and a defensive tackle, that’s a very good draft.
Season 28 saw some solid improvement, both Quick and Chunt were 1000 yard receivers straight away, Chet Larson led the league in tackles, Ben Stackinpaper had multiple pick-sixes, there were quite a few contributors on this team. However, the next draft is what brought it all together. They completed their running back corps with Dante King at #1 overall, added Lip Gallagher at #3, added two more decent starters with their other two first round picks in Will Smyth and Tre’mendus Johnson. And then there’s the final piece, late in the second, Gimmy Jaropollo Jr. An almost instant starter, he would end up having a career that would see him finish top 10 all-time in passing yards and touchdowns.
Baltimore’s success didn’t happen overnight. They never went down in wins from season-to-season, but they lingered outside the playoffs for several more seasons until finally, it clicked in S33. They went from 5 wins to 11 in one swift jump, and shocked the world by winning Ultimus XXXIII. They went from winless to champions in just six seasons, a little longer than the expansion Copperheads, who actually only took four seasons to make that jump, but it hit all the same signs as the first run of the Copperheads.
And then there’s the Yeti. In Season 6, they went winless, but through a bunch of earlier trades, they ended up with an enormously busy first round. Five of the first eight picks of the Season 7 Draft were selected by the Yeti, and the haul that they took away from it was… kinda meh. Howard Miller went #1 overall, and had a good career, and was maybe the best receiver in the league for a three-year stretch, but is kinda forgotten about these days. Mark Grau was a decent running back who only had a single 1000 yard season in his career, and was seemingly better suited as a backup. Ryan Lefevre was one of the biggest busts in league history, going #5 overall and only playing for three seasons in the league. He never even hit 100 TPE, and was a first round pick. I do not understand things. Desta Danger faired a bit better, lasting seven seasons, but was never more than just a decent slot corner. And finally, there’s Ryan Applehort, probably the best player they drafted that season. Applehort started out rough, like early Pierno rough. But he steadily improved with every season in Colorado, but he eventually left for Baltimore, and later Yellowknife. He was a solid quarterback, but he never lit the league on fire, and the closest he’d ever get to ultimate glory was his lone season in Baltimore, where he would lose a heartbreaker in Ultimus XI. And in the second round pick, they picked TE Alvin Chipmunk, who is notable for existing.
So that’s their S7 draft haul: a collection of solid to outright bad players, but no one who really moved the needle. It sure would be a shame if they missed out on some great players despite all those tries, OH WAIT. Since this was back in the eight-team era, there were only eight picks in the first round, and the other three players in the first round were… let’s just say, significant. With the second overall selection, Baltimore selected Verso L’Alto, perhaps the greatest tight end in the history of the league, 8th all-time in receptions, 13 seasons in the league (all with Baltimore), and was a first ballot Hall of Famer. With the third overall pick, Orange County selected Vladimir Fyodorovich. He started as a corner, but after getting traded to New Orleans when Jaylon Broxton accepted the GM position in Orange County, he moved to receiver, and was an absolute stud there for the rest of his also incredibly long career. He finished top 4 in receiving yards for five straight seasons, finished his career with 10K receiving yards despite not moving to receiver until he was nearly in regression, and was a second-ballot Hall of Famer. And finally, with the eighth overall pick, Orange County also selected Mason Brown, one of the best linebackers of his era. Multiple time Linebacker of the Year, multiple time Ultimus Bowl winner, maybe the best player on a team going through a dynasty, and (once again) a first ballot Hall of Famer. For those keeping score at home, that means the Yeti went 0-5 on finding Hall of Famers in the first round of this draft, while the rest of the league went 3-0. You. Hate. To. See. It.
But at the very least, at least all of this suffering would eventually produce something good at the end of their first season together. Sure, they weren’t the best players they could’ve gotten, but at least they were building a culture, and were able to end their losing str*BUZZER SOUND*. Nope, they went winless again in Season 7, which means I have more to talk about.
Even though the Yeti picked up all this young talent, the big news surrounding the Yeti had to do with the departure of their first great star, Boss Tweed. Two of Colorado’s first round picks in the S7 Draft, as well as their second round pick, were acquired in a blockbuster deal that sent Tweed to the Wraiths. If the winless season wasn’t a clear enough sign that this team needed to start over, trading away their franchise player for a bunch of maybes was, and it wouldn’t be the only major trade the Yeti would do that season.
To start the season, Colorado was brutally paired up against the best team in the league that season, and the team that was now employing their former icon, the Yellowknife Wraiths. Colorado, however, actually was giving Yellowknife a good fight and were leading over Yellowknife 15-10 heading into the fourth quarter. However, Yellowknife would score 16 unanswered points in the fourth, and would walk away with a 26-15 win. Aaaaaaaaand collapse. Colorado wouldn’t hold a lead again until Week 6 against San Jose. Colorado would lose that game 23-20, in a game that honestly wasn’t that close. They would hold a lead exactly one more time for the rest of the season, briefly leading 3-0 over New Orleans before they would score 38 unanswered points on them in Week 8. After a Week 10 loss to Philly, they would ship Carlito Crush off to Orange County in exchange for an S8 first and a couple of rental players. On the same day, Ricardo Sandoval got moved to San Jose along with a couple of late round picks for Dan Miller. This one was actually a pretty nice win for the Yeti, since Miller had some of his best seasons as a Yeti, and the players the Sabercats got didn’t really amount to much, so mark that as a rare-for-that-time W for the Yeti. They certainly weren’t finding many Ws on the field though, as they were routinely embarrassed all the way through the season, losing six games by at least 30 points, and averaging less than 10 points per game, which I’m almost positive is the worst scoring offense of all time. Seriously, I’ve seen baseball teams average more points than that.
Things did eventually turn around for them, at least to some extent. Despite missing again with their #1 overall pick, selecting average as hell Rickey Ramero over the likes of Childish Gambino, William H. Harrison, and the Pennington twins, the Yeti did finally see some success, winning a game(!!!) in Week 4 of Season 8 against Arizona, along with five more over the course of the season. For the next few seasons, the Yeti stayed in that 6-9 win range, which is pretty nice compared to where they were in the years prior. However, they plateaued in that area, and while they made the playoffs a couple of times, and even made it to Ultimus XIII, they never made it to the promised land with this corps, and Yeti fans would have to wait until Season 22 before they were finally able to hoist the Ultimus Cup.
So, what have we learned from all of this? Well, I’ve learned that the Hahalua probably still have a ways to go before they’ll be contending for Ultimuses. (Ultimi? Ultimes?) There are some stacked teams in the league right now, and even some of the struggling teams right now are built to become contenders sooner rather than later, like Berlin and Baltimore. But as long as they don’t give up, and continue to build their culture together, they will see results eventually. Both Baltimore and Colorado made it to the Ultimus six seasons after their last winless seasons, with Baltimore winning theirs. And I believe that Honolulu will make it there someday, hopefully with this current corps. Good luck, Honolulu.
RE: The Honolulu Hahalua vs. The Worst Teams of All Time Pt. 4 - Greenbaynathan - 01-24-2023
Ultimukset