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+---- Thread: *The History of the New Orleans Second Line, formerly the Las Vegas Legion (/showthread.php?tid=45313)
*The History of the New Orleans Second Line, formerly the Las Vegas Legion - ztarwarz - 05-05-2023
The New Orleans Second Line are one of 2 teams that joined the league in S2. Home to the best former branding in the league, the New Orleans Second Line has come a long, long way since the days that saw them Retire Many. This team might have the biggest gap between their best days and their worst, so let's see just how they did over their history.
Season 2 through 10
From Retired to Triumphant
From Retired to Triumphant
S2: 3-11
S3: 2-12
S4: 3-11
S5: 1-13S3: 2-12
S4: 3-11
S6: 2-11-1 (Changed name to New Orleans Second Line)
S7: 4-10
S8: 9-5 (Darren Smallwood wins MVP and OPOY) (1-1 in Playoffs, 1st Ultimus berth)
S9: 12-2 (Darren Smallwood wins OPOY) (2-0 in Playoffs, 2nd Ultimus berth and 1st win)
S10: 11-3 (Borkus Maximus III wins MVP) (1-1 in Playoffs, 3rd Ultimus berth)
This is perhaps the easiest decade of any that I can simultaneously appreciate for how good part of it is and laugh at how abjectly awful another part of it is.
The Las Vegas Legion ceased to operate as the Las Vegas legion after 4 seasons, during which they went 9-47 for a 16.1% win rate. Something tells me no team, not even a specific branding of a team, will match that low for their entire existence's record. Once you get past the first 7 seasons, though, the newly christened Second Line became the 3rd team to go to 3 Ultimus in a row, even if they were less successful than the Otters and Outlaws at actually winning once they got there. Their ability to make the Ultimus every time, though, gave them a playoff record of 4-2. Their overall record, though? 47-78-1, for a 37.6% win rate. It's actually impressive that they managed to drag their win rate almost to the level of San Jose after how poorly they started out. I believe they surpassed the Yeti, actually. A large part of this has to be put on the shoulders of Darren Smallwood and Borkus Maximus III, who somewhat monopolized the offensive side of the major awards in the final 3 years of the decade. I'm not sure there will be a single bigger difference between any team's first 3 years of the decade and their final 3 years.
Season 11 through 20
A Run Ends Abruptly
S14: 4-10A Run Ends Abruptly
S11: 11-3 (2-0 in Playoffs, 4th Ultimus berth and 2nd win)
S12: 4-10 (Vladimir Fyodorich wins OPOY)
S13: 6-8 (Julian O'Sullivan wins MVP, tied with 2 others, and DPOY)
S12: 4-10 (Vladimir Fyodorich wins OPOY)
S13: 6-8 (Julian O'Sullivan wins MVP, tied with 2 others, and DPOY)
S15: 2-12
S16: 6-7
S17: 4-9
S18: 5-8 (Forrest Gump wins OPOY)
S19: 8-5 (1-1 in Playoffs)
S20: 7-6 (1-1 in Playoffs)
The Second Line's record this decade was 57-78 for a 42.2% win rate. After going to the Ultimus for 4 straight years, following in the Otters' footsteps, New Orleans would pull an extremely un-Otterlike move after Season 11; 7 straight years of missing the playoffs and never having a winning record. Not even playing 2 games against a winless Copperheads team in S16 was enough to get the squad to 7 wins. The last 2 years were extremely similar: get the 2nd seed with an above .500 but not outstanding record, use that 2nd seed to advance to the Conference Championship, then lose before the Ultimus. Side note, I'm somewhat surprised that an 11-3 team, the best record in the league, that would go on to win the Ultimus, would go without any major award for the squad. Overall, this decade seems to me like a little bit better version of the S31-S40 Silverbacks, winning an Ultimus with the previous decade's corps, going adrift immediately after winning the title, just with a slightly better win percentage and some award wins during the downtime. Also, one more playoff appearance. This is not exactly a good, or even average decade for the Second Line, though; 3 playoff appearances in this period of time especially is pretty low, as is that win rate. They, for the second straight decade, had a 4-2 playoff record.
Season 21 through 30
Stability, but not really Greatness
S22: 8-5 (0-1 in Playoffs)Stability, but not really Greatness
S21: 9-4 (3-0 in Playoffs, 5th Ultimus berth and 3rd win)
S23: 9-7 (0-1 in Playoffs)
S24: 9-7 (0-1 in Playoffs, slightly less dumb version of S26 playoff berth)
S25: 7-9
S26: 9-7 (David Rector wins DPOY) (2-1 in Playoffs, 6th Ultimus berth)
S27: 9-7 (Ben Slothlisberger wins MVP) (2-1 in Playoffs, 7th Ultimus berth)
S28: 5-11
S29: 9-7 (0-1 in Playoffs)
S30: 5-11
This period of time is somewhat confusing to me; it feels like a slightly lesser version of the Sabercats from the same period; right after they won back to back Ultimus with middling teams, the Second Line went to 2 straight Ultimus with middling teams. This decade, the Second Line in general was middling to above average. With a 79-75 record overall, a 51.3% win rate, going to the playoffs 7 times with a 7-6 record, this is a decade that feels like it would go mostly unnoticed overall if not for three runs to the Ultimus over the decade. This is the same number as the Wraiths and the Yeti, yet it felt differently for those two, as the Wraiths won all 3 Ultimus trips this decade, while the Yeti went 1-2 and got upset twice. In comparison the S26 and S27 runs from the Second Line had them going to play spoiler and failing. Ben Slothlisberger is one of the funniest MVPs ever, as he is maybe the sole QB to win MVP that I don't think anyone has tried to get in the Hall. And it's not like he didn't deserve the MVP award or anything, it's just that the MVP season was an extreme outlier for him. In some ways, this decade feels almost crafted to be a mediocre team who garnered a ton of playoff berths, with how many pileups and tiebreakers they ended up benefitting from to get to the playoffs 7 times with a record 4 games above .500. Basically every stat for the decade has the Second Line come in at a tiny bit above average; 1 Ultimus win is above average for the decade, same with 3 Ultimus berths, 7 playoff appearances when the average would be about 5, 2 major award wins is a little below the baseline but not much, all in all an above average decade almost every way you look at it.
Season 31 through 40
An Actual Nothing Decade
S32: 6-10An Actual Nothing Decade
S31: 6-10
S33: 3-13
S34: 8-8 (0-1 in Playoffs)
S35: 6-10
S36: 7-9
S37: 9-7 (0-1 in Playoffs)
S38: 8-8
S39: 8-8 (1-1 in Playoffs)
S40: 6-10
Over these 10 seasons, the New Orleans Second Line went 67-93 for a win rate of 41.9%. This is not their lowest win rate, their first 9 seasons had a much lower one. They're not that far off from their second decade of existence either, just 0.3% lower. They went to a below average but not abysmal number of playoffs at 3, actually the highest number for this decade of the 4/7 ASFC teams I've covered. (The last 3 teams have 21/30 appearances for the decade, sheesh.) And yet this FEELS like the worst decade for the Second Line. For the first time, they had a losing record in the playoffs at 1-3. They missed out on the Ultimus for the entire decade, again the first time in their history. They didn't have the excuse of Retiring Many or anything of the sort this time. They just made absolutely no impact. This won't even contain their worst stretch, the beginning of the franchise was way too bad for it to be anything but that. It just feels off.
Overall Stats
More than just all time records here
All Time Record: 250-324-1 (43.6% win rate)
Playoff Record: 15-13
Ultimus Record: 3-4
Playoff Berths: 16 over 39 seasons, 41.0%
Hall of Famers: 15 (Bovovovo [GM], Alexander LeClair, Darren Smallwood, Julian O'Sullivan, Blackford Oakes, Brian Mills, Borkus Maximus III, Vladimir Fyodorovich, Forrest Gump, Quenton Bode, David Rector, Austin McCormick, Givussafare Rubbe, Andrew Witten)
Major Award Wins: 4 MVPs, 4 OPOYs, 2 DPOYs
Best Team Period: S8-S11 (4 playoff berths, 4 Ultimus Appearances, 2 titles, 2 MVPs, 2 OPOYs (1 MVP and OPOY are the same season), 43-13 record over 4 seasons, 76.8% win rate)
Worst Team Period: S2-S7 (15-68-1 record over 6 seasons, 18.1% win rate)
I have general ideas about how good and bad teams are in the league; some of it is biased from having joined in the S25 class, so teams that were good around that time made a bigger impact in my mind; but I also picked up a decent amount of league history knowledge. The New Orleans were a team that simultaneously had an extremely negative meme attached due to their time as the Las Vegas Legion, but they also had a stable of legendary users and players. Going to 7 Ultimus was more than the vast majority of teams at the time, and when I started this project in the offseason, I thought that NOLA would be in the running for the greatest franchise outside of the original six.
So far, my preconceptions have lined up with reality: San Jose is a franchise that has not had a great team since Joilet Christ was in the league, but won two straight Ultimus that take them from an easy last to merely a contender for the spot. Orange County is a franchise that has been poor for the last 15 or so seasons, and yet is still one of if not the single greatest franchise in the ISFL's history due to how strong their first 25 seasons were. The Silverbacks are a new team without much history but have had too much success to be a contender for last.
This time, my preconceptions were on the other side from reality. New Orleans has had one period of greatness, a 4 year stretch that is about as good as any other in league history, but has very little outside of that stretch. I knew about the Legion and how awful they were, but I didn't expect New Orleans to remain below .500 if I took out all of the Legion seasons. Even if I took out the Second Line's first 6 seasons of at least 10 losses, New Orleans would remain 21 games under .500. And yet, simultaneously, this is a team with a lot of history; the franchise's 15 total Hall of Famers ranks 4th all time, above teams like Arizona and Colorado; the award total is more respectable than it is amazing, but 10 major awards (2 from the same season) over 39 seasons is nowhere near the worst total or rate in the league.
On the other side of the scale is the bit I've been dancing around; there are very few stretches that match the start of this franchise for pure futility and woefulness, the team hasn't had a 10 win season since S11 and hasn't had a season better than 9-7 since S22, and all this leads to a statistic that shocked me when I saw it: Of the 4 teams that I've done so far, the New Orleans Second Line has the worst record. Being worse than the Otters is not surprising or shocking, but having a worse win rate than the Sabercats or Silverbacks was unexpected, at least to me.
So the question becomes, where do I put them compared to the Silverbacks and Sabercats? They have a much better trophy cabinet and hall of fame roster compared to either of them, and have been to 3 more Ultimus than the Sabercats over the same time period. It's pretty easy for me to put New Orleans over the Sabercats, considering that the teams are only one or two good/bad seasons from swapping places in all time win percentage, while the Second Line has a huge advantage in especially the playoff berth percentage. However, the Silverbacks are much harder to place below NOLA. While New Orleans has 5 more Ultimus trips and one more win, as well as a lead in Playoff berth percentage, that lead is actually pretty small; if the Silverbacks make the playoffs in S41 while the Second Line fails to (which, let's be frank, seems exceedingly likely as of now), then the playoff berth percentage actually flips to New York's favor. Not only that, but the Second Line is one of four teams that has been in a title drought for longer than the Silverbacks have been in the league.
Maybe it's just a little hard to judge teams like this, who often bottom out but also have strong players in their history and have their records clustered in such a way to go to a good number of playoffs compared to their overall win rate.
I think at this point I'm going to place New Orleans as a preliminary 3rd of my 4 ranked teams; we'll see how the final 3 franchises of the ASFC stack up and then move on to the NSFC. I'm sure @negs can hardly wait.