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+---- Thread: *Eric Kennedy Returns (/showthread.php?tid=8202)
*Eric Kennedy Returns - SwagSloth - 04-05-2018
In the wake of the last few days, after some further reflection, I’ve decided to make an announcement… Eric Kennedy will not be retiring.
Not yet, at least. Not in a storyline capacity or anything else. Since many people may still have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll take a little time today to speak out-of-character about what’s been going on and why the decision to been made to revert the change.
What Happened: On April Fool’s Day, I made the announcement that Kennedy was being “storyline” retired and replaced by a different character, Booker Thomas. While others have name changed, the idea here was that Booker would be a brand new character while still represented in the sim as the same player (after a position change to Red Zone WR). Thomas would retain Kennedy’s TPE and compete in the NSFL for several seasons, hopefully carving out his own legacy separate from Kennedy’s time on the field.
The Reason for the Change: I have been talking with my team for a while about a new direction. The thinking in drafting the S6 Running Backs was that one of them would inherit the role and Kennedy would move on. However, that next step was never set in stone. There were several discussions with several different players on our team about position changes. As a co-GM, it is important for me to make sure that everyone is happy in their position and I wanted this change to be in alignment with that. A lot of people saw Kennedy changing to WR as a given, but it was never set in stone. Actually, a lot of thought was placed on defensive needs like DT and LB. Ultimately, as we now know, Boss Tweed came over now and will be playing LB, so it made sense for me to go WR as originally expected.
However, I’ve always been very attached to the idea of Kennedy as a Running Back. When he entered the league, my goal was always to be a bell cow RB. The idea of being a receiver never occurred to me until I found myself as a back-up to Bubba Nuck and even then it was basically just a way to get me more involved in the offense. Even when I went Receiving Back, a lot of the thought behind it was that I could continue to catch passes, but still be strong at other stats. Realistically, though, Receiving Back was very unbalanced in terms of its TPE caps and I was glad to see the RB archetypes get put on equal footing. Unfortunately, the result was that my Receiving Back… was now a receiving back and not the “hey, I’m good at everything” type of player he was on track to become long-term. And that was more than understandable, but it was also the catalyst for me finally looking into a position change.
In addition, the Kennedy name is fairly tainted at this point. The success of my S5 season due to the sim favoring RB receivers resulted in a volume that actual WRs of the same TPE could not compete with. Once the results started to roll in, a lot of people accused me of exploiting. Truthfully, that was never my goal. The thought process was more or less that inactive WR DJ Law was our slot guy and I had better stats than him, so we decided to try that out instead. We had no idea that it would work as well as it did. We now know that it ended up working too well. I did a lot of questioning behind the scenes to figure out if we had done something wrong. The exploit isn’t as obvious at slot receiver as it is at outside receiver and I hadn’t done enough raw testing to prove anything, but I suspected that something was off and had my own reservations. The general feeling by late S5 was that something was off, but we weren’t the only team using RBs as receivers and that it was probably something that would get reigned in during the offseason. We prepared for the consequences and assumed that they would come (which I mentioned above and willingly accept). Going into S6, even though the RB receiver exploit was still there, I lobbied hard to become the team’s RB1 and move away from the slot receiver role. As a co-GM, I always try to put the success of our team before my own player. However, I was unhappy with the direction that my player had taken and wanted to get back on that RB1 route. Team struggles in S6 forced me back on the receiver path, but I would argue that Kennedy’s RB performance was decent while he was lined up in that spot. He hit 4.0 YPC and was hardly a bust. Unfortunately, that still put him at the back of the pack for starting RBs. And, to make matters worse, my Strength/Speed/Agility was capped while others were not, so the gap was only going to get wider if he stayed in that role. The Receiving Back is ideal for a slot receiver and, unfortunately, that was the fate I’d doomed myself to. I support the balancing of positions, but this was a change I made when I was behind an active RB1 and I’d probably have gone a different direction if I knew that Nuck would go inactive shortly after I made the change. (This isn’t something I’ve spoken about in such detail yet, so pardon me for going long with that explanation.)
With all of that in mind, the Kennedy experiment seemed to be a failure. I worked several seasons to get out from behind the RB2 role and, when my player finally broke through, the name became tied to an exploit. Several people noted in S5 that they weren’t familiar with my player before I started topping the Wide Receiver stat charts. A few people mistook me for a rookie. I’ve been active on the forum for a long time, so people likely knew the username SwagSloth, but they never connected it with my player because he was always such a mediocre performer. As a result, I was very close to retiring just to get a fresh start. I looked at several positions just as I did with position change, but even with the option to position change still there, a fresh start seemed more appealing.
April Fool’s Day was also a factor. The idea behind the timing of the announcement was that I thought it’d be fun to announce something drastic and unexpected on April Fool’s Day, only to reveal later that it wasn’t a joke. However, the original idea was going to be to have me retire Kennedy with a post in the retirement thread on April Fool’s Day, then actually go through with it. And, if we had a worse season in S6, maybe that would have happened, but the Wraiths are still a strong team and now seems like the wrong time to do that to them. Especially not when I could still change to a needed position. So, then the idea came to me to just name change and treat it as a new player in media posts. I felt it was a creative way to distance myself from the Kennedy name without betraying my vision for the original character. Kennedy would crash and burn, which is actually a very “Kennedy” thing to do if you’ve followed my media over the last year.
The Reason I’m Reverting the Change: In talking with a few people behind the scenes, there are a lot of angles that I hadn’t considered to this. Kennedy’s career is part of the NSFL history, the good and the bad. I was ready to write off his career as a bust; personally, I don’t think S5 should be part of any consideration for his entry into the Hall of Fame and, if you remove that, nothing else in the last 5 seasons entitles me to that kind of recognition. Maybe toss him in a Wraiths Team HoF for being a team player, but the record books were not kind to him outside of one good season. I felt that any HoF consideration would come from S7 onward and, as a result, Booker Thomas would be able to be judged on that alone. Still, even with league storylines, changing a player isn’t as simple as changing a character on a TV show. In sports, there are career stats and those are important aspect of the game. That type of change sets a precedent that could be disruptive for the league down the road. There are a lot of angles to this that I’m sure I haven’t properly considered and that makes me feel that this was the wrong move.
For the record, I’ve spoken to a few HO members, but there was never a direct push for me to stop the change. I approached them to discuss how this would affect us long-term after considered that I didn’t look before I leaped. There was some talk of it in the Wraiths’ Draft War Room as I knew whatever position I chose would affect our draft choices and the character change was a way for me to get around my attachment to the character. For their part, pretty much everyone in the war room thought I was crazy, but supported me, anyway. Because of S5, this is a character that’s tied to the history of the league and perhaps he deserves a longer run even if his name is a bit tainted. His teammates enjoy playing with him. His opponents probably enjoy rooting against him. As a legitimate WR, I’m hoping that Kennedy will be able to put the past behind him and go on to build a better reputation for himself.
What Happens Now: Eric Kennedy is here to stay and he will be position changing to Wide Receiver under his old name. While I’m still very attached to the RB role, his career has really been that of a receiver and I’m going to embrace it. I still love the RB role, but he’s hit his ceiling in that role and we’ve got a player coming up in Robby Rainey that I’m really excited to see take on the starting job. Booker Thomas is going back on the shelf and maybe he’ll return after Kennedy legitimately retires, but that’s still a good way down the road. There’s some media out there that doesn’t quite fit now, but it was posted on April Fool’s Day, so maybe it turned out to be a joke afterall. I want to thank my team and the Head Office of being supportive of my original idea, but in hindsight, I think changing course is the right move for the legitimacy of the league and I’ve decided to make that call while it was still an option (given that the name change hasn’t processed).
Note: If anyone is considering a Calvin Johnson render, I’ve retracted my claim for his likeness. Feel free to claim him. You have my blessing.
* * * *
Since Character Work is important to me, I’ll add an official statement:
“Over the last few days, a large variety of misinformation was presented to the public concerning Wraiths RB Eric Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy would like the NSFL fans to know that he will be returning to action in the S7 as a full-time wide receiver. He has full confidence in the team’s younger RBs and is ready to pass the torch to them, so that he can re-focus his efforts where they are most useful. In preparation for a new role and a long recovery from injuries obtained at the end of the S6 season, Kennedy’s former publishing company released a number of unsubstantiated claims that they presented as facts. We’ve been told that the stunt was part of an April Fool’s Joke gone wrong. After the trade for Boss Tweed, Kennedy did meet with Spike Crown as his expectation was that he was stepping aside to let the young RBs shine and there was some confusion on his part, but we know now that Tweed will be playing LB and Kennedy is excited to see this future Hall-of-Famer join the Wraiths. While there was concern for his health, his doctors have cleared him. He is currently working closely with the team’s coaches to ensure that he properly adapts to the wide receiver role and is able to leave his more dangerous habits from his RB days behind, so that he does not continue to put himself or anyone else at risk. The team is excited to see him embrace this new role and is looking forward to a season that will see both Boss Tweed and Eric Kennedy in exciting new positions.”
2,145 Words
Ready for Grading
*Eric Kennedy Returns - iamslm22 - 04-05-2018
Interesting! Hope to see Kennedy dominate this season as a wide receiver for the (hopefully) third place Wraiths
*Eric Kennedy Returns - 124715 - 04-05-2018
(04-05-2018, 01:01 PM)iamslm22 Wrote:Interesting! Hope to see Kennedy dominate this season as a wide receiver for the (hopefully) third place Wraiths
Wow thanks the love bb
*Eric Kennedy Returns - SwagSloth - 04-06-2018
(04-05-2018, 09:25 PM)124715 Wrote:Wow thanks the love bbI can't even clap back. I legit felt bad for the way they were knocked out last year... even though it got us in. That game 14 was going to be a heartbreaker one way or the other.