09-17-2024, 11:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-27-2024, 04:39 PM by lemonoppy. Edited 1 time in total.)
I was going to get the next player in on the last one, but I actually ran into the character limit for I think the 2nd time ever in the history of making these.
Anyways, let's start with the most openly political of the non Unanimous Inductees.
MARQUISE BROWN
User: @YoungTB
PHI (S10 - S17)
BAL (S14 - S16)
CHI (S18 - S18)
RB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S15)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Offensive Rookie of the Year (S10)
4x Running Back of the Year (S12, S13, S14, S15)
1x Most Valuable Player (S13)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S13)
7x Pro Bowler (S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#6 Career Rush Att (2897.00)
#6 Career Rush Yds (12587.00)
#11 Career Rush TD (104.00)
#20 Career ST KR_TD (2.00)
#12 Career Scrimmage Yds (15643.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#2 Season Rush Att (S10 - 451.00)
#21 Season Rush Att (S12 - 374.00)
#3 Season Rush Yds (S10 - 1902.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rush Att (S10W2 - 41.00)
#13 Game Rush Att (S10W13 - 40.00)
#20 Game Rush Att (S14W14 - 38.00)
#7 Game Other Sacks Allowed (S14W2 - 3.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#23 Career Rush Yds (568.00)
#23 Career Rush Avg (4.77)
#23 Career Rush TD (5.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#12 Game Rush Att (S15W16 - 31.00)
#19 Game Rush Att (S12W15 - 30.00)
#21 Game Rush Yds (S12W15 - 136.00)
#12 Game Rush TD (S14W15 - 2.00)
#12 Game Rush TD (S15W15 - 2.00)
#14 Game Scrimmage Yds (S15W16 - 180.00)
Overall Statistics: 12,587 rushing yards, 104 TDs 4.35 yards per carry
375 receptions, 3,056 receiving yards, 21 TDs
In my opinion, Marquise Brown is the greatest RB who played their entire career in the Old Sim, over Owen Taylor, Darren Smallwood, and anyone else you'd like to name. Sure, he only played 9 total seasons, and his last 2 were not anything special. But in terms of sustained peak, no other RB comes close to Brown in DDSPF16. Before I get into why exactly I think Brown is a slam dunk top 5 RB all time, let's go year by year.
S10 is not a particularly amazing season from the outside looking in, outside of yardage: 4.2 yards per carry was fine but not excellent, it was mostly average among RB1s. Sure, Brown had by far the most volume, with 1900 yards rushing, but he only had 7 touchdowns; a pro bowl season, but not any more. However, there's a bit of context necessary: Brown was playing for the S10 Liberty, one of the worst offenses and overall teams ever. He was the only part of the offense to function basically at all (the QB for the team threw for an astonishing 1 touchdown), and while in my estimation this only deserved the Pro Bowl it got, this was basically a season like 2009 Steven Jackson, where this team would have been the worst offense in league history, instead of merely one of the worst, if not for the contributions of Brown. Granted, he only deserves a Pro Bowl for it, but I just wanted to mention it.
S11 was the last year for a while that anyone not named Brown was going to win an RBotY, but it was still the 3rd best season on the year and an easy Pro Bowl pick: he led the league in yardage, was 3rd in touchdowns with 15, and was 3rd among RB1s in yards per carry. S12 began Marquise's stretch of dominance, as he all of a sudden led the league in rushing by over 200 yards, and was 2nd in touchdowns with 15 again. Add that to 4 receiving TDs and 200+ yards receiving on 30 completions and you have a season that...I think might actually have only been 2nd best on the year. Jerrod Canton was 2nd in yardage, only had 10 TDs, but had a 4.74 yards per carry to Brown's 4.16. If I was voting, Brown would be my 2nd best RB on the season behind Canton. But this was still a great season from Marquise Brown, and nicely sets up next season.
S13 is the year where 3 different players tied for MVP: Julian O'Sullivan, who I mentioned back in part 3 was in my opinion the 2nd best player on the year, Joliet Christ, who I mentioned in part 4 was closer to missing out on a OPOY than deserving the MVP, and Marquise Brown. Brown had the best year that season, no doubt in my mind. 1500 yards, 15 touchdowns, 4.75 yards per carry. That's a great yards per carry in the new sim, much less the old one. Considering that this season also led the league in touchdowns and was only 60 yards behind 1st place, this is one of the single greatest rushing seasons that the Old Sim saw in my opinion. Heck, he even had over 350 yards and 4 TDs receiving, all while not having a terrible yards per reception.
S14 was a step back in efficiency, only 4.29 yards per carry, but Brown's 16 TDs rushing were almost double everyone else, more than enough to overcome the few players with better efficiency and sub 1000 yards to Brown's 1500. I'd argue it could have won the OPOY, although I think it was rightly Joliet's. S15 was Brown's last of his 4 straight RBotY awards, and this one was almost perfect; back over 4.5 yards per carry, 14 touchdowns, and 1500 yards, with only the yards per carry mark not leading the league. This one should have won OPOY in my mind over James Bishop, the actual winner. By S16, Brown began to take a backseat in the offense, and thus was only 4th in the league in yards, with over 1100. But he still led the league in touchdowns with 13, and had a 0.3 yards per carry higher than anyone else with more yards. In my opinion, Brown's 0.3 yards per carry and 4 touchdowns are better than the actual RBotY that season's less than 300 yard rushing yard lead, especially considering Brown almost completely made up the yardage deficit (and added 2 more touchdowns) with his receiving play. Yes, Brown could easily have won 5 straight RBotYs, and even with getting one I don't think he deserved he also still earned 4.
Brown finally regressed in S17 and S18; he was 7th in yards in both seasons, with a 4.17 and a 4.21 yards per carry which were more average than excellent, and he combined for less than 10 touchdowns after 6 straight seasons with 13 or more. Overall, a bit of a sad end to a great career. Marquise is the epitome of burning half as long but twice as bright; he only played 9 seasons, but was at worst the 2nd best RB for 5 of them. He made Pro Bowls the first 7 seasons of his career, and none of them were cheap Pro Bowls. Brown's peak in particular saw a marriage of great volume stats with touchdowns and yards at or near the league lead, while ALSO having all time great efficiency. Owen Taylor is the only player in the old sim who can compare, and his efficient years weren't as long or as consistent as Brown's, even as he got more TDs.
Marquise Brown is a top 5 RB in league history in my estimation, and the greatest one from the Old Sim. The only reason he wasn't unanimous, according to what I've heard, is that his user was toxic. One of the greatest RBs to ever touch the football, as well as the only player from the S22 ballot.
VERSO L'ALTO
User: @nunccoepi
BAL (S7 - S19)
COL (S13 - S13)
TE
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S10, S15)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Offensive Rookie of the Year (S7)
4x Tight End of the Year (S11, S12, S14, S15)
10x Pro Bowler (S8, S9, S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S17, S18)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#14 Career Rec Rec (949.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rec TD (S13W8 - 3.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career Rec Rec (118.00)
#8 Career Rec Yds (1067.00)
#16 Career Rec TD (6.00)
#18 Career Scrimmage Yds (1067.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#5 Season Rec Rec (S11 - 22.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#3 Game Rec Rec (S13W16 - 12.00)
#6 Game Rec Rec (S11W15 - 11.00)
#6 Game Rec Rec (S11W16 - 11.00)
Overall Statistics: 949 receptions, 8,454 yards, 57 TDs
404 pancakes, 4 sacks allowed
Among TEs, these rate 3rd, 5th, and 5th on the top line, and 8th and T-48th, respectively. Among Hall of Fame TEs, L'Alto has the 2nd least sacks allowed.
In general, Tight End in the sim conflicts me. It's almost undoubtedly the weakest position all time, as shown by the fact that L'Alto is arguably the 2nd greatest TE ever despite never crossing 900 yards once. Anyways, in S7 L'Alto was good but not excellent, with an argument for being the 2nd best TE in the conference. S8 began L'Alto's 8 season stretch of Pro Bowls with an absolute whimper: it was completely deserved, as the 4th best TE overall and the 2nd best in the conference, but it was also 611 yards, 4 TDs, on 6.7 yards per catch. S9 was much, much less of a whimper, and L'Alto had the 3rd most yards, the 3rd highest yards per receptiion, and the 2nd most touchdowns (with 3, see above comments about Tight End), and easily made the Pro Bowl. S10 saw L'Alto be the 3rd best TE in the league again, easily making the Pro Bowl despite only having a single touchdown.
S11 was the first of L'Alto's stretch getting 4/5 TEotY seasons, and they are really easy to cover with one exception. In S11, Verso was 20 yards off the lead in yards, but led the position in touchdowns and had a 2 TD lead over the one person with barely more yards, easy TEotY. L'Alto led the league in yards and touchdowns from the position in S12. In S13, L'Alto was merely relegated to the 2nd best season by a TE, despite this being the best season of his career with the highest yards, the highest yards per reception, and tied for the highest touchdowns. S14, he was the best TE because the only person with more TDs only led by one and had 200 less yards than his league leading total.
In S15, L'Alto was easily the best person to actually be listed at TE. He had the most yards and the most yards per reception, leading both categories by a significant amount. He also only got 2 TDs. There was another player with 5, but they had less than half the yards and were over 3 yards per reception worse. There is one notable issue that comes into effect around this time: What about the people who played out of position? There were significantly better seasons labeled as FB at the time. I assume this was some sort of cheat similar to how TEs nowadays are punished for playing a significant chunk of snaps at WR by the All Pro voters, but due to not being in the league at the time and having no first hand knowledge of this controversy, I can't judge whether the better seasons listed at FB should have won; I've been basically going off of "every listed season at TE + the seasons that had to qualify, otherwise an award wouldn't make sense".
S16 was another year L'Alto missed the Pro Bowl. Honestly, this was a bad season from L'Alto, I think there's an argument that he's the 3rd worst listed TE on the year due to having less than 500 yards, no TDs, and less than 7 yards per catch. S17 saw a return to form for L'Alto's 11th year playing, with L'Alto being the 3rd best listed TE. He'd follow that up with a year where he was the 2nd best listed TE in S18, before his 13th and final year saw him act his age as the 2nd worst TE in the entire league.
L'Alto deserves the Hall. I'm not saying otherwise. I just cannot respect a peak season of 879 yards and 8 TDs; that's about 64 yards per game. Sure, it's TE. But even among TEs, that's 69th today, with something close to a half dozen better seasons from DiMirio alone. As far as TDs go it's much better, at T-24, with a few better DiMirio seasons and a couple other old sim seasons tied or better. But overall, L'Alto was a compiler, not a peak player. As far as L'Alto is concerned, he had a significant chunk of his seasons in the 13 game era and never played in the 16 game era, but he's still 3rd in games played at the TE position to Deshawn Penne and Mister Hogmally. I came into this believing L'Alto was arguably the 2nd best TE ever; at this point I'm much less sure. I will say, he was one of the best blocking TEs ever, which is a nice feather in his cap, but I'm not sure enough for that to make me put him 2nd at the position all time.
VINNY VALENTINE
User: @Unicorn (editor's note, there are 2 different users name Unicorn, this may be the wrong one and I'm not entirely sure how I'd check before publishing)
BAL (S10 - S15)
OCO (S16 - S16)
AZ (S17 - S18)
NOLA (S19 - S19)
WR
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S10, S15)
-------------
AWARDS
3x Wide Receiver of the Year (S16, S17, S18)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S16)
1x Returner of the Year (S17)
8x Pro Bowler (S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career Rec Avg (17.62)
#15 Career ST KR (266.00)
#19 Career ST KRYds (6226.00)
#23 Career ST PRYds (1620.00)
#22 Career ST PRLng (86.00)
#2 Career ST PR_TD (6.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#23 Season ST PRLng (S11 - 86.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S12 - 1.00)
#1 Season ST PR_TD (S17 - 3.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S11 - 2.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S14 - 1.00)
#6 Season ST PRAvg (S14 - 18.71)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rec TD (S16W3 - 3.00)
#9 Game Rec TD (S18W13 - 3.00)
#14 Game ST PRYds (S17W13 - 132.00)
#25 Game ST PRYds (S11W1 - 116.00)
#23 Game ST PRLng (S11W1 - 86.00)
#1 Game ST PR_TD (S17W13 - 2.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S17W10 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S17W13 - 6.00)
#20 Game ST KRAvg (S12W9 - 101.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#15 Career Rec Rec (71.00)
#6 Career Rec Yds (1113.00)
#1 Career ST KR (29.00)
#8 Career ST KRYds (655.00)
#4 Career ST PRYds (208.00)
#5 Career ST PRLng (74.00)
#17 Career ST PR (13.00)
#11 Career ST PRAvg (16.00)
#7 Career AllPurpose Yds (1976.00)
#15 Career Scrimmage Yds (1113.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#23 Season Rec Avg (S15 - 18.45)
#19 Season Rec Lg (S11 - 63.00)
#7 Season ST KR (S18 - 8.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S11 - 7.00)
#7 Season ST KRYds (S18 - 237.00)
#12 Season ST PRYds (S14 - 90.00)
#25 Season ST PRYds (S12 - 71.00)
#5 Season ST PRLng (S14 - 74.00)
#9 Season ST PRLng (S12 - 67.00)
#5 Season ST PRAvg (S14 - 45.00)
#6 Season ST PRAvg (S12 - 35.50)
#17 Season AllPurpose Yds (S18 - 470.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#13 Game ST KR (S11W16 - 5.00)
#7 Game ST PRYds (S14W15 - 90.00)
#13 Game ST PRYds (S12W16 - 71.00)
#5 Game ST PRLng (S14W15 - 74.00)
#9 Game ST PRLng (S12W16 - 67.00)
#8 Game ST PRAvg (S14W15 - 45.00)
#9 Game ST PRAvg (S12W16 - 35.50)
Overall Statistics: 621 receptions, 10,943 yards, 75 touchdowns
Vinny Valentine is one of the greatest Old Sim WRs, which you can just tell looking at his awards and his stats. Despite playing nearly half of his career in the 13 game era, and the other half of his career in the 14 game era, he's still 30th in yards and 32 in touchdowns over 136 seasons. That being said, his career absolutely didn't start out well. In S10, he was the 7th target and thus only got 100 yards. In S11, he was promoted to WR2 behind Trey Willie, but he was still not great, with only 800 yards and 3 touchdowns on the season. This was a year where his Pro Bowl came from putting together one of the 2 seasons with a pair of punt return touchdowns. S12 was his first season making the Pro Bowl for his receiving work, and he broke out in a big way! He got 7 touchdowns and 1300 yards, and by my count was the 3rd best WR on the year, with more stats than his previous 2 seasons combined.
S13 was an even better season from Valentine, with more yards and touchdowns. He led the league in yards and was T-3rd in touchdowns. If not for Kazimir Oles getting a gargantuan 13 touchdowns, he'd have won his first WRotY 3 seasons earlier, as is he was the 2nd best WR on the season in my view. S14 was a repeat as the 2nd best WR on the year, mainly due to getting 12 TDs; this season he was merely 5th in yards. S15 was a step back for Valentine, with him being merely the 4th best WR on the season. Still easily deserving the Pro Bowl, though!
S16 was the first of Valentine's 3 straight WRotY awards, as well as his OPOY season. He led the entire league in yards, and was 2nd in touchdowns. The only player with more TDs was a fullback with 1 more TD and 500 less yards. There's an argument for Joliet Christ to win the OPOY but Valentine was a fine award here, and there was absolutely nobody with a claim to beat him out for WRotY, so long as I completely ignore the QB who was throwing to him. In no world did Valentine deserve the OPOY. S17 was more marginal; I can see the argument for Valentine to be WRotY, but he only got 7 TDs to go with 1400 yards in 13 games. The best competition was, in my opinion, someone with 1232 yards and 10 touchdowns. There was DEFINITELY a better receiver this season in the form of Canton, but he was a fullback, so Valentine overall deserved the win. Finally, in S18, Valentine was yet again definitely the best WR on the season with 1360 yards and 11 TDs.
Valentine's final season was unimpressive, with under 700 yards and 4 touchdowns as WR2 on the season for his team, but that wasn't why he made the hall. That would be due to being a top 3 WR 6 times over a 7 year span, along with 3 straight WRotY awards. There's not any argument against Valentine being one of the best WRs of all time, and an easy Hall of Famer. Really, the biggest issue with Valentine all time is the lack of overall stats, but that's more than partly due to being behind other WRs for a couple seasons at the beginning of his career, and the low overall games. Also what was probably the equivalent of the S39 Awards vote, but I'll get to that later down this part.
Next up, the S24 Ballot.
KAZIMIR OLES
User: @Oles
SJS (S10 - S15)
CHI (S16 - S18)
AZ (S18 - S19)
OCO (S19 - S20)
WR
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S14, S19)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Wide Receiver of the Year (S13)
8x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18, S19)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#5 Career Rec Avg (17.45)
#10 Career ST KR (289.00)
#13 Career ST KRYds (6861.00)
#4 Career ST PRYds (2874.00)
#18 Career ST PRLng (87.00)
#2 Career ST PR_TD (6.00)
#6 Career ST PR (278.00)
#13 Career AllPurpose Yds (20989.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#14 Season Rec Avg (S15 - 20.46)
#19 Season Rec Avg (S13 - 20.03)
#24 Season Rec Avg (S16 - 19.84)
#11 Season ST KR (S11 - 49.00)
#22 Season ST KRYds (S11 - 1257.00)
#8 Season ST PRYds (S15 - 509.00)
#18 Season ST PRLng (S13 - 87.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S12 - 1.00)
#1 Season ST PR_TD (S18 - 3.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S13 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S15 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S19 - 1.00)
#9 Season ST PR (S16 - 46.00)
#16 Season ST PRAvg (S15 - 15.91)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rec TD (S10W11 - 3.00)
#9 Game Rec TD (S14W1 - 3.00)
#9 Game Rec TD (S14W8 - 3.00)
#18 Game ST PRLng (S13W11 - 87.00)
#4 Game ST PR (S19W1 - 8.00)
#10 Game ST PR (S16W8 - 7.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S18W3 - 6.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#24 Career Rec Lg (65.00)
#16 Career Rec TD (6.00)
#6 Career ST KR (27.00)
#1 Career ST KRYds (717.00)
#14 Career ST PRYds (144.00)
#5 Career ST PR (22.00)
#9 Career AllPurpose Yds (1637.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#10 Season Rec Lg (S18 - 65.00)
#9 Season Rec TD (S18 - 3.00)
#18 Season ST PR (S18 - 7.00)
#22 Season ST KRAvg (S14 - 40.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#1 Game Rec TD (S18W14 - 3.00)
#5 Game ST KR (S16W15 - 6.00)
#6 Game ST KRYds (S16W15 - 180.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S14W15 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S18W15 - 4.00)
#7 Game Points (S18W14 - 18.00)
Overall Statistics: 645 receptions, 11,254 yards, 71 TDs
Unlike Valentine from the year before, Oles was very much not buried on the depth chart with the 2nd most yards and the most TDs receiving for San Jose in his rookie year, with 800 yards and 8 touchdowns. He actually regressed a bit the next year, with 900 yards but only 3 touchdowns, even despite being San Jose's undisputed WR1. S12 was Kazimir's first Pro Bowl, but it wasn't that great. Sure, he was 5th in yards with just over 1100, but he also only had 5 TDs; you could call him the 5th best WR, but you could also call him the 7th or 8th. I could argue he was the 5th best Wr in his own conference; overall, a good not great season.
S13 was the peak of Kazimir's career by a significant distance though. Nobody cares that you were only 6th in yards (1242) when you have 13 TDs and are completely dominant, with over 20 yards per reception. By far Oles' best season. S14 was a great followup, with 1248 yards and 9 TDs, albeit the TD regression meant he was more around 5th in the league among WRs. S15 was very similar, exact same yard total, 3 less touchdowns, about the 5th best WR in the league again, easy Pro Bowl. The S16 season saw the league go to 13 games and Oles regress in yardage to 1100 yards. Still, that was good for 5th in the league, and along with 5 touchdowns, this meant it was yet another easy pro Bowl season as about the 5th best WR in the league.
S17 was not good. 919 yards, 3 touchdowns, by my count there's about 7 better WRs in just his conference. I'd say he got this Pro Bowl due to his time returning, except for the fact he wasn't a good returner this year either. I don't like this Pro Bowl very much. S18 was much better, he rebounded to over 1100 yards and 8 touchdowns, he was about the 7th best WR on the year but that at least was good enough for a lower Pro Bowl berth. Oles' final Pro Bowl berth was in S19, where he was about a top 5 WR on the year yet again.
Oles had a single season where he would have made a 1st team All Pro. That was a season where he was the best WR in the league, but that's still a single season, while spending just over half of his career in an 8 team league. I'm not sure how to compare the fact that he was a starting WR from the beginning of his career. That being said, you get a Hall of Fame berth for sure when you make that many Pro Bowls over 11 seasons. I do have problems with 2 of those Pro Bowls but that's not enough to completely take him out of the Hall in my book.
Today, Oles is 27th in yards, but a kind of poor 45th in touchdowns. By my count, he's only 2 TDs above the lowest full time WR in the Hall.
VLADIMIR FYODOROVICH
User: @majesiu
OCO (S7 - S7)
NOLA (S8 - S19)
CB, WR
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S9, S11)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Defensive Rookie of the Year (S7)
1x Performance of the Year (S11)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S12)
1x Wide Receiver of the Year (S12)
1x Returner of the Year (S14)
8x Pro Bowler (S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#11 Career Rec Avg (16.78)
#6 Career ST KR (322.00)
#4 Career ST KRYds (8351.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#20 Career ST KR_TD (2.00)
#9 Career ST PR_TD (3.00)
#21 Career AllPurpose Yds (19639.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#23 Season Rec Yds (S12 - 1637.00)
#17 Season Rec Avg (S12 - 20.21)
#18 Season ST KRYds (S14 - 1277.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S16 - 108.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#4 Game DEF Int (S10W1 - 3.00)
#21 Game ST KRYds (S10W10 - 218.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S16W13 - 108.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#5 Career ST PRYds (205.00)
#15 Career ST PRLng (50.00)
#1 Career ST PR_TD (1.00)
#17 Career ST PR (13.00)
#13 Career ST PRAvg (15.77)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season Rec TD (S11 - 5.00)
#2 Season ST PRYds (S11 - 163.00)
#17 Season ST PRLng (S11 - 50.00)
#11 Season ST PR (S11 - 8.00)
#15 Season ST PRAvg (S11 - 20.38)
#3 Season Points (S11 - 36.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#12 Game Rec Rec (S11W16 - 10.00)
#1 Game Rec TD (S11W16 - 3.00)
#11 Game Rec TD (S11W15 - 2.00)
#11 Game Rec TD (S19W14 - 2.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S10W16 - 5.00)
#9 Game ST PRYds (S11W16 - 84.00)
#10 Game ST PRYds (S11W15 - 79.00)
#17 Game ST PRLng (S11W16 - 50.00)
#1 Game ST PR_TD (S11W16 - 1.00)
#11 Game ST PR (S11W15 - 5.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S10W15 - 4.00)
#13 Game ST PRAvg (S11W16 - 28.00)
#1 Game Points (S11W16 - 24.00)
Overall Statistics: 596 receptions, 10,002 yards, 53 touchdowns
299 tackles, 49 PDs, 7 INTs
Fyodorovich took the first 4 seasons of his career just playing CB, the next year playing both CB and WR, and the rest of his career just at WR. Overall he ended up with about 122 games at WR by my count. To be frank, his time at CB is not great. The first 3 seasons in his career range from mediocre to outright bad; his rookie of the year season was 7 sacks, 4 PDs, and a FR, which is an interesting season but I don't think it's actually good or Rookie of the Year worthy. S8 was decent, but again, not better than that, with 13 PDs and a pick. And S9 was actually terrible, with 9 PDs and a single pick over the entire season. You could make a decent argument that roquefort's Performance of the Year clinching performance of Half of Friday was a better single game than any season Fyodorovich had in his CB career, Fyodorovich's peak was 14 PDs, 3 picks, and a FF in S10, about the 6th best CB in the league and a deserving Pro Bowl. S11, Fyodorovich's last season at CB, was a regression back to barely acceptable, with 2 picks but only 9 PDs.
Thankfully for Fyodorovich, he was also playing WR in S11. He had 1150 yards, albeit only 6 touchdowns, and was at worst the 8th best WR in the league, though you could make a case he was the 3rd best WR on his own team. Until S12, Fyodorovich seemed to be yet another player who had good spurts but wouldn't make a true impact on the league, and then he won OPOY. 1600 yards, 10 touchdowns, over 20 yards per reception, he had 300 more yards than anyone else. With a lead like that you almost always win a major award, and the WRotY was completely without question. While Fyodorovich would never reach those heights again, he stayed strong through the next few seasons.
In S13, Vladimir amassed nearly 1400 yards, albeit only 5 touchdowns meant that I wouldn't put him higher than 5th on the season despite being 3rd in yards. S14 was closer to 1300 than 1400 yards, but he got 8 touchdowns and was a top 5 receiver on the year again. S15 saw him make the Pro Bowl, and deserve it yet again, but this time there's a couple caveats attached: Fyodorovich's own season wasn't spectacular, with just under 1300 yards and only 3 touchdowns, and by my count was the 6th or 7th best season on the year among WRs in an overall down year for the position outside of a couple names. Still a deserving pro bowler, but lower down than you would expect for a season that was 3rd in yards.
S16 saw further regression, even beyond the fact that it was a 13 game season, with barely over 1000 yards; Fyodorovich bounced back in touchdowns a tad, with 5, and was still 6th among WRs in yards, and got a Pro Bowl. But this time I don't think he deserved it. I think he was the 9th best WR on the season, and the 5th best WR in his own Conference, which I don't think should have made the Pro Bowl at the time. At bare minimum, if 5 WRs made the Pro Bowl in a 5 team conference, I don't feel that says much. S17 was Fyodorovich's last Pro Bowl, and he rebounded to being the 5th best WR in the league by my count, with over 1100 yards and 10 touchdowns. S18 was a decent season for the 12th season of a career, albeit Vladimir was only the 3rd WR on his team by production, 800 yards and 5 touchdowns. No Pro Bowl of course, as was the case for his final season, S19, with 260 yards and a touchdown.
Fyodorovich's legacy has a couple problems. First off, he started life as a CB with one good season, not even a particularly great one in S10. Considering S8 and especially S9 were arguably bad seasons, that's a troubling start. Thankfully for Fyodorovich he spent most of his time as a WR, and he was great! But he has two major problems with his time at WR; for one, only one season where he was even in the conversation for top 3 at the position. He had 3 other seasons where I think he was top 5, but considering half of his WR career was in an 8 team league, that's a bit troubling. He also had a distinct lack of touchdowns outside of S17 and S12, and even those were 10 instead of a more jawdropping number. With a more expected touchdown total compared to his yardage numbers, Fyodorovich would have been near the top of the league in my estimation a lot more often than he ended up being.
There is something that more than saves him, though. Nobody else played less games than Fyodorovich and managed to amass 10,000 yards, and that's while being a WR2 and WR3 for the final 26 games of his career. Vladimir Fyodorovich is a deserving Hall of Famer, and while I have caveats with things like his S16 Pro Bowl berth and a touchdowns per game mark that is closer to 0.4 than 0.5, that doesn't change that fact.
GUS T.T. SHOWBIZ
User: @Molarpistols
OCO (S10 - S18)
QB, CB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
4x Ultimus Champion (S12, S13, S17, S18)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Quarterback of the Year (S16)
6x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17)
-------------
Important Records
SEASON RECORDS
#14 Season Pass Avg (S16 - 8.40)
#13 Season Pass Int (S13 - 23.00)
#2 Season Rush Avg (S15 - 8.60)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#7 Game Pass Yds (S13W9 - 515.00)
#3 Game Pass TD (S14W12 - 7.00)
#8 Game Pass TD (S12W1 - 6.00)
#8 Game Pass TD (S15W9 - 6.00)
#8 Game Pass TD (S16W5 - 6.00)
#6 Game Pass Int (S13W12 - 5.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#10 Career Pass Yds (2680.00)
#21 Career Pass TD (12.00)
#4 Career Pass Int (11.00)
#11 Career Pass Cmp (216.00)
#10 Career Pass Att (369.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#14 Season Pass Yds (S12 - 821.00)
#6 Season Pass Avg (S15 - 9.43)
#1 Season Pass TD (S12 - 8.00)
#22 Season Pass Att (S12 - 104.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#4 Game Pass Yds (S12W16 - 459.00)
#1 Game Pass TD (S12W16 - 5.00)
#19 Game Pass Cmp (S16W15 - 33.00)
#6 Game Pass Att (S16W15 - 56.00)
#11 Game Pass Att (S12W16 - 54.00)
Overall Statistics: 29,974 yards, 198 TDs, 95 INTs, 7.19 y/a, 85.59 passer rating
146 tackles, 25 PDs, 6 INTs
Showbiz's ranks in these are not fantastic, but not terrible either: 32nd in yards, 30th in TDs, 35th in INTs, 31st in yards per attempt (no matter what Wolfiebot says when you do Player Lookup on him), and 58th in passer rating. He only played 97 games at QB, and thus is 33rd in pass attempts. He is very, very notable for being absolutely terrible at actually getting completions; he's 11th worst all time in that stat with a 56.68%. I haven't covered completion percent before now, mainly because I don't think it's the most important thing in the world, at least when you can get good rate stats outside of the poor percentage, but it's a little notable that there's only one other Hall of Fame QB below 57%, and multiple people who might make a Hall of Shame at QB in that group.
Anyways, Showbiz himself started off poorly, albeit not as poorly as some other Hall of Fame QBs: 77.30 passer rating, a 13/8 TD/INT ratio, and a sub 6.5 yards per carry means that Gus was the farthest thing from Rookie of the Year material for his rookie season. S11 was better, albeit still not Pro Bowl worthy; he was tied for the league lead in touchdowns at 30, had the 3rd most yards, and while 15 picks isn't great that still put him tied for 5th and in the lower half. But Gus only had 6.65 yards per attempt and was still inaccurate, and as such he was actually 5th in the league by passer rating with only 82.94; I'd put it as the 5th best season in the league and either way the top 2 were ASFC seasons so Showbiz was out of luck.
S12 was Showbiz's first time he was deemed worthy of his last name by Pro Bowl voters, and I can't fault their choice. While this wasn't a great season for QB play in general, Showbiz was 3rd in the league by my reckoning and 2nd in the Conference; the closest guy to dethroning him for the 2nd Pro Bowl spot in the ASFC was Christ, and he was only slightly better in terms of efficiency while being a mile off the pace in terms of volume. Overall, though, I'm not sure how good a passer rating of 84.02 was even for the time. S13 was very similar, albeit I'd rank Showbiz 4th overall in terms of QB play this season. He had the highest volume in the league but that's no excuse for throwing 6 picks more than anyone else, and while I'm not going to say Gus didn't deserve a Pro Bowl spot, I will say that it's not often that a passer rating of 81.66 is the 4th highest in the league. Considering that this was an 8 team league at the time, I'm not particularly impressed by this season even with 30 TDs and nearly 5000 yards, that's what happens when you throw over 20 picks at the same time.
S14 saw Gus regress in yards per attempt, overall yardage, and even completion percent from the year prior. But he also managed 38 TDs to 11 INTs, a 91.87 passer rating, and probably a lot of annoyance; after a season that might have been the best in either S13 and definitely S12, this season it was 3rd behind Christ and Gambino. Just a Pro Bowl for what was by far the best season of Showbiz's career to that point. This was the exact same award total he got for S15, which happened to be one of the worst years of his career: an 82.22 passer rating, a 25/15 TD/INT ratio, take literally everything I said about Christ's S15 being a 5/10 or lower season for that day and age that still deserved a Pro Bowl because everyone else was at best a 3/10 outside of Gambino Monstarsing up everyone's Quarterback prowess and apply it to this one; this was a year where Gus had an argument for being the 2nd best QB and the best in his conference for the first time ever, and in my opinion it was actually an awful year.
Thankfully, S16 saw Showbiz at his absolute best: 8.4 yards per attempt, nearly 0.9 higher than any year he had in the rest of his career, a 34/10 TD/INT ratio, technically slightly worse than his S14 ratio but more than made up for by being over a yard better in y/a, and a 100.66 passer rating. It was one of only 6 seasons to get above a 100 passer rating in the old sim, and at the time it was the 4th best in league history behind Mike Boss's best mark and the last 2 years of Gambino. As such, it easily got the QBotY and the MVP! (is handed note) Wait, he didn't win MVP? Oh, this was the year Danny Grithead was maybe his most broken while utilizing a broken position, with double digit picks and sacks, understandable. Surely he won OPOY, then, right? No, this was the season Vinny Valentine had 12 TDs and nearly 100 yards per game, winning it over him. The fact that this happened is a travesty, at bare minimum Showbiz should have won OPOY.
That being said, this happened to be Showbiz's final season as a QB. He'd switch off to CB for the final 2 seasons of his career. His S17 was actually excellent; he had 4 picks and led the entire league in PDs from a CB with 22. He was a top 4 CB on the season, and if he had a pick six he might have won CBotY. S18...wasn't. Sure, he got 2 INTs and a touchdown, but he also got only 3 PDs all year. Not a great end to his career in my book, but it was preceded by arguably the 2 single best seasons of his career.
One final thing to touch on is that Showbiz is one of the top 10 highest volume QBs in the playoffs, with over 350 attempts to his name over his career. That is not a good thing when you are also 43rd out of 68 in Passer Rating. Only 2 of the top 10 are worse than his mark of 79.55 and he might have the single worst TD/INT ratio of all the big names at 12/11. He at least had a good yards per attempt (7.26, 26th out of 68) but that doesn't save everything else.
Gus Showbiz conflicts me a ton. At minimum 2, and arguably 3 of his 6 Pro Bowls came either as the 4th best QB in an 8 team league or as a mediocre or worse QB that season, only one of his seasons saw him as higher than the 2nd best QB in a 4 team conference, and he's not particularly high up in either volume (explainable by his low attempt total) or efficiency (absolutely not explainable by the low attempt total). However, Showbiz also had a season that could have won the MVP and should have won the OPOY, and also moved to CB and had a great season even if not one that would have won a CBotY or hypothetical 1st team All Pro season. He kind of is the mirror image of Christ (yes, make the obvious jokes); as far as full time QBs of this era goes, they're easily the top 2, and each have specific arguments over the other. Christ has the consistency, the efficiency, and the major awards, while Showbiz has the peak, the significantly less bad valley, the volume, and a higher number of Pro Bowls, all while having the exact same number of seasons where they were the best in the league at their position. Funnily enough, both even have my specific issues of an S15 where they were mediocre to bad but got a Pro Bowl out of it, and bad playoff performance! I marked that much less with Christ due to being outside the top 20 in attempts with about 100 less than Showbiz, but he's similarly bad there, arguably worse.
I think they both belong in the Hall, but I think Christ belongs higher all in all. While I think Christ should have had a worse award cabinet, and Showbiz should have had a better one, that would still give Christ at minimum 2 OPOYs to Showbiz's 1. It's close, though; I think my two personal most important traits for a player all time are peak and efficiency, and those belong on either side of the dichotomy. They both belong, I think Christ is slightly higher, but both don't get out of the lower end of the Hall (among QBs specifically) in my book.
Last up is the S25 ballot, which only has 3 players. I'm finally up to the people who were getting inducted when I first joined the league!
DAN SCHNEIDER
User: @LGMForever
BAL (S12 - S12)
NOLA (S13 - S13)
OCO (S14 - S20)
CHI (S20 - S21)
S, LB
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
3x Ultimus Champion (S17, S18, S19)
-------------
AWARDS
2x Defensive Back of the Year (S13, S17)
9x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S17, S18, S19, S20, S21)
-------------
Important Records
SEASON RECORDS
#6 Season DEF TD (S17 - 3.00)
#7 Season ST PRAvg (S17 - 18.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#10 Career ST PRYds (171.00)
#5 Career ST PRLng (74.00)
#13 Career ST PR (14.00)
#24 Career ST PRAvg (12.21)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#21 Season ST KRYds (S17 - 195.00)
#1 Season ST PRYds (S17 - 168.00)
#5 Season ST PRLng (S17 - 74.00)
#3 Season ST PR (S17 - 12.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#1 Game ST PRYds (S17W15 - 132.00)
#5 Game ST PRLng (S17W15 - 74.00)
#2 Game ST PR (S17W15 - 7.00)
Overall Statistics: 820 tackles, 153 PDs, 28 INTs, 4 TDs
Dan Schneider begins a set of 3 players out of 4 that I have to cover (spanning the end of this part and the start of next part) that I'm not entirely sure how to tackle or what I think about. 2 of those players, including Schneider, were among the first 3 Safeties taken in the All Time draft, with the other being Oakes. First off, the Safety specific record tab is still broken on Wolfiebot, so I have to go off of the Not Up To Date Wiki statistics page. He played Safety every year of his career outside of S20, where he played Linebacker. Over that 121 game span of time, Schneider had 693 tackles, good for 26th, 26 picks, good for T-21st, and an astounding 147 PDs, which is 4th among all Safeties. Overall he ranks 70th, and that's with only 134 games played and 13 of those coming at Linebacker! Well, technically more of that, but that's for a talk later in this section.
Schneider began his career with one of his 2 seasons that didn't make the Pro Bowl. It wasn't excellent, but he did lead the entire league in sacks, which means that it wasn't a terrible season even though it only got 2 PDs and no picks whatsoever. S13 saw Dan decide he had enough of sacking the QB and decided to be the best pass defender in the entire league. 29 PDs, 2 off the league lead in Julian O'Sullivan (who was an LB), and 6 INTs, 4 more than Sullivan and more than anyone else in the league. Easy DBotY, hypothetical All Pro, Pro Bowl, the only thing it didn't earn was DPOY and it has a realistic argument to be a better season than O'Sullivan's, mainly losing out due to a defensive TD and the 11 sacks.
S14 was a pretty large regression, with "only" 22 PDs and half the picks of the prior season, but he was still the best SS and the 3rd or 4th best Safety overall. S15 saw more regression, albeit with another 3 pick season; Schneider only had 66 tackles and 19 PDs, and due to the outside strength of the position he arguably didn't deserve a Pro Bowl spot; at best it was a lower quality berth. S16 actually saw Schneider miss the Pro Bowl with what looks like an amazing season of 17 PDs, 3 picks, and a defensive TD, but it was at best 3rd among Strong Safeties, and there were half a dozen better Free Safeties that year. S17, however, saw Schneider storm back to the top of the pile. 20 PDs and 4 INTs were great numbers, even for this Crazy Safety era, enough to be the 3rd best Safety on the year. He needed something extra special to win the DBotY award, and that something special came in his 3 defensive touchdowns. He won the DBotY award. Hilariously enough, a different Safety won the DPOY. I think that safety might have had the slightly better season (3/1 FF/FR, 14 sacks, 2 safeties, +3 PDs, -2 TDs) but part of that came from the positional advantage of Strong Safety vs Free Safety. Part of me is happy that both of these seasons got awards, even if technically only one of them should have.
Anyways, in S18 Dan only got 16 PDs, and didn't get any TDs, but he was still a top 5 Safety on the season and deservedly made the Pro Bowl. S19 did not deserve the Pro Bowl, with 1 TFL, 1 FR, and only 9 PDs with no picks. There were 4 better Strong Safeties and a double digit number of better Free Safeties. Even if, say, 2 Strong Safeties specifically made it per conference, this still should have seen Schneider miss it in favor of Jensen and Brackenridge. S20 saw Dan switch positions and play at LB, and he was a top 5 or so LB and deservedly made the Pro Bowl. Finally, in S21 Dan went back to Safety, and he was at worst the 3rd best Safety in the league.
Alright, time for the explanation. I wasn't in the league at the time of this exploit, so I may have some of the details wrong, but suffice to say that for some reason, playing Safeties at Linebacker made them absurdly broken and bonkers. Basically all of the greatest Safety seasons of all time are in a period of time between S11 and S19 where a bunch of players were listed at Safety but were playing Linebacker (or specifically S47 Scott Junior for some ungodly reason). This made their stats all insane. Many of the highest INT seasons ever are here, some of the greatest defensive seasons ever are here, and this was also what Schneider was doing at the time. Literally half of the pure Safeties in the Hall (as of the S47 class) were taking advantage of this as far as I know for most of their career, and 2 others had part of their career intersect with this. It's almost impossible to disentangle the two.
This doesn't make Schneider not a Hall of Famer. This was the best time for Safeties in league history by far, and there's an argument for even more safeties from this era to make the Hall rather than vice versa. Of all the greatest abusers of Safety at Linebacker, Schneider is the 2nd greatest and that's more than enough to make the Hall. What it does for me is that it makes me really, really conflicted about where I'd put Schneider in an overall top 5-10 Safeties in ISFL history list. There's no question whatsoever that he belongs on the list at all, though it's possible that even if I didn't consider the bugs Dan was taking advantage of, he might be lower than I'd expect because he wasn't the greatest of his generation.
LENNOX GARNETT
User: @37thchamber
PHI (S11 - S21)
S
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
AWARDS
1x Returner of the Year (S16)
8x Pro Bowler (S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S19)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#10 Career DEF Int (37.00)
#25 Career DEF TD (6.00)
#9 Career ST KR (290.00)
#8 Career ST KRYds (7831.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#1 Career ST KR_TD (5.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season ST KRLng (S14 - 108.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S15 - 108.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#6 Game ST KR (S15W6 - 7.00)
#6 Game ST KRYds (S17W11 - 243.00)
#15 Game ST KRYds (S15W6 - 224.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S14W1 - 108.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S15W11 - 108.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S14W4 - 6.00)
#1 Game ST KRAvg (S14W1 - 108.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#6 Career DEF Int (4.00)
#6 Career ST KR (27.00)
#3 Career ST KRYds (696.00)
#23 Career ST PRYds (112.00)
#25 Career ST KRLng (48.00)
#24 Career ST PR (10.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#2 Season DEF Int (S16 - 3.00)
#1 Season ST KR (S16 - 13.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S14 - 7.00)
#2 Season ST KRYds (S16 - 368.00)
#17 Season ST PRAvg (S15 - 20.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#24 Game DEF PD (S16W15 - 4.00)
#1 Game DEF Int (S16W15 - 3.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S14W16 - 5.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S16W14 - 5.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S16W16 - 5.00)
#11 Game ST KRYds (S16W16 - 171.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S12W15 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PRAvg (S15W15 - 20.00)
Overall Statistics: 826 tackles, 26 sacks, 113 PDs, 37 INTs, 6 TDs
Lennox isn't the greatest of his generation either, though he's as overpowering as Schneider in terms of overall stats. Garnett is 7th in tackles among Safeties, 7th in INTs (and 10th overall), T-10th in PDs, and T-14th in TDs. Granted, he played a lot more games than Schneider, although still not that many overall (148, all at Safety). His all powerful stats are, however, tempered a bit by the complete lack of positional excellency awards, even accepting that this may have been the single most difficult position and time to ever get awards at. So let's see how often Garnett challenged for the title of best Safety.
Garnett came right out of the gate as the 3rd best safety in the league, with only 7 PDs but 6 INTs and a touchdown in S11. Despite putting up similar numbers in S12, 10 PDs and 5 INTs, everyone else suddenly gaining meant that Lennox was more like the 4th or 5th best Safety, though still well in the range to be a deserving Pro Bowler. S13 saw Garnett put together an astounding 26 PD, 4 INT season that was in my opinion the 3rd best season behind Schneider and Broxton, though the lack of a defensive touchdown means that you could argue Lennox was also worse than Harrison. At worst he was 4th though. S14 only saw half the PDs, but Garnett got 4 more picks, added on 5 sacks, and managed nearly 100 tackles. This is a year where Garnett is at worst in contention for Best Safety, and thus DBotY; Grithead, the winner, had 8 tackles, 1 FF, and a defensive TD, while Garnett had a TFL and a pick. It's a question for me whether you value the touchdown or the guaranteed extra turnover more, and at bare minimum this is a year where Garnett is barely off a positional award.
S15 saw greatness up and down the position of Safety, which Garnett didn't really participate in. He managed 6 sacks and a defensive touchdown, but 3 INTs and 7 PDs was well behind what I'd expect from the Hall of Fame Safeties of this era; still might be a deserving Pro Bowler, maybe, but only barely if that. I think I'd have Garnett miss it, and it's very possible that this was a returner Pro Bowl over a Safety Pro Bowl; at the bare minimum I'm almost certain that Garnett made the Pro Bowl as the best NSFC returner. S16 saw Garnett win Returner of the Year, but this time he himself was at worst the 3rd best Safety on the season, and I think I'd put Garnett 2nd that year; he had only 14 PDs, but he had 6 picks and 2 TDs; if I had to guess this might have been the best DB season for at least 10 different years of the Old Sim era but, well, that's a story for next part.
S17 saw Lennox lead the entire league in PDs, but he only got 3 picks. Still arguably the 4th best Safety on the season and a deserving Pro Bowl, but in a luckier year this could easily have ranked higher. S18 was the first time Lennox missed the Pro Bowl entirely (albeit I'm pretty sure S15 was a returner pro bowl), and there's absolutely no argument he should have made it. He had 5 sacks, but only 1 pick and 3 PDs. Then Lennox took all his missed INTs from S17 and piled them into S19; he had 4 PDs, 2 sacks, 1 FF, and instead of being one of the worst Safeties in the league was maybe the 3rd best and an easy Pro Bowler because he got 3 picks and 2 defensive touchdowns. S20 was not so lucky, and Garnett was by my count the single worst Safety in the entire league with only 2 PDs and a sack to his name; by my count nobody was worse at Pass defense and one sack is nowhere near enough to make up the difference. S21, Garnett's final season, was a bit better; 3 PDs but 2 INTs, plus 1/1 FF/FR means that at least Garnett didn't bow out as the worst player in the league at their position.
Overall, Garnett had a couple seasons where he was in the top 2 at the position, albeit only a single year where he was in the conversation for 1. That's more than enough to put a guy who was being blocked by 2 of the 3 best players at that position all time (at least as far as awards are concerned) in the Hall. At minimum, 7 Pro Bowls in the day and age of Safety dominance, with none of them being end of bench Pro Bowlers, is enough, combined with the overwhelming stats. The same criticisms in terms of All Time Ranking from Schneider's section apply even moreso to Garnett, as in my opinion Lennox was a worse Safety in the same era, maybe the 3rd best from that era, but again, that's not keeping him out of the Hall.
KULTURE FULTURE
User: @Saliva^
PHI (S11 - S15)
CHI (S16 - S20)
BAL (S21 - S21)
K/P
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
AWARDS
3x Punter of the Year (S12, S15, S16)
6x Kicker of the Year (S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18)
8x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18, S19)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#16 Career K XPM (379.00)
#14 Career K XPA (391.00)
#9 Career P Punts (876.00)
#9 Career P Yds (40668.00)
#5 Career P Lng (80.00)
#13 Career K FGM (249.00)
#19 Career K FGA (270.00)
#4 Career K FGPct (0.92)
#14 Career Points (1126.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#5 Season P Lng (S18 - 80.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S13 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S17 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S18 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S19 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S21 - 1.00)
#1 Season K FGPct (S14 - 1.00)
#1 Season K FGPct (S18 - 1.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#25 Game K XPM (S13W12 - 7.00)
#5 Game P Lng (S18W2 - 80.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S15W4 - 5.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#16 Career P Punts (46.00)
#16 Career P Yds (2204.00)
#6 Career P Avg (47.91)
#6 Career P Lng (72.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#7 Season P Avg (S17 - 50.75)
#15 Season P Lng (S21 - 69.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#4 Game P Punts (S17W14 - 12.00)
#11 Game P Punts (S21W15 - 10.00)
#2 Game P Yds (S17W14 - 609.00)
#2 Game P Avg (S12W15 - 60.67)
#23 Game P Avg (S14W15 - 54.33)
#7 Game P Lng (S12W15 - 72.00)
Overall Statistics: 379/391 XP, 96.93%; 249/270 FG, 92.22%
40,668 punt yards, 46.43 avg, 15.8 in20 rate
What can I say about Fulture that isn't plainly obvious? I guess I can quickly go season by season to see if he didn't deserve any of his pro bowls, or deserved more, or doubled up on a year.
S11 was Fulture's rookie season, and as is usual for Rookie Kickers, he was bad. He was the worst kicker, and while he was moreso average at punting, he wasn't particularly close to a Pro Bowl spot. S12 changed that, he was arguably the best kicker in his conference, with the best percentages, and the argument against him being the Pro Bowl kicker and the 2nd best kicker on the season was that he only had to attempt 6 40-49 yard field goals and no 50+s. And as a Punter, he was the single best, with 46 yards per punt exactly and 19.5% of his punts landing inside the 20; Turkleton was probably his best competition, with a 0.9 yard lead per punt, but nearly 6% worse on punts inside the 20. I lean Fulture here. That being said, this wasn't particularly a great year for punting.
S13 began a 6 season reign over the Kicker of the Year award for Fulture. Taking a cue from his complaints about the previous season, he went 6/6 on kicks from 50+, and only missed a single 30-39 yard field goal on the season. His punting was bad, but with a season like that I'm sure Philly didn't mind. S14 was barely different; his lone miss was an extra point, he took 8 instead of 5 kicks from 40-49 but only a single 50+ yarder, and he won the Kicker of the Year. I think there's a significant argument for Dean Jackson, who went completely perfect; Jackson attempted 14 less extra points and 4 less 40-49 yarders, which is a significant amount, but on the other hand he had a perfect season compared to Fulture's imperfect one. At the very least this was an amazing season and easily deserved the Pro Bowl. His punting wasn't bad this year but it wasn't in contention for Pro Bowl.
S15 wasn't the best season of Fulture's career as a kicker, but he was still the best kicker and won the Kicker of the Year relatively easily. This was also a season where he was unquestionably the best punter on the year, with an average just above 46 yards and over 20% of his punts being inside the 20. Kulture followed a year where he got both awards with another year where he got both awards, albeit this one I have a few issues with. I don't think it's very often that someone wins a Kicker of the Year award when there was someone who was better than them at both extra points and field goals, AND took more long range ones to boot! Fulture went 8/8 and 1/3 on 40s and 50s, respectively, while Alex D went 10/11 and 0/0. Honestly, I think the Alex D mark is better, even without attempting a 50 yarder. He made more long kicks, attempted less, had a better FG% and a better XP%. This should have been Dasistirklichseinnachname's Kicker of the Year. Thankfully, Fulture was the best Punter of the year pretty easily, with over 49 yards per punt making up for only 14.1% of punts inside the 20. The only player within 2 yards per punt had a worse ratio!
S17 saw Fulture completely fall off the rails...at punting, nearly 5 yards per punt worse with only 11.3% of his punts landing inside the 20. He was the best Kicker on the year, though, being perfect at extra points and having the highest FG%; there were a couple people with more long range kicks attempted and a close FG%, but none of them were able to maintain a perfect extra point record so I think this was a deserved award. S18 was Fulture's last great season, and he made it an all timer. He was completely perfect on kicks, managed a 48.44 punt average with 16.7% of punts inside the 20, and lost out to an outrageous season that managed to go inside the 20 on 25.3% of kicks (with a still respectable 45.42 punt average). I would not be surprised if that mark was a record for the old sim. S19 was Kulture Fulture's final Pro Bowl, and it certainly wasn't for punting! He was the best kicker in his conference, and has an extant claim to be the best kicker on the entire season. It's not one that I find particularly credible, but it is one that exists.
S20 and S21 were both very similar; neither made the Pro Bowl, and were atrocious as kicking years for the standard you'd expect (Fulture was arguably the worst kicker in the league in S20) but were actually better than Fulture's average for Punting, albeit still well off the pace of a Pro Bowl spot or especially a Punter of the Year award.
Kulture Fulture is one of the greatest kickers ever. That FG rate is 4th all time, he's above the median for extra points despite being an old sim Kicker, among the primarily Old Sim Hall of Fame kickers Fulture ranks 2nd of 6 for extra points. He dominated his position so well that only 2 other players can even come close (at least in how they were awarded), the already mentioned Paul DiMirio and someone who played Center. He also got 3 Punter of the Year awards, one behind Dean Jackson for most all time, which might have you believe that Fulture is an all time great Punter...he really wasn't. His inside the 20 rate is middling for Old Sim Hall of Fame Kickers, and he's the single worst in terms of average of that group of 6; in my estimation he's the 2nd worst Punter in the Hall of Fame. I also have, as mentioned above, significant problems with 2 of his Kicker of the Year awards, one of which (S16) I feel he definitely should have lost.
There is one major issue with Fulture's claim to be the best Kicker ever, despite lapping every other contender in Kicker of the Year awards: He's arguably the single luckiest Kicker in the Hall, in terms of being asked to make short kicks for the vast, vast majority of his attempts. Only 34.1% of all of Fulture's attempts were from 40 or longer; only a few other players are even in the same ballpark and no Hall of Famer is within 2% of that mark. That being said, none of Fulture's ranges are bad; he's 11th all time from 30-39, 19th from 40-49, and 29th from 50+. The only range where he's worse than the median Hall of Famer is 50+, and not by much; the median Hall of Famer made 7/10 from that range while Fulture was at 2/3rds. Fulture is not my personal greatest kicker/punter ever, his average kicking stats just do not match up well with certain other people who will be mentioned soon, and he's just a bad Hall of Fame punter (albeit still a great punter). But if he's yours, he's a perfectly reasonable pick.
Anyways, let's start with the most openly political of the non Unanimous Inductees.
MARQUISE BROWN
User: @YoungTB
PHI (S10 - S17)
BAL (S14 - S16)
CHI (S18 - S18)
RB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
1x Ultimus Champion (S15)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Offensive Rookie of the Year (S10)
4x Running Back of the Year (S12, S13, S14, S15)
1x Most Valuable Player (S13)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S13)
7x Pro Bowler (S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#6 Career Rush Att (2897.00)
#6 Career Rush Yds (12587.00)
#11 Career Rush TD (104.00)
#20 Career ST KR_TD (2.00)
#12 Career Scrimmage Yds (15643.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#2 Season Rush Att (S10 - 451.00)
#21 Season Rush Att (S12 - 374.00)
#3 Season Rush Yds (S10 - 1902.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rush Att (S10W2 - 41.00)
#13 Game Rush Att (S10W13 - 40.00)
#20 Game Rush Att (S14W14 - 38.00)
#7 Game Other Sacks Allowed (S14W2 - 3.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#23 Career Rush Yds (568.00)
#23 Career Rush Avg (4.77)
#23 Career Rush TD (5.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#12 Game Rush Att (S15W16 - 31.00)
#19 Game Rush Att (S12W15 - 30.00)
#21 Game Rush Yds (S12W15 - 136.00)
#12 Game Rush TD (S14W15 - 2.00)
#12 Game Rush TD (S15W15 - 2.00)
#14 Game Scrimmage Yds (S15W16 - 180.00)
Overall Statistics: 12,587 rushing yards, 104 TDs 4.35 yards per carry
375 receptions, 3,056 receiving yards, 21 TDs
In my opinion, Marquise Brown is the greatest RB who played their entire career in the Old Sim, over Owen Taylor, Darren Smallwood, and anyone else you'd like to name. Sure, he only played 9 total seasons, and his last 2 were not anything special. But in terms of sustained peak, no other RB comes close to Brown in DDSPF16. Before I get into why exactly I think Brown is a slam dunk top 5 RB all time, let's go year by year.
S10 is not a particularly amazing season from the outside looking in, outside of yardage: 4.2 yards per carry was fine but not excellent, it was mostly average among RB1s. Sure, Brown had by far the most volume, with 1900 yards rushing, but he only had 7 touchdowns; a pro bowl season, but not any more. However, there's a bit of context necessary: Brown was playing for the S10 Liberty, one of the worst offenses and overall teams ever. He was the only part of the offense to function basically at all (the QB for the team threw for an astonishing 1 touchdown), and while in my estimation this only deserved the Pro Bowl it got, this was basically a season like 2009 Steven Jackson, where this team would have been the worst offense in league history, instead of merely one of the worst, if not for the contributions of Brown. Granted, he only deserves a Pro Bowl for it, but I just wanted to mention it.
S11 was the last year for a while that anyone not named Brown was going to win an RBotY, but it was still the 3rd best season on the year and an easy Pro Bowl pick: he led the league in yardage, was 3rd in touchdowns with 15, and was 3rd among RB1s in yards per carry. S12 began Marquise's stretch of dominance, as he all of a sudden led the league in rushing by over 200 yards, and was 2nd in touchdowns with 15 again. Add that to 4 receiving TDs and 200+ yards receiving on 30 completions and you have a season that...I think might actually have only been 2nd best on the year. Jerrod Canton was 2nd in yardage, only had 10 TDs, but had a 4.74 yards per carry to Brown's 4.16. If I was voting, Brown would be my 2nd best RB on the season behind Canton. But this was still a great season from Marquise Brown, and nicely sets up next season.
S13 is the year where 3 different players tied for MVP: Julian O'Sullivan, who I mentioned back in part 3 was in my opinion the 2nd best player on the year, Joliet Christ, who I mentioned in part 4 was closer to missing out on a OPOY than deserving the MVP, and Marquise Brown. Brown had the best year that season, no doubt in my mind. 1500 yards, 15 touchdowns, 4.75 yards per carry. That's a great yards per carry in the new sim, much less the old one. Considering that this season also led the league in touchdowns and was only 60 yards behind 1st place, this is one of the single greatest rushing seasons that the Old Sim saw in my opinion. Heck, he even had over 350 yards and 4 TDs receiving, all while not having a terrible yards per reception.
S14 was a step back in efficiency, only 4.29 yards per carry, but Brown's 16 TDs rushing were almost double everyone else, more than enough to overcome the few players with better efficiency and sub 1000 yards to Brown's 1500. I'd argue it could have won the OPOY, although I think it was rightly Joliet's. S15 was Brown's last of his 4 straight RBotY awards, and this one was almost perfect; back over 4.5 yards per carry, 14 touchdowns, and 1500 yards, with only the yards per carry mark not leading the league. This one should have won OPOY in my mind over James Bishop, the actual winner. By S16, Brown began to take a backseat in the offense, and thus was only 4th in the league in yards, with over 1100. But he still led the league in touchdowns with 13, and had a 0.3 yards per carry higher than anyone else with more yards. In my opinion, Brown's 0.3 yards per carry and 4 touchdowns are better than the actual RBotY that season's less than 300 yard rushing yard lead, especially considering Brown almost completely made up the yardage deficit (and added 2 more touchdowns) with his receiving play. Yes, Brown could easily have won 5 straight RBotYs, and even with getting one I don't think he deserved he also still earned 4.
Brown finally regressed in S17 and S18; he was 7th in yards in both seasons, with a 4.17 and a 4.21 yards per carry which were more average than excellent, and he combined for less than 10 touchdowns after 6 straight seasons with 13 or more. Overall, a bit of a sad end to a great career. Marquise is the epitome of burning half as long but twice as bright; he only played 9 seasons, but was at worst the 2nd best RB for 5 of them. He made Pro Bowls the first 7 seasons of his career, and none of them were cheap Pro Bowls. Brown's peak in particular saw a marriage of great volume stats with touchdowns and yards at or near the league lead, while ALSO having all time great efficiency. Owen Taylor is the only player in the old sim who can compare, and his efficient years weren't as long or as consistent as Brown's, even as he got more TDs.
Marquise Brown is a top 5 RB in league history in my estimation, and the greatest one from the Old Sim. The only reason he wasn't unanimous, according to what I've heard, is that his user was toxic. One of the greatest RBs to ever touch the football, as well as the only player from the S22 ballot.
VERSO L'ALTO
User: @nunccoepi
BAL (S7 - S19)
COL (S13 - S13)
TE
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S10, S15)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Offensive Rookie of the Year (S7)
4x Tight End of the Year (S11, S12, S14, S15)
10x Pro Bowler (S8, S9, S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S17, S18)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#14 Career Rec Rec (949.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rec TD (S13W8 - 3.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#1 Career Rec Rec (118.00)
#8 Career Rec Yds (1067.00)
#16 Career Rec TD (6.00)
#18 Career Scrimmage Yds (1067.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#5 Season Rec Rec (S11 - 22.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#3 Game Rec Rec (S13W16 - 12.00)
#6 Game Rec Rec (S11W15 - 11.00)
#6 Game Rec Rec (S11W16 - 11.00)
Overall Statistics: 949 receptions, 8,454 yards, 57 TDs
404 pancakes, 4 sacks allowed
Among TEs, these rate 3rd, 5th, and 5th on the top line, and 8th and T-48th, respectively. Among Hall of Fame TEs, L'Alto has the 2nd least sacks allowed.
In general, Tight End in the sim conflicts me. It's almost undoubtedly the weakest position all time, as shown by the fact that L'Alto is arguably the 2nd greatest TE ever despite never crossing 900 yards once. Anyways, in S7 L'Alto was good but not excellent, with an argument for being the 2nd best TE in the conference. S8 began L'Alto's 8 season stretch of Pro Bowls with an absolute whimper: it was completely deserved, as the 4th best TE overall and the 2nd best in the conference, but it was also 611 yards, 4 TDs, on 6.7 yards per catch. S9 was much, much less of a whimper, and L'Alto had the 3rd most yards, the 3rd highest yards per receptiion, and the 2nd most touchdowns (with 3, see above comments about Tight End), and easily made the Pro Bowl. S10 saw L'Alto be the 3rd best TE in the league again, easily making the Pro Bowl despite only having a single touchdown.
S11 was the first of L'Alto's stretch getting 4/5 TEotY seasons, and they are really easy to cover with one exception. In S11, Verso was 20 yards off the lead in yards, but led the position in touchdowns and had a 2 TD lead over the one person with barely more yards, easy TEotY. L'Alto led the league in yards and touchdowns from the position in S12. In S13, L'Alto was merely relegated to the 2nd best season by a TE, despite this being the best season of his career with the highest yards, the highest yards per reception, and tied for the highest touchdowns. S14, he was the best TE because the only person with more TDs only led by one and had 200 less yards than his league leading total.
In S15, L'Alto was easily the best person to actually be listed at TE. He had the most yards and the most yards per reception, leading both categories by a significant amount. He also only got 2 TDs. There was another player with 5, but they had less than half the yards and were over 3 yards per reception worse. There is one notable issue that comes into effect around this time: What about the people who played out of position? There were significantly better seasons labeled as FB at the time. I assume this was some sort of cheat similar to how TEs nowadays are punished for playing a significant chunk of snaps at WR by the All Pro voters, but due to not being in the league at the time and having no first hand knowledge of this controversy, I can't judge whether the better seasons listed at FB should have won; I've been basically going off of "every listed season at TE + the seasons that had to qualify, otherwise an award wouldn't make sense".
S16 was another year L'Alto missed the Pro Bowl. Honestly, this was a bad season from L'Alto, I think there's an argument that he's the 3rd worst listed TE on the year due to having less than 500 yards, no TDs, and less than 7 yards per catch. S17 saw a return to form for L'Alto's 11th year playing, with L'Alto being the 3rd best listed TE. He'd follow that up with a year where he was the 2nd best listed TE in S18, before his 13th and final year saw him act his age as the 2nd worst TE in the entire league.
L'Alto deserves the Hall. I'm not saying otherwise. I just cannot respect a peak season of 879 yards and 8 TDs; that's about 64 yards per game. Sure, it's TE. But even among TEs, that's 69th today, with something close to a half dozen better seasons from DiMirio alone. As far as TDs go it's much better, at T-24, with a few better DiMirio seasons and a couple other old sim seasons tied or better. But overall, L'Alto was a compiler, not a peak player. As far as L'Alto is concerned, he had a significant chunk of his seasons in the 13 game era and never played in the 16 game era, but he's still 3rd in games played at the TE position to Deshawn Penne and Mister Hogmally. I came into this believing L'Alto was arguably the 2nd best TE ever; at this point I'm much less sure. I will say, he was one of the best blocking TEs ever, which is a nice feather in his cap, but I'm not sure enough for that to make me put him 2nd at the position all time.
VINNY VALENTINE
User: @Unicorn (editor's note, there are 2 different users name Unicorn, this may be the wrong one and I'm not entirely sure how I'd check before publishing)
BAL (S10 - S15)
OCO (S16 - S16)
AZ (S17 - S18)
NOLA (S19 - S19)
WR
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S10, S15)
-------------
AWARDS
3x Wide Receiver of the Year (S16, S17, S18)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S16)
1x Returner of the Year (S17)
8x Pro Bowler (S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#3 Career Rec Avg (17.62)
#15 Career ST KR (266.00)
#19 Career ST KRYds (6226.00)
#23 Career ST PRYds (1620.00)
#22 Career ST PRLng (86.00)
#2 Career ST PR_TD (6.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#23 Season ST PRLng (S11 - 86.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S12 - 1.00)
#1 Season ST PR_TD (S17 - 3.00)
#4 Season ST PR_TD (S11 - 2.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S14 - 1.00)
#6 Season ST PRAvg (S14 - 18.71)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rec TD (S16W3 - 3.00)
#9 Game Rec TD (S18W13 - 3.00)
#14 Game ST PRYds (S17W13 - 132.00)
#25 Game ST PRYds (S11W1 - 116.00)
#23 Game ST PRLng (S11W1 - 86.00)
#1 Game ST PR_TD (S17W13 - 2.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S17W10 - 6.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S17W13 - 6.00)
#20 Game ST KRAvg (S12W9 - 101.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#15 Career Rec Rec (71.00)
#6 Career Rec Yds (1113.00)
#1 Career ST KR (29.00)
#8 Career ST KRYds (655.00)
#4 Career ST PRYds (208.00)
#5 Career ST PRLng (74.00)
#17 Career ST PR (13.00)
#11 Career ST PRAvg (16.00)
#7 Career AllPurpose Yds (1976.00)
#15 Career Scrimmage Yds (1113.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#23 Season Rec Avg (S15 - 18.45)
#19 Season Rec Lg (S11 - 63.00)
#7 Season ST KR (S18 - 8.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S11 - 7.00)
#7 Season ST KRYds (S18 - 237.00)
#12 Season ST PRYds (S14 - 90.00)
#25 Season ST PRYds (S12 - 71.00)
#5 Season ST PRLng (S14 - 74.00)
#9 Season ST PRLng (S12 - 67.00)
#5 Season ST PRAvg (S14 - 45.00)
#6 Season ST PRAvg (S12 - 35.50)
#17 Season AllPurpose Yds (S18 - 470.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#13 Game ST KR (S11W16 - 5.00)
#7 Game ST PRYds (S14W15 - 90.00)
#13 Game ST PRYds (S12W16 - 71.00)
#5 Game ST PRLng (S14W15 - 74.00)
#9 Game ST PRLng (S12W16 - 67.00)
#8 Game ST PRAvg (S14W15 - 45.00)
#9 Game ST PRAvg (S12W16 - 35.50)
Overall Statistics: 621 receptions, 10,943 yards, 75 touchdowns
Vinny Valentine is one of the greatest Old Sim WRs, which you can just tell looking at his awards and his stats. Despite playing nearly half of his career in the 13 game era, and the other half of his career in the 14 game era, he's still 30th in yards and 32 in touchdowns over 136 seasons. That being said, his career absolutely didn't start out well. In S10, he was the 7th target and thus only got 100 yards. In S11, he was promoted to WR2 behind Trey Willie, but he was still not great, with only 800 yards and 3 touchdowns on the season. This was a year where his Pro Bowl came from putting together one of the 2 seasons with a pair of punt return touchdowns. S12 was his first season making the Pro Bowl for his receiving work, and he broke out in a big way! He got 7 touchdowns and 1300 yards, and by my count was the 3rd best WR on the year, with more stats than his previous 2 seasons combined.
S13 was an even better season from Valentine, with more yards and touchdowns. He led the league in yards and was T-3rd in touchdowns. If not for Kazimir Oles getting a gargantuan 13 touchdowns, he'd have won his first WRotY 3 seasons earlier, as is he was the 2nd best WR on the season in my view. S14 was a repeat as the 2nd best WR on the year, mainly due to getting 12 TDs; this season he was merely 5th in yards. S15 was a step back for Valentine, with him being merely the 4th best WR on the season. Still easily deserving the Pro Bowl, though!
S16 was the first of Valentine's 3 straight WRotY awards, as well as his OPOY season. He led the entire league in yards, and was 2nd in touchdowns. The only player with more TDs was a fullback with 1 more TD and 500 less yards. There's an argument for Joliet Christ to win the OPOY but Valentine was a fine award here, and there was absolutely nobody with a claim to beat him out for WRotY, so long as I completely ignore the QB who was throwing to him. In no world did Valentine deserve the OPOY. S17 was more marginal; I can see the argument for Valentine to be WRotY, but he only got 7 TDs to go with 1400 yards in 13 games. The best competition was, in my opinion, someone with 1232 yards and 10 touchdowns. There was DEFINITELY a better receiver this season in the form of Canton, but he was a fullback, so Valentine overall deserved the win. Finally, in S18, Valentine was yet again definitely the best WR on the season with 1360 yards and 11 TDs.
Valentine's final season was unimpressive, with under 700 yards and 4 touchdowns as WR2 on the season for his team, but that wasn't why he made the hall. That would be due to being a top 3 WR 6 times over a 7 year span, along with 3 straight WRotY awards. There's not any argument against Valentine being one of the best WRs of all time, and an easy Hall of Famer. Really, the biggest issue with Valentine all time is the lack of overall stats, but that's more than partly due to being behind other WRs for a couple seasons at the beginning of his career, and the low overall games. Also what was probably the equivalent of the S39 Awards vote, but I'll get to that later down this part.
Next up, the S24 Ballot.
KAZIMIR OLES
User: @Oles
SJS (S10 - S15)
CHI (S16 - S18)
AZ (S18 - S19)
OCO (S19 - S20)
WR
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S14, S19)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Wide Receiver of the Year (S13)
8x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18, S19)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#5 Career Rec Avg (17.45)
#10 Career ST KR (289.00)
#13 Career ST KRYds (6861.00)
#4 Career ST PRYds (2874.00)
#18 Career ST PRLng (87.00)
#2 Career ST PR_TD (6.00)
#6 Career ST PR (278.00)
#13 Career AllPurpose Yds (20989.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#14 Season Rec Avg (S15 - 20.46)
#19 Season Rec Avg (S13 - 20.03)
#24 Season Rec Avg (S16 - 19.84)
#11 Season ST KR (S11 - 49.00)
#22 Season ST KRYds (S11 - 1257.00)
#8 Season ST PRYds (S15 - 509.00)
#18 Season ST PRLng (S13 - 87.00)
#18 Season ST KR_TD (S12 - 1.00)
#1 Season ST PR_TD (S18 - 3.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S13 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S15 - 1.00)
#18 Season ST PR_TD (S19 - 1.00)
#9 Season ST PR (S16 - 46.00)
#16 Season ST PRAvg (S15 - 15.91)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#9 Game Rec TD (S10W11 - 3.00)
#9 Game Rec TD (S14W1 - 3.00)
#9 Game Rec TD (S14W8 - 3.00)
#18 Game ST PRLng (S13W11 - 87.00)
#4 Game ST PR (S19W1 - 8.00)
#10 Game ST PR (S16W8 - 7.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S18W3 - 6.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#24 Career Rec Lg (65.00)
#16 Career Rec TD (6.00)
#6 Career ST KR (27.00)
#1 Career ST KRYds (717.00)
#14 Career ST PRYds (144.00)
#5 Career ST PR (22.00)
#9 Career AllPurpose Yds (1637.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#10 Season Rec Lg (S18 - 65.00)
#9 Season Rec TD (S18 - 3.00)
#18 Season ST PR (S18 - 7.00)
#22 Season ST KRAvg (S14 - 40.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#1 Game Rec TD (S18W14 - 3.00)
#5 Game ST KR (S16W15 - 6.00)
#6 Game ST KRYds (S16W15 - 180.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S14W15 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S18W15 - 4.00)
#7 Game Points (S18W14 - 18.00)
Overall Statistics: 645 receptions, 11,254 yards, 71 TDs
Unlike Valentine from the year before, Oles was very much not buried on the depth chart with the 2nd most yards and the most TDs receiving for San Jose in his rookie year, with 800 yards and 8 touchdowns. He actually regressed a bit the next year, with 900 yards but only 3 touchdowns, even despite being San Jose's undisputed WR1. S12 was Kazimir's first Pro Bowl, but it wasn't that great. Sure, he was 5th in yards with just over 1100, but he also only had 5 TDs; you could call him the 5th best WR, but you could also call him the 7th or 8th. I could argue he was the 5th best Wr in his own conference; overall, a good not great season.
S13 was the peak of Kazimir's career by a significant distance though. Nobody cares that you were only 6th in yards (1242) when you have 13 TDs and are completely dominant, with over 20 yards per reception. By far Oles' best season. S14 was a great followup, with 1248 yards and 9 TDs, albeit the TD regression meant he was more around 5th in the league among WRs. S15 was very similar, exact same yard total, 3 less touchdowns, about the 5th best WR in the league again, easy Pro Bowl. The S16 season saw the league go to 13 games and Oles regress in yardage to 1100 yards. Still, that was good for 5th in the league, and along with 5 touchdowns, this meant it was yet another easy pro Bowl season as about the 5th best WR in the league.
S17 was not good. 919 yards, 3 touchdowns, by my count there's about 7 better WRs in just his conference. I'd say he got this Pro Bowl due to his time returning, except for the fact he wasn't a good returner this year either. I don't like this Pro Bowl very much. S18 was much better, he rebounded to over 1100 yards and 8 touchdowns, he was about the 7th best WR on the year but that at least was good enough for a lower Pro Bowl berth. Oles' final Pro Bowl berth was in S19, where he was about a top 5 WR on the year yet again.
Oles had a single season where he would have made a 1st team All Pro. That was a season where he was the best WR in the league, but that's still a single season, while spending just over half of his career in an 8 team league. I'm not sure how to compare the fact that he was a starting WR from the beginning of his career. That being said, you get a Hall of Fame berth for sure when you make that many Pro Bowls over 11 seasons. I do have problems with 2 of those Pro Bowls but that's not enough to completely take him out of the Hall in my book.
Today, Oles is 27th in yards, but a kind of poor 45th in touchdowns. By my count, he's only 2 TDs above the lowest full time WR in the Hall.
VLADIMIR FYODOROVICH
User: @majesiu
OCO (S7 - S7)
NOLA (S8 - S19)
CB, WR
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
2x Ultimus Champion (S9, S11)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Defensive Rookie of the Year (S7)
1x Performance of the Year (S11)
1x Offensive Player of the Year (S12)
1x Wide Receiver of the Year (S12)
1x Returner of the Year (S14)
8x Pro Bowler (S10, S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#11 Career Rec Avg (16.78)
#6 Career ST KR (322.00)
#4 Career ST KRYds (8351.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#20 Career ST KR_TD (2.00)
#9 Career ST PR_TD (3.00)
#21 Career AllPurpose Yds (19639.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#23 Season Rec Yds (S12 - 1637.00)
#17 Season Rec Avg (S12 - 20.21)
#18 Season ST KRYds (S14 - 1277.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S16 - 108.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#4 Game DEF Int (S10W1 - 3.00)
#21 Game ST KRYds (S10W10 - 218.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S16W13 - 108.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#5 Career ST PRYds (205.00)
#15 Career ST PRLng (50.00)
#1 Career ST PR_TD (1.00)
#17 Career ST PR (13.00)
#13 Career ST PRAvg (15.77)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season Rec TD (S11 - 5.00)
#2 Season ST PRYds (S11 - 163.00)
#17 Season ST PRLng (S11 - 50.00)
#11 Season ST PR (S11 - 8.00)
#15 Season ST PRAvg (S11 - 20.38)
#3 Season Points (S11 - 36.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#12 Game Rec Rec (S11W16 - 10.00)
#1 Game Rec TD (S11W16 - 3.00)
#11 Game Rec TD (S11W15 - 2.00)
#11 Game Rec TD (S19W14 - 2.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S10W16 - 5.00)
#9 Game ST PRYds (S11W16 - 84.00)
#10 Game ST PRYds (S11W15 - 79.00)
#17 Game ST PRLng (S11W16 - 50.00)
#1 Game ST PR_TD (S11W16 - 1.00)
#11 Game ST PR (S11W15 - 5.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S10W15 - 4.00)
#13 Game ST PRAvg (S11W16 - 28.00)
#1 Game Points (S11W16 - 24.00)
Overall Statistics: 596 receptions, 10,002 yards, 53 touchdowns
299 tackles, 49 PDs, 7 INTs
Fyodorovich took the first 4 seasons of his career just playing CB, the next year playing both CB and WR, and the rest of his career just at WR. Overall he ended up with about 122 games at WR by my count. To be frank, his time at CB is not great. The first 3 seasons in his career range from mediocre to outright bad; his rookie of the year season was 7 sacks, 4 PDs, and a FR, which is an interesting season but I don't think it's actually good or Rookie of the Year worthy. S8 was decent, but again, not better than that, with 13 PDs and a pick. And S9 was actually terrible, with 9 PDs and a single pick over the entire season. You could make a decent argument that roquefort's Performance of the Year clinching performance of Half of Friday was a better single game than any season Fyodorovich had in his CB career, Fyodorovich's peak was 14 PDs, 3 picks, and a FF in S10, about the 6th best CB in the league and a deserving Pro Bowl. S11, Fyodorovich's last season at CB, was a regression back to barely acceptable, with 2 picks but only 9 PDs.
Thankfully for Fyodorovich, he was also playing WR in S11. He had 1150 yards, albeit only 6 touchdowns, and was at worst the 8th best WR in the league, though you could make a case he was the 3rd best WR on his own team. Until S12, Fyodorovich seemed to be yet another player who had good spurts but wouldn't make a true impact on the league, and then he won OPOY. 1600 yards, 10 touchdowns, over 20 yards per reception, he had 300 more yards than anyone else. With a lead like that you almost always win a major award, and the WRotY was completely without question. While Fyodorovich would never reach those heights again, he stayed strong through the next few seasons.
In S13, Vladimir amassed nearly 1400 yards, albeit only 5 touchdowns meant that I wouldn't put him higher than 5th on the season despite being 3rd in yards. S14 was closer to 1300 than 1400 yards, but he got 8 touchdowns and was a top 5 receiver on the year again. S15 saw him make the Pro Bowl, and deserve it yet again, but this time there's a couple caveats attached: Fyodorovich's own season wasn't spectacular, with just under 1300 yards and only 3 touchdowns, and by my count was the 6th or 7th best season on the year among WRs in an overall down year for the position outside of a couple names. Still a deserving pro bowler, but lower down than you would expect for a season that was 3rd in yards.
S16 saw further regression, even beyond the fact that it was a 13 game season, with barely over 1000 yards; Fyodorovich bounced back in touchdowns a tad, with 5, and was still 6th among WRs in yards, and got a Pro Bowl. But this time I don't think he deserved it. I think he was the 9th best WR on the season, and the 5th best WR in his own Conference, which I don't think should have made the Pro Bowl at the time. At bare minimum, if 5 WRs made the Pro Bowl in a 5 team conference, I don't feel that says much. S17 was Fyodorovich's last Pro Bowl, and he rebounded to being the 5th best WR in the league by my count, with over 1100 yards and 10 touchdowns. S18 was a decent season for the 12th season of a career, albeit Vladimir was only the 3rd WR on his team by production, 800 yards and 5 touchdowns. No Pro Bowl of course, as was the case for his final season, S19, with 260 yards and a touchdown.
Fyodorovich's legacy has a couple problems. First off, he started life as a CB with one good season, not even a particularly great one in S10. Considering S8 and especially S9 were arguably bad seasons, that's a troubling start. Thankfully for Fyodorovich he spent most of his time as a WR, and he was great! But he has two major problems with his time at WR; for one, only one season where he was even in the conversation for top 3 at the position. He had 3 other seasons where I think he was top 5, but considering half of his WR career was in an 8 team league, that's a bit troubling. He also had a distinct lack of touchdowns outside of S17 and S12, and even those were 10 instead of a more jawdropping number. With a more expected touchdown total compared to his yardage numbers, Fyodorovich would have been near the top of the league in my estimation a lot more often than he ended up being.
There is something that more than saves him, though. Nobody else played less games than Fyodorovich and managed to amass 10,000 yards, and that's while being a WR2 and WR3 for the final 26 games of his career. Vladimir Fyodorovich is a deserving Hall of Famer, and while I have caveats with things like his S16 Pro Bowl berth and a touchdowns per game mark that is closer to 0.4 than 0.5, that doesn't change that fact.
GUS T.T. SHOWBIZ
User: @Molarpistols
OCO (S10 - S18)
QB, CB
Unanimous Inductee? NO
-------------
4x Ultimus Champion (S12, S13, S17, S18)
-------------
AWARDS
1x Quarterback of the Year (S16)
6x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17)
-------------
Important Records
SEASON RECORDS
#14 Season Pass Avg (S16 - 8.40)
#13 Season Pass Int (S13 - 23.00)
#2 Season Rush Avg (S15 - 8.60)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#7 Game Pass Yds (S13W9 - 515.00)
#3 Game Pass TD (S14W12 - 7.00)
#8 Game Pass TD (S12W1 - 6.00)
#8 Game Pass TD (S15W9 - 6.00)
#8 Game Pass TD (S16W5 - 6.00)
#6 Game Pass Int (S13W12 - 5.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#10 Career Pass Yds (2680.00)
#21 Career Pass TD (12.00)
#4 Career Pass Int (11.00)
#11 Career Pass Cmp (216.00)
#10 Career Pass Att (369.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#14 Season Pass Yds (S12 - 821.00)
#6 Season Pass Avg (S15 - 9.43)
#1 Season Pass TD (S12 - 8.00)
#22 Season Pass Att (S12 - 104.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#4 Game Pass Yds (S12W16 - 459.00)
#1 Game Pass TD (S12W16 - 5.00)
#19 Game Pass Cmp (S16W15 - 33.00)
#6 Game Pass Att (S16W15 - 56.00)
#11 Game Pass Att (S12W16 - 54.00)
Overall Statistics: 29,974 yards, 198 TDs, 95 INTs, 7.19 y/a, 85.59 passer rating
146 tackles, 25 PDs, 6 INTs
Showbiz's ranks in these are not fantastic, but not terrible either: 32nd in yards, 30th in TDs, 35th in INTs, 31st in yards per attempt (no matter what Wolfiebot says when you do Player Lookup on him), and 58th in passer rating. He only played 97 games at QB, and thus is 33rd in pass attempts. He is very, very notable for being absolutely terrible at actually getting completions; he's 11th worst all time in that stat with a 56.68%. I haven't covered completion percent before now, mainly because I don't think it's the most important thing in the world, at least when you can get good rate stats outside of the poor percentage, but it's a little notable that there's only one other Hall of Fame QB below 57%, and multiple people who might make a Hall of Shame at QB in that group.
Anyways, Showbiz himself started off poorly, albeit not as poorly as some other Hall of Fame QBs: 77.30 passer rating, a 13/8 TD/INT ratio, and a sub 6.5 yards per carry means that Gus was the farthest thing from Rookie of the Year material for his rookie season. S11 was better, albeit still not Pro Bowl worthy; he was tied for the league lead in touchdowns at 30, had the 3rd most yards, and while 15 picks isn't great that still put him tied for 5th and in the lower half. But Gus only had 6.65 yards per attempt and was still inaccurate, and as such he was actually 5th in the league by passer rating with only 82.94; I'd put it as the 5th best season in the league and either way the top 2 were ASFC seasons so Showbiz was out of luck.
S12 was Showbiz's first time he was deemed worthy of his last name by Pro Bowl voters, and I can't fault their choice. While this wasn't a great season for QB play in general, Showbiz was 3rd in the league by my reckoning and 2nd in the Conference; the closest guy to dethroning him for the 2nd Pro Bowl spot in the ASFC was Christ, and he was only slightly better in terms of efficiency while being a mile off the pace in terms of volume. Overall, though, I'm not sure how good a passer rating of 84.02 was even for the time. S13 was very similar, albeit I'd rank Showbiz 4th overall in terms of QB play this season. He had the highest volume in the league but that's no excuse for throwing 6 picks more than anyone else, and while I'm not going to say Gus didn't deserve a Pro Bowl spot, I will say that it's not often that a passer rating of 81.66 is the 4th highest in the league. Considering that this was an 8 team league at the time, I'm not particularly impressed by this season even with 30 TDs and nearly 5000 yards, that's what happens when you throw over 20 picks at the same time.
S14 saw Gus regress in yards per attempt, overall yardage, and even completion percent from the year prior. But he also managed 38 TDs to 11 INTs, a 91.87 passer rating, and probably a lot of annoyance; after a season that might have been the best in either S13 and definitely S12, this season it was 3rd behind Christ and Gambino. Just a Pro Bowl for what was by far the best season of Showbiz's career to that point. This was the exact same award total he got for S15, which happened to be one of the worst years of his career: an 82.22 passer rating, a 25/15 TD/INT ratio, take literally everything I said about Christ's S15 being a 5/10 or lower season for that day and age that still deserved a Pro Bowl because everyone else was at best a 3/10 outside of Gambino Monstarsing up everyone's Quarterback prowess and apply it to this one; this was a year where Gus had an argument for being the 2nd best QB and the best in his conference for the first time ever, and in my opinion it was actually an awful year.
Thankfully, S16 saw Showbiz at his absolute best: 8.4 yards per attempt, nearly 0.9 higher than any year he had in the rest of his career, a 34/10 TD/INT ratio, technically slightly worse than his S14 ratio but more than made up for by being over a yard better in y/a, and a 100.66 passer rating. It was one of only 6 seasons to get above a 100 passer rating in the old sim, and at the time it was the 4th best in league history behind Mike Boss's best mark and the last 2 years of Gambino. As such, it easily got the QBotY and the MVP! (is handed note) Wait, he didn't win MVP? Oh, this was the year Danny Grithead was maybe his most broken while utilizing a broken position, with double digit picks and sacks, understandable. Surely he won OPOY, then, right? No, this was the season Vinny Valentine had 12 TDs and nearly 100 yards per game, winning it over him. The fact that this happened is a travesty, at bare minimum Showbiz should have won OPOY.
That being said, this happened to be Showbiz's final season as a QB. He'd switch off to CB for the final 2 seasons of his career. His S17 was actually excellent; he had 4 picks and led the entire league in PDs from a CB with 22. He was a top 4 CB on the season, and if he had a pick six he might have won CBotY. S18...wasn't. Sure, he got 2 INTs and a touchdown, but he also got only 3 PDs all year. Not a great end to his career in my book, but it was preceded by arguably the 2 single best seasons of his career.
One final thing to touch on is that Showbiz is one of the top 10 highest volume QBs in the playoffs, with over 350 attempts to his name over his career. That is not a good thing when you are also 43rd out of 68 in Passer Rating. Only 2 of the top 10 are worse than his mark of 79.55 and he might have the single worst TD/INT ratio of all the big names at 12/11. He at least had a good yards per attempt (7.26, 26th out of 68) but that doesn't save everything else.
Gus Showbiz conflicts me a ton. At minimum 2, and arguably 3 of his 6 Pro Bowls came either as the 4th best QB in an 8 team league or as a mediocre or worse QB that season, only one of his seasons saw him as higher than the 2nd best QB in a 4 team conference, and he's not particularly high up in either volume (explainable by his low attempt total) or efficiency (absolutely not explainable by the low attempt total). However, Showbiz also had a season that could have won the MVP and should have won the OPOY, and also moved to CB and had a great season even if not one that would have won a CBotY or hypothetical 1st team All Pro season. He kind of is the mirror image of Christ (yes, make the obvious jokes); as far as full time QBs of this era goes, they're easily the top 2, and each have specific arguments over the other. Christ has the consistency, the efficiency, and the major awards, while Showbiz has the peak, the significantly less bad valley, the volume, and a higher number of Pro Bowls, all while having the exact same number of seasons where they were the best in the league at their position. Funnily enough, both even have my specific issues of an S15 where they were mediocre to bad but got a Pro Bowl out of it, and bad playoff performance! I marked that much less with Christ due to being outside the top 20 in attempts with about 100 less than Showbiz, but he's similarly bad there, arguably worse.
I think they both belong in the Hall, but I think Christ belongs higher all in all. While I think Christ should have had a worse award cabinet, and Showbiz should have had a better one, that would still give Christ at minimum 2 OPOYs to Showbiz's 1. It's close, though; I think my two personal most important traits for a player all time are peak and efficiency, and those belong on either side of the dichotomy. They both belong, I think Christ is slightly higher, but both don't get out of the lower end of the Hall (among QBs specifically) in my book.
Last up is the S25 ballot, which only has 3 players. I'm finally up to the people who were getting inducted when I first joined the league!
DAN SCHNEIDER
User: @LGMForever
BAL (S12 - S12)
NOLA (S13 - S13)
OCO (S14 - S20)
CHI (S20 - S21)
S, LB
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
3x Ultimus Champion (S17, S18, S19)
-------------
AWARDS
2x Defensive Back of the Year (S13, S17)
9x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S17, S18, S19, S20, S21)
-------------
Important Records
SEASON RECORDS
#6 Season DEF TD (S17 - 3.00)
#7 Season ST PRAvg (S17 - 18.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#10 Career ST PRYds (171.00)
#5 Career ST PRLng (74.00)
#13 Career ST PR (14.00)
#24 Career ST PRAvg (12.21)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#21 Season ST KRYds (S17 - 195.00)
#1 Season ST PRYds (S17 - 168.00)
#5 Season ST PRLng (S17 - 74.00)
#3 Season ST PR (S17 - 12.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#1 Game ST PRYds (S17W15 - 132.00)
#5 Game ST PRLng (S17W15 - 74.00)
#2 Game ST PR (S17W15 - 7.00)
Overall Statistics: 820 tackles, 153 PDs, 28 INTs, 4 TDs
Dan Schneider begins a set of 3 players out of 4 that I have to cover (spanning the end of this part and the start of next part) that I'm not entirely sure how to tackle or what I think about. 2 of those players, including Schneider, were among the first 3 Safeties taken in the All Time draft, with the other being Oakes. First off, the Safety specific record tab is still broken on Wolfiebot, so I have to go off of the Not Up To Date Wiki statistics page. He played Safety every year of his career outside of S20, where he played Linebacker. Over that 121 game span of time, Schneider had 693 tackles, good for 26th, 26 picks, good for T-21st, and an astounding 147 PDs, which is 4th among all Safeties. Overall he ranks 70th, and that's with only 134 games played and 13 of those coming at Linebacker! Well, technically more of that, but that's for a talk later in this section.
Schneider began his career with one of his 2 seasons that didn't make the Pro Bowl. It wasn't excellent, but he did lead the entire league in sacks, which means that it wasn't a terrible season even though it only got 2 PDs and no picks whatsoever. S13 saw Dan decide he had enough of sacking the QB and decided to be the best pass defender in the entire league. 29 PDs, 2 off the league lead in Julian O'Sullivan (who was an LB), and 6 INTs, 4 more than Sullivan and more than anyone else in the league. Easy DBotY, hypothetical All Pro, Pro Bowl, the only thing it didn't earn was DPOY and it has a realistic argument to be a better season than O'Sullivan's, mainly losing out due to a defensive TD and the 11 sacks.
S14 was a pretty large regression, with "only" 22 PDs and half the picks of the prior season, but he was still the best SS and the 3rd or 4th best Safety overall. S15 saw more regression, albeit with another 3 pick season; Schneider only had 66 tackles and 19 PDs, and due to the outside strength of the position he arguably didn't deserve a Pro Bowl spot; at best it was a lower quality berth. S16 actually saw Schneider miss the Pro Bowl with what looks like an amazing season of 17 PDs, 3 picks, and a defensive TD, but it was at best 3rd among Strong Safeties, and there were half a dozen better Free Safeties that year. S17, however, saw Schneider storm back to the top of the pile. 20 PDs and 4 INTs were great numbers, even for this Crazy Safety era, enough to be the 3rd best Safety on the year. He needed something extra special to win the DBotY award, and that something special came in his 3 defensive touchdowns. He won the DBotY award. Hilariously enough, a different Safety won the DPOY. I think that safety might have had the slightly better season (3/1 FF/FR, 14 sacks, 2 safeties, +3 PDs, -2 TDs) but part of that came from the positional advantage of Strong Safety vs Free Safety. Part of me is happy that both of these seasons got awards, even if technically only one of them should have.
Anyways, in S18 Dan only got 16 PDs, and didn't get any TDs, but he was still a top 5 Safety on the season and deservedly made the Pro Bowl. S19 did not deserve the Pro Bowl, with 1 TFL, 1 FR, and only 9 PDs with no picks. There were 4 better Strong Safeties and a double digit number of better Free Safeties. Even if, say, 2 Strong Safeties specifically made it per conference, this still should have seen Schneider miss it in favor of Jensen and Brackenridge. S20 saw Dan switch positions and play at LB, and he was a top 5 or so LB and deservedly made the Pro Bowl. Finally, in S21 Dan went back to Safety, and he was at worst the 3rd best Safety in the league.
Alright, time for the explanation. I wasn't in the league at the time of this exploit, so I may have some of the details wrong, but suffice to say that for some reason, playing Safeties at Linebacker made them absurdly broken and bonkers. Basically all of the greatest Safety seasons of all time are in a period of time between S11 and S19 where a bunch of players were listed at Safety but were playing Linebacker (or specifically S47 Scott Junior for some ungodly reason). This made their stats all insane. Many of the highest INT seasons ever are here, some of the greatest defensive seasons ever are here, and this was also what Schneider was doing at the time. Literally half of the pure Safeties in the Hall (as of the S47 class) were taking advantage of this as far as I know for most of their career, and 2 others had part of their career intersect with this. It's almost impossible to disentangle the two.
This doesn't make Schneider not a Hall of Famer. This was the best time for Safeties in league history by far, and there's an argument for even more safeties from this era to make the Hall rather than vice versa. Of all the greatest abusers of Safety at Linebacker, Schneider is the 2nd greatest and that's more than enough to make the Hall. What it does for me is that it makes me really, really conflicted about where I'd put Schneider in an overall top 5-10 Safeties in ISFL history list. There's no question whatsoever that he belongs on the list at all, though it's possible that even if I didn't consider the bugs Dan was taking advantage of, he might be lower than I'd expect because he wasn't the greatest of his generation.
LENNOX GARNETT
User: @37thchamber
PHI (S11 - S21)
S
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
AWARDS
1x Returner of the Year (S16)
8x Pro Bowler (S11, S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S19)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#10 Career DEF Int (37.00)
#25 Career DEF TD (6.00)
#9 Career ST KR (290.00)
#8 Career ST KRYds (7831.00)
#1 Career ST KRLng (108.00)
#1 Career ST KR_TD (5.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#1 Season ST KRLng (S14 - 108.00)
#1 Season ST KRLng (S15 - 108.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#6 Game ST KR (S15W6 - 7.00)
#6 Game ST KRYds (S17W11 - 243.00)
#15 Game ST KRYds (S15W6 - 224.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S14W1 - 108.00)
#1 Game ST KRLng (S15W11 - 108.00)
#25 Game ST PR (S14W4 - 6.00)
#1 Game ST KRAvg (S14W1 - 108.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#6 Career DEF Int (4.00)
#6 Career ST KR (27.00)
#3 Career ST KRYds (696.00)
#23 Career ST PRYds (112.00)
#25 Career ST KRLng (48.00)
#24 Career ST PR (10.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#2 Season DEF Int (S16 - 3.00)
#1 Season ST KR (S16 - 13.00)
#18 Season ST KR (S14 - 7.00)
#2 Season ST KRYds (S16 - 368.00)
#17 Season ST PRAvg (S15 - 20.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#24 Game DEF PD (S16W15 - 4.00)
#1 Game DEF Int (S16W15 - 3.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S14W16 - 5.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S16W14 - 5.00)
#13 Game ST KR (S16W16 - 5.00)
#11 Game ST KRYds (S16W16 - 171.00)
#23 Game ST PR (S12W15 - 4.00)
#23 Game ST PRAvg (S15W15 - 20.00)
Overall Statistics: 826 tackles, 26 sacks, 113 PDs, 37 INTs, 6 TDs
Lennox isn't the greatest of his generation either, though he's as overpowering as Schneider in terms of overall stats. Garnett is 7th in tackles among Safeties, 7th in INTs (and 10th overall), T-10th in PDs, and T-14th in TDs. Granted, he played a lot more games than Schneider, although still not that many overall (148, all at Safety). His all powerful stats are, however, tempered a bit by the complete lack of positional excellency awards, even accepting that this may have been the single most difficult position and time to ever get awards at. So let's see how often Garnett challenged for the title of best Safety.
Garnett came right out of the gate as the 3rd best safety in the league, with only 7 PDs but 6 INTs and a touchdown in S11. Despite putting up similar numbers in S12, 10 PDs and 5 INTs, everyone else suddenly gaining meant that Lennox was more like the 4th or 5th best Safety, though still well in the range to be a deserving Pro Bowler. S13 saw Garnett put together an astounding 26 PD, 4 INT season that was in my opinion the 3rd best season behind Schneider and Broxton, though the lack of a defensive touchdown means that you could argue Lennox was also worse than Harrison. At worst he was 4th though. S14 only saw half the PDs, but Garnett got 4 more picks, added on 5 sacks, and managed nearly 100 tackles. This is a year where Garnett is at worst in contention for Best Safety, and thus DBotY; Grithead, the winner, had 8 tackles, 1 FF, and a defensive TD, while Garnett had a TFL and a pick. It's a question for me whether you value the touchdown or the guaranteed extra turnover more, and at bare minimum this is a year where Garnett is barely off a positional award.
S15 saw greatness up and down the position of Safety, which Garnett didn't really participate in. He managed 6 sacks and a defensive touchdown, but 3 INTs and 7 PDs was well behind what I'd expect from the Hall of Fame Safeties of this era; still might be a deserving Pro Bowler, maybe, but only barely if that. I think I'd have Garnett miss it, and it's very possible that this was a returner Pro Bowl over a Safety Pro Bowl; at the bare minimum I'm almost certain that Garnett made the Pro Bowl as the best NSFC returner. S16 saw Garnett win Returner of the Year, but this time he himself was at worst the 3rd best Safety on the season, and I think I'd put Garnett 2nd that year; he had only 14 PDs, but he had 6 picks and 2 TDs; if I had to guess this might have been the best DB season for at least 10 different years of the Old Sim era but, well, that's a story for next part.
S17 saw Lennox lead the entire league in PDs, but he only got 3 picks. Still arguably the 4th best Safety on the season and a deserving Pro Bowl, but in a luckier year this could easily have ranked higher. S18 was the first time Lennox missed the Pro Bowl entirely (albeit I'm pretty sure S15 was a returner pro bowl), and there's absolutely no argument he should have made it. He had 5 sacks, but only 1 pick and 3 PDs. Then Lennox took all his missed INTs from S17 and piled them into S19; he had 4 PDs, 2 sacks, 1 FF, and instead of being one of the worst Safeties in the league was maybe the 3rd best and an easy Pro Bowler because he got 3 picks and 2 defensive touchdowns. S20 was not so lucky, and Garnett was by my count the single worst Safety in the entire league with only 2 PDs and a sack to his name; by my count nobody was worse at Pass defense and one sack is nowhere near enough to make up the difference. S21, Garnett's final season, was a bit better; 3 PDs but 2 INTs, plus 1/1 FF/FR means that at least Garnett didn't bow out as the worst player in the league at their position.
Overall, Garnett had a couple seasons where he was in the top 2 at the position, albeit only a single year where he was in the conversation for 1. That's more than enough to put a guy who was being blocked by 2 of the 3 best players at that position all time (at least as far as awards are concerned) in the Hall. At minimum, 7 Pro Bowls in the day and age of Safety dominance, with none of them being end of bench Pro Bowlers, is enough, combined with the overwhelming stats. The same criticisms in terms of All Time Ranking from Schneider's section apply even moreso to Garnett, as in my opinion Lennox was a worse Safety in the same era, maybe the 3rd best from that era, but again, that's not keeping him out of the Hall.
KULTURE FULTURE
User: @Saliva^
PHI (S11 - S15)
CHI (S16 - S20)
BAL (S21 - S21)
K/P
Unanimous Inductee? YES
-------------
AWARDS
3x Punter of the Year (S12, S15, S16)
6x Kicker of the Year (S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18)
8x Pro Bowler (S12, S13, S14, S15, S16, S17, S18, S19)
-------------
Important Records
CAREER RECORDS
#16 Career K XPM (379.00)
#14 Career K XPA (391.00)
#9 Career P Punts (876.00)
#9 Career P Yds (40668.00)
#5 Career P Lng (80.00)
#13 Career K FGM (249.00)
#19 Career K FGA (270.00)
#4 Career K FGPct (0.92)
#14 Career Points (1126.00)
-------------
SEASON RECORDS
#5 Season P Lng (S18 - 80.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S13 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S17 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S18 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S19 - 1.00)
#1 Season K XPPct (S21 - 1.00)
#1 Season K FGPct (S14 - 1.00)
#1 Season K FGPct (S18 - 1.00)
-------------
GAME RECORDS
#25 Game K XPM (S13W12 - 7.00)
#5 Game P Lng (S18W2 - 80.00)
#25 Game K FGM (S15W4 - 5.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON CAREER RECORDS
#16 Career P Punts (46.00)
#16 Career P Yds (2204.00)
#6 Career P Avg (47.91)
#6 Career P Lng (72.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON SEASON RECORDS
#7 Season P Avg (S17 - 50.75)
#15 Season P Lng (S21 - 69.00)
-------------
POSTSEASON GAME RECORDS
#4 Game P Punts (S17W14 - 12.00)
#11 Game P Punts (S21W15 - 10.00)
#2 Game P Yds (S17W14 - 609.00)
#2 Game P Avg (S12W15 - 60.67)
#23 Game P Avg (S14W15 - 54.33)
#7 Game P Lng (S12W15 - 72.00)
Overall Statistics: 379/391 XP, 96.93%; 249/270 FG, 92.22%
40,668 punt yards, 46.43 avg, 15.8 in20 rate
What can I say about Fulture that isn't plainly obvious? I guess I can quickly go season by season to see if he didn't deserve any of his pro bowls, or deserved more, or doubled up on a year.
S11 was Fulture's rookie season, and as is usual for Rookie Kickers, he was bad. He was the worst kicker, and while he was moreso average at punting, he wasn't particularly close to a Pro Bowl spot. S12 changed that, he was arguably the best kicker in his conference, with the best percentages, and the argument against him being the Pro Bowl kicker and the 2nd best kicker on the season was that he only had to attempt 6 40-49 yard field goals and no 50+s. And as a Punter, he was the single best, with 46 yards per punt exactly and 19.5% of his punts landing inside the 20; Turkleton was probably his best competition, with a 0.9 yard lead per punt, but nearly 6% worse on punts inside the 20. I lean Fulture here. That being said, this wasn't particularly a great year for punting.
S13 began a 6 season reign over the Kicker of the Year award for Fulture. Taking a cue from his complaints about the previous season, he went 6/6 on kicks from 50+, and only missed a single 30-39 yard field goal on the season. His punting was bad, but with a season like that I'm sure Philly didn't mind. S14 was barely different; his lone miss was an extra point, he took 8 instead of 5 kicks from 40-49 but only a single 50+ yarder, and he won the Kicker of the Year. I think there's a significant argument for Dean Jackson, who went completely perfect; Jackson attempted 14 less extra points and 4 less 40-49 yarders, which is a significant amount, but on the other hand he had a perfect season compared to Fulture's imperfect one. At the very least this was an amazing season and easily deserved the Pro Bowl. His punting wasn't bad this year but it wasn't in contention for Pro Bowl.
S15 wasn't the best season of Fulture's career as a kicker, but he was still the best kicker and won the Kicker of the Year relatively easily. This was also a season where he was unquestionably the best punter on the year, with an average just above 46 yards and over 20% of his punts being inside the 20. Kulture followed a year where he got both awards with another year where he got both awards, albeit this one I have a few issues with. I don't think it's very often that someone wins a Kicker of the Year award when there was someone who was better than them at both extra points and field goals, AND took more long range ones to boot! Fulture went 8/8 and 1/3 on 40s and 50s, respectively, while Alex D went 10/11 and 0/0. Honestly, I think the Alex D mark is better, even without attempting a 50 yarder. He made more long kicks, attempted less, had a better FG% and a better XP%. This should have been Dasistirklichseinnachname's Kicker of the Year. Thankfully, Fulture was the best Punter of the year pretty easily, with over 49 yards per punt making up for only 14.1% of punts inside the 20. The only player within 2 yards per punt had a worse ratio!
S17 saw Fulture completely fall off the rails...at punting, nearly 5 yards per punt worse with only 11.3% of his punts landing inside the 20. He was the best Kicker on the year, though, being perfect at extra points and having the highest FG%; there were a couple people with more long range kicks attempted and a close FG%, but none of them were able to maintain a perfect extra point record so I think this was a deserved award. S18 was Fulture's last great season, and he made it an all timer. He was completely perfect on kicks, managed a 48.44 punt average with 16.7% of punts inside the 20, and lost out to an outrageous season that managed to go inside the 20 on 25.3% of kicks (with a still respectable 45.42 punt average). I would not be surprised if that mark was a record for the old sim. S19 was Kulture Fulture's final Pro Bowl, and it certainly wasn't for punting! He was the best kicker in his conference, and has an extant claim to be the best kicker on the entire season. It's not one that I find particularly credible, but it is one that exists.
S20 and S21 were both very similar; neither made the Pro Bowl, and were atrocious as kicking years for the standard you'd expect (Fulture was arguably the worst kicker in the league in S20) but were actually better than Fulture's average for Punting, albeit still well off the pace of a Pro Bowl spot or especially a Punter of the Year award.
Kulture Fulture is one of the greatest kickers ever. That FG rate is 4th all time, he's above the median for extra points despite being an old sim Kicker, among the primarily Old Sim Hall of Fame kickers Fulture ranks 2nd of 6 for extra points. He dominated his position so well that only 2 other players can even come close (at least in how they were awarded), the already mentioned Paul DiMirio and someone who played Center. He also got 3 Punter of the Year awards, one behind Dean Jackson for most all time, which might have you believe that Fulture is an all time great Punter...he really wasn't. His inside the 20 rate is middling for Old Sim Hall of Fame Kickers, and he's the single worst in terms of average of that group of 6; in my estimation he's the 2nd worst Punter in the Hall of Fame. I also have, as mentioned above, significant problems with 2 of his Kicker of the Year awards, one of which (S16) I feel he definitely should have lost.
There is one major issue with Fulture's claim to be the best Kicker ever, despite lapping every other contender in Kicker of the Year awards: He's arguably the single luckiest Kicker in the Hall, in terms of being asked to make short kicks for the vast, vast majority of his attempts. Only 34.1% of all of Fulture's attempts were from 40 or longer; only a few other players are even in the same ballpark and no Hall of Famer is within 2% of that mark. That being said, none of Fulture's ranges are bad; he's 11th all time from 30-39, 19th from 40-49, and 29th from 50+. The only range where he's worse than the median Hall of Famer is 50+, and not by much; the median Hall of Famer made 7/10 from that range while Fulture was at 2/3rds. Fulture is not my personal greatest kicker/punter ever, his average kicking stats just do not match up well with certain other people who will be mentioned soon, and he's just a bad Hall of Fame punter (albeit still a great punter). But if he's yours, he's a perfectly reasonable pick.
