8) It’s always important to look forward to the future. Examine your team, and in 400 words or more, talk about how they can improve themselves to get a stab at trophy contention next year. Are you loaded with draft capital for the next draft? Do you have plenty of cap space to sign free agents? Go through the roster and note the different strengths and weaknesses, and how you think those will change over the next few seasons. How should your team adapt?
The New Orleans Second Line were eliminated in the first round by their rivals, the Orange County Otters. During the regular season, the Second Line finished in a four way tie for first in the ASFC, making us extremely close to having locked up the first round bye and avoiding the first round of the playoffs all together. With this said, the Second Line is setup well to compete for the Ultimus for the next several seasons due to the amount of talent on the roster. In terms of TPE, the Second Line has the highest average TPE for starters in the entire league, that is almost 100 TPE more than the eventual S24 champs San Jose Sabercats. Its clear that TPE is not everything, but it does show that the team does have a deep pool of veteran talent to draw from. This high TPE is because the roster is getting old as several top players are going to start or continue to regress. The Second Line have 5 active players with >1000 TPE from S18 and S19 who will be hitting regression in the next few seasons, which will cause significant damage to their abilities. Their old age means that the Second Line's Ultimus window may be only open for a few more seasons as well, as when regression hits they will either need to be subpar or will need to be replaced with new comers from the draft.
In the offseason, the Second Line needs to focus on two things: adding depth at key positions where the current starter will be hitting regression soon or fill holes caused by free agency and the expansion draft. The high average TPE of the Second Line is going to make several of its roster targets in the expansion draft, so the players taken by the expansion teams will need to be filled immediately. The Second Line's defensive ends are getting very old: Brave Ulysses is S15 and Ben Tu'inukuafe is S16 so this should be the top target in the draft. The top other positions with holes is RB (with Tom Hanks being from S15) and LB (Quenton Bode also S15). The Second Line still has a first round and a second round pick in the upcoming draft, so I think they should target the best available DE with their first pick, then find a RB or LB they like in the second round. If the player that they like does not fall to them, we have $24,000,000 in cap space for S25, meaning we can afford to pick players up in free agency.
12) It’s once again expansion season in the ISFL. Reflect on the additions of the New York Silverbacks and Berlin Fire Salamanders and discuss how these teams will affect the league. How do you see scheduling or playoff seeding potentially changing? How will these teams change the power balances in their respective conferences? How do you think each team should go about building their roster, whether it’s through the expansion draft, regular draft, or many seasons down the line?
With two teams being added to the league, the talent pool is going to become a little bit more shallow as more teams gives more potential starting spots available that need to be filled. This should cause an increase in parity across the league as the better teams will have more of their players taken by the expansion teams in the expansion draft. Additionally, those two new teams will be making picks in the prospect draft which will reduce the amount of players each team pulls away from the draft. With this increase in parity, you should expect a more competitive and unpredictable season where more teams have a chance to win the Ultimus.
With the league moving from 12 to 14 teams, I hope that the league will be adding one addition playoff spot in each conference to compensate. Currently, the top 50% of the league gets to the playoffs, but if two more teams are added and no changes are made to the playoffs then less than half of the league will have any stakes in the most important part of the season. It is going to be difficult to keep the playoffs at 50% of the league because each division would have 7 teams and you can't send half a team to the playoffs. Maybe a new 'at large bid' could be used where the highest finishing outside of the top 3 in either conference gets to be the 7th seed in the playoffs and plays the conference winner with the worst record in the first round. This would keep playoff participation at 50% and prevent a good team in a great conference from missing out on the playoffs, kind of like Arizonia did in the ASFC this season.
I think the Fire Salamanders and the Silverbacks should have two different plans for building a team based on the conference they are in. The Salamanders are in the NSFC which had only two teams with winning records this season. I think the Fire Salamanders should go all in on season 25 and pick veteran players in the expansion draft that have high TPE who may be facing regression very soon. Focus on QB, CB, WRs, and Safeties in the expansion draft with as high as possible TPE without worrying about regression to build the strongest possible team as soon as possible. In the prospect draft, focus on positions that can still produce value with lower TPE like DTs. This would make high ranking DT prospects my top target to fill roster spots immediately. To get to the playoffs, you only need to go 8-8 which is definitely possible with a team built with the highest TPE unprotected players.
That should be 10/10 TPE
The New Orleans Second Line were eliminated in the first round by their rivals, the Orange County Otters. During the regular season, the Second Line finished in a four way tie for first in the ASFC, making us extremely close to having locked up the first round bye and avoiding the first round of the playoffs all together. With this said, the Second Line is setup well to compete for the Ultimus for the next several seasons due to the amount of talent on the roster. In terms of TPE, the Second Line has the highest average TPE for starters in the entire league, that is almost 100 TPE more than the eventual S24 champs San Jose Sabercats. Its clear that TPE is not everything, but it does show that the team does have a deep pool of veteran talent to draw from. This high TPE is because the roster is getting old as several top players are going to start or continue to regress. The Second Line have 5 active players with >1000 TPE from S18 and S19 who will be hitting regression in the next few seasons, which will cause significant damage to their abilities. Their old age means that the Second Line's Ultimus window may be only open for a few more seasons as well, as when regression hits they will either need to be subpar or will need to be replaced with new comers from the draft.
In the offseason, the Second Line needs to focus on two things: adding depth at key positions where the current starter will be hitting regression soon or fill holes caused by free agency and the expansion draft. The high average TPE of the Second Line is going to make several of its roster targets in the expansion draft, so the players taken by the expansion teams will need to be filled immediately. The Second Line's defensive ends are getting very old: Brave Ulysses is S15 and Ben Tu'inukuafe is S16 so this should be the top target in the draft. The top other positions with holes is RB (with Tom Hanks being from S15) and LB (Quenton Bode also S15). The Second Line still has a first round and a second round pick in the upcoming draft, so I think they should target the best available DE with their first pick, then find a RB or LB they like in the second round. If the player that they like does not fall to them, we have $24,000,000 in cap space for S25, meaning we can afford to pick players up in free agency.
12) It’s once again expansion season in the ISFL. Reflect on the additions of the New York Silverbacks and Berlin Fire Salamanders and discuss how these teams will affect the league. How do you see scheduling or playoff seeding potentially changing? How will these teams change the power balances in their respective conferences? How do you think each team should go about building their roster, whether it’s through the expansion draft, regular draft, or many seasons down the line?
With two teams being added to the league, the talent pool is going to become a little bit more shallow as more teams gives more potential starting spots available that need to be filled. This should cause an increase in parity across the league as the better teams will have more of their players taken by the expansion teams in the expansion draft. Additionally, those two new teams will be making picks in the prospect draft which will reduce the amount of players each team pulls away from the draft. With this increase in parity, you should expect a more competitive and unpredictable season where more teams have a chance to win the Ultimus.
With the league moving from 12 to 14 teams, I hope that the league will be adding one addition playoff spot in each conference to compensate. Currently, the top 50% of the league gets to the playoffs, but if two more teams are added and no changes are made to the playoffs then less than half of the league will have any stakes in the most important part of the season. It is going to be difficult to keep the playoffs at 50% of the league because each division would have 7 teams and you can't send half a team to the playoffs. Maybe a new 'at large bid' could be used where the highest finishing outside of the top 3 in either conference gets to be the 7th seed in the playoffs and plays the conference winner with the worst record in the first round. This would keep playoff participation at 50% and prevent a good team in a great conference from missing out on the playoffs, kind of like Arizonia did in the ASFC this season.
I think the Fire Salamanders and the Silverbacks should have two different plans for building a team based on the conference they are in. The Salamanders are in the NSFC which had only two teams with winning records this season. I think the Fire Salamanders should go all in on season 25 and pick veteran players in the expansion draft that have high TPE who may be facing regression very soon. Focus on QB, CB, WRs, and Safeties in the expansion draft with as high as possible TPE without worrying about regression to build the strongest possible team as soon as possible. In the prospect draft, focus on positions that can still produce value with lower TPE like DTs. This would make high ranking DT prospects my top target to fill roster spots immediately. To get to the playoffs, you only need to go 8-8 which is definitely possible with a team built with the highest TPE unprotected players.
That should be 10/10 TPE