So, I purchased DDSPF21 a couple of weeks ago. I had some money sitting on a Visa gift card, and decided to grab a copy while it was on sale, just to have the sim in case one of my team's needed it in the future. Recently, I've been messing around with it, seeing all the features it has, even simming a couple of times to see what I could expect for the season going forward. Quick sidenote, the sim transfer team did just buff RBs a bit and made them a bit better at lower TPE levels, but that's not super relevant to this article.
ANYWAYS!
When I first started simming, I was running into an issue where I needed to set the roster limits to zero, since the rosters in the preseason file don't have punters, fullbacks and a handful of other positions allocated. (It's preseason, not worried about it). Thankfully, I figured out where it is thanks to some help from DarknessRising, and went on to sim the full season.
What I saw afterwards, completely shocked me. Something was very, VERY wrong with my version of the sim. I didn't have to scroll far to see the absolute state of the league. Thankfully, I managed to save it as a seperate file, but let's look into this unicorn sim and see what the hell happened.
STANDINGS
NSFC
11-5
10-6
10-6
9-7
7-9
7-9
2-14
Nothing super out of the ordinary when it comes to the NSFC. Berlin being 2nd best in the conference (presumably due to tiebreakers over Yellowknife) is a bit surprising, and Sarasota being 6th in the conference also was pretty interesting.
ASFC
13-3
11-5
9-7
9-7
6-10
5-11
3-13
I know less about the ASFC than the NSFC, but this seems reasonably accurate? Idk, Arizona definitely has a lot of firepower and they could be an incredibly strong team.
PLAYOFFS
DIVISIONAL
vs : Berlin win, 35-33
vs : Chicago wins, 45-30
vs : Arizona Wins, 49-19
vs : Orange County Wins, 37-28
CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP
vs : Chicago wins, 52-30
vs : Arizona wins, 49-34
ULTIMUS
vs : Arizona wins, 42-39
Arizona completes their sweep through the playoff, narrowly edging out the Butchers in a barn burner of an Ultimus. They won last second off of a Koneicpolski pick-6, just narrowly giving them enough of a lead to avoid overtime.
"Rampage," I hear you say "nothing here is that weird! What do you mean by a unicorn sim?" Well, I'm glad you asked! Let's look at the passing leaders for Season 27.
Mattathias Caliban: 6745 Yds, 73 TDs
Ben Slothlisberger: 6258 Yds, 66 TDs
Luke Skywalker: 5840 Yds, 51 TDs
Chika Fujiwara: 5652 Yds, 49 TDs
Monterey Jack: 5485 Yds, 56 TDs
Suleiman Ramza: 5473 Yds, 52 TDs
Nick Kaepercolin: 5451 Yds, 57 TDs
Mike Boss Jr.: 5389 Yds, 53 TDs
Jackie Daytona: 5149 Yds, 55 TDs
Sam Howitzer: 5124 Yds, 52 TDs
Yeah. Not only do we have a new top 4 in regards to single season passing yards, Caliban absolutely shattered the previous #1 spot, held by Hall of Famer Mike Boss, by over 1000 yards. This immediately told me something was wrong. Not only did Caliban shatter every single passing record, not a single quarterback last season threw for over 5000 yards. In this sim, we had 10. The only ones to fall below this mark were Cortez, Phoenix, C. Jack and O'Donnell, who all had strong reasons at 4961, 4945, 4867 and 4656 yards respectively. Those would be really good passing numbers even last season. But in the Unicorn Sim, they're at the bottom of the barrel. What's even crazier, are the rushing stats.
Tatsu Nakamura: 3227 Yds
Baby Yoda: 2748 Yds
Raphtalia Chan: 2198 Yds
Joseph Petrongolo: 1843 Yds
Nicholas Ayers: 1762 Yds
Richard Gilbert: 1669 Yds
Zoe Watts: 1647 Yds
Jamar Lackson: 1619
Darrell Williams: 1533 Yds
Captain Rodgers: 1520 Yds
Once again, none of the guys from last year even come close to the totals of this sim. In fact, Tatsu Nakamura was so far ahead of everyone else that combining the yardage of the top 3 running backs from S26 (Skyline, Watts and Hanyadi) barely gets you out in front of him by 400 yards. He had a better rushing season than any single TEAM last season, and he had a better season than Sarasota and Baltimore combined. Wtih an absolutely absurd 12.2 yards per carry and 37 touchdowns, Nakamura basically put up respectable quarterback numbers as a running back.
So, awards wise, the sim wants to give everything to Nakamura. League MVP, Playoff MVP, Offensive MVP. Defensive MVP goes to Rapid Eagle with 57 tackles, 16 sacks, a safety and 7 forced fumbles, a pretty strong year all things considered. Speaking of defense, lets go into some fun facts about defense in this sim!
-The player with the most tackles in the sim was Honolulu linebacker Heinrich Kackpoo, with only 98 across the entire season.
-Xmus Flaxon Jaxon-Waxon ran away with the sack leader title, with 24 on the year.
-Stanislaw Koniecpolski and Jim Waters tied with most interceptions on the season with 5, followed closely by David Rector with 4.
-Son Goku breaks the tackle for loss record, previously held by Spike Suzkui, with 25 TFLs.
-The absolute best defense by points allowed in this sim was Colorado, who gave up 538 total points on the season. For context, the worst defense by points allowed, Honolulu, gave up 523 points last season.
So, something definitely happened on the defensive side of the ball in order to make a sim like this actually happen. I'm almost 100% certain I did not touch anything coming into the sim, I had only opened it just to make sure it ran properly. While the actual league will likely never have numbers in the same solar system as this, it was still something I had to look into just out of morbid curiosity. Defense is dead, and I killed it, apparently.
If you're curious about a particular stat in this sim, I'm more than happy to provide it to you and reveal even more about this absurd universe where defenses seemingly forgot how to play football.
ANYWAYS!
When I first started simming, I was running into an issue where I needed to set the roster limits to zero, since the rosters in the preseason file don't have punters, fullbacks and a handful of other positions allocated. (It's preseason, not worried about it). Thankfully, I figured out where it is thanks to some help from DarknessRising, and went on to sim the full season.
What I saw afterwards, completely shocked me. Something was very, VERY wrong with my version of the sim. I didn't have to scroll far to see the absolute state of the league. Thankfully, I managed to save it as a seperate file, but let's look into this unicorn sim and see what the hell happened.
STANDINGS
NSFC
11-5
10-6
10-6
9-7
7-9
7-9
2-14
Nothing super out of the ordinary when it comes to the NSFC. Berlin being 2nd best in the conference (presumably due to tiebreakers over Yellowknife) is a bit surprising, and Sarasota being 6th in the conference also was pretty interesting.
ASFC
13-3
11-5
9-7
9-7
6-10
5-11
3-13
I know less about the ASFC than the NSFC, but this seems reasonably accurate? Idk, Arizona definitely has a lot of firepower and they could be an incredibly strong team.
PLAYOFFS
DIVISIONAL
vs : Berlin win, 35-33
vs : Chicago wins, 45-30
vs : Arizona Wins, 49-19
vs : Orange County Wins, 37-28
CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP
vs : Chicago wins, 52-30
vs : Arizona wins, 49-34
ULTIMUS
vs : Arizona wins, 42-39
Arizona completes their sweep through the playoff, narrowly edging out the Butchers in a barn burner of an Ultimus. They won last second off of a Koneicpolski pick-6, just narrowly giving them enough of a lead to avoid overtime.
"Rampage," I hear you say "nothing here is that weird! What do you mean by a unicorn sim?" Well, I'm glad you asked! Let's look at the passing leaders for Season 27.
Mattathias Caliban: 6745 Yds, 73 TDs
Ben Slothlisberger: 6258 Yds, 66 TDs
Luke Skywalker: 5840 Yds, 51 TDs
Chika Fujiwara: 5652 Yds, 49 TDs
Monterey Jack: 5485 Yds, 56 TDs
Suleiman Ramza: 5473 Yds, 52 TDs
Nick Kaepercolin: 5451 Yds, 57 TDs
Mike Boss Jr.: 5389 Yds, 53 TDs
Jackie Daytona: 5149 Yds, 55 TDs
Sam Howitzer: 5124 Yds, 52 TDs
Yeah. Not only do we have a new top 4 in regards to single season passing yards, Caliban absolutely shattered the previous #1 spot, held by Hall of Famer Mike Boss, by over 1000 yards. This immediately told me something was wrong. Not only did Caliban shatter every single passing record, not a single quarterback last season threw for over 5000 yards. In this sim, we had 10. The only ones to fall below this mark were Cortez, Phoenix, C. Jack and O'Donnell, who all had strong reasons at 4961, 4945, 4867 and 4656 yards respectively. Those would be really good passing numbers even last season. But in the Unicorn Sim, they're at the bottom of the barrel. What's even crazier, are the rushing stats.
Tatsu Nakamura: 3227 Yds
Baby Yoda: 2748 Yds
Raphtalia Chan: 2198 Yds
Joseph Petrongolo: 1843 Yds
Nicholas Ayers: 1762 Yds
Richard Gilbert: 1669 Yds
Zoe Watts: 1647 Yds
Jamar Lackson: 1619
Darrell Williams: 1533 Yds
Captain Rodgers: 1520 Yds
Once again, none of the guys from last year even come close to the totals of this sim. In fact, Tatsu Nakamura was so far ahead of everyone else that combining the yardage of the top 3 running backs from S26 (Skyline, Watts and Hanyadi) barely gets you out in front of him by 400 yards. He had a better rushing season than any single TEAM last season, and he had a better season than Sarasota and Baltimore combined. Wtih an absolutely absurd 12.2 yards per carry and 37 touchdowns, Nakamura basically put up respectable quarterback numbers as a running back.
So, awards wise, the sim wants to give everything to Nakamura. League MVP, Playoff MVP, Offensive MVP. Defensive MVP goes to Rapid Eagle with 57 tackles, 16 sacks, a safety and 7 forced fumbles, a pretty strong year all things considered. Speaking of defense, lets go into some fun facts about defense in this sim!
-The player with the most tackles in the sim was Honolulu linebacker Heinrich Kackpoo, with only 98 across the entire season.
-Xmus Flaxon Jaxon-Waxon ran away with the sack leader title, with 24 on the year.
-Stanislaw Koniecpolski and Jim Waters tied with most interceptions on the season with 5, followed closely by David Rector with 4.
-Son Goku breaks the tackle for loss record, previously held by Spike Suzkui, with 25 TFLs.
-The absolute best defense by points allowed in this sim was Colorado, who gave up 538 total points on the season. For context, the worst defense by points allowed, Honolulu, gave up 523 points last season.
So, something definitely happened on the defensive side of the ball in order to make a sim like this actually happen. I'm almost 100% certain I did not touch anything coming into the sim, I had only opened it just to make sure it ran properly. While the actual league will likely never have numbers in the same solar system as this, it was still something I had to look into just out of morbid curiosity. Defense is dead, and I killed it, apparently.
If you're curious about a particular stat in this sim, I'm more than happy to provide it to you and reveal even more about this absurd universe where defenses seemingly forgot how to play football.