06-17-2023, 06:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-24-2023, 01:52 PM by xenosthelegend. Edited 1 time in total.)
This part will cover seasons 21 through 30. This includes when I joined originally, in fact the first game I remember is the S23 Ultimus. With that said, I actually remember some of these teams personally. So let's get into it.
2nd seed in ASFC, Home Field in Ultimus
28.8 ppg
20.0 pag
+8.8
Playoff Path:
23-17 over 7-6 AUS
27-24 (OT) over 10-3 OCO
33-13 over 7-6 YKW
Notable Awards:
Givussafare Rubbe wins OLotY
GMs win GMotY
This team was too well rounded to win more awards than it got, along with not being the top dog by record. The Hawks had the same record, and the Otters had a better one. However, the Second Line were the only team that was actually close to the Otters by point differential; the Otters had an even 10, and the 3rd best point differential belonged to the Hawks at +4.9. The playoff run, therefore, looks really good to me. Both Austin and Yellowknife got touchdowns with a minute left to make the score look more respectable (and that's still not saying much in Yellowknife's case) and Orange County was a strong team on the same level. Heck, OCO ALSO scored a last minute touchdown to tie up the game. NOLA winning in overtime was a fair result of a clash between the two best teams that season. Speaking of the 2 best teams that season, Yellowknife was absolutely nowhere near that title. They did a good job in the playoffs, with Baltimore doing their best garbage time scoring to make a game that was 24-6 with 4 minutes left look closer than it actually was. However, that doesn't change that this was one of the worst Ultimus teams ever, coming in at a +0.5 point differential, +7 on the season. That is worse than the S8 Second Line minus games against the worst defense ever, worse than the S16 Outlaws or the S13 Otters, there are only a couple teams that can claim the status of Ultimus competitors that are actually worse than this Wraiths team. I'm not punishing this Second Line team at all though considering they completely squashed their mediocre competition and only had trouble with the actually great team on their way. All that being said, this is just a better version of the S7 Liberty in my head, and considering the S4 Otters had a 1 win Yeti team to beat up on and pump their record up, and still had a worse record than this team, I'm putting it at 13th for now, at the top of "good teams who beat great teams in the playoffs" tier.
2nd seed in NSFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
22.7 ppg
16.0 pag
+6.7
Playoff Path:
36-14 over 6-7 SAR
17-16 over 11-2 YKW
25-24 over 10-3 OCO
Notable Awards:
Mo Berry wins DPOY
Immanuel Blackstone wins DEotY, Mo Berry wins LBotY
GMs win GMotY (I don't think they deserved it)
I don't often put personal commentary in the above section, but I really don't see why this team's GMs won GMotY. Was this a steep departure from the previous seasons? No, they got 8-5, 7-6, and 8-5 in the 3 previous seasons. Did this team outperform their talent level? Absolutely not, they were a good but not great team. It feels wrong that this GM pair got the nod, especially considering this contains probably the greatest team we've seen so far to not win a title and in this case, not win a single playoff game. I want to dive deeper into the Wraiths, because they were the best team we had seen in over half a decade, maybe longer. The Wraiths had 6 of the 13 positional excellency awards, and both the MVP and OPOY. They had a monstrous +16.1 point differential. If they won the playoff games by comfortable margins, they'd have placed 3rd or 4th all time. But instead Colorado managed to barely eke out a victory over them, and had the comeback to barely eke out a victory in the Ultimus over the Otters. Colorado did manage to handily defeat a Sarasota team who just did not belong in the playoffs at all (-3.7 point differential, worse than the team they beat on tiebreakers to get in) but still. There's a bit of give and take here between teams at the bottom end of this list. I think this Colorado team is the best of them, but there are legitimate issues they have compared to the S13 Otters and S16 Outlaws, chiefly that their playoff run is one of the weakest in league history. You cannot have a worse point differential while still winning the Ultimus in the conference championship and bowl than the Yeti's +2. And while they did handle Sarasota, that's not impressive considering Sarasota had an average point differential 10 points below this Yeti team, well into the negatives. I don't think there's an argument for them outside of the bottom 4 teams so far; technically they're a "good team who beat greats in the playoffs" but not only are they worse than both the teams in that tier on point differential, both the S4 Otters and the S7 Liberty smashed the great teams they faced, and this team just does not have the pedigree of the S21 Second Line either. I think I'm going to put this team at 20th, at the top of the "how did this team win the Ultimus" tier, because their playoff performance was too unconvincing to put them anywhere higher.
1st seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
25.4 ppg
21.1 pag
+4.3
Playoff Path:
13-10 over 10-6 COL
38-13 over 8-8 AUS
Notable Awards:
Matthias Hanyadi wins MVP
Matthias Hanyadi wins RBotY
The Wraiths remind me of the S16 Outlaws. Sure, the record is much better, as is the point differential, but they have a similar award cabinet, and the idea of their playoff run ends up being similar, in that these are teams who seem to have benefitted immensely from their Ultimus competition being weaker than it could have been. But there's a massive difference between those S16 Liberty, a team with the 2nd best point differential in the conference and not that far off the highest at +7.0, and the Wraiths' competition for the title, the S23 Copperheads. Say goodbye to the S21 wraiths being the weakest entrants of all time, because the Copperheads had a worse record and a worse point differential. 4 total points and a +0.3 point differential outstrips the S23 Wraiths in terms of mediocrity. But the Copperheads upset the best team in the league, OCO with a +7 point differential and an 11-5 record, so the Wraiths got to face them instead. So maybe, like the S16 Outlaws, the Wraiths were able to put their mark on the playoffs by blowing out opponents earlier? Not here, the Yeti were +4.3 on the season, and the Wraiths responded to that by only winning by 3 points at home. At least they blew their Ultimus opponent out, but this was an Ultimus opponent the likes of which we have seen only a couple times before. A good team blowing out a team trying its best to be as unexceptional as possible is the kind of thing I expected to see in the first round of the expanded playoffs, not the Ultimus of a 12 team league.
Kind of funny that this was the Wraith team that finally broke the cork on the champagne bottle; not the times they were worse teams but had better records, not the time they brought one of the greatest teams ever to the playoffs, not even the time they pulled a 2007 Giants by getting hot at the right time and riding momentum to an Ultimus. This time, where the ASFC almost capitulated before kickoff. I'm putting this team at 21st below last season's Yeti. That team had a better point differential and managed to beat better teams than these Wraiths faced, albeit less comfortably.
1st seed in ASFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
21.4 ppg
19.3 pag
+2.1
Playoff Path:
17-3 over 9-7 OCO
17-12 over 14-2 COL
Notable Awards:
Matty McDairmid wins PotY
One funny note. This season actually had the ASFC as a better conference than the NSFC, despite one conference champion winning 5 less games than the other. That's not to say that this San Jose squad was the best team; they only got the 1 seed by virtue of dumb conference tiebreaks that saw a superior Orange County squad (+6.0) get the 2nd spot instead. They did take advantage of that by holding the Otters to a single field goal in the playoff game between them, but that only set them up against a monstrous powerhouse of a Yeti team that...was actually less monstrous than I think its reputation was at the time. With a +10.3 point differential, and the pleasure of facing an NSFC full of bad teams twice, it's probably not as good as its point differential, nowhere near as good as its record, and even its point differential is far, far lower than a Wraiths team that didn't win a playoff game two seasons prior.
But still, Colorado was a team that would reach the top 10 on my current list, probably 8th below the S5 Otters and above the S14 Sabercats. They had only 2 losses, and were facing a team with a barely above .500 record. So what happened? Colorado fell on its face, losing by 5 points to a team with 5 less wins. So how do I judge the team that actually did win? Well, it has the 2nd worst award tally ahead of only the completely award-less S13 Otters, it had one comfortable win and one single possession win in the playoffs, and the best team they faced was not actually as good as some other peak teams. I think they go below the Outlaws from S16; the best team that team faced had a +13.3 point differential and those Outlaws stomped. Those Outlaws also had a better award cabinet, and the point differential was only fractionally worse; if I count the playoffs it's actually flipped, with the Outlaws having a +4.75 point differential to these Sabercats having a +2.9 point differential. They do, however, come out on the top end of their other bottom tier competition in the S13 Otters, despite coming similarly fractionally below them in the regular season; the Sabercats have 2.944444, while the Otters have a 2.9375. Yes, the difference is that small that if I did not extend past the hundredths place, it would have rounded both to 2.94. Still, that thousandths of a point per game difference is in favor of the Sabercats, the Colorado team they beat was better than the Sabercats team the Otters beat (+10.2), and the Sabercats have the extant award cabinet. So by the slimmest of margins in every category, the Sabercats come in at...23rd. In the lower half of the "how did this team win the Ultimus" tier.
3rd seed in ASFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
23.1 ppg
23.9 pag
-0.8
Playoff Path:
33-27 (OT) over 9-7 AZ
23-14 over 11-5 OCO
34-17 over 13-3 COL
Notable Awards:
GMs win GMotY
Team as a whole wins King Neptune's it is even funnier the second time award
Let's start with the positives; all 3 of the teams the Sabercats beat were at least good, bottoming out at +5.3 with the Outlaws, and they had to win 3 games. They also had a pretty comfortable victory over their final 2 opponents, only Arizona gave them trouble, though I'd count being taken to OT as a lot of trouble. Well, they were only up by 2 for a couple OCO possessions, but those OCO possessions never crossed midfield. And Colorado was slaughtered. Also, I think just getting GMotY is better than just getting Punter of the year. Alright, we're done with the positives, and bear in mind that this team is being compared to not just any Ultimus team, but their own previous year, which is 2nd to LAST in the rankings. This team is last. It has a negative point differential. It got to face 2 expansion teams a total of 3 times over the year, and those teams combined for 7 wins total. This SJS team GAVE the expansion teams 2 of those wins! And to top it off, there wasn't a giant to be slain this time. The Yeti had a +6.7 point differential, a team that would only end up at 20th, 2nd to last in the "best team in a weak year" category. San Jose this year is the worst, to the point that I'm perfectly alright with them getting the GMotY award despite being nowhere near the best team, because nobody else stood out, and also they managed to pull this off. 25th of the 25 teams so far, and its actually not even close.
1st seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
28.9 ppg
19.5 pag
+9.4
Playoff Path:
24-22 over 8-8 Sailfish
49-17 over 9-7 Second Line
Notable Awards:
Colby Jack wins MVP
Colby Jack wins QBotY, Bruce Buckley wins OLotY
This team has a couple problems that I think will sink it to the "best team in a bad year" tier. For one, there wasn't really a challenger for the title as best team for the year; the 2nd best team by point differential, the Outlaws, had a respectable +5.7 point differential, enough to be a worthy challenger for the Wraiths to put their all time status up to by dominating...but they didn't play in the playoffs. In fact, in the regular season, they lost 14-6 at home to them. Instead, the Wraiths' opponents this season were the +3.5 Second Line, and the -0.7 Sailfish. Their performance against the Second Line was a complete blowout against an inferior opponent...the problems come from the Sailfish. It should NOT take a last minute drive for the best team in the league to win in the playoffs on a walk off field goal, at least against a team with a negative point differential. The other big problem for the Wraiths is that they just weren't a very good team on an all time scale; we've seen plenty better point differentials than this one's sub 10, and for a team that had 3 more wins than anyone else in the league, this is a particularly empty award cabinet. They're going in the Best team in a Weak Year tier, at 17th. Above the S17 Otters, below the S1 Outlaws.
1st seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
29.7 ppg
21.3 pag
+8.4
Playoff Path:
47-27 over 10-5-1 COL
34-10 over 9-7 NOLA
Notable Awards:
Raphtalia Chan wins OPOY
Raphtalia Chan wins RBotY, James Angler wins TEotY, Jacob Small wins PotY
There are 2 major issues with this team, and both have a lot to do with the conference it was in. There were two 11 win teams in the ASFC, one with a +5.7 point differential and one with a +5.8 differential. The Sailfish faced neither of them in the playoffs due to upsets, and while normally I'd be fine crowning them as the best team, this team got to face the S27 Baltimore Hawks. That is the 5th of the five worst teams ever, and I personally put it at 2nd. Arizona only faced them once, at the Hawks, and the Hahalua didn't face them at all. That's a team who averaged -25 point differential that the Sailfish got to face twice. The Sailfish were not the single best team at taking advantage of the Hawks, that would be the Butchers, but they still took heavy advantage of that team. Over 2 games, the Sailfish had an 80-37 final, which if taken out would drop them to a +6.5 differential, near both the Outlaws and the Hahalua. But the Sailfish got to dodge them both and face the easier, +4.1 point differential Second Line. The big feather in this team's cap is that they dominated both playoff games against at least decent competition, even if their first round opponent in the Yeti were also big beneficiaries of how awful the Hawks were (+4.9, 74-14 in 2 games against the Hawks, +1.3 in 14 other games). I think this ends up going just above the Wraiths of last season, taking the 17th spot from them.
2nd seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
27.6 ppg
23.0 pag
+4.6
Playoff Path:
23-14 over 10-6 SAR
17-13 over 12-4 BER
24-19 over 9-7 AUS
Notable Awards:
Zee Rechs wins TEotY
All Pro Teams: Bruce Buckley 2nd team T, Douglas Quaid 2nd team LB, Djibutee McJimmerson 2nd team CB, Blago Kokot 2nd team P
I am not sure whether this is a function of the new sim, or just the astounding amount of bad playoff luck the team I was on had, but a lot of teams around this time are going to run into a similar problem; they weren't the best team for sure and their competitor didn't show up. But these Wraiths in particular are a little different than the teams who had this story in seasons past, because although they only had the 4th best point differential, they at least beat 2nd and 3rd on the way there. Still, this wasn't exactly a great team by any stretch. All Pro covers 52 total players, and this team had 4, all on the 2nd team. So where were these better teams? Well, some of them fell to these Wraiths, the Sailfish (+8.0) and the Salamanders (+6.3) were better teams which took late touchdowns from the Wraiths in order to put away in Sarasota's case and beat at all in the Salamanders'. Austin, on the other hand, was a comfortable victory over a worse team than them at home; the 24-19 score is the result of a touchdown with 2 minutes left. But the best team in the league was upset earlier: the Outlaws at +9.7 were a far better team than these Wraiths, that was absolutely cursed to punt away playoff games at this time. Losing in the Conference Championships meant that the gauntlet of better teams that the Wraiths would have to beat ended a game early, and also puts them in a weird spot. The only comfortable win they had was the Ultimus, and 4.6 is astonishingly low for an Ultimus Champ. They also have the lightest award cabinet since the Sabercats were winning back to back Bowls.
It's also hard to rate this team, similar to the Sailfish, because of the new sim. Results are much less stratified I find in the new sim, but even then, this is just the 4th best team managing to clutch out victories against 2 better teams and then cakewalking through their easy opponent. That's a profile that fits the S13 Otters, a team that I have as 2nd from last. Due to the better point differential I'll bump them up a couple spots, but only a couple, between the S22 Yeti and the S23 Wraiths. I think that's 24th of 28? Either way, they're still in the How did you win tier, that's what happens when you're 4th and barely half of 1st by point differential, and don't stake your claim over that team.
Also, I'm adding in the all pro teams from this point on as they go a bit deeper than the positional excellency awards, and those awards aren't that long for this project anyways.
28.2 ppg
25.5 pag
+2.7
Playoff Path:
35-31 over 9-7 NOLA
34-27 over 11-5 AZ
40-20 over 13-3 BER
Notable Awards:
Colt Mendoza wins CBotY
All Pro Teams: Buster Bawlls 1st team FB, Marlon Alexander 2nd team G, Leon McDavid 2nd team DT, Colt Mendoza 1st team CB
In some respects, this is a better team than last year's, most notably by awards and by facing the top 2 teams during the playoff run. The feather in the cap here is the 20 point blowout over a +9.3 Berlin team with 13 wins, and a more comfortable than it looks victory over the +6.8 Outlaws. It's very hard to claim that this was the best team in the league this year, but they'd seem to fit in perfectly to the "good team that caught fire" role. That might seem a bit unfair compared to last season's Wraiths team, but this team has a better All Pro roster (as in, literally anybody on the first team) and did something they did not: actually stake their claim over the best team in the league. As such, I think it goes into the "Good teams who beat greats in the playoffs" tier, albeit at the bottom of that ranking, as the team itself wasn't strong enough. But they won by too comfortable a margin for me to bump them into the "how did this team win" tier.
1st seed in NSFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
28.4 ppg
23.8 pag
+4.6
Playoff Path:
30-24 over 9-7 BER
27-10 over 14-2 AZ
Notable Awards:
Stumpy Jones 1st team T, Bob Bob 1st team C, Michael Witheblock 2nd team LB, Ernest Lover 2nd team LB, Cuco Clemente 2nd team S, Jacob Small 2nd team P
Writing this section is taking longer than it should have, because this one is personal.
This team goes directly in the "good teams who upset great teams in the playoffs" tier, and goes directly to the top of it, not due to its own quality, but due to the quality of its opponent. The team itself is...fine. No major awards but it does have a good number of All Pro players, and their first round in the playoffs looks worse than it actually was due to a touchdown with 1 minute left. But to explain why, we need to look at their opponent.
Arizona in Season 30 is the greatest team ever to lose in the Ultimus, unless something happens in the next decade of seasons; every other team with their point differential either won the whole thing or in S22 Yellowknife's case, lost before actually getting there. Arizona snapped up a ton of awards, got a multitude of all pros led by the best QB season of all time, brought a monstrous +15.6 point differential the likes of which the league has seen only a half dozen times, all in the old sim, they win the first playoff game against an overmatched Silverbacks squad in a complete shutout, 33-0, and then...lose to the Sailfish. Not just lose, get completely shut down; the team didn't score a touchdown until there were 3 minutes left in the game. It hurts a ton as someone who was on those Outlaws. I wish we were in the world where I was putting my team in the top tier of this ranking, maybe explaining why I was putting them above or below the S15 Hawks depending on just how the Ultimus game went. But we don't live in that world, we live in the world where the Sailfish won and I lack any shiny trophy next to my name as I write this. I thought I was over it, but I'm not completely over it apparently. For beating this team, the Sailfish get to go above the S4 Otters in the rankings and I get to end this series of rankings now before I get any more upset.
How the (Insert Expletives of your Choice) Did This Team Win the Ultimus Tier:
30. S25 Sabercats
29. S13 Otters
28. S24 Sabercats
27. S16 Outlaws
26. S23 Wraiths
25. S28 Wraiths
24. S22 Yeti
Best Team in a Weak Year Tier:
23. S8 Wraiths
22. S20 Copperheads
21. S17 Otters
20. S26 Wraiths
19. S27 Sailfish
18. S1 Outlaws
Good Teams who Upset Greats in the Playoffs Tier:
17. S29 Silverbacks
16. S7 Liberty
15. S4 Otters
14. S21 Second Line
13. S30 Sailfish
Mediocre Champions That I Keep Moving In My Head Tier:
12. S18 Otters
11. S11 Second Line
10. S12 Otters
9. S19 Otters
Great But Short of All Time Status Tier:
8. S14 Sabercats
7. S5 Otters
6. (Space Intentionally left blank for S2 Outlaws)
5. S10 Hawks
4. S6 Otters
The 3 Greatest Teams Ever (so far):
3. S15 Hawks
2. (Space Intentionally left blank for S3 Outlaws)
1. S9 Second Line
S21 Second Line
Record: 9-42nd seed in ASFC, Home Field in Ultimus
28.8 ppg
20.0 pag
+8.8
Playoff Path:
23-17 over 7-6 AUS
27-24 (OT) over 10-3 OCO
33-13 over 7-6 YKW
Notable Awards:
Givussafare Rubbe wins OLotY
GMs win GMotY
This team was too well rounded to win more awards than it got, along with not being the top dog by record. The Hawks had the same record, and the Otters had a better one. However, the Second Line were the only team that was actually close to the Otters by point differential; the Otters had an even 10, and the 3rd best point differential belonged to the Hawks at +4.9. The playoff run, therefore, looks really good to me. Both Austin and Yellowknife got touchdowns with a minute left to make the score look more respectable (and that's still not saying much in Yellowknife's case) and Orange County was a strong team on the same level. Heck, OCO ALSO scored a last minute touchdown to tie up the game. NOLA winning in overtime was a fair result of a clash between the two best teams that season. Speaking of the 2 best teams that season, Yellowknife was absolutely nowhere near that title. They did a good job in the playoffs, with Baltimore doing their best garbage time scoring to make a game that was 24-6 with 4 minutes left look closer than it actually was. However, that doesn't change that this was one of the worst Ultimus teams ever, coming in at a +0.5 point differential, +7 on the season. That is worse than the S8 Second Line minus games against the worst defense ever, worse than the S16 Outlaws or the S13 Otters, there are only a couple teams that can claim the status of Ultimus competitors that are actually worse than this Wraiths team. I'm not punishing this Second Line team at all though considering they completely squashed their mediocre competition and only had trouble with the actually great team on their way. All that being said, this is just a better version of the S7 Liberty in my head, and considering the S4 Otters had a 1 win Yeti team to beat up on and pump their record up, and still had a worse record than this team, I'm putting it at 13th for now, at the top of "good teams who beat great teams in the playoffs" tier.
S22 Yeti
Record: 8-52nd seed in NSFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
22.7 ppg
16.0 pag
+6.7
Playoff Path:
36-14 over 6-7 SAR
17-16 over 11-2 YKW
25-24 over 10-3 OCO
Notable Awards:
Mo Berry wins DPOY
Immanuel Blackstone wins DEotY, Mo Berry wins LBotY
GMs win GMotY (I don't think they deserved it)
I don't often put personal commentary in the above section, but I really don't see why this team's GMs won GMotY. Was this a steep departure from the previous seasons? No, they got 8-5, 7-6, and 8-5 in the 3 previous seasons. Did this team outperform their talent level? Absolutely not, they were a good but not great team. It feels wrong that this GM pair got the nod, especially considering this contains probably the greatest team we've seen so far to not win a title and in this case, not win a single playoff game. I want to dive deeper into the Wraiths, because they were the best team we had seen in over half a decade, maybe longer. The Wraiths had 6 of the 13 positional excellency awards, and both the MVP and OPOY. They had a monstrous +16.1 point differential. If they won the playoff games by comfortable margins, they'd have placed 3rd or 4th all time. But instead Colorado managed to barely eke out a victory over them, and had the comeback to barely eke out a victory in the Ultimus over the Otters. Colorado did manage to handily defeat a Sarasota team who just did not belong in the playoffs at all (-3.7 point differential, worse than the team they beat on tiebreakers to get in) but still. There's a bit of give and take here between teams at the bottom end of this list. I think this Colorado team is the best of them, but there are legitimate issues they have compared to the S13 Otters and S16 Outlaws, chiefly that their playoff run is one of the weakest in league history. You cannot have a worse point differential while still winning the Ultimus in the conference championship and bowl than the Yeti's +2. And while they did handle Sarasota, that's not impressive considering Sarasota had an average point differential 10 points below this Yeti team, well into the negatives. I don't think there's an argument for them outside of the bottom 4 teams so far; technically they're a "good team who beat greats in the playoffs" but not only are they worse than both the teams in that tier on point differential, both the S4 Otters and the S7 Liberty smashed the great teams they faced, and this team just does not have the pedigree of the S21 Second Line either. I think I'm going to put this team at 20th, at the top of the "how did this team win the Ultimus" tier, because their playoff performance was too unconvincing to put them anywhere higher.
S23 Wraiths
Record: 10-61st seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
25.4 ppg
21.1 pag
+4.3
Playoff Path:
13-10 over 10-6 COL
38-13 over 8-8 AUS
Notable Awards:
Matthias Hanyadi wins MVP
Matthias Hanyadi wins RBotY
The Wraiths remind me of the S16 Outlaws. Sure, the record is much better, as is the point differential, but they have a similar award cabinet, and the idea of their playoff run ends up being similar, in that these are teams who seem to have benefitted immensely from their Ultimus competition being weaker than it could have been. But there's a massive difference between those S16 Liberty, a team with the 2nd best point differential in the conference and not that far off the highest at +7.0, and the Wraiths' competition for the title, the S23 Copperheads. Say goodbye to the S21 wraiths being the weakest entrants of all time, because the Copperheads had a worse record and a worse point differential. 4 total points and a +0.3 point differential outstrips the S23 Wraiths in terms of mediocrity. But the Copperheads upset the best team in the league, OCO with a +7 point differential and an 11-5 record, so the Wraiths got to face them instead. So maybe, like the S16 Outlaws, the Wraiths were able to put their mark on the playoffs by blowing out opponents earlier? Not here, the Yeti were +4.3 on the season, and the Wraiths responded to that by only winning by 3 points at home. At least they blew their Ultimus opponent out, but this was an Ultimus opponent the likes of which we have seen only a couple times before. A good team blowing out a team trying its best to be as unexceptional as possible is the kind of thing I expected to see in the first round of the expanded playoffs, not the Ultimus of a 12 team league.
Kind of funny that this was the Wraith team that finally broke the cork on the champagne bottle; not the times they were worse teams but had better records, not the time they brought one of the greatest teams ever to the playoffs, not even the time they pulled a 2007 Giants by getting hot at the right time and riding momentum to an Ultimus. This time, where the ASFC almost capitulated before kickoff. I'm putting this team at 21st below last season's Yeti. That team had a better point differential and managed to beat better teams than these Wraiths faced, albeit less comfortably.
S24 Sabercats
Record: 9-71st seed in ASFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
21.4 ppg
19.3 pag
+2.1
Playoff Path:
17-3 over 9-7 OCO
17-12 over 14-2 COL
Notable Awards:
Matty McDairmid wins PotY
One funny note. This season actually had the ASFC as a better conference than the NSFC, despite one conference champion winning 5 less games than the other. That's not to say that this San Jose squad was the best team; they only got the 1 seed by virtue of dumb conference tiebreaks that saw a superior Orange County squad (+6.0) get the 2nd spot instead. They did take advantage of that by holding the Otters to a single field goal in the playoff game between them, but that only set them up against a monstrous powerhouse of a Yeti team that...was actually less monstrous than I think its reputation was at the time. With a +10.3 point differential, and the pleasure of facing an NSFC full of bad teams twice, it's probably not as good as its point differential, nowhere near as good as its record, and even its point differential is far, far lower than a Wraiths team that didn't win a playoff game two seasons prior.
But still, Colorado was a team that would reach the top 10 on my current list, probably 8th below the S5 Otters and above the S14 Sabercats. They had only 2 losses, and were facing a team with a barely above .500 record. So what happened? Colorado fell on its face, losing by 5 points to a team with 5 less wins. So how do I judge the team that actually did win? Well, it has the 2nd worst award tally ahead of only the completely award-less S13 Otters, it had one comfortable win and one single possession win in the playoffs, and the best team they faced was not actually as good as some other peak teams. I think they go below the Outlaws from S16; the best team that team faced had a +13.3 point differential and those Outlaws stomped. Those Outlaws also had a better award cabinet, and the point differential was only fractionally worse; if I count the playoffs it's actually flipped, with the Outlaws having a +4.75 point differential to these Sabercats having a +2.9 point differential. They do, however, come out on the top end of their other bottom tier competition in the S13 Otters, despite coming similarly fractionally below them in the regular season; the Sabercats have 2.944444, while the Otters have a 2.9375. Yes, the difference is that small that if I did not extend past the hundredths place, it would have rounded both to 2.94. Still, that thousandths of a point per game difference is in favor of the Sabercats, the Colorado team they beat was better than the Sabercats team the Otters beat (+10.2), and the Sabercats have the extant award cabinet. So by the slimmest of margins in every category, the Sabercats come in at...23rd. In the lower half of the "how did this team win the Ultimus" tier.
S25 Sabercats
Record: 9-73rd seed in ASFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
23.1 ppg
23.9 pag
-0.8
Playoff Path:
33-27 (OT) over 9-7 AZ
23-14 over 11-5 OCO
34-17 over 13-3 COL
Notable Awards:
GMs win GMotY
Team as a whole wins King Neptune's it is even funnier the second time award
Let's start with the positives; all 3 of the teams the Sabercats beat were at least good, bottoming out at +5.3 with the Outlaws, and they had to win 3 games. They also had a pretty comfortable victory over their final 2 opponents, only Arizona gave them trouble, though I'd count being taken to OT as a lot of trouble. Well, they were only up by 2 for a couple OCO possessions, but those OCO possessions never crossed midfield. And Colorado was slaughtered. Also, I think just getting GMotY is better than just getting Punter of the year. Alright, we're done with the positives, and bear in mind that this team is being compared to not just any Ultimus team, but their own previous year, which is 2nd to LAST in the rankings. This team is last. It has a negative point differential. It got to face 2 expansion teams a total of 3 times over the year, and those teams combined for 7 wins total. This SJS team GAVE the expansion teams 2 of those wins! And to top it off, there wasn't a giant to be slain this time. The Yeti had a +6.7 point differential, a team that would only end up at 20th, 2nd to last in the "best team in a weak year" category. San Jose this year is the worst, to the point that I'm perfectly alright with them getting the GMotY award despite being nowhere near the best team, because nobody else stood out, and also they managed to pull this off. 25th of the 25 teams so far, and its actually not even close.
S26 Wraiths
Record: 13-31st seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
28.9 ppg
19.5 pag
+9.4
Playoff Path:
24-22 over 8-8 Sailfish
49-17 over 9-7 Second Line
Notable Awards:
Colby Jack wins MVP
Colby Jack wins QBotY, Bruce Buckley wins OLotY
This team has a couple problems that I think will sink it to the "best team in a bad year" tier. For one, there wasn't really a challenger for the title as best team for the year; the 2nd best team by point differential, the Outlaws, had a respectable +5.7 point differential, enough to be a worthy challenger for the Wraiths to put their all time status up to by dominating...but they didn't play in the playoffs. In fact, in the regular season, they lost 14-6 at home to them. Instead, the Wraiths' opponents this season were the +3.5 Second Line, and the -0.7 Sailfish. Their performance against the Second Line was a complete blowout against an inferior opponent...the problems come from the Sailfish. It should NOT take a last minute drive for the best team in the league to win in the playoffs on a walk off field goal, at least against a team with a negative point differential. The other big problem for the Wraiths is that they just weren't a very good team on an all time scale; we've seen plenty better point differentials than this one's sub 10, and for a team that had 3 more wins than anyone else in the league, this is a particularly empty award cabinet. They're going in the Best team in a Weak Year tier, at 17th. Above the S17 Otters, below the S1 Outlaws.
S27 Sailfish
Record: 12-41st seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
29.7 ppg
21.3 pag
+8.4
Playoff Path:
47-27 over 10-5-1 COL
34-10 over 9-7 NOLA
Notable Awards:
Raphtalia Chan wins OPOY
Raphtalia Chan wins RBotY, James Angler wins TEotY, Jacob Small wins PotY
There are 2 major issues with this team, and both have a lot to do with the conference it was in. There were two 11 win teams in the ASFC, one with a +5.7 point differential and one with a +5.8 differential. The Sailfish faced neither of them in the playoffs due to upsets, and while normally I'd be fine crowning them as the best team, this team got to face the S27 Baltimore Hawks. That is the 5th of the five worst teams ever, and I personally put it at 2nd. Arizona only faced them once, at the Hawks, and the Hahalua didn't face them at all. That's a team who averaged -25 point differential that the Sailfish got to face twice. The Sailfish were not the single best team at taking advantage of the Hawks, that would be the Butchers, but they still took heavy advantage of that team. Over 2 games, the Sailfish had an 80-37 final, which if taken out would drop them to a +6.5 differential, near both the Outlaws and the Hahalua. But the Sailfish got to dodge them both and face the easier, +4.1 point differential Second Line. The big feather in this team's cap is that they dominated both playoff games against at least decent competition, even if their first round opponent in the Yeti were also big beneficiaries of how awful the Hawks were (+4.9, 74-14 in 2 games against the Hawks, +1.3 in 14 other games). I think this ends up going just above the Wraiths of last season, taking the 17th spot from them.
S28 Wraiths
Record: 11-52nd seed in NSFC, Home Field in Ultimus
27.6 ppg
23.0 pag
+4.6
Playoff Path:
23-14 over 10-6 SAR
17-13 over 12-4 BER
24-19 over 9-7 AUS
Notable Awards:
Zee Rechs wins TEotY
All Pro Teams: Bruce Buckley 2nd team T, Douglas Quaid 2nd team LB, Djibutee McJimmerson 2nd team CB, Blago Kokot 2nd team P
I am not sure whether this is a function of the new sim, or just the astounding amount of bad playoff luck the team I was on had, but a lot of teams around this time are going to run into a similar problem; they weren't the best team for sure and their competitor didn't show up. But these Wraiths in particular are a little different than the teams who had this story in seasons past, because although they only had the 4th best point differential, they at least beat 2nd and 3rd on the way there. Still, this wasn't exactly a great team by any stretch. All Pro covers 52 total players, and this team had 4, all on the 2nd team. So where were these better teams? Well, some of them fell to these Wraiths, the Sailfish (+8.0) and the Salamanders (+6.3) were better teams which took late touchdowns from the Wraiths in order to put away in Sarasota's case and beat at all in the Salamanders'. Austin, on the other hand, was a comfortable victory over a worse team than them at home; the 24-19 score is the result of a touchdown with 2 minutes left. But the best team in the league was upset earlier: the Outlaws at +9.7 were a far better team than these Wraiths, that was absolutely cursed to punt away playoff games at this time. Losing in the Conference Championships meant that the gauntlet of better teams that the Wraiths would have to beat ended a game early, and also puts them in a weird spot. The only comfortable win they had was the Ultimus, and 4.6 is astonishingly low for an Ultimus Champ. They also have the lightest award cabinet since the Sabercats were winning back to back Bowls.
It's also hard to rate this team, similar to the Sailfish, because of the new sim. Results are much less stratified I find in the new sim, but even then, this is just the 4th best team managing to clutch out victories against 2 better teams and then cakewalking through their easy opponent. That's a profile that fits the S13 Otters, a team that I have as 2nd from last. Due to the better point differential I'll bump them up a couple spots, but only a couple, between the S22 Yeti and the S23 Wraiths. I think that's 24th of 28? Either way, they're still in the How did you win tier, that's what happens when you're 4th and barely half of 1st by point differential, and don't stake your claim over that team.
Also, I'm adding in the all pro teams from this point on as they go a bit deeper than the positional excellency awards, and those awards aren't that long for this project anyways.
S29 Silverbacks
Record: 10-628.2 ppg
25.5 pag
+2.7
Playoff Path:
35-31 over 9-7 NOLA
34-27 over 11-5 AZ
40-20 over 13-3 BER
Notable Awards:
Colt Mendoza wins CBotY
All Pro Teams: Buster Bawlls 1st team FB, Marlon Alexander 2nd team G, Leon McDavid 2nd team DT, Colt Mendoza 1st team CB
In some respects, this is a better team than last year's, most notably by awards and by facing the top 2 teams during the playoff run. The feather in the cap here is the 20 point blowout over a +9.3 Berlin team with 13 wins, and a more comfortable than it looks victory over the +6.8 Outlaws. It's very hard to claim that this was the best team in the league this year, but they'd seem to fit in perfectly to the "good team that caught fire" role. That might seem a bit unfair compared to last season's Wraiths team, but this team has a better All Pro roster (as in, literally anybody on the first team) and did something they did not: actually stake their claim over the best team in the league. As such, I think it goes into the "Good teams who beat greats in the playoffs" tier, albeit at the bottom of that ranking, as the team itself wasn't strong enough. But they won by too comfortable a margin for me to bump them into the "how did this team win" tier.
S30 Sailfish
Record: 11-51st seed in NSFC, No Home Field in Ultimus
28.4 ppg
23.8 pag
+4.6
Playoff Path:
30-24 over 9-7 BER
27-10 over 14-2 AZ
Notable Awards:
Stumpy Jones 1st team T, Bob Bob 1st team C, Michael Witheblock 2nd team LB, Ernest Lover 2nd team LB, Cuco Clemente 2nd team S, Jacob Small 2nd team P
Writing this section is taking longer than it should have, because this one is personal.
This team goes directly in the "good teams who upset great teams in the playoffs" tier, and goes directly to the top of it, not due to its own quality, but due to the quality of its opponent. The team itself is...fine. No major awards but it does have a good number of All Pro players, and their first round in the playoffs looks worse than it actually was due to a touchdown with 1 minute left. But to explain why, we need to look at their opponent.
Arizona in Season 30 is the greatest team ever to lose in the Ultimus, unless something happens in the next decade of seasons; every other team with their point differential either won the whole thing or in S22 Yellowknife's case, lost before actually getting there. Arizona snapped up a ton of awards, got a multitude of all pros led by the best QB season of all time, brought a monstrous +15.6 point differential the likes of which the league has seen only a half dozen times, all in the old sim, they win the first playoff game against an overmatched Silverbacks squad in a complete shutout, 33-0, and then...lose to the Sailfish. Not just lose, get completely shut down; the team didn't score a touchdown until there were 3 minutes left in the game. It hurts a ton as someone who was on those Outlaws. I wish we were in the world where I was putting my team in the top tier of this ranking, maybe explaining why I was putting them above or below the S15 Hawks depending on just how the Ultimus game went. But we don't live in that world, we live in the world where the Sailfish won and I lack any shiny trophy next to my name as I write this. I thought I was over it, but I'm not completely over it apparently. For beating this team, the Sailfish get to go above the S4 Otters in the rankings and I get to end this series of rankings now before I get any more upset.
How the (Insert Expletives of your Choice) Did This Team Win the Ultimus Tier:
30. S25 Sabercats
29. S13 Otters
28. S24 Sabercats
27. S16 Outlaws
26. S23 Wraiths
25. S28 Wraiths
24. S22 Yeti
Best Team in a Weak Year Tier:
23. S8 Wraiths
22. S20 Copperheads
21. S17 Otters
20. S26 Wraiths
19. S27 Sailfish
18. S1 Outlaws
Good Teams who Upset Greats in the Playoffs Tier:
17. S29 Silverbacks
16. S7 Liberty
15. S4 Otters
14. S21 Second Line
13. S30 Sailfish
Mediocre Champions That I Keep Moving In My Head Tier:
12. S18 Otters
11. S11 Second Line
10. S12 Otters
9. S19 Otters
Great But Short of All Time Status Tier:
8. S14 Sabercats
7. S5 Otters
6. (Space Intentionally left blank for S2 Outlaws)
5. S10 Hawks
4. S6 Otters
The 3 Greatest Teams Ever (so far):
3. S15 Hawks
2. (Space Intentionally left blank for S3 Outlaws)
1. S9 Second Line