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There have been many moments in league history where a single decision (e.g., a draft choice, a GM’s promotion or retirement, a trade, a player’s movement in free agency) may have changed the course of a team in the ISFL or DSFL. Describe a decision that was made and the impact that it had. Did you imagine said decision leading to a different conclusion or did you think things would turn out the way they did? Is there anything different you would have done to avoid disaster or make things even better?
If not for Ben's decision to go on vacation all those seasons ago, the New Orleans Second Line may not exist right now to be the butt of jokes seemingly every season. You see back in the early stages of the league, Ben and I were the managers of the then Las Vegas Legion, which was a season 2 expansion team alongside the Philadelphia Liberty, but we were bad, really bad. Trades made by the former regime made it nearly impossible to compete long term which killed any morale the majority of the team may have had. While Ben was on vacation, I was promoted to the head of the sim team and required to quit from managing the Legion, which was a large ask considering the other manager was on vacation and unable to check up on us frequently. Applications were posted by me to find a successor for my position but no one was interested in the slightest, and I can not judge anyone for not being interested seeing as we were an all-time bad team, and managed less than 3 wins frequently over our existence. No one was around to manage the team because of Ben's vacation absence and my forced stepping down. This left the team in a peculiar position with no one being able to sign the teams expiring contracts to extension, etc.
One now must pose the question on if the mass retirement would have ever happened if Ben had not been on vacation? If there was a general manager around to quell the storm of frustration surrounding the lack of co-manager hire would things have gone differentially? Would the Legion still be a team today? No one will ever really know, but one could essentially say that one mans vacation changed the course of the now New Orleans SecondLine forever.
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Describe your player and/or team’s journey through this latest season. What were the highlights? What were the lower points? What might you have done differently? What are your expectations for next season?
By all metrics Dru Freduci's season was fine, but to say I was disappointed in his performance would be selling how I felt about this season short. I had more experience as a running back going into 2061, I had more of a veteran presence amongst the players on the team. I expected to be a workhorse back now that I had no one else to share the responsibilities with. I was told that I would be a monster despite a poor pre-season stat-wise, but unfortunately, those promises never came to be. I posted worse numbers in every single statistical category apart from my average yards which was a whopping 0.1 yards per run higher than previously. My touchdowns were down, my yards per game were down, hell my attempts were even down across the board and this is not really what you think of when you think of a workhouse running back, but it was not just my rushing stats down across the board, heck, even my receiving stats were down across the board.
I can not place blame on anyone but myself though, as clearly I did not make use of the opportunities I was given. It was a frustrating season no matter how I put things though.
I can not even place a highlight on the season, as we missed playoffs again and it does not seem like I will ever have an opportunity to win a playoff game while a member of the Bondi Beach Buccaneers, as I am being called up to my parent club, the Cape Town Crash, and maybe this will be where I eventually break out and do big things like I was born to do. I was born to be an elite athlete and I think this transition to bigger better places will get me to unlock latent powers that I otherwise may not have achieved.