Task 1: Notable Event
I’m going to write about the Season 1 draft, or specifically, its first overall pick and how that shaped the league for seasons after. Here was the pick, the first ever in the NSFL:
OCO selects DT JJ Reigns
Receiving [56 games]: 186 rec, 1703 yards (9.1 avg, 30 lng), 10 TD
Defense [42 games]: 122 tck, 28 sck 14 tfl, 1/0 ff/fr, 0 INT 0 PD
This remains the only time the disgustingly successful Otters have earned the #1 overall pick, and naturally it was entirely by lottery, as no teams had played yet. The only draft to follow a fully snaked format, it was full of chaos and shenanigans. In the leadup to the draft, WR Josh Garden was the soft consensus on the #1 prospect. As the player of the league commissioner, he had a certain expectation of greatness, and naturally had earned to the max. However, Garden’s user himself put another player first overall in his mock draft PT: DT JJ Reigns. Reigns was a player belonging to longtime sim user Shaka, who had a sizable reputation for putting a lot of effort into leagues, players, and especially character-building. He was also known for being thorough and knowledgeable in all of his sim league endeavors. Instead, he decided to win over the brand-new league and its GMs by being loud, proud, and self-assured, branding himself as the surefire #1 pick and a top-notch prospect. He realized - correctly - that DL would be one of the most valuable positions in the new league. He did not realize that, with only one or two relevant attributes, any low-TPE IA could fill the DL positions almost as well as a high-TPE active, however.
The pick ended up busting spectacularly. Reigns had a great first season and a decent second one, but Shaka’s status as an elite earner faded quickly, and his job was quickly taken by others on his team, forcing him to switch to WR. As a receiver, his best season was his first, an 832-yard campaign with Orange County in S3. Reigns played just four seasons with the Otters and was out of the league altogether by S8 - certainly not the career the Otters had in mind when they drafted him first overall.
It’s impossible to fault the Otters for the pick, or even Shaka himself. The S1 draft happened just weeks after the launch of the league, giving GMs limited information to base their picks on. Reigns wasn’t a bad pick - he did play a valuable position, he was a user with history, and he had checked all the boxes leading up to the draft. The pick looks worse mostly because of the one after it. With the second pick, Yellowknife drafted the aforementioned superstar WR Josh Garden, who performed like a true #1 overall pick. Even though he bounced between teams, he enjoyed a high peak with 3 straight 1500-yard seasons and a long, successful career, racking up 11643 receiving yards and landing at 4th all time.
The rest of the S1 draft has this same erratic quality as the first few picks. A pair of HoVG members at picks 3 and 6 sandwich two dramatic busts and picks 4 and 5. Round 7 saw three HOF players get drafted - as many as had been selected in the first six rounds. But in the end, the Otters did get their superstar at WR - not through the position-switching Reigns, but from 12th-round pick Bradley Westfield, who may be the best WR to ever set foot on an NSFL field.
So what was so significant about this? And how did OCO turn from busting badly on the league’s first ever draft pick to kicking off a 25-season dynasty? Well, the foundations of the dynasty were also from that S1 draft: in addition to Westfield, they snagged Hall of Famer Angus Winchester in the fifth round and legend Mike Boss in the eighth. From there, strong GMing and good drafting lead them into their period of dominance.
And the Reigns pick itself was notable, as it kicked off a disastrous three season sort of arms race on the offensive and defensive lines. Like I said, Shaka himself wasn’t wrong about the value of the two lines, and the league’s inaugural season featured shambolic O-lines that tanked offenses. In the S2 draft, 6 of the 8 first round picks were on the OL or DL. In the S3 draft, need forced the Yeti to reach for OL Antonio Sandoval first overall. And the S3 season itself was a complete mess. OL retention rates had dumpstered, and patchwork OL groups of inactives and bots crumbled against active DLs. S3 featured comical sack totals - Jayce Tuck himself had 32, and three others had over 20 - and eventually ushered in the OL bot era.
JJ Reigns had a lackluster and disappointing career, but was nonetheless one of the most important figures in league history, and the pick itself caused ripples all around the league.
840 words
I’m going to write about the Season 1 draft, or specifically, its first overall pick and how that shaped the league for seasons after. Here was the pick, the first ever in the NSFL:
OCO selects DT JJ Reigns
Receiving [56 games]: 186 rec, 1703 yards (9.1 avg, 30 lng), 10 TD
Defense [42 games]: 122 tck, 28 sck 14 tfl, 1/0 ff/fr, 0 INT 0 PD
This remains the only time the disgustingly successful Otters have earned the #1 overall pick, and naturally it was entirely by lottery, as no teams had played yet. The only draft to follow a fully snaked format, it was full of chaos and shenanigans. In the leadup to the draft, WR Josh Garden was the soft consensus on the #1 prospect. As the player of the league commissioner, he had a certain expectation of greatness, and naturally had earned to the max. However, Garden’s user himself put another player first overall in his mock draft PT: DT JJ Reigns. Reigns was a player belonging to longtime sim user Shaka, who had a sizable reputation for putting a lot of effort into leagues, players, and especially character-building. He was also known for being thorough and knowledgeable in all of his sim league endeavors. Instead, he decided to win over the brand-new league and its GMs by being loud, proud, and self-assured, branding himself as the surefire #1 pick and a top-notch prospect. He realized - correctly - that DL would be one of the most valuable positions in the new league. He did not realize that, with only one or two relevant attributes, any low-TPE IA could fill the DL positions almost as well as a high-TPE active, however.
The pick ended up busting spectacularly. Reigns had a great first season and a decent second one, but Shaka’s status as an elite earner faded quickly, and his job was quickly taken by others on his team, forcing him to switch to WR. As a receiver, his best season was his first, an 832-yard campaign with Orange County in S3. Reigns played just four seasons with the Otters and was out of the league altogether by S8 - certainly not the career the Otters had in mind when they drafted him first overall.
It’s impossible to fault the Otters for the pick, or even Shaka himself. The S1 draft happened just weeks after the launch of the league, giving GMs limited information to base their picks on. Reigns wasn’t a bad pick - he did play a valuable position, he was a user with history, and he had checked all the boxes leading up to the draft. The pick looks worse mostly because of the one after it. With the second pick, Yellowknife drafted the aforementioned superstar WR Josh Garden, who performed like a true #1 overall pick. Even though he bounced between teams, he enjoyed a high peak with 3 straight 1500-yard seasons and a long, successful career, racking up 11643 receiving yards and landing at 4th all time.
The rest of the S1 draft has this same erratic quality as the first few picks. A pair of HoVG members at picks 3 and 6 sandwich two dramatic busts and picks 4 and 5. Round 7 saw three HOF players get drafted - as many as had been selected in the first six rounds. But in the end, the Otters did get their superstar at WR - not through the position-switching Reigns, but from 12th-round pick Bradley Westfield, who may be the best WR to ever set foot on an NSFL field.
So what was so significant about this? And how did OCO turn from busting badly on the league’s first ever draft pick to kicking off a 25-season dynasty? Well, the foundations of the dynasty were also from that S1 draft: in addition to Westfield, they snagged Hall of Famer Angus Winchester in the fifth round and legend Mike Boss in the eighth. From there, strong GMing and good drafting lead them into their period of dominance.
And the Reigns pick itself was notable, as it kicked off a disastrous three season sort of arms race on the offensive and defensive lines. Like I said, Shaka himself wasn’t wrong about the value of the two lines, and the league’s inaugural season featured shambolic O-lines that tanked offenses. In the S2 draft, 6 of the 8 first round picks were on the OL or DL. In the S3 draft, need forced the Yeti to reach for OL Antonio Sandoval first overall. And the S3 season itself was a complete mess. OL retention rates had dumpstered, and patchwork OL groups of inactives and bots crumbled against active DLs. S3 featured comical sack totals - Jayce Tuck himself had 32, and three others had over 20 - and eventually ushered in the OL bot era.
JJ Reigns had a lackluster and disappointing career, but was nonetheless one of the most important figures in league history, and the pick itself caused ripples all around the league.
840 words
Mario Moloka'i, #93 LB ![[Image: Untitled_1.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/578426975266537482/1057708477155393566/Untitled_1.png)
