*Is S27 finally the Sailfish’s season?

[Drizzy]

Is S27 finally the Sailfish’s season?

As a member of the Sarasota Sailfish since the very first game that they played in the ISFL, it’s been an interesting run for the team during the last few seasons. If you trace the team’s trajectory from their very first season in the league to where they are now, I think that they’ve done a legitimately good job of being able to establish themselves as a contender in the NSFC. The last few seasons in particular have seen the team establish themselves as a perennial playoff contender, always being well in the hunt for a berth in the postseason even in the years where they don’t perform as well as they would have hoped. Add into that a roster that is built solidly from top to bottom, with a lot of talent on both sides of the football, they should be a team that is looked at as a legitimate contender to win an Ultimus if all of the contributing factors add up. However, despite a lot of their players earning individual recognition to a great extent, the team has not turned into the playoff beast that they would have hoped they could be. The team has yet to advance beyond the NSFC championship game, losing out on two different occasions, most recently to the Yellowknife Wraiths and have been left tasting bitter disappointment on more occasions than they would really have liked. It’s tough to put a finger exactly on what has caused this failure to elevate to the next level and play at the required standard when things are really on the line, but I’m sure the Sailfish are going to be going into this season doing everything that they can to try and put things right.

Perhaps the biggest change that the team has undergone during recent seasons is the transition they’ve taken with regard to their signal caller. Stepping into the shoes of a man who was crowned as the league’s most valuable player in his last season in the league as about as daunting a task as can be faced by a rookie, but Mike Boss Jr did an undeniably impressive job of ensuring the team took no major step back after losing its biggest star. The league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year had a great season last time around, and pushed the Sailfish to within a few points of making it to the Ultimus. Whether Boss Jr is able to elevate his play in his second year in the league is going to be a storyline that is hard to ignore for the Sailfish, but I think the team is confident that they have enough talent around their quarterback that even if he isn’t able hit the heights that they would like him to, the team is still able to win a lot of games. The talent mentioned above, which includes the highest TPE running back in the league in Raphtalia Chan and perhaps the best receiver in the league in Michael Withtheblock, will be a handful for other teams to deal with this season, and regardless of the number of games that the team is able to win, its’ going to be a lot of fun to watch the team play this season and there should definitely be some dynamite when it comes time for the Sailfish to try and make plays happen.

On the other side of the ball, it’s certainly not the case that the Sailfish don’t have the talent to match up defensively to almost any other unit in the league. Featuring a solid defensive line, one of the best safety pairings in the league and a linebacker group that features two guys who constantly seem to be in the discussion for DPOTY, the Sailfish are a formidable unit for any offensive coordinator in the league to have to gameplan for. Even with all this talent around, I think it’s not doing them a disservice to say that they have come up short on some of the big moments when the team really needed to lean on them. While there’s a lot of firepower on their offense, if this is to be the season that the Sailfish deliver on their promise, the defense is going to have to take responsibility for a lot of their fate. If they can dig their heels in and shut down some of the best offenses in the league, then they’re going to win a lot of games. If the defense is streaky, then it’s going to put a lot of pressure on them to put up a lot of points every game. They certainly have the talent to be one of the very best defensive units in the league, and I’m sure that after the close margin they lost by in the NSFC championship last season, the defense is going to be coming out determined to stop every single point they can being scored.

The NSFC as a whole is in something of a strange position this season. There are some undeniably great teams (see the Chicago Butchers and the Yellowknife Wraiths) and there are teams who aren’t going to be in the position to make a competitive push this season (the Baltimore Hawks and the Philadelphia Liberty); the Sailfish are a team that should definitely be considered to be closer to the first of these groups, but just how well do they stack up to the very best that they will be facing? Recent history certainly shows that the Sailfish are capable of winning games against a tough opponent in the Butchers, and the fact that the conference on a whole is less competitive than the dogfight we’re seeing in the ASFC should certainly mean that the Sailfish should have some confidence that there are games on their schedule that they can win. I think that even a totally impartial party would say that the team is expected to make it into the postseason, and I would also say that it’s a distinct possibility that they could make it in as one of the two best teams in their conference. The question once again becomes whether or not we are able to win the resulting games that will be ahead of us. I noted earlier that the Sailfish were able to overcome the Chicago Butchers in last season’s playoffs, having lost to them the previous time the two teams had faced off in the playoffs, back in S25. It could be the case that the thirst for revenge over a team who had their number a season earlier was a serious factor in the level of play that Sarasota was able to demonstrate in that game, so it could be possible to believe that if a match up were to occur against the Wraiths in this season’s playoffs, the rawness of last season’s exit would be a motivating factor to push the team toward success.

I think the simplest truth when considering this topic is that with so many teams playing at a similarly high level, it’s very difficult to determine who is going to win on any given Sunday. Could it be the case that the lack of results we’ve seen from the Sailifish in recent seasons is just a case of bad luck? I believe the answer is yes. The team has done a good job of putting together a formidable roster each season and overcoming the challenges that player movement has thrown at them by drafting solidly and making some big name acquisitions in free agency. The nature of the last sim engine that meant it threw out some pretty outlandish results could certainly have played a factor in the Sailfish never being able to make it beyond the conference championships, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the team fares in a system that now can offer a bit more nuance when it comes to outcomes of games. It’s going to be a steep learning curve for all involved, but there’s a belief among the team that a new way for the league’s games to be played will also result in new era of results for the team. For a long time they’ve been the team that’s “almost there”, but I think that things are lining up for them to shake off the stigma of being a team that can never quite seem to get it done when called upon and are able to fulfil their potential.

With the way the team is built, a lot of their talent is going to be entering its peak seasons this season and next. So much of the Sailfish roster comes from the historically strong S22 draft, and I don’t think anyone can disagree that their window to achieve success with these players is well and truly open. With regression already hitting parts of the roster and being not too far away for others, they’re going to need to be able to make hay while the sun shines, and finally deliver on all the potential they have. As a part of the team, I’m looking forward to see whether we’re able to go out and put things together when it matters this time around. My career is definitely in its twilight years, and it would be huge to win an Ulitimus with the Sailfish before my best years have well and truly passed me by. For the reasons stated above and many others (blind optimism that has somehow still not been crushed out of me being  a significant one), I’m hopeful that this year is the one it can happen.

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