4. Every player in the International Simulation Football League and Developmental Simulation Football League is familiar with the term “sim gonna sim”. Only on the very rarest of occasions, typically with a four leaf clover, is the term used to describe something good that has happened to the team. If someone in the locker room said “Sim gonna sim”, I can promise you, if you have not watched the game, there’s basically no point. Your team got royally screwed over. And the team that really got screwed over the most is absolutely the Philadelphia Liberty. This team was outstanding last season. They had the first seed in the playoffs. The defense was lights out ALL regular season. Scoring points on Philadelphia was like finding the Golden Snitch: it simply wasn’t an easy or common occurrence. And yet, come playoff time, somehow one of the best defenses of all time miraculously shits the bed and gets bounced from the playoffs in the first round. Make it make sense, right? Sim gonna sim, and that’s a bonafide fact. Once again this season, we had a fantastic defense. We had 3 players getting sacks like nobody’s business. Every third play felt like our guys were getting in the backfield and putting the quarterback on the ground. Real exciting stuff. However, sim gonna sim I suppose. Somehow, even after a sack, no matter who we played against, it could be 2nd and 17, 3rd and 20, you name it, the sim would absolutely go out of it’s way to make SURE that the team we were playing pulled a first down out of their deep bag of tricks. There NEVER failed to miraculously be a hole somewhere in the defense. Now, let’s talk about the offense. We had a stellar lineup on offense. Quarterback Ryan Negs was putting up elite passing yards. Wide receivers Jake Fencik and rookie sensation Escanor Sama were both putting up elite numbers. Our runningback Lonnie Jackson was as shifty and elusive as ever, putting up great numbers. And yet, somehow, we finished dead last in points per game. How could that be possible? I’ll tell you exactly how that’s possible. Sim gonna sim. It felt like every single offensive drive, as soon as we got some momentum building up, the sim saw ot and said “Noooooooooo” and forced some kind of stupid, random turnover. Whether it was an interception thrown by Negs or a fumble by literally any single person on our team, the sim made a statement every single week: it doesn’t like us and it doesn’t care about us. I also said our defense was sack happy. Well, the sim made our offense sack happy as well. However, the offense obviously wasn’t getting the sacks. We were giving them away like the defense has raffle tickets. Negs barely had any time during each play before he either had to eat a sack or play some good old fashioned “fuck it, chuck it” football. The simulation absolutely has not liked the Philadelphia Liberty.
At the beginning of this rant, I mentioned that VERY rarely has the saying “sim gonna sim” had a positive meaning. Well, there are two players that I know that meet that criteria. WR Jake Fencik and WR Escanor Sama. Fencik was only a WR for Philadelphia for 4 or 5 seasons. However, each season he had absolutely stellar
performances week in and week out, skyrocketing him up the all time franchise receiving yard leaders list. Escanor Sama, since his rookie year, has been absolutely blessed by the sim. Practically unguardable all 3 years so far in the league, he has single handedly brought back interest to the Possession WR archetype, with many players trying to follow his build. You can copy the build, but you can’t copy the sim’s blessing.
At the beginning of this rant, I mentioned that VERY rarely has the saying “sim gonna sim” had a positive meaning. Well, there are two players that I know that meet that criteria. WR Jake Fencik and WR Escanor Sama. Fencik was only a WR for Philadelphia for 4 or 5 seasons. However, each season he had absolutely stellar
performances week in and week out, skyrocketing him up the all time franchise receiving yard leaders list. Escanor Sama, since his rookie year, has been absolutely blessed by the sim. Practically unguardable all 3 years so far in the league, he has single handedly brought back interest to the Possession WR archetype, with many players trying to follow his build. You can copy the build, but you can’t copy the sim’s blessing.