Quote:7. Write 600 words or more on something about anything in the league that interests you. It could be related to statistics, a league issue that you take seriously, or a niche part of history that doesn’t fit neatly into either of the above categories. This must be directly related to the league, so don’t wax 600 words about your team’s participation on a Werewolf server or something.
I'm going to write about what it takes to be a DSFL GM. Last off season I wrote about my journey to become a DSFL GM. But I did not really get to touch on what it takes to be one. I sit here, late in the evening on a Sunday, everyone in the house is asleep, and I am working on getting the file straighten out and our DCs set. The sheer effort that fnordy and myself (and 7 other pairs of GMs) put in just to keep the season moving is massive.
Let's start at the beginning of the season. Predraft specifically. The Ultimini is finished, and now you have to finish your scouting conversations and put together a draft board. These scouting conversations can range from super fun and unique, to fair business like, to just non-existent because maybe that prospect is IA already. Not the end of the world, you work through it (and if you're blessed you have a great war room to help you out!). Now you agonize over your draft order. Maybe you rank the prospects in some fashion, so you have a rough idea who you want to target early. Time for a drink.
Its now draft day. Somehow, unless you pick first, your pick is always sniped by the team right before you. Never fails. Luckily for the first round you probably have 4-5 prospects you really want, so its not a huge deal. As the rounds march on though, you are running out of active prospects. Suddenly another team takes a player you have down as IA. Did you get it wrong? Is that player active? Did the other GM make a mistake and draft an IA early? Man this is hard. Guess we can have a couple more drinks.
Well, draft is over. Now you get to find out if you actually drafted as well as you think. Hey, wait a minute, your third round pick hasn't been on the forums or discord for *days*. Well, crap. Guess you did worse than you thought. But now you have to help the active draftees that you do have around set up their update threads. And why is the recreate who has been in the league for 15 seasons asking me for build advice? I was going to ask him. Double crap. Well, we can always have three drinks.
Okay, well first weekend of updates has come and gone. Surprisingly you had like a single mistake. Not too bad. Hey, the preseason file is out! Time to give it a quick look over the file and make sure there isn't some major mistakes. Oh holy crap, the sim was kind enough to sign like 8 free agents for you that you don't actually have. Well, luckily you can just tell the Sim Team and it becomes their headache. I don't envy those folks. This sim file is incomplete, so you can't really do any testing, but at least you can use it to set your depth charts. Once those depth charts are set, you take them and use it to update the DC/Strats file. You'll turn this in with a strategy that you just threw together. Luckily its just preseason, so who cares. Oh, neat, you went 0-4. Man you cannot make a guess worth a damn. Time for four more drinks.
Ok, now we are into the season and your liver is hurting. Buckle up sweetcheeks, its about to get worse. You now need to test for 3 games a week. This means lots of dealing with the sim, which is NOT built for multi re-runs of the same games. But you keep working through it, are like 75% confident you'll win all three games. Oh look, you lost two of them. Guess five drinks is just what the doctor ordered.
Just got off the phone with the doctor, they did not order that many drinks. But we somehow snuck into the playoffs. Testing goes into overdrive. We keep hoping we can find lightning in the bottle twice. Well, sadly for me this is where my seasons end. I should probably call that doctor back. Ah well, time for 6 drinks.
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