*REDEMPTION ROAD Part VII

[jreed12]

Previously, on Redemption Road with jreed12…

Jreed exposed! At the mercy of his nemeses, he was exposed for having comically small hands—too small to even hold the Whopper Jr!

Plot unveiled! As Gadget, the notorious GM of the Fire Salamanders, attempted to stage a coup over the Weekly Mirror, the Mirror’s ownership becomes even more unclear and multiple claims are being called into question!

Cease and desist! A noble olive branch, in the form of loquacious litigator Roquefort, came in to lay the hammer down and bring the ownership of the Weekly Mirror back to its rightful suitor, none other than Jreed!

The draft unfolds! The DSFL draft prepares to go underway, rookies are star-crossed as they get ready to go into the spotlight for the first time…

Read about all of this and more in…

---

Week one of the 49th season of the ISFL has officially wrapped up, and, reader, I can say I am nothing short of stunned, appalled, disgusted, and devastated. Tears are streaming down my face as I’m currently writing this, and I was almost so sickened with woe that I couldn’t even bring myself to produce this entry. However, due to my limitless selflessness and commitment to my voracious readers, combined with my affinity for the game of dotsball we hold near and dear to our hearts, I am going to attempt to break down the heinous atrocity which transpired earlier today. I present to you, dear reader…

Sarasota @ Berlin, AKA “Spikegate”




As a former Senior Correspondent of the ISFL Weekly Mirror, I am no stranger to controversy—nor am I ignorant to the intricacies of the Sim. Week 1 was supposed to go without a hitch. We swapped key positions—including @jadda123876 getting a pick six in her first ever snap as a cornerback—we inducted new players, and as for the time being, Jreed is still “technically” the defensive captain, since Dewalt and Gadget are too lazy to name new ones.

Our first showing for the new season would be against the WEAK Sarasota Sailfish, a squad that the new and improved Berlin defense should have been able to feast upon, especially with rookie QB Bugs playing their first snaps at the helm and an unproven receiving-back in Zigzag Zipstep. And, for the most part throughout the game, that’s exactly what happened.

However, things took a turn for the worse near the end of the third quarter, as Sarasota mounted a fierce comeback and Berlin’s offense began to sputter. Bugs actually began throwing the ball to his own teammates, rather than defenders. Furthermore, the secondary began to give up a few big plays, and next thing you know, Berlin was staring down the sights of a one possession DEFICIT with a two-minute-drill remaining.

My offense is not taken with the choke—I understand that the Sim has a tendency to make teams make a major comeback for seemingly no reason, and football in general is a very momentum-oriented game. However, something completely PREPOSTEROUS and UNSUBSTANTIATED occurred on the final drive of the game.

Tuna Turndaballova, one of the objectively finest QBs currently in the league, led an impressive two-minute-drill to the Sailfish red zone. It’s Pitter Patter! It’s Swaggert! The Salamanders were down a score and were poised to punch it in. However, BER had no more timeouts, but Tuna kept diligently spiking the ball to stop the clock.

That is, except for the fact that massive chunks were being taken off the clock with every spike as we marched up the field, and thus were unable to conclude the drive.

With a mere ten seconds remaining, Willie Swaggert had just earned BER another first down nearly on SAR’s goal line and was quite literally one play away from tying the game up with six. Then, all of a sudden, the game ended, leaving the viewers of this gross spectacle in utter shock.




Now, as for that final play of the game, this is all fine and dandy (except for the complete and utter horseshit tackle on the one yard line), as we would expect a red-zone dumpoff play to run out the rest of that clock, or at the bare minimum, the offense would not realistically have enough time to get back into formation to spike the ball once again.

Let it be known, my quarrel does not fall with the final play of the game, RATHER with the egregious amount of time it took for Tuna and the team to get back in formation and spike. Maybe this is just me going crazy, I feel like the spikes should have taken around 12 seconds each at most, which would have left an additional 10 seconds on the clock, so I feel like BER should have been able to pull off at least one or two more plays with the time earned and potentially win if the time to spike were shorter.

So, I am going to fill out this wordy brainrot rant to squeeze every last penny out of this that I can and declare—Berlin was ROBBED today! You can call me crazy, you can call me a biased Berlin homer, but I feel like this was absolutely ridiculous and uncalled for and it was a really shameful way to end an amazing game.

And yes, I know that the DSFL Draft just transpired and there is SO much to unpack. However, I feel like our new draftees deserve their own article where I can shine the spotlight on how great they all are, and how excited we are to shock the world with this new Dogs defense. So, I will be writing another edition of Redemption Road with the draft recap (and lord knows there will be something else to complain about by the time I finish that), but I am going to give the rooks their due justice. And, as always, congratulations to the S50/49/whatever they are/ DSFL Rooks!

And for all the Dogs, let me put this here to fire you up a bit for this regular season:

---

An aside: to address the current elephant in the room, my good colleague AJ is currently experiencing some legal troubles at the hands of an accused “leak” regarding the ISFL draft. While I do tend to strongly disagree with the punishment applied, as I don’t see any violation of the rule other than a gray-area interpretation, I look forward to seeing proper due process take place and I hope this is a learning process for everyone on how to properly interpret leaking rules. I hold no resentment towards any of the involved parties and I hope the appeals team comes to an appropriate decision. I also like to keep my media lighthearted, and focused on the nonsensical diva-drama I drum up with other users, so this article nor any further media will be the venue for this kind of discourse.

---

However, there is another grave matter to address, something that has been eating away at Gen Chat like a PARASITE. That’s right, reader, the dreaded POLLS have taken the ISFL by storm, and these heinous polls seem to be a SCHEME to further ROT and CORRUPT the brains of our dedicated users. Much like giving an iPad to a snot-noted toddler, these polls are currently being used and abused to spread FAKE propaganda about many of the bastions of this community.

Case in point.




However, I would like it to be noted that justice prevailed in the end, as Gadget, a known incredibly stinky GM, won the vote in a landslide when I dutifully stopped the count. It is most repulsive that my name would be included on a name of WORST GM’s, when I just won the DSFL draft and have yet to even see my team play a snap of regular season ball. Absolutely shameful.

I was going to rant more, but my willpower is crumbling right before my very eyes, as I hang my head in shame on a crushing, resounding Salamander defeat. However, this is not the end, it is only the beginning. Glory in S50 awaits and I believe we saw some true flashes of what is yet to come.

As always, thank you for reading,

Jreed12
#SeeYouInS50