Kansas City Coyotes Defy Media and Odds, Earn Playoff Berth
Where We Were
The Kanas City Coyotes of the S5 DSFL season were to put it frankly, not very good. The team didn’t lack for individual talent with Borkus Maximus (#15OA in NSFL S6 Draft), Cordell Joshua (#2OA in NSFL S6 Draft), PFTN (#5OA in NSFL S6 Draft), Jack Dwyer (#13OA in NSFL S6 Draft), Robby Rainey (#14OA in NSFL S6 Draft), and Micycle McCormick (#18OA in NSFL S6 Draft) suiting up for the Coyotes. What it did lack, however, was a unified sense of direction and an organizational commitment to strategic excellence on and off the field. This was exemplified by the entire relocation disaster, which involved the city of Chicago attempting to lure the Coyotes away from their traditional stomping grounds in Kansas City for a package of tax breaks and promises from the local government regarding a new state of the art stadium.
I imagine you can guess how well this plan went down, yes? The tax breaks disappeared into the Lovecraftian void that is local Chicago politics, the new stadium was put on indefinite hold after Coyotes management refused to pay exorbitant bribes to local teamsters union representatives and were hit with waves of crippling strikes and protests in return. There were points during the season where Coyotes players didn’t even know who their team was affiliated with on a week-to-week basis due to the ridiculous network of suits and countersuits surrounding the franchise. These distractions hurt the Coyotes attention to detail and kept the conversation surrounding the team far away from the actual product on the field. Unfortunately, that product wasn’t much better....
Whether it was poor game planning by rogue elements within the management structure, a lack of confidence from the players in the face of a massive and disruptive series of scandals involving relocation, playing in the same division as the 10-4 and would-be Ultimus winners the Portland Pythons, or the resurgence of the two “automated” teams that had signed over their personnel decisions to Microsoft’s Watson, the Coyotes season just couldn’t get it going. As a result of this many media pundits had decidedly low hopes for the Coyotes heading into S6 even with their #1OA Draft selection. One reporter was quoted as saying “I’ll believe that the Kansas City “Chicago” Coyotes are worth a damn exactly the moment they show me it”.
Where We Are Today
I’m proud to say to that reporter and all the others like him across the DSFL media scene that The Kansas City Coyotes are quite appreciably worth a damn as of this week when the team heads out to Portland to knock off yet another 10-4 Pythons team. Management has put to bed any issues regarding relocation by reaffirming our commitment to the Kansas City Community and is also currently pursuing litigation against the City of Chicago in order to recover damages due to breach of contract. We hope to use the proceeds of that litigation to build a brand new and state-of-the-art practice facility as well as start work on some long awaited improvements to the newly rechristened “Death Valley” stadium complex. Kansas City posted the best offense in the DSFL this season, scoring a league leading 294 points and accumulating 5,642 total yards through 14 games, at a clip of just over 400 yards per game. With a record of 8-6 the Coyotes have earned their first playoff berth in quite some time and look forward to having the chance to knock of the Pythons this coming Tuesday in the rubber match of a series that each team has won once this season.
The offense is led by the trio of QB Mark Strike (@OwlStrike13), RB Robby Rainey, and the soon-to-be #1OA pick in the NSFL Draft Howard Miller (@`BenLongshaw`). Miller won two legs of the Triple Crown with ease and should be a tough competitor for end of the year offensive awards with his 91 catches for 1,269 yards. Strike shocked the DSFL when he returned from self-imposed meditative isolation this offseason to take the KCC starting QB job, many had projected the Coyotes to go QB with their first pick, but bringing Strike back into the fold allowed them to acquire Miller and set the stage for an explosive offense that would take the league by storm during their 6 game winning streak. The final cog in the Coyote’s offensive machine is tailback Robby Rainey. Rainey was the last selection in the S6 DSFL Draft and came to a Coyotes team that wasn’t in the right headspace. The rookie made it a goal of his to train up, grab the starting RB job by the horns, and make sure that no team he was a member of ever had a season like S5 KCC did ever again. He is now a member of the Yellowknife Wraiths’ organization and is expected to head up to the NSFL next year to compete with Borro Gore for snaps at RB behind the great Eric Kennedy.
While the offense put up gaudy numbers and made you really understand “Speed Kills”, the defense embodied the mental and physical toughness that management had identified as being the missing link for KCC. The group was headlined by LBs Ryan LeFevre (@feve10) and Niraj Garrett (@Burd), DBs Bubba Beau-Boucher (@Angels_Otani) and Mike Miles (@AwkwardCowboy). Each of these players has showcased a positional versatility and willingness to help their team that should serve them extremely well in the NSFL. The defensive group as a whole was solid against both pass and run-heavy offenses and had a habit of coming up with huge plays when their offense needed some help during big games. The Coyote’s defense was a young one, with most of the front seven being constructed out of draft picks and rookie stars, but they were prepared for the challenge and were able to shut down some of the league’s most potent offensive attacks when it mattered most. Also of mention is new face Brad Pennington (@Dawegg) who came to KCC via the waiver wire and posted 22 tackles and 3 sacks in three games.
Next Steps
The Coyotes have shattered one glass ceiling in making the playoffs, now they have to get over the next hurdle by making it to the Ultimini. That task will be a difficult one with the duo of PDXBaller and former Coyote player Speculadora driving a red-hot Pythons team into the #1OA seed in the playoffs. Kansas City’s management was asked to comment on the upcoming game and stated that they had immense confidence in their team to take the next step and earn the opportunity to fight for a title. “Every one of these guys on both sides of the ball have shed blood, sweat, and tears for this organization, and the change in culture over one short season has been nothing short of sensational. This team can beat anybody in the league, on any field in the league, on any given day. We believe that the Pythons are a great team, but they’re a great team that we beat once before and one we believe that we’ll beat again“.
Reporters also asked about the upcoming S8 Draft class, which has begun to sort itself out as the wave one prospects play their first DSFL snaps off the waiver wire and get a taste for league action. “ I am a strong believer in building through the draft” GM Ahriman stated, “A lot of what went wrong with this team in the past was related to a lack of focus on our young players and a lack of development on the side of the on-field coaches. We’re done with that. Our new coaching staff has an excellent history in both the pros and the collegiate game as being incredible leaders of men and teachers of technique and we love what they’ve done with the rookie class, especially on defense. We are looking forward to a bumper class in the DSFL this year and hope to be introducing our veteran players to a class of new Coyotes that will ensure that what we started here isn’t just a one season blip on the radar. What we’re looking for is sustainable success and we believe that we have a plan in place to make that happen”. The Pythons were once again namedropped as an example of the gold standard of sustainable success, as Ahriman pointed out that the team has managed to accumulate 10 wins and the best record in the DSFL after having no draft picks until the third round.
On the subject of league rules and the possibility of changes in the rules summit the following was said: “I really hope we have an opportunity to open on the playbook in the DSFL come next season. I understand that its tradition to only run one set of plays but that just won’t cut it in the modern era of football. I will be strongly advocating for a deregulation of the software that coaches have ceded their play calling authority to as part of the collective Human-AI bargaining agreement. We need to have the ability to call the play for the situation instead of simply trying to mold the situation to the play. Anything less and we risk using our players to a lesser extent than their full potential, and for a developmental league I think that would be a cardinal sin. I even hope to win the right for those fully AI teams to have the same capabilities despite completely unfounded concerns about sentient AIs and a potential technological singularity. If we trust those computers enough to run our football teams, well that’s a vote of confidence from the world’s people and I think it would be a travesty for HO to unnecessarily curtail them for the sheer act of existing”.
Other KCC staff members were slightly less excited about the development, perhaps because of latent trauma caused last season when a player from one of the artificially managed teams became the first member of a human-AI cybernetics clinical trial. Steve Fuller ran for 229 yards in a single game against the Coyotes in a devastating 47-14 mauling. The game, however, would be Fuller’s downfall, as league officials would ding him with a “Random machinery test” immediately after the game only to find that Fuller had been using an illegal series of performance enhancing subroutines that made him able to cut on a dime and sprint like a cheetah. Palm Beach was forced to remove Fuller from the trial program and were limited in situations where they could use him on the field, leading to an eventual benching this late this season. An entire generation in the DSFL, however, saw Steve Fuller as nothing other than the GOAT, and PB still does extremely well with merchandise bearing Fuller’s likeness even with him out of the lineup. Rumor has it that a New York team in PBE is angling to get Fuller on a roster, whether as a legit player or a publicity driver the world may never know.
Where We Were
The Kanas City Coyotes of the S5 DSFL season were to put it frankly, not very good. The team didn’t lack for individual talent with Borkus Maximus (#15OA in NSFL S6 Draft), Cordell Joshua (#2OA in NSFL S6 Draft), PFTN (#5OA in NSFL S6 Draft), Jack Dwyer (#13OA in NSFL S6 Draft), Robby Rainey (#14OA in NSFL S6 Draft), and Micycle McCormick (#18OA in NSFL S6 Draft) suiting up for the Coyotes. What it did lack, however, was a unified sense of direction and an organizational commitment to strategic excellence on and off the field. This was exemplified by the entire relocation disaster, which involved the city of Chicago attempting to lure the Coyotes away from their traditional stomping grounds in Kansas City for a package of tax breaks and promises from the local government regarding a new state of the art stadium.
I imagine you can guess how well this plan went down, yes? The tax breaks disappeared into the Lovecraftian void that is local Chicago politics, the new stadium was put on indefinite hold after Coyotes management refused to pay exorbitant bribes to local teamsters union representatives and were hit with waves of crippling strikes and protests in return. There were points during the season where Coyotes players didn’t even know who their team was affiliated with on a week-to-week basis due to the ridiculous network of suits and countersuits surrounding the franchise. These distractions hurt the Coyotes attention to detail and kept the conversation surrounding the team far away from the actual product on the field. Unfortunately, that product wasn’t much better....
Whether it was poor game planning by rogue elements within the management structure, a lack of confidence from the players in the face of a massive and disruptive series of scandals involving relocation, playing in the same division as the 10-4 and would-be Ultimus winners the Portland Pythons, or the resurgence of the two “automated” teams that had signed over their personnel decisions to Microsoft’s Watson, the Coyotes season just couldn’t get it going. As a result of this many media pundits had decidedly low hopes for the Coyotes heading into S6 even with their #1OA Draft selection. One reporter was quoted as saying “I’ll believe that the Kansas City “Chicago” Coyotes are worth a damn exactly the moment they show me it”.
Where We Are Today
I’m proud to say to that reporter and all the others like him across the DSFL media scene that The Kansas City Coyotes are quite appreciably worth a damn as of this week when the team heads out to Portland to knock off yet another 10-4 Pythons team. Management has put to bed any issues regarding relocation by reaffirming our commitment to the Kansas City Community and is also currently pursuing litigation against the City of Chicago in order to recover damages due to breach of contract. We hope to use the proceeds of that litigation to build a brand new and state-of-the-art practice facility as well as start work on some long awaited improvements to the newly rechristened “Death Valley” stadium complex. Kansas City posted the best offense in the DSFL this season, scoring a league leading 294 points and accumulating 5,642 total yards through 14 games, at a clip of just over 400 yards per game. With a record of 8-6 the Coyotes have earned their first playoff berth in quite some time and look forward to having the chance to knock of the Pythons this coming Tuesday in the rubber match of a series that each team has won once this season.
The offense is led by the trio of QB Mark Strike (@OwlStrike13), RB Robby Rainey, and the soon-to-be #1OA pick in the NSFL Draft Howard Miller (@`BenLongshaw`). Miller won two legs of the Triple Crown with ease and should be a tough competitor for end of the year offensive awards with his 91 catches for 1,269 yards. Strike shocked the DSFL when he returned from self-imposed meditative isolation this offseason to take the KCC starting QB job, many had projected the Coyotes to go QB with their first pick, but bringing Strike back into the fold allowed them to acquire Miller and set the stage for an explosive offense that would take the league by storm during their 6 game winning streak. The final cog in the Coyote’s offensive machine is tailback Robby Rainey. Rainey was the last selection in the S6 DSFL Draft and came to a Coyotes team that wasn’t in the right headspace. The rookie made it a goal of his to train up, grab the starting RB job by the horns, and make sure that no team he was a member of ever had a season like S5 KCC did ever again. He is now a member of the Yellowknife Wraiths’ organization and is expected to head up to the NSFL next year to compete with Borro Gore for snaps at RB behind the great Eric Kennedy.
While the offense put up gaudy numbers and made you really understand “Speed Kills”, the defense embodied the mental and physical toughness that management had identified as being the missing link for KCC. The group was headlined by LBs Ryan LeFevre (@feve10) and Niraj Garrett (@Burd), DBs Bubba Beau-Boucher (@Angels_Otani) and Mike Miles (@AwkwardCowboy). Each of these players has showcased a positional versatility and willingness to help their team that should serve them extremely well in the NSFL. The defensive group as a whole was solid against both pass and run-heavy offenses and had a habit of coming up with huge plays when their offense needed some help during big games. The Coyote’s defense was a young one, with most of the front seven being constructed out of draft picks and rookie stars, but they were prepared for the challenge and were able to shut down some of the league’s most potent offensive attacks when it mattered most. Also of mention is new face Brad Pennington (@Dawegg) who came to KCC via the waiver wire and posted 22 tackles and 3 sacks in three games.
Next Steps
The Coyotes have shattered one glass ceiling in making the playoffs, now they have to get over the next hurdle by making it to the Ultimini. That task will be a difficult one with the duo of PDXBaller and former Coyote player Speculadora driving a red-hot Pythons team into the #1OA seed in the playoffs. Kansas City’s management was asked to comment on the upcoming game and stated that they had immense confidence in their team to take the next step and earn the opportunity to fight for a title. “Every one of these guys on both sides of the ball have shed blood, sweat, and tears for this organization, and the change in culture over one short season has been nothing short of sensational. This team can beat anybody in the league, on any field in the league, on any given day. We believe that the Pythons are a great team, but they’re a great team that we beat once before and one we believe that we’ll beat again“.
Reporters also asked about the upcoming S8 Draft class, which has begun to sort itself out as the wave one prospects play their first DSFL snaps off the waiver wire and get a taste for league action. “ I am a strong believer in building through the draft” GM Ahriman stated, “A lot of what went wrong with this team in the past was related to a lack of focus on our young players and a lack of development on the side of the on-field coaches. We’re done with that. Our new coaching staff has an excellent history in both the pros and the collegiate game as being incredible leaders of men and teachers of technique and we love what they’ve done with the rookie class, especially on defense. We are looking forward to a bumper class in the DSFL this year and hope to be introducing our veteran players to a class of new Coyotes that will ensure that what we started here isn’t just a one season blip on the radar. What we’re looking for is sustainable success and we believe that we have a plan in place to make that happen”. The Pythons were once again namedropped as an example of the gold standard of sustainable success, as Ahriman pointed out that the team has managed to accumulate 10 wins and the best record in the DSFL after having no draft picks until the third round.
On the subject of league rules and the possibility of changes in the rules summit the following was said: “I really hope we have an opportunity to open on the playbook in the DSFL come next season. I understand that its tradition to only run one set of plays but that just won’t cut it in the modern era of football. I will be strongly advocating for a deregulation of the software that coaches have ceded their play calling authority to as part of the collective Human-AI bargaining agreement. We need to have the ability to call the play for the situation instead of simply trying to mold the situation to the play. Anything less and we risk using our players to a lesser extent than their full potential, and for a developmental league I think that would be a cardinal sin. I even hope to win the right for those fully AI teams to have the same capabilities despite completely unfounded concerns about sentient AIs and a potential technological singularity. If we trust those computers enough to run our football teams, well that’s a vote of confidence from the world’s people and I think it would be a travesty for HO to unnecessarily curtail them for the sheer act of existing”.
Other KCC staff members were slightly less excited about the development, perhaps because of latent trauma caused last season when a player from one of the artificially managed teams became the first member of a human-AI cybernetics clinical trial. Steve Fuller ran for 229 yards in a single game against the Coyotes in a devastating 47-14 mauling. The game, however, would be Fuller’s downfall, as league officials would ding him with a “Random machinery test” immediately after the game only to find that Fuller had been using an illegal series of performance enhancing subroutines that made him able to cut on a dime and sprint like a cheetah. Palm Beach was forced to remove Fuller from the trial program and were limited in situations where they could use him on the field, leading to an eventual benching this late this season. An entire generation in the DSFL, however, saw Steve Fuller as nothing other than the GOAT, and PB still does extremely well with merchandise bearing Fuller’s likeness even with him out of the lineup. Rumor has it that a New York team in PBE is angling to get Fuller on a roster, whether as a legit player or a publicity driver the world may never know.
Code:
Word Count: 1857, Ready for Grading
[div align=center]