The Otters have reached an interesting inflection point in the team's future. After winning 10 games and the regular season title in their conference last season, they are not the favorites in the ASFC for the first time in four or five seasons. The face of the Orange County franchise, Mike Boss, is facing questions about how much longer he can keep up his recent level of play and some fans want the team to move on to rookie quarterback Gus T.T. Showbiz sooner rather than later. The front office envisions things differently, however. After making some much needed upgrades to the team's offensive line, Boss should be primed for another MVP caliber season. The team is ecstatic about their recent draft class and believes they have the requisite pieces to replace outgoing stalwarts from their championship runs like Boss, Jordan Yates, and George Wright Jr. Some questions remain when looking at the future of the team's receiving corps which features an aging Bradley Westfield and two pending free agents in Carlito Crush and Teagan Atwell. However, with contingency plans or solid, young talent at every other position, Orange County has no doubt they are capable of competing for an Ultimus both this season and into the future.
With the new season starting, the only expectation anybody should be expecting from Trey Willie is for him to move up those wide receiver rankings. He's always been a threat on the field but for the majority of his career, he's been chasing top catcher man Bradley Westfield. Last season we saw Trey Willie finally top the wide receiver leader board and there's no sign that he'll be slowing down this season either. With the start of S9, Willie trails Westfield in career receiving yards by nearly 3400 and he trails by 25 TDs as well. I am expecting to close both of those gaps this season and beyond.
As for the Baltimore Hawks, as is with every year, I am expecting this team to play hard and win a lot of games. We have been competitive and on the cusp of great things for last 7 seasons. This season is hopefully the season we finally break though and bring some new hardware back home to Baltimore. With the recent logo rebrand, it has a lot of players in this locker room amped up and excited for this season. With the most dynamic offense in the league and an ever improving defense, I expect to win it all.
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Gus T.T. Showbiz and the Kansas City Coyotes have high expectations indeed this coming DSFL season. After a narrow loss in the Ultimini last season, the Coyotes are returning most of their roster, and were able to add the number one overall pick in Kazimir Oles, another speedy target for Showbiz to throw to.
The Coyotes should fully expect to make the Ultimini this season, after posting a league high 77 points in the first two games of the season. That 77 point mark is 27 more points than the next closest offensive unit, showing how dominant and explosive the Coyotes can be. Meanwhile, through those same two games, the Coyotes have only let up 33 points, also leading the league, but by a much smaller margin. Their division rivals, the Portland Pythons trail in the category by a single point with 34 points against. Whether or not this level of success is sustainable for the Coyotes is debatable, but even a step back from here will still have them flying high in the DSFL. Showbiz currently leads the DSFL with 501 passing yards and a god-like 74.5 completion percentage. Adding to that, he has 4 touchdowns and 2 interceptions and a total QB rating of 111.2. Showbiz is on pace to absolutely shatter DSFL passing records. The expectation would be to fall off slightly, but just like his team, a small step back will still end up being extremely good at the rate he's currently performing at. With all of these brightsides, and very few downsides, could we witness a Kansas City Coyotes Ultimini championship?
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Gus T.T. Showbiz Player Page Gus T.T. Showbiz Update Page [div align=center] [div align=center] Bavitz Player Page Bavitz Update Page
Ryan Applehort has high expectations going into this season. Finishing 6-8 last year was huge and Applehort is looking to build on that success with a young core. However, they haven’t gotten off to a great start, with a narrow home win against bottom dwellers Arizona and a pummeling against Baltimore. Applehort hopes to turn the season around at this point, though, and expects him and his team to go 8-6. He feels that everyone needs to step up. Applehort feels he is ready to lead a winning team and will put the offense on his back. However, these expectations have been hampered. Applehort walked out of a meeting with GM Awayne Daron visibly upset, and one cryptic tweet from the quarterback’s twitter account appears to mean that something could be brewing. The young quarterback will continue to be determined and focused on the field, however, as he looks to achieve his expectations that some colleagues and fellow NSFL players would consider unrealistic. When asked about his goal, he replied, “I don’t know where this fuss is coming from. I hit free agency in two years. There’s that. I’m not going to make a decision before then. I’m loyal as long as my team is loyal back. It’s a cycle.”
Jake Verden is ready. After missing out on a year of football due to being stuck on a desert island, Jake is back on the field. The former Michigan corner was on many a draft board before his plane went down in the Atlantic, and now expectations are high for him to return to his former level of play. But can Jake live up to the hype?
"I want to be the best player that I can be. Whether that is hall of famer or merely a decent contributor, I plan on doing my absolute best. I will be the first on the field and the last off it." The young corner back said when asked about his personal expectations. So what are his personal goals this season? "Picks, tackles, deflected passes. I'm not letting anyonr near that end zone." As a Kansas city coyote, Jake is expected to be a major defensive contributor to a team still hungry after their Ultimini loss last year. He may talk a big game, but he has yet to prove it on the field. Only time will tell whether Verden will go down as an all-time great or just another player who can't handle the big league heat.
Alright, so I'm a tight end. That means that I don't have very many expectations for my player other than to disappoint me slightly less than the season before. So, therefore, expectations for the Hawks this season. See, there we have a more interesting predicament. My EXPECTATION is for the Hawks to not only make the playoffs but to win HFA as the best team in the conference. No doubt about it, the Hawks are the best team in the NSFC...on paper But the Hawks have this terrible habit of going and blowing up our best chances of success. Personally, I think the team is still recovering from our two stolen championships, but that's another story. So, I went through the schedule to look for how I thought we could finish out the season. I don't expect the Wraiths or Otters to stay as bad as they've played so far this week, so I predicted they'd at least beat the Hawks at home. So, conservatively, I'd expect the Hawks to finish 9-5 but maybe as good as 11-3. Either way, we should build on last season depending on how we perform in the big games. The problem is that, as history (and the YKW-ARI game this week) shows, we also have to worry about the small games too. Really, it's anyone's season.
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After so many years of expecting nothing but the bottom, last season changed things for me and for the Yeti. Season Eight saw the Yeti winning a surprising number of games and improving vastly from the perfect 0-14 seasons for the two years prior. Winning any games at all would have been a step in the right direction, but winning as many as we did completely shifted the league’s perception of the team. Perhaps more importantly, it shifted our own perception as well. Let’s not mince words: anything less than the number of wins we were able to pull off last year will be a disappointment. We need to be improving, and we need to be doing it fast. Who knows how many more years we will have with Eli Kamaka and Jonathan Saint? We already know Dan Miller is retiring at the end of the year, and Nick Pierno is not going to last much longer. Our defense is getting old, and we need to win now or not at all. Our expectations are high because our window could be closing before it’s even been opened.
Personally, I have high expectations for myself as well. After a stellar Season Seven that saw me win Breakout Player of the Year and earn my first trip to the Pro Bowl, last year was a bit of a let down, as I wasn’t able to repeat my Pro Bowl performance. This year, I want to be back in the elite category. Even more than that, though, the Yeti need to start winning a lot more games. Haruki Ishigawa Word count: 264
The Otters have an expectation of excellence every season. We strive to put forward the best team we can to win as many games possible. Our fans have come to expect this from us as well. We have made the playoffs for 8 straight seasons so that is our expectation going into this season. We know that might be harder this season than most others because Mike Boss has definitely lost a step in his game, as has one of his top options over the last 8 years, Robert Phelps. Not having his go to guy after Westfield has hurt him, but Tegan Atwell and Carlito Crush have really put in a lot of reps with the veteran to make up for Phelps slide. Expectations are very high for Crush and Atwell to show the fans they're the heir apparent to the dynamic duo that Phelps and Westfield were for so long. Defensively, the Otters have very high hopes for Jaylon Broxton. He's had a smooth career so far and thy're hoping he and Brown can become the two new captains of the defense, as Winchester and Spector get older. Speaking of the older duo on defense, they expect themselves to be just as good as they ever have been. While other players their age have been retiring, these two show no signs of slowing down. In fact Spector just had the best game of his career against San Jose week 1. So, expect the Otters to be just as strong as they ever have been. Undying spirit lives on in this unsinkable ship in Orange County.
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