Prompt Wrote:6) It’s always important to look forward to the future. Examine your team, and in 400 words or more, talk about how they can improve themselves to get a stab at trophy contention next year. Are you loaded with draft capital for the next draft? Do you have plenty of cap space to sign free agents? Go through the roster and note the different strengths and weaknesses, and how you think those will change over the next few seasons. How should your team adapt?
Looking at stats for season 22, the Copperheads did what we expected to do going in at the start, scoring the most points in the ASFC and second in the NSFL after only the Wraiths. Also as expected, our defense wasn't quite as good. I tried to help as a new member of the defensive line, but I wasn't enough to turn the tide on my own. That flaw showed itself in the conference finals where the offense scored a respectable 38 points but we on the defense gave up 50 and we lost. Looking at the team going into next year, we're going to be losing at least S15 RB Leaf Jr. and S12 DE Kuusela. There's a couple other players who I don't know if they have said or not said anything about retirement, but I think the clear strength is the offense rather than the defense. After the season was over, we did make a trade for S22 DE Claxton in exchange for our S24 2nd and 4th pick plus an additional swap of seconds in S23 (HON for ARI where we hold HON after last season's trade). That will help out a lot to reinforce our defensive line with what I'd like to think is a trio of great ends. We also have a great player at each of LB, CB, and Safety, but we don't exactly have a lot of depth beyond those players who were up last year. Looking down to the DSFL, S22 CB Mendoza seems like basically a lock to be called up. S22 RB Jones seems like a reasonably likely callup to replace the retiring Leaf Jr., but as a rookie we can't reasonably expect to fully replace the vet. With those callups I don't think we have any major gaps for S23 assuming no other S15 and 16 players retire, but replacing the players at those positions is going to be a clear priority going towards the future. Assuming my callup predictions are correct, that leaves not a ton of cap room - we'd need to cut down on the OL bots or hope to draft another human OL who we could pay less than $7m to. Either way, I think it's looking unlikely to see a huge contract in FA unless there's an offensive lineman out there.
For the draft, I think that gives us a first pick around the 4th pick of round 2, which should definitely give us a good prospect. Our next picks, though, are Yeti's R3 and Chicago's R4, which I {i]think[/i] will be back-to-back picks. I'm counting about 93 S23 players, so picks 36 and 37 should be pretty solid options though maybe not starters until after another year down in the DSFL. So, for those picks, I think we'll need to be looking to replacing the future retirees of the S15-16 players. I'm not in our draft war room or anything, though, so I don't know if that's actually the plan - my analysis is just based on looking at the roster and contracts pages.
Prompt Wrote:7) Selflessness is one thing, but ultimately everyone wants to hear their own player’s name mentioned among the greats. Take some time, in 400 words or more, and discuss how your player’s (or past player’s) career is going so far. Are you matching any expectations you set out for yourself? Do you see yourself on a potentially award winning or Hall of Fame career trajectory? If your player is just starting out, what goals and visions do you have for yourself?
For my first year in the NSFL, I definitely didn't have the best year from a raw stats perspective. I was down in every statistical category as compared to last year in the DSFL, but I think that's to be expected when you join a league with people who have been earning TPE for much longer than you. I guess I could say that it's in line with my logical expectations of what would happen, but I was hoping that I'd be lucky or have my practices pay off or whatever and outperform my expectations. I also had a couple penalties including one I still to this day don't understand where I got a defensive pass interference on a running play. That's logically impossible, right? I would demand to talk to the league about it, but the refs are hiding or something. Anyway.
So with this year's season as the starting point, I can't say that I look like I'm going to be on an amazing trajectory based on just stats. I did pick up the pace some as the season progressed - but given that we won 8 games in a row, our stats would have to be better or else we'd have lost instead. As a rookie DE who wasn't at the DSFL max at the end of last year, I think I performed to the level that is expected of me. I wasn't the best lineman on the team and don't think I'm in the running for any awards - maybe if there was a defensive lineman rookie of the year, but I haven't checked to see if I'm actually one of the better players in that category. The key point with 'performing to the level expected' though - just because it's what expected doesn't mean I'm satisfied with it. There are still attributes to raise in an effort to perform better in the future, and getting those numbers up is going to be a big focus through the offseason, naturally. I also was a bit busier this season than the last couple which meant I didn't do any media beyond the PTs since the draft - I'm at a pretty good bank account size right now, but if I only ever spend then I'll need to work on getting it back up at some point given that I took basically a minimum contract. I have enough for about 3 years of max spending last I looked, though, so I'm not in a specific hurry to fix that.
Looking towards where I'll be by the start of next season, I think there's a decent chance I'll have maxxed out all my important stats other than endurance. On the one hand, that's good, since I should then be able to be playing at maximum effectiveness. On the other hand, that's not the best since it means earning more TPE doesn't do much other than maybe giving me one extra year of high level play if I try to fight regression for longer. I don't really know what that means for my future - are there any other goals I should have in mind? I guess I could try and help work with other D-line players on the team? Food for though, at least.
Draft Steal (retired S35 CB) - Profile/Update | Wiki
Troen Egghands (retired S22 DE) - Profile | Update | Wiki