[span style=\\'font-size:14pt;line-height:100%\\']Why Your Team Sucks, Volume 3: Philadelphia Liberty[/span]
Intro Song
I know, I know. It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these and when this one was promised to the Liberty, they had yet to lose their most productive player/kicker, Baron to the expansion draft. Yet, the Liberty have persevered. By adding some promising young talent and retiring some dead weight (GM players), Philly found themselves in a playoff game this year that they almost had a chance to win for the first time in a while. As slightly above-average as they’ve been in their significantly below average conference this season, we’re not here to talk about Philly’s success. After all, this is Why Your Team Sucks, and if the Philly team isn’t PMing the same kind of “Bro please you have to understand, we’re really really good, we don’t tamper anyone before they are claimed on the waivers, and we’ve never asked anyone to demand a trade or holdout in the DSFL. I’m telling you man there’s just something about our bro loving bro environment that keeps us winning bro. You’ve gotta believe me, please bro” messages I got after my Myrtle Beach edition of WYTS, then I’m doing something wrong.
Now, as always I’ll start with the team’s history. Many of you probably thought like me, that the Philadelphia Liberty have been around since the league has, but, like me, you would be wrong. With Season 2 of the NSFL came its first expansion. Philadelphia was one of those two new expansion teams. As they burst into the league under founder and GM @adam2552 ‘s leadership, the Liberty faced an uphill battle. They were mostly made up of new players and the players made available in the expansion draft, just like all expansion teams. Just like all expansion teams they struggled in their first season. Star QB Jameis Christ was only able to muster 5 wins and the team ended with a 5-9 record, the bottom spot in their conference. In season 3 they started 0-3-1, before rallying to end the season at 8-5-1, earning them their first ticket to the postseason. There they were swiftly dispatched by a good, but not great Baltimore squad that would get thumped by the 13-1 Outlaw multi team in the Ultimus. S4 was similar to S3, 7-7 record and a big ole playoff L to Yellowknife, who of course lost in the Ultimus (as WAS tradition). S5 they missed the playoffs altogether despite going 8-6. Season 6 was different however. They posted a franchise best 9-5 record and won a home playoff game against Yellowknife before being put down 23-17 by the Otters in the Ultimus game. Now season 7 was VERY different, the team was very good, posted another franchise record 10-4 season, and went on the road to beat a 13-1 Yellowknife team 40-31, then turned around and beat a 12-2 Orange County team 28-19 to claim their first and only Ultimus title as a franchise. What follows from here is heartbreak, so get ready. Next year in S8, it’s back to 7-7 and they miss the playoffs once again. Season 9 is worse, they post a franchise low of 4-10 and finish nowhere near a playoff spot for the first time since their inaugural season. Season 10 is one to forget for the franchise. They went 0-14 in one of the worst displays of football the league has ever seen. The memes were flowing hard enough at this point that you might think Jiggly was involved. Alas, he was not. The next season (S11) they bounced back. A revitalized Philly team was back to 7-7 and missed the playoff by a single game once again. An achievement for a team that just went 0-14. Season 12 was another .500 season, but they made the playoffs in a very weak NSFC before losing a heartbreaking overtime thriller in Baltimore. In S13, Philly had another good season at 8-6 but had to travel to Colorado in the playoffs and in the first NSFL game I ever watched, had 50 dropped on them by the Yeti with their kicker turned QB Micycle McCormick. The Yeti would then lose to, you guessed it, Orange County.
History part two: I exist. I’m mentioning this because I can now add flair and bits of history I remember from these seasons. S14 Liberty were another tough team. 9-5 got them to the playoffs where they beat a really good Baltimore team on the road before going down to Joliet Christ and the Sabercats in the Ultimus. They’re 1 for 3 right now if you’re keeping count. The next season was very similar. An influx of young talent kept the Liberty near the top of the conference and managed to net them 8 wins, but Baltimore was too strong this season and annihilated them and then the Sabercats in the next round. Poop birds suck. With S16 came expansion once again. The 7-6 Liberty found themselves away to old foes Yellowknife in the wild card round where they eeked out a victory 35-34. In the next round the Liberty went on the road to the win now expansion team, the Chicago Butchers, where they dropped 47 points and coasted on to the next round, they were beginning to look like a team of destiny. One game left, and they play the Outlaws led by SwagSloth and his inexperienced co-GM (that’s me) fresh off blowout wins at two time defending ASFC champs San Jose and the powerhouse Orange County Otters. I remember this game well, it was an extremely close game. Richard D’Attoria returned an interception 42 yards to give Philly the lead with just under 8 minutes left in the game (30-27), but with a minute and a half left, Andrew Reese found Jeffrey Murphy (yes, WALDO) for his third TD of the game to give Arizona the win. Incredible stuff! In S17, dreams broken, Philly regressed to 5-8 and were once again at the bottom of their conference. Season 18, bad again, at 4-9. Season 19? More of the same, 6-7 no playoffs. S20, surely they’re good again? Nope, 5-8, only Chicago below them, no playoffs. At this point it just continues to get worse, 3-10 in S21 for their second worst record in franchise history. S22 saw expansion again, so league worst Philly didn’t even get 1 or 2 overall, and although Philly went 6-7 (a biig improvement) they found themselves on the outside looking into the playoffs. Finally, after being out in the cold for 6 long seasons Philly had clawed their way back into a playoff spot. They went on the road and lost.
Now that we’re up to speed, it’s back to the question at hand. Why does Philly suck?
Many of you may not know this as it’s a relatively new development, but since there’s a new Ultimus champ, the Yellowknife Wraiths, we have a new holder for the longest championship drought! At sixteen long, arduous, rarely hopeful seasons, Philly holds the crown now. If you want to break it down in real time, it’s been over 2 years since Philly won an Ultimus. I wonder which of us were even here to see that, I know I sure wasn’t and I’d be willing to wager that I could count the amount of active players who bore witness to that on my own two hands. While I think this counts as a resounding reason that the Philadelphia Liberty do in fact suck, as a scholar and a gentleman, I naturally want to explore deeper into the why. Why has it been sixteen seasons since Philly has won a title. After all, they’re no meme like Chicago is or Colorado was. So where are they going so horribly wrong in the process that prevents them from being winners? Let’s find out.
Let me start by addressing a correction that needs to be made to my last paragraph. Apologies to the Philadelphia Liberty, I incorrectly identified your team as not being a meme, however, they most certainly are. The Philadelphia Taco Bell meme has been present since the team’s inception, and to be completely fair is 100% completely well deserved. For some reason, they decided to take the Taco Bell logo as their own and spice it up with a few patriotic colors and the odd out of place thick black outline to create their team’s brand. As this logo stretches back to S2, I (sadly) cannot criticize current GM Hallmonitor, who has already had his graphical skills put under a microscope in part one of the series, so I will instead criticize adam2552 who at least approved the logo, even if he didn’t design it. I lied when I said that Palm Beach was the laziest branding in league history in part 1. It is so clearly the red, white, and blue Philadelphia Liberty with a damn bell as their logo that takes the cake for laziness. There are so many great options that accurately represent the city of Philadelphia other than the liberty bell. What about the Southpaws, a timeless reference to fictional Philadelphia boxing legend, Rocky Balboa. Or the Philly Cheesesteaks, a big old sandwich on the helmet is the kind of creative branding the league needs. Or even keep the name intact and put an ironic, hip logo on it like a tollbooth signifying the insane price of liberating your car from the greater Philadelphia area to go literally anywhere else. Either way I give the logo a 6/10 for appearance, a 1/10 for creativity, and a 10/10 for making me want to order a Cheesy Gordita Crunch when I see it. Still, as lame as the branding is for this team, that’s probably not the reason why they can’t win an Ultimus, so let’s dig a little deeper…
Let’s take a look at their current roster, maybe it’s the players that continuously let the team down. Hmmmm. Looking at QB, they’ve got Brock Phoenix, he’s not bad, not him. Running backs, they’ve got a legit star in Torrenson and a decent change of pace in Fuzzy Dotson, not them either. Wide receivers, Varga is a bit disappointing in terms of production from TPE, but combined with Vuxta and Panda that’s a damn good trio. Slm same story as Varga at TE. Always good, never quite as good as he should be, but not a weak spot. User OL, pretty weak DL, decent linebackers, and a loaded secondary with Cross, Eriksen, and Booker. So the team doesn’t seem to be the problem either.
So the buck must fall on their management, right? Let's look at who the GMs have been since their last Ultimus win and assess their performances. Looks like Oles stepped down after winning an Ultimus and PDX and KCKolbe took over. While I like and respect PDX, I think we may have found a winner with Kolbe. The man who managed to turn the league against him several times while playing and had a famous blowup rage quit just before I joined the league. Let’s see if there are any other standouts on this list. Looks like the aforementioned adam and his co-GM BWIII took over and slowly returned the team to stability after the dark days. Not much documentation on what happened after, but I know Hall has been GM through all of these past bad years of Philly football, so I think it’s right to assume he’s a big reason for their struggles (SOUP you good bb). Also I don’t see it as unrealistic to paint him as a similar user to KCKolbe as their track records of success as Philly GM are pretty damn comparable. So I think this delve into the GMs wasn’t as successful as I hoped, but we were able to draw some relevant conclusions from it. Basically the good GMs weren’t quite good enough to win one, and the bad GMs (Hall and Kolbe) are just that, bad GMs. Smh Hall, smh.
Now that I look closer into some of the historical rosters of some of these Philly teams, it’s becoming a bit clearer. Philly seems to be a hotbed for serial underearners. I won’t name names, but there have been several players on Philly who seem like they are on the team as cheerleaders first and football players second. While I understand the importance of a fun and engaging locker room, it’s not the sole focus of a GM. There needs to be a balance of monster earners, locker room personalities, and the rare gem of a player who combines both. In recent seasons (pre S22 draft) it looks like Philly had a lot of locker room personalities and not so many earners. Luckily with a solid past couple of drafts, it looks like the Philly management may have righted that ship and are emerging out the other side as a team with real potential.
Before I wrap things up in this version of WYTS, I just want to give a shoutout to a few Philly players and alums in the league who I’ve got nothing but love for. @iamslm22, @Fordhammer, @juniped, @roastfuego, @iamslm22, @J0EB, @Lightnoir, and @Memento Mori, keep doing your thing, the team is starting to look pretty scary. @Hallmonitor_20 I know you’re always a good sport and you know I don’t think you’re Kolbe. Keep it up man.
So back to my first question. Why does Philly suck? Well after going through each of these reasons, I haven’t been able to reach a final conclusion on why Philly sucks. It seems to be an amalgamation of bad luck and general mediocrity that has produced the league long sixteen season championship drought. Could that be the worst reason to suck of all though? Think about it, in part one I found no shortage of reasons that Myrtle Beach sucks, and Part 2 was a disaster epic that nearly caused me to stop writing this series altogether. So we know Philly sucks, they haven’t won in sixteen seasons for fucks sake, but there is no reason they haven’t won one. I really do think this is the worst reason possible for sucking, sucking without justification. Maybe that’s Philly’s destiny, to wander aimlessly through the seasons, year after year, with no salvation. Just a group of lost souls circling the drain of eternity, fighting for an unattainable goal. Or maybe they’re just bad and I didn’t have time to pinpoint the reason.
Next up…
Portland Pythons
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