(S24) - PT 4 - Trial by Fire

[zeagle1]

Chuck Roth's trial by fire was this season's prospect bowl. Going from a FCS team to the big leagues is a huge step-up for anyone, but for an athletic OL who relied on his size and strength more than his technique and brain, it was a huge wake-up call. Chuck thought he would be ready for this, and was excited to be put onto the Tokyo Drifters, the coolest named team in the prospect bowl. Chuck was used to winning consistently, having won an Ivy League title in his senior year of college, and been an all-american twice, but the Drifters greatly under preformed, going a measly 1-3 in their games. The Drifters struggled in all phases of the game and were consistently outclassed. 

These initial struggles caused Chuck to do a great deal of introspection, and it was a major turning point for him as a person. Sure, he got burned badly in his first trial by fire, but that just made him double down and commit even more to being a top earner in the league. The chip on his shoulder grew even bigger as a result of this, and he used this failure as motivation to become a hall of fame OL.

[ReverendOReily]

The thing about growing up in a swamp is, there's not a lot of other kids, let alone other kids who like football. It's mostly just gators and bugs and ferns. However, lucky for Richard Leaking, this swamp was in the outskirts of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and nobody loves football like southerners. As a child and teenager, Richard Leaking had to walk miles through waist deep bog water to get to the nearest football field. This all changed when Leaking visited Stanford University; Stanford had had its eye on Leaking for quite some time after witnessing his standout play at Baton Rouge High School (some would say he tackled ball carriers as if he were wrestling swamp gators.) Richard Leaking had a consistent and solid career at Stanford, but wasn't necessarily touted as a top DSFL prospect. Since being drafted, Leaking has continued to step up to the plate and instill fear in opposing offenses. In his very first appearance for the Dallas Birddogs, during a preseason bout with the Minnesota Grey Ducks, Leaking forced a fumble and sacked the waterfowl quarterback once. During his actual debut performance in the regular season against the Tijuana Luchadores, Leaking had a fairly average/underwhelming performance, recording 7 tackles and 1 tackle for a loss. Since then, however, Leaking has rebounded quite well and has had a few standout performances. One such performance was the week 5 game against the Grey Ducks in which he registered 11 tackles, a sack, and 3 passes mightily smacked out of the air. Leaking credits his pass deflecting abilities to the childhood years he spent "swatting swamp skeeters."

(271 words)

[nunccoepi]

Using my third PT pass <---this is a hyperlink

[slothfacekilla]

The start of Ben Slothlisberger's football journey is largely unknown to the general public, as the young quaterback randomly appeared on the scene in college at Central Michigan after trying out for them.  Hailing from the moon, Slothlisberger's past is very mysterious, but his journey through the DSFL to the ISFL is widely known after he was selected by the New Orleans Second Line in the second round of the ISFL draft.  Slothlisberger had an unremarkable personal career in the DSFL in Tijuana, but he did manage to snag an Ultimini ring in his second season with the Luchadores.  After many seasons in the developmental league, this season was finally the time for Ben to join the Second Line.

Luckily for Slothlisberger his first three regular season games were wins for him and New Orleans.  His first "welcome to the league" moment happened in week 4 when New Orleans lost on the road in Austin 31-7.  Slothlisberger did not throw an interception, but he managed to only complete 50% of his passes in a very inefficient day which ended up stalling out the New Orleans' offense multiple times.  This first loss was big in Slothlisberger's growth as a player, and he realized that he was not going to win every game that he played in.  He's managed to rebound fairly well from this despite a few other losses, and he's putting together a solid rookie campaign.  We'll see how the rest of his career works out.

246 words

[Z-Whiz]

My welcome to the league moment came in the final week of the regular season in my rookie year in the DSFL. The Royals were a win away from clinching home field advantage in the NFC North due to a lose by Kansas City the game before. The Royals had won 5 games in a row to give themselves the chance and momentum was high. After a tough start to the season, this would be the final payoff in their “never give up story”. Unfortunately, it was not to be. The Royals offense put up a meager 3 points and 72 passing yards. An even closer look shows that I made no impact on the game with no receptions. It was devastating. We had been on a tear and I had been doing well in yardage and reception during the winning streak. We had to take a hard look in the mirror and come up with a better plan for our road game in the playoffs. I came out strong in that game giving the Royals a halftime lead with a touchdown reception. Only catching 1 TD in the regular season was a tough pill to swallow but getting one in the biggest game of my career so far was huge for my morale. We still ended up losing the game by 1 point, but it was a good reaction from the team after getting blown out the week prior.

[ThunderTitan82]

Written Option: Reflect on our player’s career, from their first football game to their current career in the ISFL or DSFL, and expound upon one particular story where your player faced their “welcome to the league” moment. How did the change in competition between college and the league, or between the DSFL and ISFL, initially challenge your player? Did they suffer a drop in stats or an ugly debut game? How did they rebound from it?

My first game in the DSFL was a great one. I finished the game with 9 tackles, second on the team and top among safeties in the league week one. Despite the loss I felt confident in my performance moving forward. Week two was a different story. I had ridden the high of a strong week one performance into week two where I finished with four tackles. Much less, but still average and not an unexpected number for a rookie in the DSFL in his second game. Week three I finished with an abysmal 2 tackles. A pass defense made a horrible performance seem a bit better. We won the game which made it sting less, but I came to realize that every week was vastly different and I couldnt expect to perform the same level of excellence every day like I did in college. This league changes week to week and without constant improvement you can fall behind quickly. My performance in week fours victory was awful yet again with only two tackles. I realize that stats dont always tell the whole story, i have made an impact by most of my tackles being preventative of long plays, but I know that i can perform better week in and week out. My rebound was slight, our week 5 loss to dallas I had 4 tackles, with a huge hit stick forced fumble. Week 6 saw another below average performance of 3 tackles and a pass defense. Week 7 I finished with a solid 5 tackles. Overall my performance spiked high in week one, leaving me with some lofty expectations. I failed to reach those expectations in week two which led to a 3 week dip in play that didnt come up again until week 5 where the forced fumble boosted my confidence. A solid performance the following week has me trending upwards. If this upward trend continues I should see a solid stat line come seasons end.

[xenosthelegend]

Fencik never played organized football until the DSFL, he had everything to prove starting from the preseason. In Fencik's first ever game he was perfect on kicking, 1/1 extra points, 4/4 field goals (3/3 20-29 yards, 1/1 30-39 yards). Fencik wasn't done yet, as in the remainder of the preseason he didn't miss a kick. It took Fencik until week 4 of the regular season to miss a kick, a 44 yard attempt where instead of kicking the ball he did this to a Dallas player. At the midway point of the season in the DSFL Fencik is one of 3 kickers who are perfect on extra points, and is 3rd in field goals made, having only missed twice from over 40 yards out. In terms of punting, Fencik is leading the pack for yards, having greater than three football fields more distance than 2nd place. Fencik's 'welcome to the league' moment came in week 3 in a game against Myrtle Beach, it was not because he missed any kicks, but because he was unable to even attempt to score points. In that game London was shut out, the score was 13-0, and Fencik was unable to do anything other than punt.

[HENDRIX 2.0]

Douglas Quaid’s “welcome to the league” moment came early on in his ISFL career. After being drafted by the Wraiths Quaid hopped on a flight that night from Utah and made his way up to the Canadian north. Getting to such an isolated location takes a long time, from pretty much any starting point. The anxiety and nerves from draft day churned his stomach like a whirlpool. The plane landed at 7am and a taxi brought Quaid over to the Wraiths complex. It was very early in the day and nobody was there except for security, or so he thought. Quaid was granted access to the building, escorted to the locker room where he placed his gear, and then rushed to find the nearest bathroom. The janitors had them all locked, except for a small 1 urinal + 1 stall bathroom next to one of the offices. Quaid reached for the door handle, but in the instant before there was an occupant inside making his way out. It was team QB and ISFL legend Cooter Bigsby! Just as Quaid realized who he was standing face to face with a wall of crap smelling foulness you couldn’t even imagine hit him like a tidal wave. Bigsby said he drank 45 beers the night before, hit Quaid on the back and said “welcome to Yellowknife”. He walked away while Quaid stood by the door in disgust. (233 words)

[ztarwarz]

Trial by fire? Which one do you want to talk about? Darren Pama had issues in College when he had to change positions in his second season, and changing positions in his first season in the DSFL has led to some pretty poor games, including a 3.3 YPC in a win against KCC I feel is completely unfair since I feel like I got the lion's share of the bad spots that game.

But nah, I have an easy one for this: The Prospect Bowl. Perhaps the dumbest, most useless part of the pre draft festivities, and yet the most necessary part of them for a new guy since he finally gets to see his player perform. So how did Darren Pama do in the Prospect Bowl? Well, it depends. Later on Pama became a great blocking TE, up there with some of the league leaders who were actually Olinemen, but the first two games were extremely rough. Honestly, it felt like I shouldn't have even bothered putting any points in hands. In the first two games against the Tumbleweed, Pama caught 4 passes at 5 yards per catch, and had exactly as many drops as receptions. To be frank, Tight End seems to be a pretty thankless job for the prospect bowl unless you try to put EVERYTHING into speed, but only one guy did that. Even besides that, though, it was quite a slap to the face to see people who I thought statted worse, and indeed if you looked at the stats, did indeed stat worse, get treated better by the sim than I got treated. So far, none of my DSFL games have been worse, even including the 3.3 YPC that I still say was mostly caused by the sim's shit refs.

[Crunk]

Coming into the DSFL draft with a reputation as a playmaker - as well as a mouth and quite a sizeable ego - Tayshawn Crunk had a lot to live up to when he was selected 13th overall by London. Over the first two games, though, his production of only five tackles combined with some questionable body language was not good enough for his coaches.

Tayshawn Crunk played very limited snaps in Week 3. Benched. Welcome to the league.

Though he wasn't happy about this, Crunk had seen this too many times before. However he felt, nobody gets a starting job by complaining, so he didn't. When he wasn't on the field (which was most of the game) he was on the sidelines, shouting encouragement and clapping, even as his team was shut out and lost the game.

In Week 4, he showed up to play determined never to ride the bench again. Five tackles and a sack later, coaches were convinced that not only had they got their message across, but it had been received in the right way. In Weeks 5 through 7, Crunk notched 14 tackles, 1 tackle for loss, 4 pass deflections and two interceptions.

All in all, Crunk passed the first test of becoming a professional football player. He understands the gap from college, and shows up every day ready to give it his all. He's getting stronger, faster and smarter on the field every single week -- you better hope your quarterback takes notice.