Greetings dear reader, I thought I would come to you today and say a few words about recently being traded from the Chicago Butchers. I'm sure those of you who know me will have likely been quite surprised by this development. After all, why would I want to leave a team I have wanted to be a part of since all the way back in March of this year? Before you start jumping to any conclusions, I requested the trade personally. It wasn't out of malice, it wasn't anything like that. At the end of the day, I took a moment to evaluate how I felt about the league. How my return had panned out. Where I thought I was in line with what I wanted to get out of coming back. After taking some serious thought, and feeling my draw to the league rapidly declining. I finally decided that it was highly unlikely Chicago would work out in the end.
What it came down to in the end, is that Chicago has a lot of good people. On top of that, a lot of those people have yet to reach their peak. They also have a lot of guys waiting to be called to the active roster. Importantly for me, as a DE, I was relatively low on the position of need ladder. With their current DE's at 772 and 476 at the time of writing this. The question then came down to whether or not I'd be able and willing to switch positions. As some of you may know, I'm not an overly huge fan of the position switch system in the league. Even though I probably could have found somewhere to switch and get the starting time I was looking for. If we look at the Butchers' roster, we quickly run into conflicts. Starting on the defensive line, the easiest position to swap would have been DT. However, at the time of writing, the DT's in Chicago are currently at 784 and 894. Quite a leap from my 400. As well as that, they also have a 328 DT waiting in the DSFL. Which leads me to another dilemma. Did I want to take a potential starting gig from someone who is brand new to the league and hasn't had that opportunity yet? The answer was a rather quick no.
The same is true for LB, where even as Mike Hockhertz is now his second regression season. I didn't want to potentially stop James Gath from getting the call up. This issues arises with pretty much every position for the Butchers'. If I could briefly divert to a less serious note. In the wise words of one DJ Khaled. Chicago seems to be "Suffering from success." There also comes another rather important talking point. Money. As my interest in this league began fading, I was participating less and less. For the first time in my short career here, I hit negative. I was -783k in debt. So even if I found somewhere to position switch, I certainly couldn't afford the $4 Million dollar price tag. Chicago also faced, and still faces a pretty massive cap strain. in S25, If memory serves correctly they had about $6 Million available. Most of which still had to be paid out to end of season bonuses. Currently Chicago stands with $12 Million in space. The moral of this story dear reader, is that sometimes things don't work out the way you expect them too. But that's okay, now being a starter in the league again. I immediately felt much better about being here. I even have that same passion I had in an age long passed to be a GM someday. Which is a feeling I expected to have completely vanished. I mean no disrespect to the wonderful people in Portland, but had I spent another season waiting. I think it would've been almost impossible for me to stay interested in the league. As fate would have it, back in S24 when I would occasionally bank my player's TPE. I would be heckled for doing this, even if it was as simple as me forgetting to actually spend it. It has become absolutely infuriating not to put over 150 points to use.
In closing, I'd like to thank Bayley and Muford immensely for taking the chance to draft me after returning to the league. It meant an awful lot to finally be on the team I had been championing for almost since my first days here. Even though I won't be with them, I have a good feeling that they'll be taking the Ultimus trophy to the windy city soon. I wish everyone there the best of luck in the coming seasons.
p.s. Etrigan's Dotts card is hella sick so be on the lookout for that in coming weeks.
What it came down to in the end, is that Chicago has a lot of good people. On top of that, a lot of those people have yet to reach their peak. They also have a lot of guys waiting to be called to the active roster. Importantly for me, as a DE, I was relatively low on the position of need ladder. With their current DE's at 772 and 476 at the time of writing this. The question then came down to whether or not I'd be able and willing to switch positions. As some of you may know, I'm not an overly huge fan of the position switch system in the league. Even though I probably could have found somewhere to switch and get the starting time I was looking for. If we look at the Butchers' roster, we quickly run into conflicts. Starting on the defensive line, the easiest position to swap would have been DT. However, at the time of writing, the DT's in Chicago are currently at 784 and 894. Quite a leap from my 400. As well as that, they also have a 328 DT waiting in the DSFL. Which leads me to another dilemma. Did I want to take a potential starting gig from someone who is brand new to the league and hasn't had that opportunity yet? The answer was a rather quick no.
The same is true for LB, where even as Mike Hockhertz is now his second regression season. I didn't want to potentially stop James Gath from getting the call up. This issues arises with pretty much every position for the Butchers'. If I could briefly divert to a less serious note. In the wise words of one DJ Khaled. Chicago seems to be "Suffering from success." There also comes another rather important talking point. Money. As my interest in this league began fading, I was participating less and less. For the first time in my short career here, I hit negative. I was -783k in debt. So even if I found somewhere to position switch, I certainly couldn't afford the $4 Million dollar price tag. Chicago also faced, and still faces a pretty massive cap strain. in S25, If memory serves correctly they had about $6 Million available. Most of which still had to be paid out to end of season bonuses. Currently Chicago stands with $12 Million in space. The moral of this story dear reader, is that sometimes things don't work out the way you expect them too. But that's okay, now being a starter in the league again. I immediately felt much better about being here. I even have that same passion I had in an age long passed to be a GM someday. Which is a feeling I expected to have completely vanished. I mean no disrespect to the wonderful people in Portland, but had I spent another season waiting. I think it would've been almost impossible for me to stay interested in the league. As fate would have it, back in S24 when I would occasionally bank my player's TPE. I would be heckled for doing this, even if it was as simple as me forgetting to actually spend it. It has become absolutely infuriating not to put over 150 points to use.
In closing, I'd like to thank Bayley and Muford immensely for taking the chance to draft me after returning to the league. It meant an awful lot to finally be on the team I had been championing for almost since my first days here. Even though I won't be with them, I have a good feeling that they'll be taking the Ultimus trophy to the windy city soon. I wish everyone there the best of luck in the coming seasons.
p.s. Etrigan's Dotts card is hella sick so be on the lookout for that in coming weeks.