05-06-2024, 03:02 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-07-2024, 04:02 PM by wetwilleh. Edited 1 time in total.)
"Sim gonna sim" is a phrase that you have to get used to when you participate in this league. Every team will have games that they really feel they should win that they end up losing, and games that they really feel they should lose that they end up winning. If you're particularly lucky then you win trophies and get little icons next to your name. If you're particularly unlucky, then seasons that should waltz into the playoffs end with you on the outside looking in.
Such was the case with Orange County this season, widely considered to be the best team in the conference, if not the best team in the league. They were overwhelmingly picked to finish top 3 in the conference, very often at number 1. They were picked to finish 1 overall extremely commonly, maybe more commonly than any other team; by eyeballing it I believe only Arizona is in the same ballpark. The season didn't start out perfectly, what with them losing at home to Arizona in Week 1, but afterwards things stabilized. They won their next 5 games in a row to move them into a 3 way tie at the top of the conference with San Jose and Arizona.
Then Orange County went an in-sim month without winning a game. Some of these results at least directionally made sense; losing to Arizona away in a hard fought close game, losing to the Sabercats away (albeit going down 33-0 was a bit less reasonable), these were understandable losses that Orange County could, if not accept, at least stomach and understand. What was much, much less understandable was the other two games. Again, one at least felt better; the Sabercats were a good team, who had been playing great, and while it was a home loss it wasn't the most shocking thing in the world, though it probably stung that it partly came about due to a 107 yard kickoff return for a touchdown. The big one was getting beaten handily by the Butchers, not scoring until partway through the 3rd quarter and losing by 15 to a team that, despite what the sim last season may tell you, was godawful by comparison to even the top teams in their own conference, much less a top team in the far superior ASFC.
Orange County would rebound from that string of defeats to win their next 5 in a row, including extremely clutch victories over the Hawks and New Orleans away to bring them to the final game of the season controlling their own playoff destiny. But Week 16 went unfortunately for them, as against the past-their-prime Copperheads the Otters kept throwing picks, King Leonidas missed a field goal as Charlie Brown went perfect himself, and in the end the Otters lost by multiple possessions to a team who had gone 15 games prior without beating actually good opposition. New Orleans, the team in direct competition with them, gave up a big comeback to Honolulu, but managed to pull away at the end and fall on an onside kick to seal a victory and a playoff berth.
This season was disappointing for many reasons for the Otters, from the fact that the Otters have the current longest championship drought in the league, to last season's playoffs where the Otters went one and done at home to an inferior opponent, but chiefly it came from just how much the Otters had spent getting to the point where they were the best team in the league for a season and a half. Making a big trade the prior season for Alita Battle Angel and Liath Squirrel, trading for Doctor Who this season (for a 1st and a 3rd in each of the next 2 draft classes), and the general age of the team's top talent mean that the best seasons for OCO were behind them. Also worrying was the team's lack of draft capital; as the trade deadline approached in S47, over their next 2 drafts they only had Baltimore's 3rd for S48 and their own 2nd for S49 for picks in the first 3 rounds. They definitely could still compete for the playoffs, they might even have been favored to make it, and once you get there anything could happen, but Orange County decided to bite the bullet. The first move actually took place midseason, right before the trade deadline: Eldroh Cove for Aaron Jager was an OLine move that directly made New Orleans better and OCO worse in the middle of a 2 team playoff race, and for that swap the Otters got New Orleans' 2nd rounder in S49. But the real hits came immediately post-Ultimus.
First was the Big One: Reginald Shrubbery and Bengal Tigerheart to Baltimore, along with Cap and Chicago's 4th rounder in S49, for Baltimore's 1st rounder in S49 and a seemingly inactive player going into 2nd regression in Beta. Shrubbery is heading into his peak season with over 1300 TPE, and Tigerheart is an approximately 650 TPE OL who is Inactive but still has the TPE and experience to be a good piece of an OLine for a couple more seasons.
Before we get into the other, smaller trades that have taken place, OCO had a couple big free agents on the block in DL and Doctor Who, the same player they had just spent a ton to bring to the team, and both saw the writing on the wall. They quickly jumped ship, Who going to NOLA and DL going to Chicago.
The next two trades were much more marginal, with Arizona peeling off Ryan McBean using their 4ths in S49 and S50, along with their 5th rounder in S50. McBean, a just over 600 TPE player from S44, isn't an all star player and thus garnered a much lower price tag than Shrubbery. OCO also traded away Bread Bowl, a player who actually might have gained a significant amount of draft capital for a team that cared about TE if not for the fact that he had just announced his retirement effective at the end of S48, getting a S50 NOLA 4th and Eli Prince, an inactive legend who should be at 440 after his 2nd season of regression.
Orange County's immediate future looks pretty bleak, though there does appear to be a plan in place: start a rebuild through the predicted large and full of talent S50 draft. It should work, but there likely will be a couple seasons in the wilderness between now and then. The Otters' roster was already extremely stratified before the moves made over the past 3 days, but now I can state that there is not a single player currently on the roster with over 700 TPE that isn't currently regressing. Some of these players are high TPE and going through early regression, like LeBayers, John Stark, and Lloyd Bannings, but the majority of these players are older (Sim Sunigh, Smokin Jay, Walrus Jones) or not max TPE/inactive, or both (Liath Squirrel, Oliver Tolliver, Big McLargeHuge, and Alita Battle Angel)
There are a couple good players still in the DSFL, specifically Chopper Donquixote and Lasse Zeigler, but this is a team with a brighter long term future than its short term future. And it's hard to bet on long term futures in this league.
4 years ago, when the two biggest classes this league is likely to ever see joined this league in the midst of COVID, Orange County was the team to go to and to be on, a team so successful that they lapped every other team in terms of titles. They have not won a title since then, and at this point seem to be farther away from a title than most other teams in the league.
Such was the case with Orange County this season, widely considered to be the best team in the conference, if not the best team in the league. They were overwhelmingly picked to finish top 3 in the conference, very often at number 1. They were picked to finish 1 overall extremely commonly, maybe more commonly than any other team; by eyeballing it I believe only Arizona is in the same ballpark. The season didn't start out perfectly, what with them losing at home to Arizona in Week 1, but afterwards things stabilized. They won their next 5 games in a row to move them into a 3 way tie at the top of the conference with San Jose and Arizona.
Then Orange County went an in-sim month without winning a game. Some of these results at least directionally made sense; losing to Arizona away in a hard fought close game, losing to the Sabercats away (albeit going down 33-0 was a bit less reasonable), these were understandable losses that Orange County could, if not accept, at least stomach and understand. What was much, much less understandable was the other two games. Again, one at least felt better; the Sabercats were a good team, who had been playing great, and while it was a home loss it wasn't the most shocking thing in the world, though it probably stung that it partly came about due to a 107 yard kickoff return for a touchdown. The big one was getting beaten handily by the Butchers, not scoring until partway through the 3rd quarter and losing by 15 to a team that, despite what the sim last season may tell you, was godawful by comparison to even the top teams in their own conference, much less a top team in the far superior ASFC.
Orange County would rebound from that string of defeats to win their next 5 in a row, including extremely clutch victories over the Hawks and New Orleans away to bring them to the final game of the season controlling their own playoff destiny. But Week 16 went unfortunately for them, as against the past-their-prime Copperheads the Otters kept throwing picks, King Leonidas missed a field goal as Charlie Brown went perfect himself, and in the end the Otters lost by multiple possessions to a team who had gone 15 games prior without beating actually good opposition. New Orleans, the team in direct competition with them, gave up a big comeback to Honolulu, but managed to pull away at the end and fall on an onside kick to seal a victory and a playoff berth.
This season was disappointing for many reasons for the Otters, from the fact that the Otters have the current longest championship drought in the league, to last season's playoffs where the Otters went one and done at home to an inferior opponent, but chiefly it came from just how much the Otters had spent getting to the point where they were the best team in the league for a season and a half. Making a big trade the prior season for Alita Battle Angel and Liath Squirrel, trading for Doctor Who this season (for a 1st and a 3rd in each of the next 2 draft classes), and the general age of the team's top talent mean that the best seasons for OCO were behind them. Also worrying was the team's lack of draft capital; as the trade deadline approached in S47, over their next 2 drafts they only had Baltimore's 3rd for S48 and their own 2nd for S49 for picks in the first 3 rounds. They definitely could still compete for the playoffs, they might even have been favored to make it, and once you get there anything could happen, but Orange County decided to bite the bullet. The first move actually took place midseason, right before the trade deadline: Eldroh Cove for Aaron Jager was an OLine move that directly made New Orleans better and OCO worse in the middle of a 2 team playoff race, and for that swap the Otters got New Orleans' 2nd rounder in S49. But the real hits came immediately post-Ultimus.
First was the Big One: Reginald Shrubbery and Bengal Tigerheart to Baltimore, along with Cap and Chicago's 4th rounder in S49, for Baltimore's 1st rounder in S49 and a seemingly inactive player going into 2nd regression in Beta. Shrubbery is heading into his peak season with over 1300 TPE, and Tigerheart is an approximately 650 TPE OL who is Inactive but still has the TPE and experience to be a good piece of an OLine for a couple more seasons.
Before we get into the other, smaller trades that have taken place, OCO had a couple big free agents on the block in DL and Doctor Who, the same player they had just spent a ton to bring to the team, and both saw the writing on the wall. They quickly jumped ship, Who going to NOLA and DL going to Chicago.
The next two trades were much more marginal, with Arizona peeling off Ryan McBean using their 4ths in S49 and S50, along with their 5th rounder in S50. McBean, a just over 600 TPE player from S44, isn't an all star player and thus garnered a much lower price tag than Shrubbery. OCO also traded away Bread Bowl, a player who actually might have gained a significant amount of draft capital for a team that cared about TE if not for the fact that he had just announced his retirement effective at the end of S48, getting a S50 NOLA 4th and Eli Prince, an inactive legend who should be at 440 after his 2nd season of regression.
Orange County's immediate future looks pretty bleak, though there does appear to be a plan in place: start a rebuild through the predicted large and full of talent S50 draft. It should work, but there likely will be a couple seasons in the wilderness between now and then. The Otters' roster was already extremely stratified before the moves made over the past 3 days, but now I can state that there is not a single player currently on the roster with over 700 TPE that isn't currently regressing. Some of these players are high TPE and going through early regression, like LeBayers, John Stark, and Lloyd Bannings, but the majority of these players are older (Sim Sunigh, Smokin Jay, Walrus Jones) or not max TPE/inactive, or both (Liath Squirrel, Oliver Tolliver, Big McLargeHuge, and Alita Battle Angel)
There are a couple good players still in the DSFL, specifically Chopper Donquixote and Lasse Zeigler, but this is a team with a brighter long term future than its short term future. And it's hard to bet on long term futures in this league.
4 years ago, when the two biggest classes this league is likely to ever see joined this league in the midst of COVID, Orange County was the team to go to and to be on, a team so successful that they lapped every other team in terms of titles. They have not won a title since then, and at this point seem to be farther away from a title than most other teams in the league.