(S50) Offseason Task

[Hepha]

All tier 3

27:
I like to think that if Kai wasn't playing football for a living, he'd be an ornithologist. In college at Western Michigan, he decided to major in biology and specialized in zoology. He has always loved birds his whole life, before he could even remember, birds have always been his favorite animals, whenever his family took him to the zoo the only thing he wanted to see were the birds, whether they were the vultures, flamingos or if it was the tufted titmouse (one of his favorites for obvious reasons, I mean, just look up a photo of those adorable little guys). When he was a child he didn't even plan on being a football player, what he really wanted to do was be a soccer player, He ended up being very good at it, which is why he went to Western Michigan (If you don't Western Michigan is a damn good soccer team). He played both soccer and a bit of football in high-school, but when he decided to try out for the football team in college and actually made it on the team, is when his passion for it really ignited.

22:
If he had a show starring him, I think it would most likely be a reality show, probably following his journey in life. A lot of it would probably be following what I already wrote about what he'd be doing instead of playing football. It would follow his love and interest for birds (and all animals, really) his path through high-school to college, and his life going from an up and coming soccer player being scouted by the Seattle Sounders to a football star being scouted by the Tijuana Luchadores (Shout-out to Tijuana and their amazing scout Kirby <3). It would probably at least reference some of the things he went through growing up, having gotten through bad depression, panic attacks and social anxiety, and some loss in his family. In the end I think it'd try to be somewhat up lifting and motivating, showing that anybody can do what he's doing (with some good genetics, of course) if they put in the work.


19:
I believe a team should take a chance on me because once I start something, especially a game, I start to get really into it. In the past, I've dedicated countless hours to mastering games, playing every day (nearly obsessively, really) until I was one of the best. Whether it was strategy games (I used to play quite a bit of chess and risk), sports games (Fifa, Madden, and recently the NFL rivals mobile game), or multiplayer shooters (I'm not sure where to even start with this one, but there's been a lot...), I've always aimed to be the one of the best in everything I do, and I'm excited to bring that same dedication here.
Admittedly, I haven't played many things like this one in the past, but I'm willing and excited to learn and participate in this community, especially after seeing how many other people enjoy it here. I look forward to joining a team that shares my passion for growth and competition, and I’m eager to contribute and learn from others. I truly am looking forward to getting to know others here, and I'm hoping I'll get to. (I wrote this before the draft, super happy to be with Tijuana )

28:
First, I want to start by saying this is a REALLY hard decision for me. I've always loved Corners (obviously, it's the one I picked), linebackers, and Tight Ends. I've always admired the versatility that comes with all of those positions, being able to block and catch as a Tight End, being able to go into coverage when needed as a Linebacker but also being able to make huge run stops or even getting sacks on a blitz. But, when it comes down to it I think I'd have to pick Tight End. As I said, you have to be pretty damn well rounded as one, being big enough to block while also having a bit of speed and usually the hands to make big catches. Their usually one of the most reliable pieces on a team, I mean, just look at the NFL currently. The Ravens, 49ers, Chiefs and Lions all have the best and most reliable Tight Ends in the league, and their all considered some of the best teams right now.

[Dindog]

PBE affiliate

Task 10.

Boom I won a lottery and have become commissioner of the league for one whole day, I feel like if have written this exact same prompt and prompts for the last 2 going on 3 years. The first thing I old do as commissioner is to ask the PPT team to come up with some fresh ideas for these prompts, yeah they work and do the job for the off season task, but they are getting a bit old and stale in my opinion and seeing some new fun or even off the wall prompts would be pretty cool. Okay so the next thing that I would do also has to do with asking the PPT team do do some brain storming and come up with some fresh ideas. Maybe they can come up with some alternate to the PT every now and then like a trivia game or something different to spice things up a bit and take a break from the whole prompt writing thing. I hate writing lol. My next project as commissioner would be to add the survey at the end of the season as part of the off season task. Why? Maybe it get more engagement this way? Maybe it’ll be seen by more users across the league? Well the most important thing is I hate writing and what not. So that makes one less prompt and 150 less words that I need to type and the last thing I would do as commissioner for a day is attempt to get a rule passed that allows me to never ever have to write another prompt again and just get the TPE from the PTs by just putting my players name like an AC because I absolutely hate writing. And that’s what I would do as commissioner for a day

Task 30 something.
Okay cool I actually really like this prompt because it’s super easy. The team with the best branding should be absolutely obvious to everyone, and whoever disagrees or has a different answer is either wrong or a liar. The best branding in the league is the Minnesota grey ducks. The colors are absolutely unbeatable. And ducks! Who’s doesn’t love ducks, and the way that Minnesota Grey ducks just rolls off the tongue is unmatched by any team in the ISFL or the DSFL.  Second I would have to say San Jose. No way I can’t leave o it my ISFL team on shouting out the best branding in the league. The green is great and I love the area of San Jose. But I am probably biased because I am from California. The copperhead s are definitely a close 2nd here too but I can’t put them over my current teams. Still love it though

[dogwoodmaple]

7. 

One of the main things that has always interested me is the ebb and flow of offensive strategies that have come and gone in this league.  In a lot of ways, this league can mirror real life football and in some ways, it's diametrically opposed.  But one area where it has a striking similarity is the cat and mouse game and evolution of offensive football that we see.  In this league, there have been Ultimus winning teams whose bread and butter was a bell cow running back that they fed over and over again. We saw numerous running backs take home various seasonal awards and etch their names into history with that strategy and it was incredibly successful for their franchises as well.  Beyond that, we saw a flex offense where teams would focus on two backs, with one being almost a purely receiving threat.  I remember as an awards voter it was always difficult to parse between who was a "real" running back and who was just a wide receiver masquerading as a running back. That also led to an influx of receiving running backs being created as the search for glory infiltrated every new create looking for their name in the limelight.  As defenses learned to slowly shut down those receiving threats out of the backfield, teams moved to a pass heavy overall scheme utilizing wide receivers instead of backs.  Typically there was a running back just to keep the defense honest with mediocre rushing stats, but the main focus was on high volume, downfield passing. When I was new to the league, it seemed the fantasy drafts were rife with heavy usage wide receivers who put up insane numbers.  As an emphasis on better cornerback play increased as well as perhaps a slight decline in overall quarterback performance, teams shifted yet again to more of a true running game, but utilizing two running backs in flexible roles.  That's more or less what we do in San Jose right now and it has been very successful.  Gone are the days of one pure runner and one pure receiver and now we're in the time of just two very balanced backs.  As the tempo of offenses has increased, teams have learned that you need to substitute fresh legs in as much as possible which beget the second running back.  And, not wanting to be too one-sided on offense, teams have gotten more balanced with the usage of those backs.  One might typically have slightly better stats in one area than the other, but nothing like the vast difference we saw some 15-20 seasons ago.  Most of these changes have been due to personnel, but the evolution of defenses and defensive strategy are just as impactful.  When teams spread you out, the defenses made sure their secondaries were more important and loaded up on pass rushers instead of downhill linebackers.  Given that, offenses then began to run the ball more, taking advantage of the holes on defense in the middle, which of course led to a reaction by the defense.  And it's mentioned above, but a third factor also plays into this other than just personnel and defensive scheming.  The third prong is individual glory seeking.  A lot of players want awards, glory, and notoriety, which shepherded them away from the positions that weren't as useful.  It's some of that which made players, especially the high earners, help drive the boat as it were in terms of what positions have the most TPE and how it gets spent.  In a lot of ways, this mirrors the NFL as we've seen the 1500+ rushing yard seasons that were so prevalent go by the wayside, being replaced by more dynamic pass catchers out of the backfield who can impact the game in multiple ways.  Change, it seems, is inevitable.

637 words

[nunccoepi]

6. The league has a rich and fascinating history, and our perspectives on it differ from person to person. In 600 words or more, describe any significant moment in ISFL or DSFL history, whether you were around for it or not. Describe the context, the significant members, and the events. What exactly made this event so famous (or infamous) and why does it deserve to be remembered? Events might include championship wins, the inducting of players to the hall of fame, or even a league scandal.

I don't think that I've written about this before, but it's a story that I often tell to people in real life when I'm trying to recruit them because it's meaningful to me and because I think it really shows what this league is about. So I first came across this league in 2018 on a comment section of fleaflicker, a popular fantasy football website. Like many recruits from fantasy football, I was most interested in the GMing aspect of the league, but I wa stold that I would likely have to be pretty patient for a spot to open up. Well, as it turned out, I didn't have to wait long.

I was claimed by the woeful Tijuana Luchadores off of waivers in S6. At this time we were the laughing stocks of the league as we had never even had a winning season. By S7 or S8, Payton had asked me to be a co-GM with him. At that time, there was more of a distinction between head GM and co-GM, but that's not really that important. We did ok that season, but arguably the best thing we did was draft user iseedoug. I can't remember his player name right now off the top of my head, but he was more valuable to us as a user than his player was. That's because the very next season Payton stepped down and handed me the keys as the main GM. And I, in turn, asked iseedoug to be me co-GM. Now, my and iseedoug's time together was unique in several ways, which I'll go over. The first, though, was as I said, at that time many teams drew a distinction between the main GM and the co-GM, largely by giving the main GM the bulk of the authority and the co-GM just kind of filled in the gaps, almost like an assistant. Hows that for a run on sentence? Anyway, that's not how we decided to do it in Tijuana. Iseedoug and I were 50/50 partners from the beginning.

Despite us seeing it as a 50/50 partnership, I'd argue that we didn't end up contributing evenly at the end of our time together. You see, iseedoug was a computer and data nerd. I think he was working on a PhD at the time we met, and by the end of our time together he was a university professor. He used those skills to help with a process called sim testing. GMs are in charge of submitting strategies and line ups for each game, that (hopefully), put their team in the best position to win when taking into account the strategy and line up choices that other GM made. It's a tricky thing, and most of the time you're trying to improve your changes by 5-10% at most. Nevetheless, GMs used to spend hours running different variations, one at a time, in their copy of the sim and seeing how the other team responded. It was very pain staking and, because it took so long, you only had time for 10-20 runs for each strat combination. That meant your results were inconsistent and largely unreliable.

Iseedoug took it upon himself to learn about the sim and realize that it had enough memory to store the data from a few thousand exhibition sims at a time (depending on your hardware). So he build a python program that read the exported data and immediately analyzed it for all the useful data we would need. We used an autoclicker to run hundreds of sims in a fraction of the time. This was the first time such a method had been used in the league. We called it QuickKetchup. Iseedoug may have made it public for everyone to use once our time had run its course. But not before we took the team past its first winning season and to five straight championships in a row, winning three.

[bachirafan]

1. The Season 48 Ultimus and Ultimini have officially come to an end. Congratulations to the the Portland Pythons and New Orleans Second Line for each winning their respective championships. How did each of the finalists in either the Ultimus or Ultimini arrive at the playoffs? Were there any teams that surprised or disappointed during the playoffs? Did the outcome of either championship game surprise you at all?

While I’d love to say that Portland winning the Ultimini was the expected outcome from the start of the season, this ring comes from the culmination of a lot of work from a lot of different people, and without each and every one of the players and our war room, Portland may not have made the playoffs at all. The beginning of the season was tough to say the least, both for the team and myself as a player. I remember the very first game, I was super excited to embark on a new adventure with Portland. Riding the high of being a second overall pick, and meeting a lot of new faces, rookies and vets alike, made that first game pretty special for me. That sentiment was clearly spread among the locker room, with a lot of people chatting in our LR for that first game. Unfortunately, that excitement waned quickly in a game against Minnesota that got out of hand pretty quickly. Defense was letting up big plays, offense turned it over, nothing seemed to go right. A win the next week helped dull the pain, but I remember thinking that this season wouldn’t be easy. And it wasn’t, not by a long shot. Three more losses left us 1-4 after five games, and the very bottom of the league. We could see the improvement, though, as new rookies grinded the TPE to put our skill positions on par with the upper echelon of the DSFL. Pasta Rockmann came into his own quickly, putting aside the “limp pasta” jokes in the locker room and becoming a high quality leader on the offensive side of the ball. Harvin Marrison finally had some help, as Scott Wickerd began getting the TPE gains and became a reliable target for Pasta. In the backfield, JamesIsRunning Wilder quickly rose in TPE and Larton Hilnka added some of their own to join Gucci Gurley and become a hydra runningback core, with a recieving back threat in Gurley, a pure prodigy back in Wilder, and a power threat in Hilnka; it was hard for defenses to account for all three. On the defensive side, Rus got help in the front seven with J.C. Tomlinson being a big help to bolster the front of the Pythons’ defense. Edith Nickelback had some help, with a TPE buffer in Blitz McTackleton and a max earning safety in myself, Meguru Bachira. This all culminated in a resurgence in the locker room and on the field. The mood around gametime was always stellar going forward, as three straight wins meant Portland was back in the playoff race. But as is the story of the season, it was not going to be that easy. A game against Kansas City was important for both squads, as a win meant they were one step closer to passing Minnesota, who had been slipping in the previous weeks, leaving the second slot open in the playoffs as London would start to run away with the top overall seed. Unfortunately for me and my fellow snakes, this game was reminiscent of the early slate: Chunks of yardage given up on blown coverage through the air, running backs consistently breaking through the first line of defense and sometimes into the secondary. On the offensive side, the star players faltered. Marrison and Wickerd failed to get open consistently, and when they did, Pasta couldn’t seem to find them. The vaunted running back room, which had torn up the turf for the previous three weeks, couldn’t find their footing. A loss to KCC meant Portland was now 4-5, and our playoff hopes were hanging by a thread. But, over the rest of the way, Portland shifted into a new gear. Three wins in the next four games, including a beatdown of top seed London royals on their own turf, meant the final game of the regular season was simple: win, and you’re in. A rematch of the blowout to start the season, Portland vs Minnesota, with a ticket to the postseason on the line. Both sides had reason to be optimistic, the aforementioned week one blowout gave the Grey Ducks hope, but they were slipping in recent weeks. Ultimately, Portland has the better gameplan, and we are going to the postseason! Seeing this team rise from the ashes and make it to the playoffs was a big boon for the locker room, and we wanted to carry that momentum into the postseason. Against London in the semifinals, we knew it would be tough, taking on the top record in their venue. We also knew we had the formula to win, beating the Royals 24-3 the last time we faced off. It was that confidence that led us to a win, suffocating the London offense like a boa constrictor crushing its prey. The offense made enough plays to cruise to a victory, and the pythons slithered  to the Ultimini. The trip to Florence was not just one filled with elation, it was one full of study. The players hit the books hard. Playing London was one thing, we had beaten them before, and we knew we could do it again. Norfolk would be a different story. The Seawolves had bested us in both matches during the regular season, and we knew finishing this story book season with a ring would require everyone to play at the best level we’ve ever played. I credit our win to our war room. They studied hard, and found the path to victory that lay hidden like a snake ready to strike. The game began as competitive as you’d hope for from a championship brawl. Both sides played well, trading blows and absorbing contact to fight to the half. But the difference was stamina. Norfolk, no doubt, fought hard to make it here. But the adversities that we faced and overcame made us strong. We would take over in the second half and never look back, beating Norfolk 42-20 to claim a championship and reach the pinnacle after a long and arduous season.

[Tayjay]

PBE affiliate

[Jacky]

Podcast recording for Offseason task

[Ultimatedestroye]

The New orleans second line was able to capture another championship this year. Being able to go back to back is a feat upon itself, and the New Orleans second line was able to pull this off this season. With the constant and steady guide of the current GMs of Toof and T money. They were able to maintain the roster that won them the last season championship. Keeping the talented CB’s was critical, even if Baz keeps on getting burned forever. Keeping the DL intact was also crucial, as the defense was a key component in making this team what it was. Now, normally the second line defense is what is the saving grace of New Orleans. The offense half the time tends to Peter out during a game and will score less than 20+ points. However, then having the offense is still crucial to the team, and so is the rushing offense. Kyle Crane is still the work horse of the offense, and then signing 2 key pieces to help him was crucial, a good rb2 and a FB to help out with the workload for Crane this year. Having a RB2 that could average 3.5-4 yards a rush was critical to keep the offense going, but because of this it allowed them to have a fresh and read Crane to help out in all areas of the offense. Another crucial point of the offense was keeping the Offensive line as good as it could be. Having some decent OL talent is good for the budget book and for the running game. This made the running game be able to explode by letting crane be able to find the outside edges of the field and burst out with speed and power to terrorize defenses. The QB and WRs were also a long time in the making, with our squad having absolutely veterans on the squad. They were able to keep the defense spread vertical to allow all outlets of the offense to function well and properly. Now the ASFC has always been a tightly contested conference, with many teams that are always ready to challenge for a spot for the playoffs, but this year was the same as last year, with the Austin copperheads and the Arizona outlaws being our wild card players and with the New Orleans second line being the conference champs again, makin it look effortless in their reclamation and defense of their title for the regular season conference title. Now for the playoffs, the Arizona outlaws won again against the Austin copperheads, always being the bigger brother compared to the snakes out east of them. Which, always happens it seems, no matter the year. However the New Orleans second line was able to defeat them again this year and having a year of vindication after it seems that the big bars of the league are good and dead, at least for this year. And also surprise surprise, the Baltimore Hawks won the NFSC championship and title again, letting them get a rematch against the second line, again. However, the same thing as last year persisted, with the Baltimore hawks getting an early lead over the New Orleans Second Line, with the second line mourning a furious comeback over the Hawks to secure their second title and a spot in the ISFL history as one of the only teams to go back to back, letting the players from s40-s43 be able to rest easy as they could get 2 rings to their names and be able to describe themselves as some of the best to ever do it, cementing their legacy forever.

[Oles]

Task 7:

If there's something that's been a really integral part of the league, but also a really frustrating part of the league, it's definitely the sim engine itself. For a long time Draft Day Sports Pro Football has been the mainstay of the league, they used it at the start and the only true change we made was going from a more recent copy of the game as time passed on. The sim engine has been the major part of the league, and many of us have just grown to accept that this thing can be bad but there really isn't a viable alternative. Back when I was in areas that would discuss this engine, we had talked and workshopped what it would be like to change the sim engine to something else, but always hit a snag and couldn't ever figure out a way to access a viable alternative. 

Why bring this up you may ask, or how does it pertain to the offseason task and the history books? Well, the big reason for this lies in the fact that the sim engine is the one thing above all else that could cause the league trouble if tomorrow it wasn't available. We used to have our forums on a site called Jcink, and while it's seemingly inaccessible now, there was a time where it was the most necessary part of our league's life. Eventually, the powers that be determined Jcink could no longer contribute to what we needed and be the site we needed it to be, so work was set to make what we have today and the league in my opinion has grown tremendously with the change, the old Jcink site was ugly, hard to read, and hard to understand, a major barrier for entry when it came to new players. This wasn't the fault of the decision makers for HO, but more an issue of Jcink as a whole, it was a good starting point but we needed something better for the league to ascend to new heights. 

Now, the forums and the sim are two different beasts entirely, but they are also one in the same. The forums are where we do everything, it used to be such a major part that even discord was nothing compared to it, but with discord taking off and becoming an extremely accessible platform for all, the forums did not need that capability any longer and grew to adjust to what we needed. The wiki, index pages, all this changed as we grew and learned, but what would happen if the sim engine stopped tomorrow? We had discussed this, what a good alternative would be, and well, we came to the conclusion that there just isn't one. Think about it for a second, no football game plays like DDSPF does, no football game can be used as a sim engine like DDSPF does. Madden, the biggest football game out there, cannot compete with DDSPF for what we need. I'm not sure if it still exists, but I know there was a sim league that used Madden, and it's just not great for this activity especially when you look past the surface. The index we have exists because of DDSPF, updating players exists because of DDSPF and how you're able to import and export pages at will. There's so much customizability and creativity in the inner workings, and Madden just doesn't have that, and for the life of me I don't think I could name another football game that would be a similar boat. It's by far the most important part of our activity, y'know you can't sim if you don't have the engine, and yet it's such a niche game type that we just don't have many options if we needed an alternative. Now, this isn't to scare anyone, as we have ways of getting the games and we can work through it if necessary, but I know a lot of people probably don't look past the surface or think about it, and it's good to have that sort of perspective. I wish the sim engine was better, I've certainly had my gripes with it, but it works for us and should work for us for a while, and Wolverine studios is going nowhere they have plans for a new one soon.

[infern8]

Tier 1-6 or -7, depending on perspective.

This is a story I was once told.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that many of the most impactful moments in the league happen behind closed doors. This is, I think, a kind of general truth, and the ISFL is no different in that sense from any other large organization of people. Even a cursory glance through any of Baron's long-form media posts should be enough to confirm that, given how many portions of league history have been told only by the grace of those who were there to have seen them.

Like many of the juiciest pieces of league drama, this story starts with an ISFL GM. Specifically, it starts with MobiausGrander, who was the GM of the New Orleans Second Line for a period of time in the mid-'40s. More specifically, it starts with a trade: CB Dino Nuggets to Baltimore, in exchange for CB Luigi Numberone (who was, in turn, traded from NOLA to Cape Town for Cape Town's second round pick in the S45 ISFL Draft). That trade (and the circumstances surrounding it, and the ill luck that dogged the Second Line teams of those seasons) deserves a saga of its own, one to fully capture Mobi's incendiary opinions regarding the NFL and his fiery passion for argument in general.

This is not, however, a story about Mobi.

There are currently two people who hold the title of Sim Head in the ISFL. Infern8 has jurisdiction over the ISFL-level of simming, while RussDrivesTheBus, for the moment at least, handles the DSFL. Practically speaking, they function as a GM duo, just over a league department instead of a proper team.

This is not, however, a story about either of them. Not really.

Prior to S44, instead of the split we see now, there was only one single Sim Head for the entirety of the league.

This is a story about Air Crou.

It is fairly common knowledge around the league that games are simmed and set a day in advance of their being streamed to the public. It is less commonly known that this leads to a deadline for teams to submit their strategies and playbooks for the upcoming games — only a single line in the rulebook refers to 24 hours before the stream time. The various spats and verbal arguments that arise on the rare occasion that a team misses that deadline are a mystery to all except the simmers, the GMs, and Head Office.

The infamous trade for Dino Nuggets was finalized late on the night of Wednesday, 18 October 2023, while the stream of that day's games was still ongoing. Roughly 24 hours later, at 9:00 PM ET, the deadline for strat submissions came and went without New Orleans submitting a new strategy. This posed a problem; since Dino Nuggets was no longer on the roster, his spot on the defensive depth chart needed to be filled by somebody. Otherwise, the sim will attempt to fill in all the missing spots in the team's depth chart, including slots that are intentionally left blank or don't have any effect in-game. This is somewhat lovingly referred to by the sim team as "roster spaghetti" and is to be avoided at all costs. Separately, Air Crou and the simmer for Friday's games decide to fill in the missing CB spot with one of New Orleans' backup defensive backs, and run through the simming process with that band-aid fix in place. That this band-aid was never communicated to NOLA's GMs in any capacity is, I think, the primary catalyst for the events that follow.

At 9:07 PM ET, seven minutes past the deadline, New Orleans submit a corrected depth chart reflecting their most recent trade. Air Crou rejects the submission point-blank for being seven minutes late, and all hell breaks loose.

Mobi (unaware that the issue at hand had already been fixed) transitions smoothly from trying to submit a corrected strat sheet to begging for a single change to make NOLA's depth chart functional and is denied at every turn. In desperation, he turns to Head Office, who (also unaware that a fix has been in place this entire time) begin pressuring Air Crou to make an exception for New Orleans in light of the trade being processed and are also met with a hard "no." Even when he admits that a fix exists, he flatly refuses to explain what that fix is. Facing opposition on two fronts and generally fed up with talking to NOLA's GMs at all, Air Crou eventually ragequits his position as Sim Head and soon after the league as a whole.

His replacements numbered two, and two they shall likely remain unto the end of days (or at least, the end of sims).

(I-can't-be-arsed-to-count-but-it's-a-lot words)