The Sarasota Sailfish are poised to make another run at the playoff and to try to win it all. Initially, the season started off rough for the team, with a losing streak but this week they managed to clinch a playoff berth. Now, the Sailfish’s strength is their defense. The real turning point of the defense was the trading of Big Edd, the star defensive player. It is led by high TPE linebackers and cornerbacks with a great earning defensive line. The defense came through with the season by holding opponents to low scores and coming away with key takeaways. This helped take the team to the next level and will play a vital role in making that deep run. As the saying goes “Defense wins championships”. After the season is over whether the team wins it all this year or not, Sarasota's weakness is it’s offense. Banks, the quarterback, has been in regression this season and the new quarterback Boss Jr will have to step it up next season. This is where Sarasota is weak at. At this point, the season will look the same as it does this year and it will heavily rely on the defense until Boss Jr gains more TPE within the season.
As we conclude another regular season in the ISFL, we approach the beginning of the playoffs. As much as I would love to fully enjoy and take in the playoffs after my first season in the ISFL from the DSFL, NOLA unfortunately, due to mostly unfair sim luck, finish with seven wins and nine losses, just half a game short of the playoffs. Honestly, I am annoyed at the fact that despite the makeup of our roster from top to bottom, the sim decided that we will not make the playoffs. I say that because we have a veteran QB who has maxed his accuracy, yet the sim cursed him with Jameis Winston syndrome and would "make" him throw picks that I know are not his fault and are not characteristic of him. In addition, our defense has multiple DPOY level candidates on the roster, yet the sim forced us to have games where we would look exposed and subpar despite our TPE and talent level. The only way I see us to not get affected by the sim luck, if at all, is to go into the offseason, up our collective TPE, and hope that the sim misses us and "decides" that we are a playoff team, which should be obvious given our talent as a team.
The New York Silverbacks have had a very heartbreaking inaugural season. Despite going 4-12 across the season, the Silverbacks managed to lose 9 and of their 12 losses by just one score. The team overall could even have been possibly be in the position for a playoff run if their were able to flip just a couple of those wins. Despite that, the Silverbacks missed the playoffs and ended the season 2nd to last in the entire league. Beating out fellow expansion, team, the Berlin Fire Salamanders, by just 1 win. A team that beat them in week 1 of season 30 to 27, which is very important to consider. Overall, across the season it was the Silverback's strong running game, led by veteran and team captain Ashley Owens, that led to a bunch of their production on offense. Though passing-wise it was the rookie Sam Howitzer who's proformance was critical in Silverbacks win. The rookie QB across the season was faced with insane amounts of pressure throughout his first year in the league. Though in the end, the rookie QB went for 27 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He also finished the season with 3872 yards which went for 12th in the entire league. The Silverbacks season wasn't all they hoped for, though their future is certainly bright.
With the season being sadly over for the Honolulu Hahalua it is time to reflect about it a little bit. We held onto our playoff chances for a long time and had a win to be in game against the Arizona Outlaws which sadly did not go our way and thus have the fourth place in the division. It wasn’t even close, it was just a bad road game at the worst possible time imaginable.
Nevertheless it is a season to be hopeful about and take the positive things from it. The Hahalua are generally a young team with a lot of upsides that just needs to take another season or two to grow together and be better. With a lot of defensive rookies in the Linebacker corps and good earners on both defense and offense next season there is a good shot at being a playoff contender again.
The biggest weaknesses this seasons seems to have been a missing generation of turnover plays, so some help in the secondary in free agency would probably not hurt, as well as some more Quarterback pressure via the defensive line. On the offensive side some more human offensive line players and some young blood for the receiving corps could help production and keeping up with the division in that department. Maybe free agency has some of those parts to offer as well.
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