Tier 2: #14
This topic is meant to address teams that learned and grew via trial by fire, and no team better fits the proverbial phrase better than the Chicago Butchers. The Butchers history hit more rises and falls than Six Flags rollercoasters on a hot summer night. I entered the league 4 seasons ago and at that point the Butchers were the joke of the league. The Butchers were littered with inactive and low-earning players and did not have a full General Manager staff in place. The toxicity around Chicago were at peak Chernobyl levels ---- the Head Office had to enforce their own coup d'état on the team, players were demanding no trade clauses in their contracts to specifically avoid just Chicago, and even veteran players from yesteryear that had popped in to see the league's progression were either amazed at 'How far Chicago had fallen' or amused at 'Chicago still being a dump'.
This New York Jets-esque stigma that magnetized and orbited around the Butchers definitely created a negative aspect in the new, purebred rookies players around my era(season 21 - season 23). When I first entered the league, I tried to give every team a fair shot, but all I would hear is negativity whenever Chicago became the topic of discussion. By some transitive property, I briefly inherited the same jaded perspective without properly learning the league and allowing other's opinions to kidnap and usurp my own. But over the course of the 4 seasons, I chose to open my eyes and judge for myself. The change in me started when the Butchers drafted my Royals teammate: sim-extraordinaire Juan Domine. Ever since, I have changed my thoughts on the Butchers, as if this piece I am penning isn't evidence enough.
But I decided to dig deeper and see exactly what went wrong before the turnaround to explain and reinforce how much of a huge turnaround this has been for Chicago. Chicago started their franchise in season 16 with a win-now approach, trading away extra depth picks for veteran active players. Their debut season saw breakout seasons from rookies Lightsout Lewis and Sam Torenson, the latter winning Offensive Rookie of the Year. Chicago finished tied for 1st in their conference but lost to Philly in the Conference Finals. The Butchers entered the season 17 draft with only ONE draft pick(in the 3rd round too) and without any big additions, saw the rest of the division catch up to them and push them to 3rd before being quickly dismantled in the wildcard round. The flashy, fast start quickly crumbled as the Butchers saw internal turmoil with personnel decisions, leading to star running back Torenson being traded in the offseason and star receiver Oles being shipped off while Chicago spent most of the season with a fractured war room and sending players off for draft capital.
Despite all the dumps, Chicago only had one pick in the first 3 rounds of the season 18 draft(only in the 2nd round). From season 19 to season 22, Chicago slid to the bottom of the league, plagued by trade demands, inactivity spikes, and GM turnover. The low point came when the Butchers had to let the league push out their old regime of GM's who were burying the team into a seemingly inescapable hole --- creating enemies around the league and scaring off new prospects. Season 22 spelled the start of Chicago's rebirth, with dedicated users, Muford and Bayley willing to take charge and clean up the radioactive waste left behind. Kudos goes to other dedicated players such as O'Leary and O'Donnell for weathering the storm until the new crop of talent with McAndrew, Hayes, Bayley Jr, Shields, and Tiritidiwajaja arrived in season 22. Chicago has been able to add solid talent throughout the roster, through draft and free agency, and have become a dark horse conference championship contender. Hopefully the BC(before covid) era Butchers can become a simple blip on what looks to be a bright future for the team.
Tier 2: #9
Unlike the Butchers, their expansion counterparts: the Austin Copperheads, decided for a more traditional approach to building their team. The Copperheads took a slow, deeper intrinsic build to their team, resulting in a season 20 Ultimus title while Chicago crashed to the pits. Austin has been a steady thorn into everyone's side after their initial ascension from shaking the new expansion team smell. Unfortunately for Austin, despite carrying a solid roster for several seasons, they were continuously snake-bitten(or "self-bitten) in the playoffs. Austin chose to keep their core together as long as possible and trade off extra picks to secure highly active players.
In season 23, after finally upending fierce rival Orange County, Austin fell flat to Ultimus-starved Yellowknife. At this point started to shift into a "competitive transition phase". Acquiring younger, hungry players to eventually replace the old guard of players that cultivated the positive Austin culture. Austin has ensured that most positions have some type of successor and limit gaps in the depth chart. Since the start of Season 24, the Copperheads have acquired Amidships, Tonzy, RDBSouthpaw, and PseudoQB in trades. The team picked up some extremely valuable players, as Amidships has become a GM for the team and Tonzy's war room expertise has earned him a GM role in Tijuana. The expense to these acquisitions is about 5 draft picks for the season 24-27 drafts. Combined with Austin's aggressive draft-day approach has left them with 6 season 26 picks(no 1st or 3rd) and 9 season 27 picks(no 1st). Entering the next two drafts without a first round pick is risky, especially since a miss in the 1st round still leads to a mid-level earner.
But, Austin's new Gm's, Amid and Kyle(who had to retire his high earning #1OA player only 6 seasons in) have a solid base to work with. The biggest challenge starts at Quarterback, needing to craft a regression and proper gameplan to maximize Easton Cole's last season before Jackie Daytona leaves Australia(after leaving South Carolina) for Texas. Star running back Zoe Watts(who also cost some draft capital) will hold down the backfield for several seasons, but having a solid #2 behind her is key to running a truly efficient offense a la San Jose, Chicago, Colorado. However, I feel the Copperheads are not prioritizing a true rbbc approach in the immediate future.
The wide receivers are poised to become one of the most lethal groups for the next 2-3 seasons. Eddie Jeeta and Videl-San are becoming a dangerous 1-2 combo, but it never hurts to have an extra receiver in the DSFL ready to step in and keep the transitions seamless if a trade possibility arises. On offense though, the two biggest weakness are TE and OL, Austin is harvesting bots and regressing corpses at this point. Collecting some active players to furter strengthen the offense can only raise the floor of the offense, and the team itself.
On defense, the Copperheads were one of the best units last season, statistically, and it started with their defensive line. With Kyle, Slinky, Troen, and Amid, the Copperheads possessed one of the best defensive lines in recent memory. However, with Kyle becoming GM, he retired Carolina BBQ is 2nd Best behind Texas, leaving a huge hole based on the magnitude of the player, but d-line is the one area built to withstand the loss of a quality player. The secondary was strong in its own right, integrating 3 new players over a season and a half. With Snake legend Dermot Lavelle Jr assigned to lead the youngster unit, the Copperheads secondary did their best to keep the team in every game, but the youth(and a diminished Lavelle) led to some untimely lapses in coverage.
The secondary will miss Lavelle's leadership as he heads to Baltimore, but his departure(along with Kyle's player retirement) allows the Copperheads to test some different formations and improve their shaky run defense. The Copperheads definitely need some linebacker help as Griffin Porter and a cast of mid-tier inactives manned the middle of the defense. Austin felt it necessary to address this ASAP as they sent a S27 first round pick to Yellowknife for DSFL standout Brach Thomslacher to team up with Porter. However, none of this works until Austin gets their star defender and war room guru, Colt Mendoza back on the team. Without him, the team will reel closer to the clutch of mediocrity. A dream come true would be Austin being able to re-sign Mendoza and somehow managing to snag star cornerback Brandon Booker to pair up with each other while budding star Lesean Crooks plays 3rd fiddle in the holy trinity of elite cornerbacks. With Lavelle Jr and Arianlacher's(traded to YKW in the Thomslacer deal) 5 mil cap hits off the books, Austin has some room to sign a premier free agent and accelerate their path back to the playoffs.
This topic is meant to address teams that learned and grew via trial by fire, and no team better fits the proverbial phrase better than the Chicago Butchers. The Butchers history hit more rises and falls than Six Flags rollercoasters on a hot summer night. I entered the league 4 seasons ago and at that point the Butchers were the joke of the league. The Butchers were littered with inactive and low-earning players and did not have a full General Manager staff in place. The toxicity around Chicago were at peak Chernobyl levels ---- the Head Office had to enforce their own coup d'état on the team, players were demanding no trade clauses in their contracts to specifically avoid just Chicago, and even veteran players from yesteryear that had popped in to see the league's progression were either amazed at 'How far Chicago had fallen' or amused at 'Chicago still being a dump'.
This New York Jets-esque stigma that magnetized and orbited around the Butchers definitely created a negative aspect in the new, purebred rookies players around my era(season 21 - season 23). When I first entered the league, I tried to give every team a fair shot, but all I would hear is negativity whenever Chicago became the topic of discussion. By some transitive property, I briefly inherited the same jaded perspective without properly learning the league and allowing other's opinions to kidnap and usurp my own. But over the course of the 4 seasons, I chose to open my eyes and judge for myself. The change in me started when the Butchers drafted my Royals teammate: sim-extraordinaire Juan Domine. Ever since, I have changed my thoughts on the Butchers, as if this piece I am penning isn't evidence enough.
But I decided to dig deeper and see exactly what went wrong before the turnaround to explain and reinforce how much of a huge turnaround this has been for Chicago. Chicago started their franchise in season 16 with a win-now approach, trading away extra depth picks for veteran active players. Their debut season saw breakout seasons from rookies Lightsout Lewis and Sam Torenson, the latter winning Offensive Rookie of the Year. Chicago finished tied for 1st in their conference but lost to Philly in the Conference Finals. The Butchers entered the season 17 draft with only ONE draft pick(in the 3rd round too) and without any big additions, saw the rest of the division catch up to them and push them to 3rd before being quickly dismantled in the wildcard round. The flashy, fast start quickly crumbled as the Butchers saw internal turmoil with personnel decisions, leading to star running back Torenson being traded in the offseason and star receiver Oles being shipped off while Chicago spent most of the season with a fractured war room and sending players off for draft capital.
Despite all the dumps, Chicago only had one pick in the first 3 rounds of the season 18 draft(only in the 2nd round). From season 19 to season 22, Chicago slid to the bottom of the league, plagued by trade demands, inactivity spikes, and GM turnover. The low point came when the Butchers had to let the league push out their old regime of GM's who were burying the team into a seemingly inescapable hole --- creating enemies around the league and scaring off new prospects. Season 22 spelled the start of Chicago's rebirth, with dedicated users, Muford and Bayley willing to take charge and clean up the radioactive waste left behind. Kudos goes to other dedicated players such as O'Leary and O'Donnell for weathering the storm until the new crop of talent with McAndrew, Hayes, Bayley Jr, Shields, and Tiritidiwajaja arrived in season 22. Chicago has been able to add solid talent throughout the roster, through draft and free agency, and have become a dark horse conference championship contender. Hopefully the BC(before covid) era Butchers can become a simple blip on what looks to be a bright future for the team.
Tier 2: #9
Unlike the Butchers, their expansion counterparts: the Austin Copperheads, decided for a more traditional approach to building their team. The Copperheads took a slow, deeper intrinsic build to their team, resulting in a season 20 Ultimus title while Chicago crashed to the pits. Austin has been a steady thorn into everyone's side after their initial ascension from shaking the new expansion team smell. Unfortunately for Austin, despite carrying a solid roster for several seasons, they were continuously snake-bitten(or "self-bitten) in the playoffs. Austin chose to keep their core together as long as possible and trade off extra picks to secure highly active players.
In season 23, after finally upending fierce rival Orange County, Austin fell flat to Ultimus-starved Yellowknife. At this point started to shift into a "competitive transition phase". Acquiring younger, hungry players to eventually replace the old guard of players that cultivated the positive Austin culture. Austin has ensured that most positions have some type of successor and limit gaps in the depth chart. Since the start of Season 24, the Copperheads have acquired Amidships, Tonzy, RDBSouthpaw, and PseudoQB in trades. The team picked up some extremely valuable players, as Amidships has become a GM for the team and Tonzy's war room expertise has earned him a GM role in Tijuana. The expense to these acquisitions is about 5 draft picks for the season 24-27 drafts. Combined with Austin's aggressive draft-day approach has left them with 6 season 26 picks(no 1st or 3rd) and 9 season 27 picks(no 1st). Entering the next two drafts without a first round pick is risky, especially since a miss in the 1st round still leads to a mid-level earner.
But, Austin's new Gm's, Amid and Kyle(who had to retire his high earning #1OA player only 6 seasons in) have a solid base to work with. The biggest challenge starts at Quarterback, needing to craft a regression and proper gameplan to maximize Easton Cole's last season before Jackie Daytona leaves Australia(after leaving South Carolina) for Texas. Star running back Zoe Watts(who also cost some draft capital) will hold down the backfield for several seasons, but having a solid #2 behind her is key to running a truly efficient offense a la San Jose, Chicago, Colorado. However, I feel the Copperheads are not prioritizing a true rbbc approach in the immediate future.
The wide receivers are poised to become one of the most lethal groups for the next 2-3 seasons. Eddie Jeeta and Videl-San are becoming a dangerous 1-2 combo, but it never hurts to have an extra receiver in the DSFL ready to step in and keep the transitions seamless if a trade possibility arises. On offense though, the two biggest weakness are TE and OL, Austin is harvesting bots and regressing corpses at this point. Collecting some active players to furter strengthen the offense can only raise the floor of the offense, and the team itself.
On defense, the Copperheads were one of the best units last season, statistically, and it started with their defensive line. With Kyle, Slinky, Troen, and Amid, the Copperheads possessed one of the best defensive lines in recent memory. However, with Kyle becoming GM, he retired Carolina BBQ is 2nd Best behind Texas, leaving a huge hole based on the magnitude of the player, but d-line is the one area built to withstand the loss of a quality player. The secondary was strong in its own right, integrating 3 new players over a season and a half. With Snake legend Dermot Lavelle Jr assigned to lead the youngster unit, the Copperheads secondary did their best to keep the team in every game, but the youth(and a diminished Lavelle) led to some untimely lapses in coverage.
The secondary will miss Lavelle's leadership as he heads to Baltimore, but his departure(along with Kyle's player retirement) allows the Copperheads to test some different formations and improve their shaky run defense. The Copperheads definitely need some linebacker help as Griffin Porter and a cast of mid-tier inactives manned the middle of the defense. Austin felt it necessary to address this ASAP as they sent a S27 first round pick to Yellowknife for DSFL standout Brach Thomslacher to team up with Porter. However, none of this works until Austin gets their star defender and war room guru, Colt Mendoza back on the team. Without him, the team will reel closer to the clutch of mediocrity. A dream come true would be Austin being able to re-sign Mendoza and somehow managing to snag star cornerback Brandon Booker to pair up with each other while budding star Lesean Crooks plays 3rd fiddle in the holy trinity of elite cornerbacks. With Lavelle Jr and Arianlacher's(traded to YKW in the Thomslacer deal) 5 mil cap hits off the books, Austin has some room to sign a premier free agent and accelerate their path back to the playoffs.