Happy Holidays everyone! With the implementation of the new sim engine I figured I would do some media in an effort to buy equipment again. As I predicted, my life has been busy with college and my ISFL player has taken the brunt of time loss. However, as some people know that’s why I created a defensive end. At least from the sim write up it seems like defensive line players will be more useful. I’m not sure if this means more TPE is needed, or if it will still be a position that can do well with lower TPE. Although I’m no longer max earning I would like to stave off regression as long as possible and win that elusive Ultimus with Goku. This article will jump all over the place and cover random topics as I try to reach 2500 words for the best value per word.
A Look at Current Standings:
I’m quite oblivious to this league, but the standings right now are a bit different than the season predictions I was told to copy. Most of my attention is on the NSFC as that’s where my team is and with scheduling structure we barely see the ASFC. Heading into the season it seemed like an easy choice for Sarasota, Chicago, and Colorado to make playoffs in the NSFC (in no particular order). However, 12 weeks in and Yellowknife is ahead of all of them by two wins and those three teams are fighting for the last spot all at a 7-5 record. The Sailfish have a tough remainder for the schedule, playing away at Chicago and Yellowknife for weeks 14 and 16. Chicago has a marginally easier schedule playing away Colorado and hosting the Sailfish. Colorado has an even slightly more favourable schedule hosting Chicago and Yellowknife. The NSFC will be right down to the wire for who makes the final spot. Besides Yellowknife jumping over the other top three teams my copied predictions are fairly in line with what I was told. The bottom three teams in the NSFC will continue to duke it out and I could either get 0/3 or 3/3 correct.
The ASFC is extremely tight, other than Honolulu. The predictions I have are way off from reality right now. The Hahalua are a lock for last place, but I have them at 4th and Austin who is currently in first I have at last. Orange County has an easier schedule to finish the season, and with their point differential I would expect them to finish in the 1st seed as predicted. Besides that the spots from 2-5 could go any way. Looking at the point differential for the other teams Arizona should theoretically be able to make the playoffs. They have the highest differential in the ASFC and must be getting some terrible luck to be a .500 team. If you’re on an ASFC team I wish you the best of luck and hope you make the playoffs! (unless you’re NOLA in week 13 :^) )
My relative TPE levels:
In my draft class I have fallen to 10th in TPE. I haven’t bought equipment in two seasons so this is the main reason for me dropping. I am 99 TPE behind front runner Tyler Montain who has an absurd 968 TPE. That is due to the mass amount of recruitment he’s done. I think it’s a fair amount as if I had bought max equipment I would be at 929 TPE. Although it does give a bit of an advantage, boosting the number of active users on the site is great. I think it’s more of an incentive than if it were purely monetary. I’m on a mini island where I’m at currently. There is myself at 869, Lesean Paris Crooks at 868, and Julio Jones at 860. Ahead of us is Eugene Smoothie at 899 and behind is Philip Stein at 834. Even after this article I don’t think I’ll buy tier 6 equipment, probably just tier 4 so I don’t blow through all my money right away. I don’t have a job in the ISFL so income is harder to come by, I have to write articles like this. I was going to apply for a couple jobs the past offseason but didn’t have the time to commit to one, and the with the move to the new engine I didn’t want to purchase the game to be a simmer.
In regards to positional TPE, I am the 7th highest defensive end. If we throw in defensive tackles too for fun, I drop all the way to 18th. DTs seem to earn a lot more than DEs. I’m ignorant and thought they were very similar, but maybe DTs need a bit more TPE. If I buy equipment as planned above I would rise to 6th DE and 17th DL. There are some massive earners ahead of me in the S21 and S22 classes so it might take a couple seasons of regression for me to catch them. I have a chance to be the highest TPE DE but it will only be for a season or two. From the S24 class, Asher Montain is right behind me in terms of earning. Although he may be overtaken by Medicinal Toblerone from the S25 who is only 80 TPE behind. As I reach my peak and temporarily take the top spot, Toberlone might be the DE to succeed me in the top spot as I regress. The next highest DE from the S23 class is my teammate, Mike Karpaasi. He’s been a steady earner in his own right currently sitting at 667 TPE. I think my GMs are very happy with him in the draft spot the acquired him and his needs compared to mine. I’m pretty sure they just tell him his contract and he signs no problem. It appears as S21s regression in the offseason following the S27 season, so at that rate I’m on pace to become the highest TPE DE in approximately S30.
Tamperability:
Roughly a month ago I restructured my contract. A friend taught me about the neat tamperable clause the ISFL has. Sarasota has been great and I love them, but I also challenge any GM who thinks their team is better to hit me up. I probably won’t be open to moving for a couple seasons at the earliest, but if SAR starts to go downhill I already told Frost I would look around. My second choice would be to play for Jeffie in OCO with all the other Dragonball players. Besides that I would be open to any and all teams that look good. Right now I’m essentially signed until auto retirement, but I’m open to renegotiating a new contract with a new team. For the most part I just want to be able to afford training but if I’m in the middle of regression I’d also be open to taking minimum if it helps with cap issues.
An Argument for TFLs:
This really could have been its own clickbait article but I’m lumping it in here because ISFL rewards article length, not separate ones. Back in my rookie season I saw people mentioning tackles for loss (TFLs) weren’t a stat people cared much about. My player seems to get a ton of these and does the best at this compared to other stats against all defense positions. So what exactly are TFLs? I only learned this last week myself, it’s when you tackle any player besides the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. As someone who appreciates min/maxing in other aspects of life, what’s not to love about this? Maybe I’m too ignorant to the sport itself but stopping a down and losing marginal yardage seems great. I’m not sure about the sim itself but possessions that end up getting to say 3rd and 2 aren’t all that uncommon are they? If you get a tackle for loss on first down for a loss of 2, you just made that 2nd down not convert and maybe you stop them on the 3rd and then nothing happens. If you don’t get that TFL it could be an entirely different game. Sure they’re not as big as a 10 yard sack but they can still be impactful to the game. I feel they should be taken into consideration for awards and whatever else. They are their own thing, a little better than a regular tackle and not quite as good as a sack. A player that can average two of these a game or close is great in my books. I could also be entirely wrong and maybe the general consensus is the same as my own, but they do seem like a solid stat.
Alphabetic Equality:
I saw another user post on this recently who was from the most oppressed team of all, Yellowknife. As a casual who only really wants to watch my team play it’s tough to figure out when it may be. I looked at a vod from a previous week where the game we played was in the same slot so I timed it out and when I checked the live stream the whole sim was already over by a large discrepancy. There is another user on this site who seems to be unable to tell if I’m serious about this stuff. To you my friend, I will say that I’m semi serious. I understand that there would be a lot of effort to go into changing the sim order, so while I advocate for this change, I don’t actually expect anything to come of it. It’s also a good talking point for me to pump out some words and get a discussion going. Even if it was done once a week on Wednesdays or something, I’m sure every alphabetically challenged team would appreciate this. I have also recommended to Frost he move Sarasota to Adamsville, which is only about 50 miles north. If the league takes no measures to fight this inequality we could see teams slowly relocate to cities higher and higher in alphabetical order. In a couple seasons most teams might be from somewhere that starts with “A” and Baltimore is stuck with the last time slot for their home games. It could be a good time to consider a change regarding this with the move to the new sim engine. I don’t think it changes anything in the process leading up to live games but it’s a thought. I’m assuming no one is reading this entire article so like I mentioned in another section, I was going to apply for simmer. Sadly, this would not have had any impact on stream order as in this league simmer and streamer are two separate entities. I want to believe now that I’ve made people more aware of this issue, lesser alphabetic teams now notice how privileged some other teams are. I’ll leave one more disclaimer here at the end: while yes, it would be nice to have a reverse sim every second sim or merely on Wednesdays, I expect nothing to actually happen. I know it’s a lot of work for the team involved bringing this together already.
Bring back the Bachelor(ette):
Oh boy, that event did not go well. I’m just reaching for talking points at this point in my long article, but I will say it could be fun. This league has clearly made its stance on LGBTQ+ clear. (Also sorry if I got that wrong, I think they added more recently?) While it might not be professional to involve the league commissioner, I’m sure there’s other people who may be interested in something like this and if done right would be amusing to watch. This is mere speculation but I assume the site demographics are something like 95/5% male to female. I don’t think any single girl in their right mind would want to do something like this with all the thirsty dudes out there, but they sure would have a ton of options to sift through and make an entertaining show if they did. If we did a straight bachelor show there would likely be no competition and if anyone entered, they would win by default. I want to preface this next suggestion saying I’m straight and sorry if this comes off poorly. I don’t know the demographics for gay/bi guys, but with the sheer amount of dudes around maybe a gay bachelor could work? I would guess there would be more interest than a regular one, but there’s also probably some people who may be interested that haven’t come out yet. It would be cute and entertaining to see if there were enough open participants. While the original bachelorette idea came off in bad taste, I think it’s a cool idea.
Stealing another idea, PBE does Survivor. I did one season there and had a good time. I’m a terrible liar so I didn’t make it very far and my tribe did poorly at challenges. With how many users the ISFL has I think ripping off a tv show like one of these and implementing it for users is a great idea. I don’t watch much tv but I’m sure there are others out there that could go well and generate interest.
A special Merry Christmas to @jeffie43:
Jeff, how you doing my man! Just wanted to tell you Merry Christmas, um, I hope you're enjoying your day with your family, man, to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, man, that's amazing, congrats to you. Also, I just want to encourage you, man, just, uh, keep your spirits high, man, I know this quarantine is putting a lot of us down because of isolation but it will get better man, just continue to practice, uh, good habits in terms of washing your hands, and, and social distancing when you go out in public. And lastly man, congrats on winning, uh, your championship this year man, your dad said the buccaneers did a great job, uh, so happy for you man, but like I said, keep your spirits high, everything will get better soon and again, Merry Christmas.
Minor shoutout to Dallas Players (or anyone who joined SHL this season):
Hope you guys are enjoying the SHL! I’m a minors GM over there, and it felt like half the players I scouted in the past draft were coming over from ISFL. While it didn’t work out that I got any of you, I wish you all the best in your SHL careers. I know you all have your own minors GMs already but if you need a second opinion on anything feel free to send me a message.
Final Words:
I hope with the header structure people were able to better pick and choose what they felt was worth reading (if anything). I’ve been very self conscious with my writing for a very long time, but after a semester at college and taking classes that needed writing I feel better about it. This format is more about me crapping out words for fake money than anything, but if a single person gets enjoyment out of reading my content that’s more than I can ask for.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever is appropriate to you. Happy New Year’s as well. I feel like shitting on 2020 is beating a dead horse at this point, but may 2021 bring you more joy than this year. Maybe you had a great 2020 despite everything and I still wish you an even better 2021!
A Look at Current Standings:
I’m quite oblivious to this league, but the standings right now are a bit different than the season predictions I was told to copy. Most of my attention is on the NSFC as that’s where my team is and with scheduling structure we barely see the ASFC. Heading into the season it seemed like an easy choice for Sarasota, Chicago, and Colorado to make playoffs in the NSFC (in no particular order). However, 12 weeks in and Yellowknife is ahead of all of them by two wins and those three teams are fighting for the last spot all at a 7-5 record. The Sailfish have a tough remainder for the schedule, playing away at Chicago and Yellowknife for weeks 14 and 16. Chicago has a marginally easier schedule playing away Colorado and hosting the Sailfish. Colorado has an even slightly more favourable schedule hosting Chicago and Yellowknife. The NSFC will be right down to the wire for who makes the final spot. Besides Yellowknife jumping over the other top three teams my copied predictions are fairly in line with what I was told. The bottom three teams in the NSFC will continue to duke it out and I could either get 0/3 or 3/3 correct.
The ASFC is extremely tight, other than Honolulu. The predictions I have are way off from reality right now. The Hahalua are a lock for last place, but I have them at 4th and Austin who is currently in first I have at last. Orange County has an easier schedule to finish the season, and with their point differential I would expect them to finish in the 1st seed as predicted. Besides that the spots from 2-5 could go any way. Looking at the point differential for the other teams Arizona should theoretically be able to make the playoffs. They have the highest differential in the ASFC and must be getting some terrible luck to be a .500 team. If you’re on an ASFC team I wish you the best of luck and hope you make the playoffs! (unless you’re NOLA in week 13 :^) )
My relative TPE levels:
In my draft class I have fallen to 10th in TPE. I haven’t bought equipment in two seasons so this is the main reason for me dropping. I am 99 TPE behind front runner Tyler Montain who has an absurd 968 TPE. That is due to the mass amount of recruitment he’s done. I think it’s a fair amount as if I had bought max equipment I would be at 929 TPE. Although it does give a bit of an advantage, boosting the number of active users on the site is great. I think it’s more of an incentive than if it were purely monetary. I’m on a mini island where I’m at currently. There is myself at 869, Lesean Paris Crooks at 868, and Julio Jones at 860. Ahead of us is Eugene Smoothie at 899 and behind is Philip Stein at 834. Even after this article I don’t think I’ll buy tier 6 equipment, probably just tier 4 so I don’t blow through all my money right away. I don’t have a job in the ISFL so income is harder to come by, I have to write articles like this. I was going to apply for a couple jobs the past offseason but didn’t have the time to commit to one, and the with the move to the new engine I didn’t want to purchase the game to be a simmer.
In regards to positional TPE, I am the 7th highest defensive end. If we throw in defensive tackles too for fun, I drop all the way to 18th. DTs seem to earn a lot more than DEs. I’m ignorant and thought they were very similar, but maybe DTs need a bit more TPE. If I buy equipment as planned above I would rise to 6th DE and 17th DL. There are some massive earners ahead of me in the S21 and S22 classes so it might take a couple seasons of regression for me to catch them. I have a chance to be the highest TPE DE but it will only be for a season or two. From the S24 class, Asher Montain is right behind me in terms of earning. Although he may be overtaken by Medicinal Toblerone from the S25 who is only 80 TPE behind. As I reach my peak and temporarily take the top spot, Toberlone might be the DE to succeed me in the top spot as I regress. The next highest DE from the S23 class is my teammate, Mike Karpaasi. He’s been a steady earner in his own right currently sitting at 667 TPE. I think my GMs are very happy with him in the draft spot the acquired him and his needs compared to mine. I’m pretty sure they just tell him his contract and he signs no problem. It appears as S21s regression in the offseason following the S27 season, so at that rate I’m on pace to become the highest TPE DE in approximately S30.
Tamperability:
Roughly a month ago I restructured my contract. A friend taught me about the neat tamperable clause the ISFL has. Sarasota has been great and I love them, but I also challenge any GM who thinks their team is better to hit me up. I probably won’t be open to moving for a couple seasons at the earliest, but if SAR starts to go downhill I already told Frost I would look around. My second choice would be to play for Jeffie in OCO with all the other Dragonball players. Besides that I would be open to any and all teams that look good. Right now I’m essentially signed until auto retirement, but I’m open to renegotiating a new contract with a new team. For the most part I just want to be able to afford training but if I’m in the middle of regression I’d also be open to taking minimum if it helps with cap issues.
An Argument for TFLs:
This really could have been its own clickbait article but I’m lumping it in here because ISFL rewards article length, not separate ones. Back in my rookie season I saw people mentioning tackles for loss (TFLs) weren’t a stat people cared much about. My player seems to get a ton of these and does the best at this compared to other stats against all defense positions. So what exactly are TFLs? I only learned this last week myself, it’s when you tackle any player besides the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. As someone who appreciates min/maxing in other aspects of life, what’s not to love about this? Maybe I’m too ignorant to the sport itself but stopping a down and losing marginal yardage seems great. I’m not sure about the sim itself but possessions that end up getting to say 3rd and 2 aren’t all that uncommon are they? If you get a tackle for loss on first down for a loss of 2, you just made that 2nd down not convert and maybe you stop them on the 3rd and then nothing happens. If you don’t get that TFL it could be an entirely different game. Sure they’re not as big as a 10 yard sack but they can still be impactful to the game. I feel they should be taken into consideration for awards and whatever else. They are their own thing, a little better than a regular tackle and not quite as good as a sack. A player that can average two of these a game or close is great in my books. I could also be entirely wrong and maybe the general consensus is the same as my own, but they do seem like a solid stat.
Alphabetic Equality:
I saw another user post on this recently who was from the most oppressed team of all, Yellowknife. As a casual who only really wants to watch my team play it’s tough to figure out when it may be. I looked at a vod from a previous week where the game we played was in the same slot so I timed it out and when I checked the live stream the whole sim was already over by a large discrepancy. There is another user on this site who seems to be unable to tell if I’m serious about this stuff. To you my friend, I will say that I’m semi serious. I understand that there would be a lot of effort to go into changing the sim order, so while I advocate for this change, I don’t actually expect anything to come of it. It’s also a good talking point for me to pump out some words and get a discussion going. Even if it was done once a week on Wednesdays or something, I’m sure every alphabetically challenged team would appreciate this. I have also recommended to Frost he move Sarasota to Adamsville, which is only about 50 miles north. If the league takes no measures to fight this inequality we could see teams slowly relocate to cities higher and higher in alphabetical order. In a couple seasons most teams might be from somewhere that starts with “A” and Baltimore is stuck with the last time slot for their home games. It could be a good time to consider a change regarding this with the move to the new sim engine. I don’t think it changes anything in the process leading up to live games but it’s a thought. I’m assuming no one is reading this entire article so like I mentioned in another section, I was going to apply for simmer. Sadly, this would not have had any impact on stream order as in this league simmer and streamer are two separate entities. I want to believe now that I’ve made people more aware of this issue, lesser alphabetic teams now notice how privileged some other teams are. I’ll leave one more disclaimer here at the end: while yes, it would be nice to have a reverse sim every second sim or merely on Wednesdays, I expect nothing to actually happen. I know it’s a lot of work for the team involved bringing this together already.
Bring back the Bachelor(ette):
Oh boy, that event did not go well. I’m just reaching for talking points at this point in my long article, but I will say it could be fun. This league has clearly made its stance on LGBTQ+ clear. (Also sorry if I got that wrong, I think they added more recently?) While it might not be professional to involve the league commissioner, I’m sure there’s other people who may be interested in something like this and if done right would be amusing to watch. This is mere speculation but I assume the site demographics are something like 95/5% male to female. I don’t think any single girl in their right mind would want to do something like this with all the thirsty dudes out there, but they sure would have a ton of options to sift through and make an entertaining show if they did. If we did a straight bachelor show there would likely be no competition and if anyone entered, they would win by default. I want to preface this next suggestion saying I’m straight and sorry if this comes off poorly. I don’t know the demographics for gay/bi guys, but with the sheer amount of dudes around maybe a gay bachelor could work? I would guess there would be more interest than a regular one, but there’s also probably some people who may be interested that haven’t come out yet. It would be cute and entertaining to see if there were enough open participants. While the original bachelorette idea came off in bad taste, I think it’s a cool idea.
Stealing another idea, PBE does Survivor. I did one season there and had a good time. I’m a terrible liar so I didn’t make it very far and my tribe did poorly at challenges. With how many users the ISFL has I think ripping off a tv show like one of these and implementing it for users is a great idea. I don’t watch much tv but I’m sure there are others out there that could go well and generate interest.
A special Merry Christmas to @jeffie43:
Jeff, how you doing my man! Just wanted to tell you Merry Christmas, um, I hope you're enjoying your day with your family, man, to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, man, that's amazing, congrats to you. Also, I just want to encourage you, man, just, uh, keep your spirits high, man, I know this quarantine is putting a lot of us down because of isolation but it will get better man, just continue to practice, uh, good habits in terms of washing your hands, and, and social distancing when you go out in public. And lastly man, congrats on winning, uh, your championship this year man, your dad said the buccaneers did a great job, uh, so happy for you man, but like I said, keep your spirits high, everything will get better soon and again, Merry Christmas.
Minor shoutout to Dallas Players (or anyone who joined SHL this season):
Hope you guys are enjoying the SHL! I’m a minors GM over there, and it felt like half the players I scouted in the past draft were coming over from ISFL. While it didn’t work out that I got any of you, I wish you all the best in your SHL careers. I know you all have your own minors GMs already but if you need a second opinion on anything feel free to send me a message.
Final Words:
I hope with the header structure people were able to better pick and choose what they felt was worth reading (if anything). I’ve been very self conscious with my writing for a very long time, but after a semester at college and taking classes that needed writing I feel better about it. This format is more about me crapping out words for fake money than anything, but if a single person gets enjoyment out of reading my content that’s more than I can ask for.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever is appropriate to you. Happy New Year’s as well. I feel like shitting on 2020 is beating a dead horse at this point, but may 2021 bring you more joy than this year. Maybe you had a great 2020 despite everything and I still wish you an even better 2021!