(S26) Ultimus Week

[IsaStarcrossed]

6) Write 800 words or more on something about anything in the league that interests you. It could be related to statistics, a league issue that you take seriously, or a niche part of history that doesn’t fit neatly into either of the above categories. This must be directly related to the league, so don’t wax 800 words about your team’s participation on a Werewolf server or something.

Now that we're officially moving sims at the end of this season and are heading into something bright a new, something almost unidentifiable to the old ways, I want to go back and talk about some of my favorite playoff series most memorable moment in the league that directly reflected or current sim. Things that defined the league, things of the like we may never see again, things that set me up to know exactly what to expect from DDSPF 16. It was the curious journey of the Philadelphia Liberty in my first glimpse of the league.

Lets go all the way back to the season 16 playoffs. I joined right before the playoffs began, so my first action in this league came during the NSFL wildcard round. I had no idea what I was about to witness, but I knew that things seemed pretty clear cut. In the NSFC you had two 10-3 teams who seemed to be absolute juggernauts. The Wraiths and Butchers were a clear cut above the rest and the third seed in the division just barely squeezed in at 7-6 due to winning in week 13 while the Hawks lost. They got in off of tie breakers, which was miraculous for a team that had been on a three game slide to that point.

So it all started with the Philadelphia Liberty taking on the 10 win juggernaut Wraiths. The game ended up far closer than it ever should have been, but with a little over three minute left things got a little silly. Down by four points with 3:20 left on the clock, the Wraiths found themselves at a 4th and 1 at Philly's 17 yard line. Instead of going for it, they elected to kick a field goal and close the gap to one point. They still had their timeouts, so I thought they should be fine. Just shut down Philly and go for one more drive. Not only did the Wraiths not use a single one of their timeouts on the next drive, the whole league got to watch a 200 TPE running back break off a 10 yard run on a 3rd and 2, allowing for Philly to run out the clock and win the game while the Wraiths just sat and watched and didn't bother even trying to stop the clock. So we watched as one of the two favorites to win it all got helplessly eliminated.

Clearly the sim gods had chosen to favor the Liberty. Locking in playoffs in the final week, no timeouts used by YKW to slip into the conference championship game. All they needed now was to finish and take out the favorite of the whole playoffs. The 10-3 first seeded Chicago Butchers. This was when it became clear that Philadelphia was going to be the destined team as they walked in and absolutely stomped the Butchers in Chicago to the tune of 47 to 34. Chicago never had a lead in the game and Philadelphia's 21 point 3rd quarter put it out of reach permanently. They were heading to the Ultimus and it looked like they were the team of destiny. One last hurdle.

That hurdle? The 7-6 Arizona Outlaws. The Outlaws were the 2nd seed in the ASFC due to tie breakers and the fact both they and SJS lost in the final week of the season. They had home field advantage over SJS in the first round as Andrew Reese, the Outlaws QB, showed up and absolutely wrecked the SaberCats. 41 to 21 and it was never really even close. Then they faced their biggest test as they went up against the 10-3 Otters who were sporting an aging QB and who's record reflected that the ASFC was the weaker conference in this particular season. Unlike YKW and Chicago, most thought OCO lucked into this record due to a week schedule. The Outlaws proved people right as they completely dismantled the Otters 31-3.

As a result, the Outlaws came in at home and as the clear favorites. They dominated both of their playoff games in convincing fashion, but Philadelphia couldn't be counted out. They'd shown luck was on their side and as the Ultimus came around, everyone was watching with expressed interest. Who would win? The favorite? Or the team of destiny? The Outlaws started off hot. They went up 24-13 in the first half and it looked liked Philly's luck had finally run out. Philly came storming back in the second half though and in fact even took the lead off of a pick six in the middle of the fourth. Arizona refused to give up though and with 1:30 left in the game, they took the lead back and went up by four. It looked like it was over for Philadelphia, but they still had their timeouts. Surely there was plenty of time left right?

With 42 seconds left on the clock, Falconi completed a huge 41 yard pass that brought them to Arizona's 12 yard line. 42 seconds, all their timeouts. The team of destiny was about to do it again. Except another play was never run. Much like YKW not calling a timeout and the end of their playoff game, Philly didn't call a timeout here. In a single play their burned off all 42 seconds and Arizona won the Ultimus.

it was in that moment I realized our sim was glorious. Team of destiny on the verge of winning it all after lucky break after lucky break just to be simmed themselves in the final moment. All of these insane moments brought on by our sim programming culminated to this moment and it was then I realized I was going to love this league because the games made no sense. There was a bit of fun to that. All of that is now changing as our league is upgrading, but I wanted to go back and remember it one last time.

[Cincyfan96]

4) Sim gonna sim, indeed! Out in Berlin, that saying has been heard loud and clear this year, as the simulation flipped us the bird for the first third of Season 26. Looking at the 0-5 start, it'd be easy to think Berlin just wasn't ready to start the season this year. Maybe we didn't have the players, the strategies, or the mindset in place for winning football? Maybe we needed better equipment, harder training regimens, or have our inexperienced, young head coach give up play calling duties (looking at you, Zac Taylor), but something here was clearly wrong! The truth is, while Berlin was by no means the best roster in the league, the sim simmed us HARD. In sim testing after the games with the files used for those games, Berlin was favored in each of its first 5 games (Remember, 5 losses), and sometimes it wasn't even close. The odds of being blown out by New York, Philly, and Sarasota were between 2-8% each, and our odds of winning against Yellow Knife stands out at a whopping 78%. The joke began at this point in the Berlin locker room that we might want to start testing our win percentages DOWN to 25% or so since that team clearly was being favored in our matchups...

A season where many had picked Berlin to be a surprise breakout team due to (ironically) extremely high sim test rates in the preseason where Berlin inexplicably tested far better than their expected results for several big name simulation experts quickly turned into conversation around potential tanking and looking ahead to the next season before the year was even a third of the way completed. This became particularly obvious during PT #2 - You Sit On A Throne of Lies. Practically every other article revolved around Berlin's surprisingly horrific start to the season, as we were on route to surrendering a record number of points allowed and yards allowed, and had nothing pretty much nothing going for us.

Thankfully, this was the end of the ridiculously bad luck in Berlin this season. Sure, there were tough plays here and there that saw us lose some close games, but that's par for the course in any league, live or simulation. To go from 0-5 to 6-9 this season, with a chance to end 7-9 this week if we can pull off one more win, is a huge improvement that shows the Fire Salamanders were not out of their league, despite an 0-5 record to start the season. A 7-9 final record would be a 7-4 finish to the season, on pace with the majority of playoff teams over that stretch, making one wonder what kind of damage this team could have done had it not been for a truly horrific start to the season.

Looking at the overall odds of Berlin beginning the year 0-5, when taking the cumulative odds of losing each matchup, the chances of an 0-5 start came out to roughly 0.5% That means that only one time in TWO HUNDRED would such a lousy start happen. The odds of 3-2, 4-1, even 5-0 were FAR higher than 0-5, leaving one to again think about what the conversation around Berlin would look like had this initial hole not been dug. Also, adding insult to injury, the way in which we lost these games was even less likely. As I mentioned earlier, being blown out in three of our games only happened once or twice every one hundred times in a few of these games, so by my rough estimations the odds of us losing all four games AND being blown out in two of those games was somewhere in the range of 0.0002%. It is this writer's estimation that that qualifies as being SCREWED OVER by the sim! That 0-5 start transformed a season that could very realistically have ended with playoff football into one that was over before it hardly even began.

While there are many reasons to be excited about the new simulation - new archetypes, skills, and far more opportunity to create a unique build and character experience - I think in Berlin we're just looking forward to a fresh start with a sim that (hopefully) doesn't hate us quite so much! There has been some lamenting for sure as we consider ourselves to be in a prime position to take on the league in the seasons to come, and the new simulation has the potential to put a wrench in the predictability of that progress, but the prospect of a fresh start without the baggage that this simulation has held for the winning prospects in Berlin is more than worth it to me. Everyone will be scrambling to learn this new sim, but at least it has not proven to despise us (yet). Here's hoping for many seasons of success in Berlin as we learn and master the new sim - hopefully it will pick on someone else for a change!

[Raven]

https://forums.sim-football.com/showthre...#pid408773 accidently big brianed and made a new post

[ztarwarz]

Task 4:

You know, I knew this year's Ultimus Week was going to be really, really easy as soon as I remembered that there was a sim luck question. The Arizona Outlaws should have been one of the best teams this year, and they were. Despite that, they still missed the playoffs.

First off, let's look at the team itself. While their defense wasn't supposed to be as good as, say, Orange County, it was supposed to be one of the best in the entire league, led by the highest TPE player in the league in Desmond Scarlett, and boasting high end linebackers and a defensive tackle with over 1000 TPE. Their offense was supposed to take a bit of a step back, but due to proper development that turned out not to be the case. Then we go to the sim.

Arizona has the best passing offense in the sim, and is one of 3 rushing attacks that is far and away from everyone else, along with the Wraiths and Second Line. On the other hand, their defense was more passable than anything else, giving up just under 24 and a half points per game as the 9th best defense in the league, out of 14. Still, this is a team that shouldn't be eliminated in week 15.

And yet it was.

Statistically, the Outlaws weren't just a playoff contender, they were actually one of the best teams all year. The ONLY TEAM in the entire league with a better point differential than them is the Wraiths. This team consistently tested not just well, but excellently. They had at most one or two games that felt like they weren't in it all year.

And yet the sim fucking killed them. Only one team can possibly hold a candle to the Outlaws' sim luck, and that team actually destroyed their playoff hopes by losing last week. But as far as outright losing goes? Nah, the Outlaws are in a league of their own. The Silverbacks basically owe them their playoff chances after the sim decided to give them the coin flip away and the less than 25% chance of winning in the Outlaws' own stadium. Even with that, the Outlaws wouldn't be out except for 3 OTHER home performances that the Outlaws got screwed by the sim in against OCO, NOLA, and SAR. The worst part of it all is probably how close everything was. We lost 3 games to last second field goals. Our second game against the Silverbacks was lost by a touchdown after our best in the league offense died for 3 quarters due to penalties...AT HOME. And because of how badly our luck was against specifically in conference opponents, no matter what happens in week 16 the Outlaws are eliminated.

You could have won fantasy TPE by picking up Arizona players late or on the waiver wire, I will unless something dumb happens tonight. But the Outlaws don't get any chance for championship glory. Cue loses another chance at a playoff win.

What probably smarts the most is how dumb everything felt that led to this point. The first game against OCO was swung by one random fumble, and then only didn't go to OT because the last play of the game turned into a 40 yard pass play by dragging defenders' bodies. 2 games later, we lost a game due to a punt return for a touchdown and a 30 yard punt from our own half in the last minutes of regulation...and the only reason we punted was due to a useless spike. Against Austin, we completed a massive 16 point comeback, punted due to another spike, and then only did a 30 yard punt that was returned into field goal range immediately. And then, after taking care of business in week 15, we watched on as Orange County got fucking destroyed by NOLA despite apparently testing at 79% according to a member in youtube chat, meaning we can't surpass them if we beat NOLA tonight, because they decided to BEAT the Sailfish and Otters away in 2 of their last 3 games.

No matter what happens tonight, it only matters for TPE as far as Arizona is concerned. They may have been the best offense, the 2nd best point differential, a great success story...and none of it matters because the sim said that this Arizona team was fated to lose.

Can we expand the playoff to 8 teams? Just for this season? We fucking deserve it and got shafted by the sim harder than any other team all year, and I know that to be the case, because every other team that also got sim shafted specifically hurt us in HOW they got sim shafted. And all but one of the teams that got sim blessed this year are the teams keeping us out of the playoffs. (813 words)

Edit: Actually, I need to complain more. By yards, Arizona has the second best defense and second best offense, only losing out to Yellowknife in each. We gave up more than 6 more points per game on average than Yellowknife.

[slothfacekilla]

Tier 1: Long Form Tasks (Must be 800+ words)

Choose ONE for 10 TPE.

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2) Tell us about your draft class. Is there anything that makes it special in comparison to other classes? Where did your fellow draftees land, how are they doing? Did anyone turn out to be an unexpected steal of that draft based on what you know today? Do you think anyone in your draft class will become a hall of famer? If you’re new to the league, how do you think your class will do? Where do you think people will get drafted to?

The ISFL draft class that included my player Ben Slothlisberger was certainly an interesting one in Season 22.  I am not sure how "special" it is in relation to other ISFL drafts per the prompt, but I think it did have a bit of an impact on the league.  It saw the New Orleans Second Line, Yellowknife Wraiths, Berlin Fire Salamanders, San Jose Saber Cats, and Orange County Otters all obtain their future franchise quarterbacks, even if one of these teams did not even exist yet!  Since that is such an important position on the football field it is easy to say that the Season 22 draft definitely made an impact on the league as a whole.

The start of the draft was an interesting one as I believe the Austin Copperheads traded into that spot to get the player that they wanted.  They ended up with cornerback Colt Mendoza from the Dallas Birddogs as the first overall pick in the S22 draft, and they sure do not regret choosing him.  Sitting at 1040 tpe in the tpe tracker, Mendoza may not be at the very top of the tpe list for his position but he is definitely no slouch.  More importantly Colt is still with the Copperheads this day and is a big part of their team culture and success.  Following that up was New Orleans with the second overall pick, and they landed defensive tackle Magnus Rikiya from the Norfolk Seawolves.  It wasn't much surprise to anyone that either of these players went 1 and 2 overall.  While DT may not be the biggest stat padding position, Rikiya has been a key member of the Second Line's defensive line, leading the way for the unit filled with younger players.  Magnus is the top earning defensive tackle from the Season 22 draft class, with 1115 tpe in the tracker.  Rikiya will look to take their game to an entirely new level next season as well with the new sim engine, giving Magnus more freedom to wreak havok from the inside of the defensive line.

Next up in round 1 the Philadelphia Liberty had consecutive picks at three and four.  The Liberty ended up targeting their secondary and grabbed Safety Matt Cross and Cornerback Brandon Booker to hopefully solidify their defense.  Both of these players managed to eclipse the 1000 tpe mark, which looks great for Philadelphia on paper.  Unfortunately I do see in the tpe tracker that Booker is no longer with the Liberty, so while they made a good selection they weren't able to retain the player.  Still a great job to pick up two 1000+ secondary players in the first round of a draft.  The Saber Cats, perhaps sensing a run on defensive backs, decided to scoop up cornerback Chester Sweets with the fifth pick.  Unfortunately this is where we find our first "bust" of a pick, as Sweets only managed to a accumulate 321 tpe before flaming out.  The sixth through ninth picks saw all the teams scrambling to grab defensive talent.  This largely saw solid players going to the squads, though the Honolulu Hahalua's selection of defensive tackle Phat Boi does not appear in the tpe tracker anymore so that can't be a good sign for the player or the team.  We'll count that as another bust in there unfortunately for the team from Hawaii.

The Orange County Otters took stud tight end Jeffrey Phillips at 10 overall, but the teams went back to the defensive well with two more secondary players with Johnny Hellzapoppin going to Yellowknife and the Second Line scooping up cornerback Andrew Witten to solidify their defense in the first round.  This would round out the first round of the draft which saw only one offensive player get chosen which is pretty crazy.  But in our next round we would begin to see some of the aforementioned quarterbacks coming off of the board.

At 17th overall the Second Line picked Ben Slothlisberger from the Tijuana Luchadores to be their next QB.  Although he largely has not played well in the ISFL, he still has accumulated a decent amount of tpe and seems like a solid choice for the franchise.  The next two quarterbacks went at the very end of the second round at picks 23 and 24.  The Jack brothers ended up in San Jose (Monterey) and Yellowknife (Colby).  Colby is actually at the top of the tpe tracker for the Season 22 draft, so the Wraiths have to be pretty pleased with their selection there.  Monterey has managed to lead the Saber Cats to multiple Ultimus wins so neither team is complaining about their choice for who to lead their franchise into the future.

The other two current quarterbacks from the 22 draft took less conventional routes to their current positions.  Suleiman Ramza ended up being an eighth round pick for the Philadelphia Liberty.  It would be a great choice as Ramza would really blossom with his additional time in the DSFL, but he would find his ISFL starting spot with one of the Liberty's other draft picks in Orange County.  So unfortunately they couldn't hold onto him to succeed Brock Phoenix.  Nick Kaepercolin would end up going in the 5th round to the Baltimore Hawks, but he was drafted as a wide receiver not a quarterback.  He would eventually make his way to Berlin where he embraced his arm and he now sits fourth in total tpe for the entire draft class.  Quite a great come up for the expansion Fire Salamanders!

So there you have some info on the first round and the quarterbacks from the Season 22 draft.  There are many more impact players in the draft but I have already run out of words for this write up.  But there is no question that this draft helped shape the future of the league.

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[KC15]

8) Write a short biography or story about your player. This could include background about how they came to the ISFL and how they’ve done so far, a story about their role in an exciting game, or anything else related to their experience in the league.   5 TPE

Jed was born in 1999 in Independence, MO - hometown of President Harry S. Truman and many similar plain spoken and upright citizens since.  His parents  Józef and Helena, were immigrants from Łódź, Poland and settled in the Polish neighborhood of Sugar Creek.  The family later moved to Raytown where Jed starred as QB of the Raytown High Blue Jays.  He later transitioned to RB where he excelled until he was drafted by the New Orleans Second Line years later and they asked him to play WR.

College at Futon College was a blur, but he does remember setting a number of school rushing records and being appreciated for also having the work ethic to stick in there when pass blocking – always ready to pick up a blitzing linebacker and pay them back for the hits he took while toting the pigskin.
Jed had a brilliant career in the DSFL playing for the run first Tijuana Luchadores.  In S18, he ran for 1392 yards (5.5 YPC) and 9 TDs. Turns out he was just getting warmed up.  In S19 he eclipsed this mark with 1544 yards (5.4 YPC) and 11 TDs. 

S19 saw Jed being drafted to the New Orleans Second Line and his move to WR.  Jed found out that the game moves faster in the ISFL and that you have to earn your stripes before getting a featured role.  Still, in his rookie season he pulled down 34 passes for 325 yards and 5 TDs.  That would prove to be the foundation of an ever improving performance at his new position. 

In only his second and final season, Jed 50 passes for 782 yards and 5 TDs on the way to the Second Line winning the Ultimus.
When you are on a stacked team and expansion comes, someone has to go – even someone as promising as Podolak and in S21 Jed packed his bags for even sunnier climes than New Orleans as he became Honolulu’s second overall pick in the expansion draft.

You might think Jed would find this disappointing.  After all, it isn’t everyone who wants to go from a championship team to an expansion team, but Jed Podolak isn’t just everyone.  He relished the challenge and put up the numbers to help his team go immediately from the punching bag of the ISFL to a team opponents had to prep hard for and play all 60 minutes for a chance to win.

Jed barely missed 1000 yards receiving in that first year and eclipsed the mark in the following 4 seasons.  Though he did put up 1171 yards as of game 15 of S26, it was a disappointment overall.  The team fell to 3-12 – a bitter pill for every Hahalua to swallow.

Podolak will be going into his second year of regression in S27, but still knows he can be a contributor.  He is looking forward to turning the fortunes of the Honolulu franchise around and putting them back on the map in the new season.

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18) Write about another sim league you are in and which parts of it you enjoy. If you are only in the ISFL, write about your ideas for a sim league with another sport.  2.5 TPE

The first sim league I ever joined was the PBE.  This is what got me hooked and, in fact, I was recruited to the ISFL from the PBE by FrickNasty.

What I love about the PBE is pretty much the same as what I love about the ISFL, though there are some additions I’ll add at the end.  So, the list of things I love about both leagues starts with the people.  It really is amazing given all the nonsense you sometimes hear about in the news that makes one despair over the state of humanity that we come together in this sometimes volatile environment of the internet and pretty much all get along.  And not just get by, but form some real friendships.  I spend more time in the PBE world and probably have closer relationships there, but I still value hanging out with folks here in the ISFL.

And no matter the sport, it is fun to watch as your player grows and grows into a force in the league – putting up great numbers and helping your team win.  Combine that with the whole strategic side of the league with game strats, team building, draft scouting, etc. and you have a winning experience.

The two additional things that I love about the PBE that I do not have in the ISFL  are baseball and GMing.  Baseball is hands down my favorite sport to play or watch so it’s great to be able to immerse myself in a sim league based on the sport.  And I’ve been able to GM at both the minor league and major league level – both expansion teams – and that has been a blast from the branding aspect to the LR oversight to leading the team building and strategy side of things.

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SHL Affiliate PT  2.5 TPE

[Jiggly_333]

Task 12:
Hoo boy. I always love this prompt. Hi, it’s me: The guy who moves every single team to Chicago. The thing is, there’s already a team in Chicago. But what if there were two teams? Just kidding. I love the Butchers and I never want to hurt them ever again. Instead, I want to take a look at the new concept that’s been introduced by the “International” part of the new league name. There’s really only one team that’s truly taken advantage of this new opportunity with the Berlin Fire Salamanders, a really weird choice in every part of its branding. Why Salamanders? Why that logo? Anyway, I think that there’s a couple of interesting places around the world that could get a football team:

Unfortunately, I don’t think that the old S3 meme of the “Seoul K-Poppers” will ever take off. On the other hand, I still think that it’d be nice to have an asian team. Something that’ll speak to the weebs. It doesn’t have to be in Japan, there could easily be some team in a city in China named the Dragons if you wanna be basic. I think a team in South Korea could be something like the Pohang Steelers, which is a real K-League soccer team that has the name of a football team.

But for me, I wanna stick in Japan and I honestly think that Tokyo is over-used. Instead, I like Osaka for… reasons that have nothing to do with Chicago, don’t read into it. I’m thinking as I’m writing here, but I really want a pink team in this league. I think it’d pull a really great contrast and not enough sports teams utilize it despite overusing red and blue. What are some good names that work with pink? Not many. No flamingos in Japan and while the cherry blossoms could be a great reason for the color to be pink, it’s not a good enough name. So something that is more symbolic to the city.

Osaka’s name means “Large Hill”. So, “Hill-Toppers”? That’s a high school level name, no real pro team would name themselves that. The city’s name in kanji had to be re-written because it could be misread as “samurai rebellion”, but “Samurai” is such a generic and over-done name. Not good enough. Now while everyone knows Tokyo as the country’s cultural center, Osaka was actually Japan’s major economic center (much like a certain Midwestern railway hub) for an incredibly long time, deep into the Edo Period (which ended around 1867). They’re a port city, so something nautical should work.

I present to you: The Osaka Mariners


Task 20:
Well, Mai is running back. But she apparently plays like a slot receiver with the amount of production that she gets. I mean, she already does this where she plays normally, so why wouldn’t she be moved to play there if there were injury issues. She’s got over 800 receiving yards, 72 catches, and 8 receiving TDs. That’s an incredibly solid season for a WR. But, that’s just me complaining about the lack of carries. Instead, I think that without thinking of what her actual in-sim build is, Mai would be a really good free safety.
Mai already has an incredible amount of speed, good enough hands for playing the ball in the air, and while it’s not in the sim it is canon that she’s incredibly strong. Personally, I wasn’t able to get myself excited about watching a defender’s stats go up in the NSFL, but I think that if I re-made Mai to better fit her character rather than fit her to what I wanted to do, she would’ve ended up as some sort of safety, maybe even run support. Like, this girl is too ripped to just be a skill player, she could absolutely slay at safety.
Please GMs, don’t get any ideas. I still wanna be a running back.


Task 28:
I don’t like change in general. So that’s like, one thing against moving to a new sim right there. We’ve been using this sim for almost 4 years now. The thing about people who complain about a sim being “broken” is that most of the people who say that intentionally break things. There’s an episode from the classic BBC sitcom “Father Ted” where a visiting priest shows up and the whole joke about him is that he complains about the “shoddy craftsmanship” of every piece of hardware around him. And it’s not that he complains, he literally breaks things to prove his point. Even things that aren’t broken. He kicks down a door to prove that it’s squeaky, he smashes a chair on the ground to prove it can’t handle enough weight, and he even goes up to an actual sturdy bookcase and proceeds to jump on top of it to make it fall over on top of him to prove how precarious it is.

What I’m saying is, the sim only looks broken when you intentionally do things to break it. People find exploits, that’s what test-simming literally is. To constantly insist that things are broken is stupid. Did we need to update the sim? Not really. But the real reason is just that we’d been using an older version for so long when a newer version was readily available. But we’ll still get the same “sim broken” comments for the new one. Because that’s what you guys do all day. You break things.

[ZootTX]

20. It has been a long and grueling season for Yellowknife, and the Wraiths have been decimated by injury. It’s the final game of the regular season, with a playoff berth on the line. With every man on the field except the water boy, legendary but aging defensive end Nero Alexander unfortunately tears his ACL, ending his season (and likely his career.) Without any other choice the coaches are going to have to play someone on the both sides of the ball, and turn to the tight end, Zee Rechs, and tell him he’s going to have to step up and play on the defensive line. While not ideal, Zee is the best offensive player to try and fill a hole on the defensive line. As a tight end, Zee has high strength to try and out muscle opposing linemen and tight ends, agility to out maneuver them, and intelligence to try and predict the play ahead of time. Unlike trying to put in an offensive lineman, Zee is also pretty quick. Zee also has great hands to try and shed blocks. The biggest flaw in this plan is Zee has almost no tackling skills, and hasn’t worked on his tackling since high school, so hopefully none of the opposing team’s players are too slippery!

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22. Due to his skills on the field, Zee has had the chance to endorse several products. However, this is an easy one for Zee, since he grew up on a cattle farm, but Zee would definitely endorse some good old Texas beef. Granted, most folks have already heard the tried and true “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner!” campaign, but it's kind of upsetting to Zee that breakfast and lunch aren’t included. Not only does Zee love to eat, he loves to cook, and he’s a damn fine chef. The new ad campaign would definitely feature pics of Zee on the farm, because nothing’s more quaint than a family farm (except the smell!) But the biggest thing Zee would bring to the new beef campaign would be his new youtube cooking show! Who wouldn’t want to see him cooking his favorite meals and recipes using beef? Besides vegetarians. Zee is more than willing to show the internet his mad kitchen skills. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, Zee brings a lot more than just a pretty face and football talent to the table. Nothing will sell the product faster than pictures and video of Zee, his friends, family, and teammates chowing down on some delicious burgers, steaks, and Zee’s favorite, BBQ brisket!

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28. I, for one, am super excited about switching to the new sim. It feels to me like a bit of a fresh start for my player, for one thing. I feel like tight ends are kind of boring in the current sim, unless you play outside the tight end slot in the depth chart. Since my archetype is going away I have to switch types anyway. Hopefully, the new sim will be a bit more balanced, and more than one archetype or playstyle are viable for most players. The current sim is very one dimensional, and also pretty well figured out by most of the league at this point. I’m hoping between the new builds and new traits that more play styles become attractive to the players. I know many folks will be frustrated that, without exhibition games, testing is much less of a thing now that you can’t sim 500 games at a time, but maybe that will encourage GMs to experiment with more formations than the few that are used now in the current sim. It does look like play calling will be more customizable to a team’s strengths as well! I do think the sim interface will take some getting used to, but overall I’m happy with what the new sim seems to bring to the league.

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29. Well, I know how infinite feels about more awards, but I definitely have a few opinions about them after being on the awards committee! One award that I think the league should seriously consider implementing is the ‘best blocker’ award. Currently, players like blocking tight ends and fullbacks are very unpopular in the league, as it’s not a very rewarding position. However, with the new sim requiring a fullback in the fullback position, I expect to see more of them in the future. Since we are moving to the new sim, I think now is a good time to implement an award that players whose primary job is to block, outside of the offensive line, would qualify to win. This would likely encourage more folks to consider these types of players because they have at least some chance at recognition. Right now there is really one person who should be getting this award, and that’s New York Silverbacks fullback Buster Bawlls. Bawlls had 31 pancakes last year, and an impressive 51 this year. Most fullbacks and blocking tight ends will never have enough receiving or rushing yards to make them even close to eligible for running back or tight end of the year, and this award would serve as motivation for folks to be willing to create those kinds of players, which can only be better for the league.

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[UberBJ]

Applied

[Tesla]

Tier 1 - Task 2 - 800+ Words - 10 TPE

I just want to open up with the fact that I absolutely love this as a point task as I really enjoy getting to go back and look at how the S22 draft class has done as a whole. The thing that makes it special if I had to sum it up in just one factor would have to be that it is the largest draft class in ISFL history at well over two-hundred total recruits. Of course I think it is quite special personally as it involved a large number of major players in the league. Counting recreates I believe there are ten general managers in the class and that is not counting the other various league jobs possessed by the draft class. Just counting me you have a media grader and a rookie mentor for example.

Covering all of my fellow draftees would warrant this being a media piece instead of a point task, and so I will cover my fellow Seawolves instead to the best of my ability. Sixth overall at the DSFL level Thubba Bumper ended up going to the Colorado Yeti as everyone predicted, but with the fourteenth selection instead of the eighth selection as everyone had predicted. Thubba Bumper has since retired, but Bauer recreated with a delightful wide receiver who has been a player of the game at least once as I remember writing about them for my DSFL Highlights series.

Safety Matt Cross who was selected with the fourteenth overall pick at the DSFL level saw a considerable climb in the ISFL draft as as he was taken third overall by the Philadelphia Liberty. He is doing quite well there having made the Pro Bowl at least once. Unfortunately he is now the last of the superb secondary draft left in Philly from that draft, but I believe he is still happy doing his part to make the team better. Plus the user J0EB is now a terrific general manager of the Norfolk Seawolves and helped get them their first Ultimini win.

Norfolk's fourth selection in the draft is one that is close to my heart as wide receiver Kevin Koh is another graduate of the University of Washington. They were unfortunately essentially inactive by the time of the next draft and fell from 30th overall to 82nd overall to the Orange County Otters. Their user has not been seen in months, but I do hope they are doing well wherever they are in the world.

The fifth selection by Norfolk with the 38th overall selection could be called a steal and so I will say steal Wesley Eriksen's talents were recognized at the next level as he was selected with the eighteenth overall selection by the Philadelphia Liberty. There he would reform the best safety duo of all time with fellow Norfolk alum Matt Cross. Since then they have ended up in Arizona after some things happened in Philadelphia, but as far as I am aware they are doing well there having helped the team keep up their performance after their first playoff berth in several seasons. Honestly I have talked to them more in a different league recently, however I do hope they are doing well in Arizona as they are a lovely person.

Quarterback Luke Skywalker was selected in the seventh round at the DSFL level and the sixth round at the ISFL level. That number for a franchise quarterback is kind of outrageous, but not even the most outrageous occurrence in this draft as I will soon explain. Luke ended up in Honolulu where they won the starting quarterback position after Jim Waters position swapped to cornerback and took over for future hall of fame quarterback Corvo Havran.

The eighth round at the DSFL level led to one of my favorite teammates of Magnus' Sam Sidekick who would go onto win kicker of the year for the Seawolves if memory serves. Sidekick would be drafted by the Butchers where they still play today as an elite kicker and even more elite punter. Fun fact about Sidekick is that I believe they are the player who I have the most duplicates of in my Dotts collection as I seem to draw a card of them once a week.

Ninth round led to Jack Banks future first overall selection in the expansion draft! Originally drafted at the ISFL level by the Honolulu Hahalua with the 55th overall selection in the fifth round. Either way given how justifiably desired he was in the expansion draft I am comfortable saying every team that has gotten him has benefited from the deal. Doing a wonderful job on his newest team the New York Silverbacks.

Tenth round was another lovely linebacker in Spike Suzuki who would move up fifteen spots between the DSFL draft and the ISFL draft as the Philadelphia Liberty spotted their talents. If memory serves they set the tackle for loss record there before they ended up moving to Baltimore. They have not been seen in a month though and the last time we spoke was well before that so I have no idea of how they are doing there. However I hope they are enjoying themselves out in the world.

I am going to keep going until I get to a specific person fo reasons, but of the next three I only really interacted with one. Defensive tackle Godrick Fallstrum fell to the 117th pick due to inactivity where they went to the Baltimore Hawks, and I honestly cannot recall an interaction with them. Cornerback Bayden Brosley was a really nice person from what I remember and went from 88th overall to 73rd overall between the DSFL and ISFL as Honolulu grabbed up a bunch of late round talent from Norfolk. They have since gone inactive though from my understanding and so we will wish them well here instead of stating how they are doing. Defensive end Loin Stake also fell to the triple digits due to inactivity as the Orange County Otters selected them 154th overall, and once again I do not recall having had an interaction with them.

Now the reason I wanted to continue this as far as I have is due to superstar quarterback Suleiman Ramza who fell all the way to the fifteenth round at the DSFL level. They would show off their talents well, but it only moved them up to the eighth round and 94th overall selection in the ISFL draft. The Philadelphia Liberty were smart enough to see their talents, however they already had a quarterback and so Suleiman would eventually walk to become the heir apparent to arguably the greatest quarterback of all time in Franklin Armstrong. Before he would get called up though he would win an MVP award and an Ultimini with the Norfolk Seawolves. His rookie season in Orange County he took the team to the championship round and in his sophomore season is in position to make the playoffs for a second straight season.

Honestly given what all Suleiman has accomplished relative to both draft positions I would say Ramza was the steal of both drafts if not for the fact that he only benefited the one team that drafted him. Comfortably the steal of the DSFL draft though. That could be bias on my part though given Big Edd and Tyron Shields could both make the claim as pro bowlers drafted after him, but Suleiman Ramza is one of my favorite players in the league so I will stand with my admitted bias on his side.

That covers all the active Seawolves from that draft class, but I hope that is enough to qualify for this. Honestly should go to show how utterly massive the draft class ended up being given how such talented people fell in it. It was a really good draft by the Seawolves at least though as it gave some key components of their future Ultimini winning team. Plus it helped by giving them two future general managers of the team in Blasoon and J0EB.

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