03-17-2021, 02:45 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-20-2021, 03:07 PM by Asked Madden.)
Orange County is the best franchise in the ISFL. It's not even close. They've appeared in over a third of all Ultimus, and by themselves have won as many as the entire NSFC. The next closest team to them in wins, the Outlaws, only have half the victories, and less than half the appearances. That being said, Season 27 brought with it change; a change in sim, a change in powerhouses, and an end to a streak that had endured the entire history of the ISFL. For the first time ever, the Otters did not make the playoffs.
The first time the Otters had trouble making the playoffs came in Season 4, having multiple game leads before falling out every single other year. 8 weeks into the season, the Otters were 4-4, while the Outlaws and Sabercats were 6-2. The Outlaws went off like a rocket in the second half of the season, riding an easy 2nd half of the schedule where their only road games were against the 2 worst teams in the league to storm to a 12-2 record The Sabercats, on the other hand, had a more difficult second half of the schedule. In week 9 SJS and OCO would face off in Orange County, and OCO would blow them out. After facing the Arizona buzzsaw in Week 10, San Jose and OCO tied on record, and a later loss to the Yellowknife Wraiths would prevent San Jose from jumping OCO despite beating them in the final week of the season, as OCO went on a 5 game winning streak from Week 9 to Week 13, beating up on the mostly hapless opponents they had in the second half.
The next time the Otters were even within a game of not making it into the playoffs was Season 20, and even then that was more of a formality, as although the Otters ended up in a 3 way tie for seeds 2 and 3 in the playoffs, they had basically clinched back in Week 11 once the Outlaws and Sabercats couldn't surpass 7 wins due to tiebreakers. Season 24 was a similar story, in that while they ended up in a tie on record with some spots outside the playoffs, they had clinched the week before due to tiebreakers no matter how the final week of the season ended up.
Of course, this entire article has been building up to Season 26. The Otters were supposed to be the strongest team in the league, or at least one of them. They ended up in a 5 way pileup for the playoffs. You go to Season 26 right now and you'll see that the Otters are apparently 4th in the division, which does not qualify. However, due to the unimaginably dumb tiebreaker rules they got in anyways. To be fair, they definitely shouldn't have needed dumb tiebreakers, but dumb results all over the place put them into a position where they would have been staying home if not for both Arizona beating NOLA and San Jose beating Austin on the final week of the season. Or maybe they only needed the latter one, I dunno, the tiebreaker was really stupid.
So we get to season 27, and the wheels suddenly fall off. Most notably, they lose their top Running Back in the same season that having low TPE running backs no longer is viable due to a sim change. They have to scramble and draft a running back, while simultaneously changing their 800 inactive TE2 to a Running Back so as to not completely suck. This only somewhat worked, as in Season 27 the Otters still had arguably the worst running game in the entire league, as they tied for the least yards per carry and the least touchdowns. Granted, that inactive TE was changed to a receiving back and he was good in the passing game, but as far as rushing went, OCO was the worst, even worse than a team who started two players with less than 1000 TPE combined. The Otters did have a top half passing attack, with the 5th most yards and touchdowns, although they weren't that efficient, with only the 8th best passer rating. It's also important to note that their defense was nowhere near as good as it was advertised heading into the season, as it gave up more points than the average team, and similarly had one of the lowest totals in terms of takeaways in the league. That being said, this led to the Otters going from tied 1st in the division to 6th of 7 teams, and to be frank, the future doesn't look amazing for them. They have a number of people entering regression, not all that much talent left stashed in the DSFL (Bean Beanman is nice, but besides him their only other player in the DSFL over the cap hasn't updated for 2 months) and on their ISFL team they only have 4 players with great potential Season 24 or younger on the roster, in Joseph Joestar, Goat Tank, Richard Leaking, and Ace Savage. The Otters have a year or two more of contention with the current core, before players like Vegeta, Scott, Ramza, Booker, and Evans regress out of top tier status. If they don't make it now, they could be gone from the playoffs for a decent chunk of time.
So what caused this?
In my opinion the playoff streak's end can be traced, at least partly, to a single draft round: Season 25 round 3. The Otters were flying high at this point, having drafted the 2nd highest TPE player in the draft (who would promptly retake the lead and has not given it up yet) near the end of the 1st round in Goat Tank, and they'd pick up the great Richard Leaking in the 2nd round after trading up.
Outside of the sim, there was, and indeed still is, absolutely nothing wrong with their 1st pick: Owen Holloway, Speculadora. The greatest GM of all time, an Otters legend, and one of the most legendary users this league has. That being said, purely looking from an on field product standpoint, he wasn't the highest TPE WR left in the draft, with both Zach Crossley and Alex Reed having more TPE at the time. Crossley still has more TPE than Holloway, currently having 675 to 659, so a decent lead, but Reed completely busted, never even surpassing 300 TPE. No, the real problem is how many players drafted later than him passed him up, by significant margins to boot. Mark Walker and Adam Spencer both were drafted later, as was then Tight End but almost immediately position swapped Cmon Skiiiup, and the lowest TPE of those 3, Spencer, is 710, beating Holloway by over 50 TPE. Walker outgained him by almost 100.
The second pick didn't make sense, not even then. That's right, this entire media bit was a way for me to dunk on the Otters for drafting Bronko Mills again. Mills at the time had about 160 TPE. There was 1 running back drafted before him, Jameson Vermillion. Multiple players had significantly more TPE than him at the time, and at this point he is the 2nd lowest TPE running back in all of Season 25, with only King Tutankhamun having less than his 311. Mills being as poor at earning as he has been was a significant part of the Otters needing to scramble so much last season to get a Running Backs, and as such it's an easy scapegoat, if nothing else, for why the Otters lost their playoff streak.
So what was this all about? Really, it was just a way for me to get a bit of money to make up for this season's equipment; I want to get back over 200 million.
The first time the Otters had trouble making the playoffs came in Season 4, having multiple game leads before falling out every single other year. 8 weeks into the season, the Otters were 4-4, while the Outlaws and Sabercats were 6-2. The Outlaws went off like a rocket in the second half of the season, riding an easy 2nd half of the schedule where their only road games were against the 2 worst teams in the league to storm to a 12-2 record The Sabercats, on the other hand, had a more difficult second half of the schedule. In week 9 SJS and OCO would face off in Orange County, and OCO would blow them out. After facing the Arizona buzzsaw in Week 10, San Jose and OCO tied on record, and a later loss to the Yellowknife Wraiths would prevent San Jose from jumping OCO despite beating them in the final week of the season, as OCO went on a 5 game winning streak from Week 9 to Week 13, beating up on the mostly hapless opponents they had in the second half.
The next time the Otters were even within a game of not making it into the playoffs was Season 20, and even then that was more of a formality, as although the Otters ended up in a 3 way tie for seeds 2 and 3 in the playoffs, they had basically clinched back in Week 11 once the Outlaws and Sabercats couldn't surpass 7 wins due to tiebreakers. Season 24 was a similar story, in that while they ended up in a tie on record with some spots outside the playoffs, they had clinched the week before due to tiebreakers no matter how the final week of the season ended up.
Of course, this entire article has been building up to Season 26. The Otters were supposed to be the strongest team in the league, or at least one of them. They ended up in a 5 way pileup for the playoffs. You go to Season 26 right now and you'll see that the Otters are apparently 4th in the division, which does not qualify. However, due to the unimaginably dumb tiebreaker rules they got in anyways. To be fair, they definitely shouldn't have needed dumb tiebreakers, but dumb results all over the place put them into a position where they would have been staying home if not for both Arizona beating NOLA and San Jose beating Austin on the final week of the season. Or maybe they only needed the latter one, I dunno, the tiebreaker was really stupid.
So we get to season 27, and the wheels suddenly fall off. Most notably, they lose their top Running Back in the same season that having low TPE running backs no longer is viable due to a sim change. They have to scramble and draft a running back, while simultaneously changing their 800 inactive TE2 to a Running Back so as to not completely suck. This only somewhat worked, as in Season 27 the Otters still had arguably the worst running game in the entire league, as they tied for the least yards per carry and the least touchdowns. Granted, that inactive TE was changed to a receiving back and he was good in the passing game, but as far as rushing went, OCO was the worst, even worse than a team who started two players with less than 1000 TPE combined. The Otters did have a top half passing attack, with the 5th most yards and touchdowns, although they weren't that efficient, with only the 8th best passer rating. It's also important to note that their defense was nowhere near as good as it was advertised heading into the season, as it gave up more points than the average team, and similarly had one of the lowest totals in terms of takeaways in the league. That being said, this led to the Otters going from tied 1st in the division to 6th of 7 teams, and to be frank, the future doesn't look amazing for them. They have a number of people entering regression, not all that much talent left stashed in the DSFL (Bean Beanman is nice, but besides him their only other player in the DSFL over the cap hasn't updated for 2 months) and on their ISFL team they only have 4 players with great potential Season 24 or younger on the roster, in Joseph Joestar, Goat Tank, Richard Leaking, and Ace Savage. The Otters have a year or two more of contention with the current core, before players like Vegeta, Scott, Ramza, Booker, and Evans regress out of top tier status. If they don't make it now, they could be gone from the playoffs for a decent chunk of time.
So what caused this?
In my opinion the playoff streak's end can be traced, at least partly, to a single draft round: Season 25 round 3. The Otters were flying high at this point, having drafted the 2nd highest TPE player in the draft (who would promptly retake the lead and has not given it up yet) near the end of the 1st round in Goat Tank, and they'd pick up the great Richard Leaking in the 2nd round after trading up.
Outside of the sim, there was, and indeed still is, absolutely nothing wrong with their 1st pick: Owen Holloway, Speculadora. The greatest GM of all time, an Otters legend, and one of the most legendary users this league has. That being said, purely looking from an on field product standpoint, he wasn't the highest TPE WR left in the draft, with both Zach Crossley and Alex Reed having more TPE at the time. Crossley still has more TPE than Holloway, currently having 675 to 659, so a decent lead, but Reed completely busted, never even surpassing 300 TPE. No, the real problem is how many players drafted later than him passed him up, by significant margins to boot. Mark Walker and Adam Spencer both were drafted later, as was then Tight End but almost immediately position swapped Cmon Skiiiup, and the lowest TPE of those 3, Spencer, is 710, beating Holloway by over 50 TPE. Walker outgained him by almost 100.
The second pick didn't make sense, not even then. That's right, this entire media bit was a way for me to dunk on the Otters for drafting Bronko Mills again. Mills at the time had about 160 TPE. There was 1 running back drafted before him, Jameson Vermillion. Multiple players had significantly more TPE than him at the time, and at this point he is the 2nd lowest TPE running back in all of Season 25, with only King Tutankhamun having less than his 311. Mills being as poor at earning as he has been was a significant part of the Otters needing to scramble so much last season to get a Running Backs, and as such it's an easy scapegoat, if nothing else, for why the Otters lost their playoff streak.
So what was this all about? Really, it was just a way for me to get a bit of money to make up for this season's equipment; I want to get back over 200 million.