*Boyd Givens hanging up the suit

Asked Madden

Welp, the time has come folks. The birddogs are out of contention and the draft process is upon us.
Three seasons have passed since I took on the role of birddog GM which means the inevitable is happening. In a shock to no-one I am carrying on the Dallas tradition and I am stepping down as GM of the Dallas Birddogs. But this isn't the end for GM avatar Boyd Givens, no siree. He has recently acquired a new job as professional TEEP stealer and will be regressing people harder than they've ever been regressed before with a little help from @Mooty99. So be aware, once your introductory seasons have wained and you are hitting your peak, Boyd will be around the corner waiting to kneecap you and steal some of your hard worked for investments.

Back to the task at hand, GMing the birddogs has given me some exceedingly high highs, and some mildly low but not that low lows. It has taught me to hate Google forms, to love my coworkers & to adore this community (or the vast majority of it).

When @ZootTX first asked me to come in as his co-gm I was equal parts ecstatic and trepidatious. This is something I had wanted to do since I joined the league but I felt I may not be able to give it as much attention as the job requires. So like all good decisions I thought, fuck it, why not. And boy am I glad I did, Zoot essentially spoon fed me everything I needed to know and was as good a mentor as I couldve asked for (and a much better mentor than I ever was to Rev, sorry buddy). Knowing I didn't have the sim Zoot took control of that side of things, and I tried to take control of anything else I could which apparently is quite a lot in the off season with all the aforementioned Google forms. Now we had an incredibly successful regular season all thanks to some wonderful players, Zoots fantastic tactics & a dash of some fortunate sim luck. Unfortunately we went out in the playoffs divisional round after missing the go ahead field goal from 40ish yards. A mighty comedown and I still very much begrudge Kotasa and the Tijuana guys for that!

With Zoot retiring at the end of my first season there was only one person I wanted to take that spot from day 1, and he left me sweating for a bit before agreeing by boy oh boy am I glad he said yes. @ReverendOReily has been the most incredible CO-GM a man could ask for. I'd bought the sim on the run up to the season so I could split time running strats for the team. Unfortunately the sim runs about as well on my laptop as Crysis 2 would on a Super Nintendo. Did Rev care? Did he fuck. This man barely batted an eyelash and took over tactics straight from the minute he was elevated. Not only did he take over the simming, he mastered it as well. Whilst we did have a large amount of send downs (as is the cyclical nature of the DSFL) Rev still had to put it together on the day. And that's what he did week in week out sitting us at the top of the conference to take on Norfolk in the divisional rounds. After scraping past them he managed to get us to the promised land. A ring for the Birddogs only the second in our short history following in the footsteps of @Kyamprac & @r0tzbua. Whilst this was one of the highest highs, it was compounded by getting to share the GMotY award with the more deserving Norfolk pairing of @negs and @g2019 which felt awesome.

Our final season together hasn't been one to write home about, thanks to a lot of key callups and a rather small class we weren't able to re-tool as much as we'd like leaving us to not remain as competitive as we'd hoped. It has still been a fun season with a lot of very fun people so hopefully we'll be able to re-tool this draft and get back to winning ways.

I'm going to leave you with a small Q&A section here as I don't want to wax lyrical and if I was to thank everyone I want to, Joe would be paying me out ludicrous sums of money.

Do you feel you have done a good job?
I feel like I have nailed some bits but completely flubbed others. I would say I've been an adequate GM but not further than that. I've not kept up with the game balls, I've not done a single round of sim testing and I've completely whiffed on a number of prospects over the seasons.

What would you do differently if you were to start over?
I would have been a bit more willing to get up in people's DMs. I don't mean in an aggressive way, just giving a friendly nudge here and there to remind them to do preds etc. The few times I did this worked wonders but I didn't want to feel like a burden and backed out a lot.

Are there any words you'd like to share with wannabe DSFL GMs?
In the words of Sam wise Gamgee, share the load. Having a great Co increases your enjoyment exponentially. I was fortunate to have 2 great Co's and it is definitely the main reason I enjoyed it.
Expect it to be hard work. GMing is tiring. Especially in the DSFL. You are developing the next age of players, it takes a lot of energy to keep them engaged.
If you arent already in one, get in a war room. Scouting & tactics are imperative to GMing so a bit of experience doing that is key.

Would you be interested in GMing at the ISFL level?
Nope, nuh-uh, nooooo , nah, hell naw. Fortunately I've got eternal @ckroyal92 & @RussDrivesTheBus at the head of my team hopefully for a very long time yet.

Thanks to absolutely every single one of the other DSFL GMs I've come up against past and present. I'd heard GM chat could get nasty but I never saw any of that. @negs you've done a fantastic job in turning around Norfolk and shout out to @Amadan & @firstfray who look to have the drive to do the same In Kansas City.

You'll be wandering who will be taking over from me, we're still in heated discussions after getting a large number of interested parties so all will. E revealed soon but in the mean time I'll be sticking Round to help out in the interim (so no kicking me from GM chat yet please).

What was the point in this media you ask? I have no idea, I just wanted to type it out as closure on a chapter of my ISFL career.
It's been a pleasure ladies and gents. And I will now bid you adieu, now someone please give me that sweet purple shadow dog role in Dallas.