03-16-2024, 12:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-19-2024, 10:00 AM by wetwilleh. Edited 1 time in total.)
If you've paid any attention to the league since S41, you've probably noticed that NOLA is currently in one of the worst stretches in league history. They have not been to the playoffs for 7 straight seasons (longest streak is 11), have not had even a 0.500 season in that period of time, tying a record of ineptitude not seen since the Hawks swapped to the new sim and immediately fell off a cliff (and just beating out their own first six seasons of existence). New Orleans has also not had a winning season since S37. That beats the Chicago Butchers from S18-25, is tied with the Arizona Outlaws from S7-S15, and is just beaten out by the Sabercats from S26-35. Over the last 6 seasons, NOLA has put together a win percentage less than 16% (to compare, this is a worse win percent than the Legion), only 15 total games won, and need to average 7 wins per season in order to avoid the title of "worst decade ever by win percent".
But finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of last season, New Orleans had the 2nd most TPE in the league. They are maybe the single best positioned team to avoid taking heavy hits from regression with only one significant player being hit in a way that should make them worse as a player next season, and should be near the top of everyone's predictions for Playoff Participant, Conference Champion, or maybe even Ultimus Participant. Their QB will be near, although not at, his peak, they'll have a great pair of Defensive Linemen and Cornerbacks, and will also boast a good pair of WRs and Linebackers. New Orleans should go almost directly from a bottom feeder last season to one of the biggest contenders in the league this season.
There's only two problems for the Second Line right now, and the more pressing one isn't even of their own making. What might prevent the Second Line's half decade long tank from working out is not their own players, it's their Conference. The ASFC was already top heavy last season, and promises to be even more lopsided this season. New York is a team who had a losing record last season and what I believe was the single oldest roster in the league; they're getting hit hard by regression to pretty much their entire team. Their QB and RB are going through 2nd regression and their DT2 is going through their first, to say nothing of the gigantic roster of corpses and near corpses at WR and LB. They're an easy choice for the worst team in the conference, or rather they would be, if not for HON deciding to pull a repeat of S38 and pulling out the T-34s, the Shermans, and the Churchills out of WWII storage to pilot the 14 total rostered HON players as of typing to maybe their 2nd winless season in less than a decade. On the other side, the Second Line will have some stiff competition for a high playoff spot. First off, there's Orange County. In terms of sheer TPE loss, OCO may lead the pack, with a total of 9 players undergoing regression, almost all of them with high TPE. Still, over half of that is much more manageable 1st regression, most of the talent has the ability to be great or elite players even after this current bout with regression, and OCO is starting from an over 3000 TPE lead on anyone else in the league and over 100 average TPE on NOLA.
Meanwhile, Arizona remains Arizona. Though they have a significant amount of players experiencing serious hits, including 6 really important players from last season's championship team undergoing 2nd regression or even later, they should still be competent. They'll have one of the best QBs in the league along with one of the best WRs, a good WR2, a pretty good secondary, a still more than competent Oline, and should receive at least some benefit from players with a lot of experience to buoy up what will be a somewhat lacking TPE total compared to New Orleans. Would you really bet on Arizona missing the playoffs for the 2nd time since S26 if you weren't either an Arizona GM hedging their bets, or a salty user on one of the other 13 franchises praying for their downfall?
Besides Arizona and Orange County, San Jose is a team that should only be getting better from a season in which they started out as one of the hottest teams in the league before failing to make the playoffs down the stretch. In a vacuum they should have good odds on making the playoffs at the very least, although if there was a single team in league history on which you'd make a killing betting that they wouldn't make the playoffs, it'd be the Sabercats.
With all that said, New Orleans should be in the running for the 1st seed in the conference, if not the 1st seed overall. But that only leads into the 2nd issue for NOLA. They've pretty cleanly guaranteed themselves a shorter shelf life. After a trade made last season, along with a draft day trade, New Orleans is restricted to a total of 3 picks in the first 3 rounds of the S47 and S48 draft classes. The trade for Lt. Hudz in particular was a first rounder in the upcoming draft for a player who is retiring at the end of the season, right as he otherwise would be reaching the peak of his TPE. The other player in the trade, Bayley, should be elite for two more seasons and good for a couple more, but the Hudz part of the trade was always what raised eyebrows. New Orleans is a team who should be outstanding over the next 3 seasons or so, pulling their stretch of time where they've been one of the worst teams in league history away from the absolute bottom of the barrel. But their window is very defined. The passage of time shall take its toll. And in a few seasons, when the players from S41-S43 that make up the core of NOLA have regressed or retired, New Orleans might once again be back in the doldrums.
Of course, it could all be worth it. Over the past 6 seasons, New Orleans has attempted a strategy of burning the candle at both ends, making moves that hurt their future and their past to bolster their present. Some of them may work out, some of them have already worked out. Some of them were complete flops. But all have led to this moment, where New Orleans for the first time in maybe 25 seasons of play should enter the season thinking "Yes. We are strong, Ultimus Contenders. We should have a good shot at breaking the negative streaks we are currently suffering from." New Orleans is the unfortunate bearer of the titles "3rd longest current Ultimus Drought and 2nd longest current Ultimus Appearance Drought", and this is a team that is more than capable of breaking those droughts simultaneously. But S46 HON should still be fresh in everyone's memory; the team projected to be 1st in the conference, if not first in the league, that instead went 1-5 and had to throw in the towel a year early. Even once you get to the playoffs, 2 of the best 3 teams in the league went one and done last season, both by sim results and by roster construction. The sim and its ability to spit out results counter to both what the players on the field show should be happening and counter to itself should be unquestioned by now, especially after the set of playoffs we just had.
If New Orleans isn't able to get over the hump in the next few seasons, they probably won't be the best team ever who didn't go all the way. I (with requisite bias) would say that would be the Cortez, Raimon, and Nakamura Outlaws. But they would be one of the best. They would rightfully feel cheated and disappointed. And unlike, for example, those Outlaws, or the Yellowknife Bills, it doesn't seem likely that NOLA would be able to almost immediately convert into another ring and stretch of dominance. New Orleans is at one of the best and worst spots to be in this league, simultaneously: the team with the brightest present. And, if New Orleans is able to convert that into a ring or an Ultimus appearance, it will be the biggest relief a team has felt since the S41 Crash eked out an Ultimus win for the first time in over 30 seasons.
Yet, they are also the team who would feel by far the most hurt from not winning a championship in the next 3-4 seasons. That is the true fear that lurks in the mind of everyone on NOLA, the worry that made them throw away a 3rd next season for a player who appears to have gone inactive. It's the worry that had them trade a 1st rounder next season for a 1.5 season rental, and really a 1 season if you consider that the Second Line were already 0-6 at the time of the trade. It's the root of the anger that keeps Mobi talking about how sim screwed the Second Line have been. What if our purposeful ineptitude wasn't worth it? What if we break the record for worst decade in ISFL history Let'splay and Lemonoppy have been ominously hanging over us for the past few seasons? I think, moreso than any team since maybe the S23 or S21 Wraiths, NOLA needs a championship immediately. The lack of success, the sheer ineptitude, the trio of 1 win seasons in a row, combined with the strength of the team now makes for a situation where the Second Line must hope that they look like the HON of the mid 30s, as opposed to the COL of the mid 10s or the Wraiths of the late 10s. They must win. They'd love multiple. But they need something to take the cork off the bottle, to make all the pain and misery they've gone through as a team worth it, worth SOMETHING.
I can't say I'm rooting either way, because one way or another, this will make for a great story.
But finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of last season, New Orleans had the 2nd most TPE in the league. They are maybe the single best positioned team to avoid taking heavy hits from regression with only one significant player being hit in a way that should make them worse as a player next season, and should be near the top of everyone's predictions for Playoff Participant, Conference Champion, or maybe even Ultimus Participant. Their QB will be near, although not at, his peak, they'll have a great pair of Defensive Linemen and Cornerbacks, and will also boast a good pair of WRs and Linebackers. New Orleans should go almost directly from a bottom feeder last season to one of the biggest contenders in the league this season.
There's only two problems for the Second Line right now, and the more pressing one isn't even of their own making. What might prevent the Second Line's half decade long tank from working out is not their own players, it's their Conference. The ASFC was already top heavy last season, and promises to be even more lopsided this season. New York is a team who had a losing record last season and what I believe was the single oldest roster in the league; they're getting hit hard by regression to pretty much their entire team. Their QB and RB are going through 2nd regression and their DT2 is going through their first, to say nothing of the gigantic roster of corpses and near corpses at WR and LB. They're an easy choice for the worst team in the conference, or rather they would be, if not for HON deciding to pull a repeat of S38 and pulling out the T-34s, the Shermans, and the Churchills out of WWII storage to pilot the 14 total rostered HON players as of typing to maybe their 2nd winless season in less than a decade. On the other side, the Second Line will have some stiff competition for a high playoff spot. First off, there's Orange County. In terms of sheer TPE loss, OCO may lead the pack, with a total of 9 players undergoing regression, almost all of them with high TPE. Still, over half of that is much more manageable 1st regression, most of the talent has the ability to be great or elite players even after this current bout with regression, and OCO is starting from an over 3000 TPE lead on anyone else in the league and over 100 average TPE on NOLA.
Meanwhile, Arizona remains Arizona. Though they have a significant amount of players experiencing serious hits, including 6 really important players from last season's championship team undergoing 2nd regression or even later, they should still be competent. They'll have one of the best QBs in the league along with one of the best WRs, a good WR2, a pretty good secondary, a still more than competent Oline, and should receive at least some benefit from players with a lot of experience to buoy up what will be a somewhat lacking TPE total compared to New Orleans. Would you really bet on Arizona missing the playoffs for the 2nd time since S26 if you weren't either an Arizona GM hedging their bets, or a salty user on one of the other 13 franchises praying for their downfall?
Besides Arizona and Orange County, San Jose is a team that should only be getting better from a season in which they started out as one of the hottest teams in the league before failing to make the playoffs down the stretch. In a vacuum they should have good odds on making the playoffs at the very least, although if there was a single team in league history on which you'd make a killing betting that they wouldn't make the playoffs, it'd be the Sabercats.
With all that said, New Orleans should be in the running for the 1st seed in the conference, if not the 1st seed overall. But that only leads into the 2nd issue for NOLA. They've pretty cleanly guaranteed themselves a shorter shelf life. After a trade made last season, along with a draft day trade, New Orleans is restricted to a total of 3 picks in the first 3 rounds of the S47 and S48 draft classes. The trade for Lt. Hudz in particular was a first rounder in the upcoming draft for a player who is retiring at the end of the season, right as he otherwise would be reaching the peak of his TPE. The other player in the trade, Bayley, should be elite for two more seasons and good for a couple more, but the Hudz part of the trade was always what raised eyebrows. New Orleans is a team who should be outstanding over the next 3 seasons or so, pulling their stretch of time where they've been one of the worst teams in league history away from the absolute bottom of the barrel. But their window is very defined. The passage of time shall take its toll. And in a few seasons, when the players from S41-S43 that make up the core of NOLA have regressed or retired, New Orleans might once again be back in the doldrums.
Of course, it could all be worth it. Over the past 6 seasons, New Orleans has attempted a strategy of burning the candle at both ends, making moves that hurt their future and their past to bolster their present. Some of them may work out, some of them have already worked out. Some of them were complete flops. But all have led to this moment, where New Orleans for the first time in maybe 25 seasons of play should enter the season thinking "Yes. We are strong, Ultimus Contenders. We should have a good shot at breaking the negative streaks we are currently suffering from." New Orleans is the unfortunate bearer of the titles "3rd longest current Ultimus Drought and 2nd longest current Ultimus Appearance Drought", and this is a team that is more than capable of breaking those droughts simultaneously. But S46 HON should still be fresh in everyone's memory; the team projected to be 1st in the conference, if not first in the league, that instead went 1-5 and had to throw in the towel a year early. Even once you get to the playoffs, 2 of the best 3 teams in the league went one and done last season, both by sim results and by roster construction. The sim and its ability to spit out results counter to both what the players on the field show should be happening and counter to itself should be unquestioned by now, especially after the set of playoffs we just had.
If New Orleans isn't able to get over the hump in the next few seasons, they probably won't be the best team ever who didn't go all the way. I (with requisite bias) would say that would be the Cortez, Raimon, and Nakamura Outlaws. But they would be one of the best. They would rightfully feel cheated and disappointed. And unlike, for example, those Outlaws, or the Yellowknife Bills, it doesn't seem likely that NOLA would be able to almost immediately convert into another ring and stretch of dominance. New Orleans is at one of the best and worst spots to be in this league, simultaneously: the team with the brightest present. And, if New Orleans is able to convert that into a ring or an Ultimus appearance, it will be the biggest relief a team has felt since the S41 Crash eked out an Ultimus win for the first time in over 30 seasons.
Yet, they are also the team who would feel by far the most hurt from not winning a championship in the next 3-4 seasons. That is the true fear that lurks in the mind of everyone on NOLA, the worry that made them throw away a 3rd next season for a player who appears to have gone inactive. It's the worry that had them trade a 1st rounder next season for a 1.5 season rental, and really a 1 season if you consider that the Second Line were already 0-6 at the time of the trade. It's the root of the anger that keeps Mobi talking about how sim screwed the Second Line have been. What if our purposeful ineptitude wasn't worth it? What if we break the record for worst decade in ISFL history Let'splay and Lemonoppy have been ominously hanging over us for the past few seasons? I think, moreso than any team since maybe the S23 or S21 Wraiths, NOLA needs a championship immediately. The lack of success, the sheer ineptitude, the trio of 1 win seasons in a row, combined with the strength of the team now makes for a situation where the Second Line must hope that they look like the HON of the mid 30s, as opposed to the COL of the mid 10s or the Wraiths of the late 10s. They must win. They'd love multiple. But they need something to take the cork off the bottle, to make all the pain and misery they've gone through as a team worth it, worth SOMETHING.
I can't say I'm rooting either way, because one way or another, this will make for a great story.