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*Transparency on Chicago - Warner - 03-29-2020

(03-29-2020, 08:15 AM)caltroit_red_flames Wrote:Butchers bad
straight facts

*Transparency on Chicago - .Laser - 03-29-2020

I have been watching the anti-Chicago bias grow more and more over the past couple seasons, every since Toasty made that disastrous trade with Austin. He was doing what he thought was best for the team and he cannot be faulted for that. However, that one trade put a bad stigma on the rest of Chicago's trades. When we traded up for 1oa last year, it was a mutually beneficial deal and one could even say that Chicago came out on top of it We ended up with the top player in the class and a simmer in training, along with 5 games of a 200 TPE DT. They ended up with Osiris Firestrom-Fjord, Thorian Skarsgard, who is a max-earning DT who, while in regression, is an invaluable member of a war room and does wonders for the activity level of a locker room that has barely 5 active members by all accounts, for roughly 4 seasons based on his TPE at the time of the trade. They also ended up with Leighton Lee out of the deal, who they traded our second they acquired, and $2m in cap space. So arguably, they gained an extra 3 seasons of a DT and swapped an inactive for a war room member. They got a decently-high TPE LB. They got a top-earning TE. Who can argue against that trade?

The bias, anger, ridicule, and laughing against and at Chicago needs to stop. Now. We, as a community, have worn down on the GMs of this team to the point that they are leaving the league rather than continue to try to turn the team around. Steel had very good ideas for the team and was trying to maximize on the window that he had available to him because he wanted the team to try to compete while they had the chance. He was well on his way to making it happen too. If you look at the roster Chicago had two or three seasons ago versus the roster they have now, you can see that there has been an insane amount of progress made.

If you shit talk a team, and shit talk a team, and shit talk a team, guess what's going to happen? They're going to take it to heart. We, as a league, have turned Chicago into what it as perceived today. Some of you deliberately make fun of Chicago every chance you get. Some of you, like myself, don't defend them enough. There are some of you out there, many of them GMs or people who should be, that realize that Chicago is not as bad off as people have been conditioned to believe. It's just a crowd mentality shouting the same thing over and over and over until it is widely believed.

If you're reading this, stop. Stop talking shit about Chicago. Stop telling their GMs that they're terrible for making the trades that they do. Stop making fun of them. Stop throwing them under the bus and making them the runt of the league. Stop writing articles about what they need to do to fix the team, because they damn sure don't want or need your (largely) uneducated input on what a team should be doing. And trust me, it is uneducated. I have been GM for nearly 4 full seasons now and I am still learning more each and every week.

If you're reading this, Start. Start being understanding that a turnaround from a floundering team cannot happen in one season. It takes 4, 5, 6, maybe even 7 seasons to completely turn around a team. Start being kinder to the people of Chicago and understand that the only reason that they are given a bad rap is because you are putting that bad rap on them. Start respecting the people of Chicago for putting up with the bullshit that you as a community have been giving them for three. Damn. Seasons.

The NSFL, despite the acronym, is meant to be a place of community and a place where people can trust each other without having to worry about running into more problems. This is, for a lot of people, a place where they can go to escape and get away from the real world and all the shit that happens. Especially right now. People are scared, worried, concerned about everything going on. Personally, I work an "essential" job and at am very high risk of getting sick. It scares the piss out of me. I hide it because this is a place where I come to relax, have fun, distract myself from life. For the love of God, stop being condescending to Chicago and start being supportive of each other. Spread love, not hate.

If I see you talking down on anyone, Chicago or not, I will call you out on it. This is your warning.

*Transparency on Chicago - Memento Mori - 03-29-2020

Chicago being revived would be good for the entire league - I’m rooting for you (and the rest of the guys in Chicago who’ve stepped up, and anyone else who comes in to help) to turn things around.

*Transparency on Chicago - CDub2 - 03-29-2020

@Laser great post. Took the words outta my mouth. Also partly the reason I’ve been on a warpath lately.

Every so often there’s a post on this site about how the NSFL and it’s users have hurt or helped someone’s mental health. They’re very powerful and moving. And then we get a post from Bex and HO about the importance of being nice to each other.

Here we are 1 week later where a very passionate user has come under so much duress from league users and from communication with HO that he had to step away from the league permanently because his mental health was being affected.

Write your media, get your money, criticize the team, I don’t really care. I don’t think anyone should be free from criticism. Try to make it constructive though and realize that there are always two sides, no matter what you hear in NSFL genchat. Your words criticizing someone for trying something they thought was right can do damage.

*Transparency on Chicago - Murtsi - 03-29-2020

@Laser

I agree with everything you are saying. I haven’t been vocal enough myself but will stand up and defend Chicago because no team, players or users deserve that much constant shit on them. You people know who you are and I hope you take a good look in the mirror and either change your attitude or shut up, because the league doesn’t need stuff like that or those types of attitudes.

*Transparency on Chicago - Bayley - 03-29-2020

My Butchers article was in no way criticizing the team. It's a series I started way back in Season 3 and people seemed to love it. I want the Butchers to succeed, and as much as I joke of a Tottenham rebrand (though it would be awesome), I do want Chicago to succeed as it's a great sports town and a great place for the city.

The first step is to find who buys into the Butchers mentality. It doesnt matter how much TPE they are, it only matters about the culture that you need to build. You need to feel like a team and active to get better. That's where it needs to start.

I feel bad for the GMs that felt criticized and pushed out. It sucks because we are for fun here. Great post @Laser as well.

Everyone wants to see Chicago and every team for that matter, do well. It doesnt make sense to hate a team or wish a team bad times. We're all here for friendly competition, fun, and honestly to screw off from whatever our real lives have. Our struggles, our problems, the shit that is going on in real life right now, it can be hard. This place should be a bit of an escape, a fun time to live in a different world.

Stay kind to one another and stay positive. It may not impact you, but it could impact someone else.

*Transparency on Chicago - Opera_Phantom - 03-29-2020

The "funny" thing about this is that Chicago is not even the team with the worst record this season.

The problem here is that it became a trend to shit on the Butchers for some reason. I honestly hope they find their way.

It's sad to see rookies with like a week on the game saying on their scouting messages. "i'd play for anyone on the league except the Butchers lulz". This means general discord or team LRs are talking shit about the Butchers in a way that drives people away from their team. So, every Chicago GM is trying to turn things around while having people dumping stuff on the rookies that drives them away.


I honestly hope Chicago turns this around, as Butchers. And i can honestly say that when i recreate i'll have no problem if i get drafted by them.

*Transparency on Chicago - Memento Mori - 03-29-2020

Going to rock the boat a bit here. This should be obvious, but just to clarify: personally attacking someone in a sim league is not okay and I'm not here to defend that. Strap yourselves in, because this turned out a lot longer than I expected.

A lot of the criticism of Chicago has come from S22 rookies and been in good faith. I don't claim to speak for them, but seriously, read the posts. They've been perfectly respectful. The criticism was constructive.

As an NSFL GM, you have a duty to the whole league and its players, not just the ones on your team. To my understanding, that's part of why HO picks who GMs are. Part of the job of an NSFL GM is to make your team attractive to new players, and by extension make the league attractive to new players. Every S22 rookie was a potential future Chicago Butchers player.

Here's what S22 rookies have seen from their potential new team and GM:

A user posts to the forum saying he's just been cut by Chicago without any explanation from the team - "no messages, no anything". Steel shows up in the thread and publicly berates him. Doesn't apologise for cutting him with no explanation, doesn't accept any responsibility for the lack of communication. Speaking personally, as a S22 rookie, this was the first time I had ever seen Chicago's GM post. He comes across extremely combative and argumentative, and shows that the Chicago management has communication problems.

Chicago makes a trade with Philadelphia, where they trade away their top two picks in the best draft class ever for a S15 player who's about to regress and a 308 TPE DL who hasn't updated his player since November. This was the second time I had seen Chicago's GM post.

The trade was met with near-universal derision. Sure, some of the responses in discord were meme-y, but people immediately assess the trade according to what Chicago traded away and what they received in return. I've gone back to that day in NSFL general and screenshotted what I believe to be a representative group of messages between users discussing the trade. It wasn't just "lolol butchers suk".

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People are encouraged to talk about the league in a constructive manner. You get money for doing so in the media section. We've had plenty of other people react to trades on discord or write articles about trades. All the ones I have seen have been generally well-received. In my opinion, steel is the one who comes across hostile in discord. This is also the first time I've seen or interacted with steel on discord.

Again, if you're a S22 rookie like me, your exposure to Chicago and their GM so far has entirely consisted of witnessing steel arguing with people.

Following this, several people write articles about the trade. They are constructive. The analysis is essentially 'Chicago is 4th in their division, with only an outside chance of making the playoffs. They have made their team significantly worse in the coming seasons (by trading away top picks) in order to slightly increase their chance of making the playoffs this season. Given the relative strength of teams like NOLA, OCO, Austin, Baltimore compared to Chicago, their chances of winning an Ultimus on the back of these moves are really low. This trade seems to sacrifice a lot in the long term for a small amount in the short term'.

This is fair, and constructive. It's not a personal attack.

Let's jump forward in the timeline for a moment. Chicago is currently fourth in the division. Colorado has the tiebreaker over Chicago, so the only way Chicago can make the playoffs is if they win at OCO and then beat NOLA at home, while Yellowknife loses at Austin and at Arizona. Chicago is very unlikely to make the playoffs, and if they do then they will be expected to lose in the first round. One season is obviously a small sample size and maybe there's a universe where things played out differently, but exactly what these constructive, respectful articles suggested would happen has happened.

Back to the story. The next thing that happens, is that WALDO makes a post demanding his trade or release from Chicago. He says that the main reason he wants to leave the team is the refusal of the GM to accept criticism when they do controversial things. Steel shows up in the thread to say that the reason he's not accepting any criticism of the trade is because it's a good trade.

Later that day, steel shows up in general again. This time, he's armed with screenshots showing that the S15 player they traded for is active and updating, and says "inactive" after each screenshot - as you can see from the messages either side, everyone was talking about other things. steel came back with the intention of trying to start another argument.

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No one had said that this guy wasn't active. It was the 308 TPE DL that hadn't updated since November that people were saying was inactive.

The fact that he's strawmanned the criticism of the trade by claiming people had been saying the S15 RB was inactive (the guy described as "not too bad" in the initial response) successfully baits people into trying to explain, again, why they think the trade is a bad one. steel responds with this:

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Two days later, Valor says that he's stepping down as Chicago GM and announces he'd like to GM an expansion team. Valor isn't stepping down because he doesn't want to GM a team, because he's applying for a different GM position. He just doesn't want to GM Chicago. Because he can't work with steel. This makes Valor the second person in a short space of time to ask to leave their team because of their GM. Only two people have done this while I've been a part of the league. Both Chicago players, and both because of steel.

So there we have it. That was the introduction that myself and all the other S22 rookies had to Chicago and their former GM. steel failed to communicate with his players, publicly argued with his players, tried to start arguments with everyone else in the league on discord, resorted to personal attacks when people pointed out he was wrong, and refused to accept criticism from anyone, including constructive criticism from people who'd expressed an interest in becoming co-GM to help fix the team.

This is why the S22 rookies didn't want to play for Chicago. Not because of memes, but because all we'd ever seen the Chicago GM do was argue with people, including his own players, and call people morons. Who in their right mind would want to play for that GM and that team?

To be clear: I don't condone any personal attacks on steel. I wish him well, and if he never returns to the league I hope he's happier for it. If he does return to the league, I hope everyone is respectful towards him and that the league returns to being something he enjoys and something that makes him happy. But his actions as Chicago GM were harming the league. There are teams with worse rosters than Chicago, sure. But all of those teams have younger players, more young players and more picks to fix the team with. Chicago will get worse before it gets better, because of the way the team has been managed. Current and former GMs have posited that rebuilding Chicago could take six seasons. For the most part, people weren't criticising Chicago for the sake of it. They were doing it out of concern for the resulting effect on league health of having a team as badly run as Chicago.

Creating a team that looks set to be bad for six(?) seasons with a GM that is extremely argumentative and hostile towards people is bad for the league. No rookie in their right mind would want to go there, that's why so many rookies expressed their intention to play for any team other than Chicago. The circumstances that led to steel quitting are unfortunate and if any of my own contributions negatively affected steel then I'm truly sorry, but I sincerely believe that the league will be better off now that he's no longer Chicago GM.

*Transparency on Chicago - Billybolo53 - 03-29-2020

@Jiggly_333

I can only speak for myself, but as a rookie, the Chicago Saga has been one of the more interesting storylines to follow since I've joined the league. The fascination, focus on Chicago, and subsequent memeing was a product of having a bunch of new faces that don't have a long history in the league to draw from. This was the first major event outside of the draft that most of us got to follow from the start. (Edit:Mori's overview is a great recap of what Chicago looked from an outside eye ^)

I think your post has done something that I have not seen since I became apart of the league, someone being excited about being in Chicago and excited about their future. With the previous regime, the defensiveness and bitterness made it hard for a lot of the rookies to see themselves playing there. I hope you get to be apart of what is next for Chicago. First and Formost it needs someone who is passionate about the franchise. You have my full support. Best of luck to you.

*Transparency on Chicago - Frick_Nasty - 03-29-2020

If telling someone to follow the template of dc setup and their stuff isn't in order is bullying. You need some thicker skin. No gm in there was bullying him. We were just talking to him saying no one else is setting their DC incorrectly. @Jiggly_333 please before you try to paint a picture get the full side if the story.