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*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - nickyvmlp - 04-07-2020

Leading a team is hard. Leading a good team is probably even harder. How does a team become good? I don’t know, but I wanna try it someday, just let me put together a resume for the next GM opening. And to show I’d be ready to turn a team from trash to tits, I’m going to look back at every season that’s happened, track their wins, and try to find out what it takes to get a team over the hump. Chicago GMs, take notes.

Baltimore Hawks

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(Quick side note, line graph makers are hard to make the way I was looking for, so I had to make my own, do you like it?)

We’re starting with the Team #1 on the sim-football results page, the Baltimore Hawks. Now, right away, we’ve got a lot of action in the middle of the graph. Between Seasons 8 and 16, the Hawks were just all over the place, weren’t they? But the biggest improvement, by a wide margin, is the one they did from Season 13 to 14, where they went from a franchise-low four wins to 11 in one season, and even improved to 12 the year after and nabbing the Ultimus in the process.

So what changed from Season 13 to Season 15? To find out, I went to Baltimore’s team roster pages to see what changed. The first thing that leaped out at me? Signing Marquise Brown before Season 14. That was his fifth season as a pro, he was in his prime, and fresh off an MVP season, and as someone who wrote extensively about Marquise Brown’s time in Baltimore, I can assure you, he was really good there. So let’s call that tip #1.

Tip #1: Complete your offense.

In Season 13, Baltimore’s passing game was on point, Vinny Valentine was leading the league in receiving yards, and Declan Harp wasn’t far behind, plus they had a young Errol Maddox hanging around. And Childish Gambino was exciting, if maybe for the wrong reasons. However, their running game was spicy garbage, and as a result, their offense was just a middle-of-the-pack unit. In Brown’s first season with the team, their points per game jumped from 23 to 32, and they became the best offense in the league overnight. Throw in Errol Maddox, who became an elite receiver himself by Season 15, and complementary receivers in Viggo Squanch and Howard Miller, and that is a unit and a half you can’t reasonably defend.

Meanwhile, on defense, they went from a spotty unit to a complete one with all levels running at full steam. In S13, their secondary was Achilles Hondo, Darren Morris, and a bunch of rookies and no-names, while their front seven had Kwame Mbanefo and Austin Roenick, but following that, a lot of prospects who weren’t there yet. Those four contributed to an unremarkable unit that was like the offense, good not great. In Season 14, they added eventual championship pieces like Axel Hornbacher, Arbin Asipi III, Steven Oats, and Blackford Oakes, while in Season 15, they drafted Walt Green and Fatih Terim, and just like that, like the offense, they became one of the best units in the league.

Tip #2: Good inactives will go far

I know that’s a bit taboo to say, but hear me out. According to their roster page, those four S14 free agent signings (Axel, Arbin, Oats, and Oakes) were, respectively 92, 84, 89, and 87 overall. That’s all good, but it’s not amazing, and to be honest, only one of them ever got better (Hornbacher). As long as you don’t build your whole team around them, and just use them to patch holes, you’ll be in good shape.

Yellowknife Wraiths

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Yellowknife has been consistently above average for most of their tenure, so naturally, their best improvement saw them go from average to one of the best teams ever. In Season 6, they won seven games (and tied once, so let’s call it 7.5). In Season 7, they won 13 games, and the following year, they won an Ultimus. So, let’s see what changed.

First big change: Eric Kennedy moved from RB to WR. The reason for that was because the Wraiths had two backs ready for call-up. So Kennedy moved to receiver, where he could be more useful. Kennedy would go on to be one of the best receivers of his era, and would go later on to be a Hall of Fame candidate.

Tip #3: Don’t be afraid to change positions.

Every player can change positions once in their career. I’ve changed once when my team needed me, and you can too. Versatility and willingness to help your team will earn you major points and could help take your team over the hump. This was also the case for one of their major free-agent signings of the time, Boss Tweed. He was one of the league’s best running backs, but upon going to Yellowknife in Season 7, he switched to linebacker, and became great at that too. This is the major pro of Simulation Football, you can be whatever your heart desires.

Colorado Yeti

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Colorado’s graph looks like you took a bar that went along the 8-line and dropped a bunch of bowling balls across it, and one car battery on Seasons 6 and 7. It’s not easy being a Colorado fan, but this does give us some insight on how to take a truly terrible team, like Colorado was in Season 7, and start the road to recovery. In this case, six wins in Season 8.

Now, when you’re this bad, you’re not an attractive free-agent destination, except to those players who want a challenge, you have to nail what you can control, specifically the draft. Colorado famously had more than half of the first round in the S7 Draft, and not only missed on more than half of them, every other pick in that round turned into a star. But still…

Tip #4: Develop your rookies

When all of your best players are rookies, you’re going to be bad. And for the Yeti, that meant riding out a terrible Season 7, and some of their players lost confidence. Desta Danger and Ryan Lefevre went IA, and didn’t improve from then on. Mark Grau would get a call-up a year later and was sporadic with his updates. But Ryan Applehort rose from an 83 to a 90, and Howard Miller jumped from 81 to 86.

Tip #5: Hold onto whatever stars you have

Moving over to the defense, we can find some actually good players hiding among this roster. Dan Miller, Johnathon Saint, Haruki Ishigawa, Eli Kamaka, Antonio Sandoval. Their front seven was loaded, especially considering how bad everyone else around them was. Now, I have no way of looking up the contract history of each of these players (do I?), but I’m sure these dudes were paid. Maybe even overpaid in order to make sure the Yeti could hold onto whatever star power they had.

Arizona Outlaws

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Arizona started out really strong, won the first three league titles, and it was all downhill from there. Then they popped back up to relevance with another Ultimus in Season 16 and two more strong seasons, and now they’re back in the dumps. But there’s a really good lesson here too.

Tip #6: Be bad at the right time

Arizona’s worst season was a ghastly Season 14 that saw them go 2-12. Then after that came the S15 Draft which let them fix a lot of their problems, and the year after that, boom, title. Now in Season 21, they once again bottomed out with a 3-10 record right as the biggest draft class ever arrives, and oh by the way, they have the most picks as well. If it weren’t for those two expansion teams taking the first two picks, then Arizona’s plans would be flawless. The only other thing I can really note on this is kind of a no-brainer.

Tip #7: Draft for biggest need

In most NSFL drafts, you’ll only have a round or two, if that, to find the players you’ll need. So as long as the players are active, you need to fix your biggest holes. Arizona had a lot of holes to patch and they did so really well. They needed a receiver, and took Brock Landers, who was really good for like two years. They needed a DL, Ricardo Morris in the late first was also a really good piece for a few years. Lucas Knight, Lamont McKinnie, Jammerson Irving, all great pieces that were dire positions of need for them in the draft.

Orange County Otters

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“I have this idea for a franchise where we’ll go the first twenty-one seasons of our existence where .500 is our absolute floor”, said some smart guy who founded the Otters. The Otters are probably the safest team to predict in the league, because they’re almost always good for 8-10 wins every season, and to at least make the conference title. Their biggest jumps have happened on three separate occasions, when they went from seven wins to ten. The only major takeaway I have from the Otters is…

Tip #8: Capitalize on your success in free agency

Except they really don’t. I expected the Otters to be a team like the Lakers or the Heat, who are an attractive destination that lures in free agents. But scrolling through the transactions page, I don’t see the Otters’ GMs except when they resign people. No, these guys are more like the Raptors in that they just draft and develop their own guys and they’re really, really good at that, and that’s a skill that you can’t just replicate.

San Jose Sabercats

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It’s pretty easy to imagine what I’m going to be talking about, just by looking at this chart. That jump from one win to ten from Season 11 to 12 is mystifying, easily the biggest leap we’ll see here, so hopefully, it takes advantage of everything we’ve learned so far.

One comparison later…

Looking through both teams, the major thing I’m noticing is just the steady improvement of nearly every single player. There was only two major free agent signings that offseason, Chad and Thad Pennington. And there was only one position change, Ben Horne from LB to DE. Aside from that, and a strong rookie class that included Trey Staley, Freezer Riposte, Jabrill and Jorel Tuck, Neo Donaldson, and last season’s call-up Ty Justice, this is a largely unchanged team from S11’s disaster. So maybe the best solution is a young, active roster? Good news for whoever needs the help in this year’s draft.

Philadelphia Liberty

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We now move into the expansion teams, starting with the S2 teams. The Liberty realized that winning a lot is hard, so they won 10 games once, won the Ultimus that season, and were like “I’m good”. They’ve also won nine games twice, and lost in the Ultimus both times, so at least they’re easy to figure out. Now, we could look at that nifty jump from winless to .500 in Season 11, but we’ve already done that with Colorado, so how about we instead look at the very left of the board and find out how you go from an expansion team with five wins to eight and a half in one season.

In this case, there were some radical changes. A true rookie at QB in Clifford Rove, a near overhaul of the entire running back corps, a couple of new linebackers, plus some tweaks on defense and this is almost a new team. There were some old players getting better of course, but this was a case of fixing everything immediately.

Las Vegas Legion/New Orleans Second Line

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Remember when Las Vegas had a team and they were total shit? In their first four years of existence, they won only nine games. They were always one of the worst teams in the league, and despite having high draft picks, they either busted or were traded away before the draft. This leads to my penultimate bit of advice…

Tip #9: If all else fails, relocate

These guys had years to become a contender, or failing that, just improve in any meaningful way. But after four years, they packed their bags and moved to the Big Easy. In their first season in New Orleans, they won two and a half games. Then four games (a franchise record). Then nine games and an Ultimus loss. Then twelve and an Ultimus win. Do you have a better explanation? Because I sure don’t. Relocation works, change my mind.

Chicago Butchers

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And now we come to the Butchers. They had high hopes right out of the gate, winning ten games in their first season, then they got bopped by the Liberty in the Conference Championship, and they’d never have it that good again. They started making slight progress these last few years, but it often came at the expense of active players, and then this year the wheels completely fell off. So basically...

Tip #10: Don’t do what Chicago did.

Austin Copperheads

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And here we have the culmination of a team making the right moves. Starting out terrible, but building a young, active core. Players changing positions to suit needs (like Dick Wizardry moving to DT to make room for Mako Mendonca and Ashley Owens). Eventually filling out the offense with Rod Tidwell, Net Gaines, and Peter Larson, and finally putting it all together and winning Ultimus XX. Just follow these ten simple steps and you too can become a championship team. Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back.

2329 words .

*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - YoungTB - 04-07-2020

Good stuff!

*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - PDXBaller - 04-07-2020

Top tier content from a top tier user

*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - FurFurFurson - 04-07-2020

My main takeaway from this is that the Yeti had two winless seasons in a row

*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - iseedoug - 04-07-2020

Nice article.

You will also notice any season in which iseedoug did some GMing or testing is a winning season SJS BAL

*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - Exilizer - 04-07-2020

Sweet.

great insights, I enjoyed that.

*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - Mooty99 - 04-07-2020

I like this, some A+ work!

*10 Simple Tips to Building a Champion - nickyvmlp - 04-07-2020

(04-07-2020, 05:29 PM)FurFurFurson Wrote:My main takeaway from this is that the Yeti had two winless seasons in a row
There was a time when the Yeti sucked hard and fast