(S11) - PT 5 - Surprising Outcomes

[JKortesi81]

SHL PT

[daBenchwarmer]

SHL PT

[karl]

shl pt3

[AdamS]

Ryan Fitzpatrick wasn't exactly expected to set the world on fire. A QB most often compared to the original Chris Orosz due to his safe, more boring style of play. He's not a big armed gunslinger or a fleet footed mobile threat. He was drafted into an offense that no one has feared in five or six seasons and this season featured skill pieces that didn't seem at all threatening. Reg Mackworthy has reached the point where people are just surprised he's still walking. Budda Browning has been passed around more than Brad Pitt in the 90s. Viggo Squanch never was. In fact the only real offensive fire seemed to be emanate form young Tight End Balthazar Crindy. Yet by the end of the season, one thing was clear. Fitzpatrick was getting the job done.

It wasn't the prettiest. The young QB was content to cut teams apart across the middle of the field with surgical precision, and teams had trouble stopping him. He tied for the most TD's thrown and with only 9 interceptions, he was by far the safest QB in the league, too. Certainly not an outcome anyone saw coming. One of the biggest surprises in the entire league. And in an even bigger surprise, accomplished with a supporting cast slightly less fearsome than a pudding of indeterminate origin. In the biggest surprise of all, perhaps the Outlaws fans should have hope.

[PDXBaller]

It feels like this week’s point task prompt was designed for one thing…to talk about how the Philadelphia Liberty beat the defending Ultimus champions, the Baltimore Hawks! Now granted they were at home with home field advantage, but if you look at the penalties it was only 2 for Philadelphia and 4 for Baltimore. Those 4 were costly though for 45 yards, but Philadelphia had absolute control over this ball game and it showed in the scorebox. Philadelphia played with passion and had 12/17 third down efficiency while scoring effortlessly in the first half of the game. This was incredibly surprising given how young the offense is. Sure, the Liberty rushed for 189 yards with Marquise Brown accounting for most of the ground attack, but Falconi had her best night going 234 yards, 23/35 completions/attempts, and 1 touchdown. She was on fire and it was surprising to see the Hawks secondary give up so much against a young quarterback. In the end, it shows that the Liberty are closer than many think and the tank is over as they showed the league that they can hang with the champions and beat them decisively. Baltimore did not have any excuse for this game as they lost 30-14.

[DeathOnReddit]

The most surprising outcome of the season would likely be the record of the defending DSFL champions Tijuana Luchadores. The Luchadores finished the season way below .500 at a pretty bad record of 5-9. A far cry of how the Tijuana Luchadores have performed in seasons past. The Luchadores risk missing the Ultimini game for the first time in a while by having to travel and face the 9-5 conference leading San Antonio Marshals, who have 4 more wins than the Luchadores at 9-5. Had you asked any bystander or analyst at the beginning of the season who would have what record, I guarantee you that a majority of them would have had the Luchadores leading the conference at 9-5, and the Marshals possibly even missing the playoffs entirely at 5-9. You never know what can happen on game day though, and as they say any given sunday. The Luchadores still have a chance to fourpeat but it would require to huge and unlikely upsets of the Marshals, and whoever wins the game between Kansas City and Portland. A game which you can argue will have the ultimini champions, no matter who wins that game or who wins the game between the Marshals and the Luchadores.

[Molarpistols]

I think the most shocking thing that happened in Season Eleven was that the Philadelphia Liberty had such an effective turnaround from the year before. In S10, the Liberty failed to win a single game, as the team began a complete overhaul and rebuild of their roster.

Fast forward a season, and they're suddenly challenging for a playoff spot in the NSFC. Ultimately, the Liberty fell short of the playoffs by a single game. A team that went 0-14 had a quick turnaround to post a record of 7-7 while missing the playoffs by a single game.

A tough matchup in Week 13 in Baltimore cost the Liberty a win, and the Colorado Yeti also managed a win that same week over the Yellowknife Wraiths to officially clinch playoffs for the Yeti, and causing the Liberty to miss the playoffs. Even with a Liberty win in Week 14 (which they managed, a decisive 34-13 contest over Yellowknife) and a Yeti loss in the same week, they still couldn't pull into a tie to force some tiebreakers for playoffs.

Unfortunately for the Liberty, the dream turnaround in a single season wasn't meant to be, but they still gave it a good go. It's been quite some time since an NSFL team managed such a quick rebuild, going from worst to almost playoffs is a surprising feat.

[JSS]

[Supersquare04]

The most surprising event of this season is how Dwayne Aaron failed to get over 100000000 yards, 10000 receptions, and 1000 Touchdowns. Dwayne Aaron is LITERALLY the best WR the yeti has ever had (pay no mind to that Howard Miller scrub) and with this being his final season he expected them to throw him the ball a gazillion times. If they had followed his simple orders to only throw to Dwayne Aaron the Yeti might be 14-0, but yet again QB incompetence strikes again and scrubbo Bicycle McBormick can't throw a football straight. Hell he should've just kept kicking the ball to people because at least he would have had some control over the way the ball went. But alas, barely competent management has left another all time great to dry just like past legends such as (but not limited to) Boss Tweed, Nicholas Pierno, and Eli Kamaka. At least when screwing up the Applehort era they had no talent in him to begin with, and made him look somewhat decent. With all that said, if they hadn't been such dumb dumbs and just given the ball to Dwayne Aaron on every play, they'd be fine and probably ultimus champions when this season is all said and done.

LITERALLY 4000 words

[ADwyer87]

Philadelphia surprised me a lot this season. For them to nearly make the playoffs, I did not expect. I was very much counting on another bottom feeder season. It seemed to me that the team didn't add enough for them to make it out last place of the NSFC, let alone into playoff contention. However, Adriana Falconi did a great job as a rookie QB, and they managed to have the league's best defense. Lucari Felix had a great season, and is progressing nicely.

I was also very surprised at the QB play this season. Maybe we have truly just been spoiled with amazing QB talent in the first decade of the NSFL, but the crop this year didnt impress much at all. 3 QBs got 30 TDs, and that was the highest mark, the lowest high since S3. Only 3 QBs passed the 4000 yard plateau, the highest barely passing 4500. The best QB in the league may be Kevin Fitzpatrick. While he did have a good season, his stat line (59.5% completion percentage, 3874 passing yards, 30 TDs, 9 INTs, 92.9 passer rating) wouldn't have gotten any real consideration for an award in past years. Its not a situation we have come to expect here in the NSFL of late