(S11) - Ultimus Week

[dropbear]

Hate the player or the game
There was one team that was the talk of the league over the offseason: the Philadelphia Liberty. While interesting free agents moves and intriguing trades were happening in many locations, the Liberty were unique because they were being both praised and mocked for the roster moves they made. The main culprits were the decisions to acquire Andre Bly Jr. and Eli Kamaka from the Colorado Yeti. The former had made it public that he wanted to play for the Yellowknife Wraiths once his contract was up, and the latter had already announced they would be retiring at the end of Season 11. As such, this meant both players would likely no longer be on the Liberty roster at season’s end. And that has turned out to be the case. However, the Liberty GMs were adamant they had had enough of ‘the process’, and wanted to show free agents and draft prospects that they meant business. And they did exactly that. In Season 11, the Liberty bounced back from a winless season to surge to a 7 – 7 record, only narrowly missing the playoffs to the Yeti, and actually having the fifth-best record in the league. Cleary, this is already a different team to the one that suffered a winless season, and if it wasn’t for my Yeti claiming the second NSFC playoff spot, I think the Liberty absolutely deserved it for their incredible turnaround in just one season.


Championship Game Recap
The Season 11 Ultimus matchup was one for the ages. Once the dust had settled from the NSFC and ASFC championship games and it was confirmed that the Baltimore Hawks and New Orleans Second Line would meet in the final game of the season, fans, players, and coaches alike all around the league were salivating over the game that was to come. Both teams fielded high-powered offensive units in Season 11, with superstar quarterbacks at their helm, hall-of-fame calibre running backs, elite wide receiver corps and defences that, though somewhat depleted compared with previous years, remained formidable. To say the game lived up to expectations would be an understatement. There were 78 points scored in total, with overtime being needed to settle the affair. Both quarterbacks threw for at least 3 touchdowns each, each team’s running back had a rushing touchdown, and there was only a single turnover in the entire game. It was a high-octane offensive matchup that noone wanted to see come to an end. In the end, it may well have been the familiarity the winning team’s quarterback, Borkus Mximus III, had with his teammates that decide the game. Hawks newcomer Ryan Applehort, while outstanding in his own right, just couldn’t quite get his new team over the line.


Playoff Series MVP
It’s somewhat of a cliché to say that a quarterback is a team’s best player. It seems the easy option because they’re such a pivotal part of any team’s success. But, despite that, I think that it was nonetheless clearly a quarterback that was the standout player in the Season 11 playoffs. Borkus Maximus III of the New Orleans Second Line had an incredible playoff campaign, accumulating more than 700 passing yards and throwing for 7 passing touchdowns, all while only turning the ball over once in his team’s two games. This performance came against two of the league’s best teams: the Orange County Otters and the Baltimore Hawks. He wasn’t out there bullying bottom-dwelling teams, he was putting up incredible numbers against the best the league had to offer. To put things in context, his 7 passing touchdowns in two playoff games is nearly as many as Christ (10) had on the season for San Jose, and his 700 yards is roughly a quarter of the total passing yards Christ and Falconi (of the Philadelphia Liberty) managed to put up through 14 games. I did my best to find someone other than a quarterback deserving of the playoff MVP, but with such phenomenal performances on the biggest stage, there was no way it couldn’t be Borkus.


Unsung Hero
It’s rare that a player who scores a touchdown and has more than 160 yards over two playoff games can be considered an ‘unsung hero’, but such is the strength of the New Orleans Second Line’s roster, and such was the height of their level of play during their impressive playoff stretch that resulted in their second Ultimus win from four straight appearances. Paul DiMirio is arguably the greatest NSFL tight end of all time, and a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame. But he’s not immune to the effects of Father Time, and that’s what makes his timeless performance in this season’s playoffs so special. He caught 5 catches for 71 yards and a touchdown in the conference championship against the Orange County Otters, before hauling in 6 passes for 90 yards in the Ultimus matchup with the reigning champions, the Baltimore Hawks. DiMirio was a safety blanket for quarterback Borkus Maximus III, and freed up other players on the Second Line’s high-powered offense: Fyodorovich had a playoff campaign that included 5 receiving touchdowns, Smallwood nabbed himself 4 touchdowns through a combination of rushing and receiving, and LeClair accumulated more than 160 receiving yards over the two-game stretch as well. Taking all of that into consideration, it’s easy to see how DiMirio’s efforts could be overlooked, earning him the title of ‘Unsung Hero’.