*A Breakdown Of The S8 Philly Teardown

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I really do like this article (it's a great analysis of how Philly burned and then came back from the ashes) but I think there's a few things about Colorado that drop didn't get to as well.

Colorado could have completely rebuilt itself and then some had they not accepted this trade. They would have had their QB for the future, their RB of the future and present, a stud somewhat active CB (to be fair he was planning on leaving Colorado anyway), and a stud LB. Without this trade, maybe Applehort could have even stayed, and then we’re talking about a potential Ultimus roster.

I gotta be honest, I don't think it's right to consider these a one to one swap. Yes, with hindsight Colorado would have had some studs on its team, but at the time we already had our QB of the future (Applehort was still planning on staying and was part of the leadership group in S10 offseason) and our RB of the future (Grau was still somewhat active in S9 IIRC). Picking Falconi up probably would have sent Applehort out the door faster.

The Bly trade was because (a) we didn't want to have a player on our team who didn't want to be there, (b) we wanted to ship him off to a team we didn't think would contend (no offense, we didn't think you'd be that good last season and were much more scared of YKW), and © we wanted to get a stud in the prospect heavy S12 draft.

But no… they trade up two spots and take a now inactive Oskar Ludvig instead… what???

Like drop said, we were pretty excited about Ludvig. He disappeared basically immediately after we drafted him.

This is actually a huge bugaboo that we're still dealing with here (despite not being the GMs that had this problem) - draft picks tend to disappear after they head to Colorado. I'm not sure if it's altitude sickness or the legal weed, but we have a history. Through S6-S11, the only picks still with us and active are MVP Howard Miller and some bum named McCormick. (Devo Cansino is also here with us and he's quietly showing that he's a steal from the S10R3.) Everyone else except Applehort went IA within a season or two.

That's part of the reason for the rebrand though - we wanted to move past the old Yeti and even considered relocating, but in the end we love our fanbase so much that we couldn't leave them.

Either way, this trade is a disaster to look at, and had this not gone through, they could have been an Ultimus contending team right about now had Applehort stayed, which I can assume he would have with all of the talent that the team could have had. This trade is a huge L for Colorado, and an even bigger W for Philly.

I don't think I could reasonably say the Yeti were an Ultimus-contending team this year, but we were 30 seconds away from having home field advantage in the NSFC championship, and we had beaten the Hawks at home already last year. My testing actually gave us a 40% chance against them had we hosted, which is basically a toss up. If said bum from before doesn't throw two red-zone interceptions, we could be talking about Colorado getting shellacked by NOLA in the Ultimus rather than in the NSFC Championship. Not saying Philly lost the trade (they definitely won) but Colorado didn't lose as bad as you say.

We don't trade Bly, Kamaka, and Ramero away, and this team almost certainly contends for the Ultimus. But we also wouldn't have gotten 2 extra R2s this year - which turned into Logan Lejune and Rylant Wright, two picks we're extremely excited about. Considering we had traded away all our S11 picks, I think this was the right move to keep us away from another long tank drive and in the playoff hunt.