8) Draft Focus
The San Jose Sabercats have a hefty amount of holes to fill this offseason in the draft. Our old fogeys retired so we've got to replace and retool our squad. Our biggest needs in this draft are essentially everything. We've got to bolster our defense with new playmakers, most importantly in the secondary. Our CBs do their best, but they have low skill and don't really seem to be around anymore. On offense, we are losing Joliet Christ and switching Dan Wright to Quarterback. This leaves a hole at the pure TE position. This also hurt our running game as Christ was honestly the best runner on the team. Running back will be an absolute major need, especially with a new quarterback at the helm. This draft is so massive that'll it'll be tough to not fill some of our holes. I'm extremely excited to bring our picks into the locker room as well because with all of those retirees, there's less people to talk to. It's a weird ghost town that I hope will be revived with the extremely vocal class. I feel like we'll still be able to contend even with our loss of players but we'll find out for sure in the first couple weeks of the season.
17) Robbed
The San Jose Sabercats had many opportunities to be strong contenders in the playoffs. Our season started very strong winning 4 straight games. Our season took a turn after those wins. We seemed to go extremely run heavy late in games that ultimately cost us multiple first down opportunities. Our passing attack was very strong all season having multiple 1000 plus yard receivers in Xavier Flash and Cameron Olsen, but the sim seemed to not want us to use them. The receiving yard soft cap in the sim hurt us in a couple games when Xavier Flash got 130 plus yards within just a couple quarters. Overall we had a strong squad of players and great playcalling, but ultimately the sim had other ideas for how our team should be run. With all of our changes to the team this offseason we'll have to start almost from scratch so maybe that'll help us fine tune some of our game management. The sim giveth and the sim taketh away so it's just one of those things that everyone has to work around. So we can't complain too much. I damn sure will though. It wouldn't be the NSFL without some good old fashion complaining.
20) Let's get (wild!)card
The wildcard game between the San Jose Sabercats and the Orange County Otters was a close finish ending 20 to 13 with Orange County securing to win. Orange County would then go on to win the Ultimus Championship. With this reasoning, I think San Jose could have easily made a run through the playoffs. What hurt San Jose in this game was the inability to get our passing game going. This had been the strongest part of our game plan all season, but we didn't have a single passing touchdown and didn't have a single receiver with more than 80 yards. Our defense was unable to hold down Franklin Armstrong and allowed him to get 2 touchdowns that both came from the red zone. We also got hit with 5 penalties in this game which gave them the first downs they needed to push towards the end zone. A mix of our red zone defense and red zone offense lost us this game where converting those field goals into touchdowns would have advanced us to the next round and changed the makeup of the playoffs. Who know, maybe it could have been San Jose on the banner at the top instead of Orange County. I guess there's always next season.
3) All about the QBs
The Ultimus game with Franklin Armstrong going against Corvo Havran was absolutely a spectacle to watch. Both team leaders were on their A-game but ultimately it was Armstrong that would come out on top. Armstrong threw for 287 yards and 3 touchdowns and Havran threw for 376 and 2 touchdowns. Havran threw 52 times in that game so his completion percentage was abysmal compared to Armstrongs 27 times. Armstrongs efficiency was absolutely a big reason why Orange County came out of that game as the Ultimus champions. The Baltimore Hawks didn't use their running backs only allowing both Jimbo and Jones to rush 11 times total. The Hawks felt like they could depend on Havran to seal the game for them, but put too much stock in his abilities. Even though the score doesn't show it, it was a slugfest on both sides of the ball and Orange County and their defense had Havrans number making play after play to make sure receiving yards didn't turn into touchdowns. Armstrong only threw one more touchdown than Havran but Orange County used their running game to help open up the passing game. All in all, this was a great game to watch but it wasn't as close as the QB stats would have you believe with Orange County winning by 11 points.
The San Jose Sabercats have a hefty amount of holes to fill this offseason in the draft. Our old fogeys retired so we've got to replace and retool our squad. Our biggest needs in this draft are essentially everything. We've got to bolster our defense with new playmakers, most importantly in the secondary. Our CBs do their best, but they have low skill and don't really seem to be around anymore. On offense, we are losing Joliet Christ and switching Dan Wright to Quarterback. This leaves a hole at the pure TE position. This also hurt our running game as Christ was honestly the best runner on the team. Running back will be an absolute major need, especially with a new quarterback at the helm. This draft is so massive that'll it'll be tough to not fill some of our holes. I'm extremely excited to bring our picks into the locker room as well because with all of those retirees, there's less people to talk to. It's a weird ghost town that I hope will be revived with the extremely vocal class. I feel like we'll still be able to contend even with our loss of players but we'll find out for sure in the first couple weeks of the season.
17) Robbed
The San Jose Sabercats had many opportunities to be strong contenders in the playoffs. Our season started very strong winning 4 straight games. Our season took a turn after those wins. We seemed to go extremely run heavy late in games that ultimately cost us multiple first down opportunities. Our passing attack was very strong all season having multiple 1000 plus yard receivers in Xavier Flash and Cameron Olsen, but the sim seemed to not want us to use them. The receiving yard soft cap in the sim hurt us in a couple games when Xavier Flash got 130 plus yards within just a couple quarters. Overall we had a strong squad of players and great playcalling, but ultimately the sim had other ideas for how our team should be run. With all of our changes to the team this offseason we'll have to start almost from scratch so maybe that'll help us fine tune some of our game management. The sim giveth and the sim taketh away so it's just one of those things that everyone has to work around. So we can't complain too much. I damn sure will though. It wouldn't be the NSFL without some good old fashion complaining.
20) Let's get (wild!)card
The wildcard game between the San Jose Sabercats and the Orange County Otters was a close finish ending 20 to 13 with Orange County securing to win. Orange County would then go on to win the Ultimus Championship. With this reasoning, I think San Jose could have easily made a run through the playoffs. What hurt San Jose in this game was the inability to get our passing game going. This had been the strongest part of our game plan all season, but we didn't have a single passing touchdown and didn't have a single receiver with more than 80 yards. Our defense was unable to hold down Franklin Armstrong and allowed him to get 2 touchdowns that both came from the red zone. We also got hit with 5 penalties in this game which gave them the first downs they needed to push towards the end zone. A mix of our red zone defense and red zone offense lost us this game where converting those field goals into touchdowns would have advanced us to the next round and changed the makeup of the playoffs. Who know, maybe it could have been San Jose on the banner at the top instead of Orange County. I guess there's always next season.
3) All about the QBs
The Ultimus game with Franklin Armstrong going against Corvo Havran was absolutely a spectacle to watch. Both team leaders were on their A-game but ultimately it was Armstrong that would come out on top. Armstrong threw for 287 yards and 3 touchdowns and Havran threw for 376 and 2 touchdowns. Havran threw 52 times in that game so his completion percentage was abysmal compared to Armstrongs 27 times. Armstrongs efficiency was absolutely a big reason why Orange County came out of that game as the Ultimus champions. The Baltimore Hawks didn't use their running backs only allowing both Jimbo and Jones to rush 11 times total. The Hawks felt like they could depend on Havran to seal the game for them, but put too much stock in his abilities. Even though the score doesn't show it, it was a slugfest on both sides of the ball and Orange County and their defense had Havrans number making play after play to make sure receiving yards didn't turn into touchdowns. Armstrong only threw one more touchdown than Havran but Orange County used their running game to help open up the passing game. All in all, this was a great game to watch but it wasn't as close as the QB stats would have you believe with Orange County winning by 11 points.
