*Transparency on Chicago

[Memento Mori]

Going to rock the boat a bit here. This should be obvious, but just to clarify: personally attacking someone in a sim league is not okay and I'm not here to defend that. Strap yourselves in, because this turned out a lot longer than I expected.

A lot of the criticism of Chicago has come from S22 rookies and been in good faith. I don't claim to speak for them, but seriously, read the posts. They've been perfectly respectful. The criticism was constructive.

As an NSFL GM, you have a duty to the whole league and its players, not just the ones on your team. To my understanding, that's part of why HO picks who GMs are. Part of the job of an NSFL GM is to make your team attractive to new players, and by extension make the league attractive to new players. Every S22 rookie was a potential future Chicago Butchers player.

Here's what S22 rookies have seen from their potential new team and GM:

A user posts to the forum saying he's just been cut by Chicago without any explanation from the team - "no messages, no anything". Steel shows up in the thread and publicly berates him. Doesn't apologise for cutting him with no explanation, doesn't accept any responsibility for the lack of communication. Speaking personally, as a S22 rookie, this was the first time I had ever seen Chicago's GM post. He comes across extremely combative and argumentative, and shows that the Chicago management has communication problems.

Chicago makes a trade with Philadelphia, where they trade away their top two picks in the best draft class ever for a S15 player who's about to regress and a 308 TPE DL who hasn't updated his player since November. This was the second time I had seen Chicago's GM post.

The trade was met with near-universal derision. Sure, some of the responses in discord were meme-y, but people immediately assess the trade according to what Chicago traded away and what they received in return. I've gone back to that day in NSFL general and screenshotted what I believe to be a representative group of messages between users discussing the trade. It wasn't just "lolol butchers suk".













People are encouraged to talk about the league in a constructive manner. You get money for doing so in the media section. We've had plenty of other people react to trades on discord or write articles about trades. All the ones I have seen have been generally well-received. In my opinion, steel is the one who comes across hostile in discord. This is also the first time I've seen or interacted with steel on discord.

Again, if you're a S22 rookie like me, your exposure to Chicago and their GM so far has entirely consisted of witnessing steel arguing with people.

Following this, several people write articles about the trade. They are constructive. The analysis is essentially 'Chicago is 4th in their division, with only an outside chance of making the playoffs. They have made their team significantly worse in the coming seasons (by trading away top picks) in order to slightly increase their chance of making the playoffs this season. Given the relative strength of teams like NOLA, OCO, Austin, Baltimore compared to Chicago, their chances of winning an Ultimus on the back of these moves are really low. This trade seems to sacrifice a lot in the long term for a small amount in the short term'.

This is fair, and constructive. It's not a personal attack.

Let's jump forward in the timeline for a moment. Chicago is currently fourth in the division. Colorado has the tiebreaker over Chicago, so the only way Chicago can make the playoffs is if they win at OCO and then beat NOLA at home, while Yellowknife loses at Austin and at Arizona. Chicago is very unlikely to make the playoffs, and if they do then they will be expected to lose in the first round. One season is obviously a small sample size and maybe there's a universe where things played out differently, but exactly what these constructive, respectful articles suggested would happen has happened.

Back to the story. The next thing that happens, is that WALDO makes a post demanding his trade or release from Chicago. He says that the main reason he wants to leave the team is the refusal of the GM to accept criticism when they do controversial things. Steel shows up in the thread to say that the reason he's not accepting any criticism of the trade is because it's a good trade.

Later that day, steel shows up in general again. This time, he's armed with screenshots showing that the S15 player they traded for is active and updating, and says "inactive" after each screenshot - as you can see from the messages either side, everyone was talking about other things. steel came back with the intention of trying to start another argument.




No one had said that this guy wasn't active. It was the 308 TPE DL that hadn't updated since November that people were saying was inactive.

The fact that he's strawmanned the criticism of the trade by claiming people had been saying the S15 RB was inactive (the guy described as "not too bad" in the initial response) successfully baits people into trying to explain, again, why they think the trade is a bad one. steel responds with this:



Two days later, Valor says that he's stepping down as Chicago GM and announces he'd like to GM an expansion team. Valor isn't stepping down because he doesn't want to GM a team, because he's applying for a different GM position. He just doesn't want to GM Chicago. Because he can't work with steel. This makes Valor the second person in a short space of time to ask to leave their team because of their GM. Only two people have done this while I've been a part of the league. Both Chicago players, and both because of steel.

So there we have it. That was the introduction that myself and all the other S22 rookies had to Chicago and their former GM. steel failed to communicate with his players, publicly argued with his players, tried to start arguments with everyone else in the league on discord, resorted to personal attacks when people pointed out he was wrong, and refused to accept criticism from anyone, including constructive criticism from people who'd expressed an interest in becoming co-GM to help fix the team.

This is why the S22 rookies didn't want to play for Chicago. Not because of memes, but because all we'd ever seen the Chicago GM do was argue with people, including his own players, and call people morons. Who in their right mind would want to play for that GM and that team?

To be clear: I don't condone any personal attacks on steel. I wish him well, and if he never returns to the league I hope he's happier for it. If he does return to the league, I hope everyone is respectful towards him and that the league returns to being something he enjoys and something that makes him happy. But his actions as Chicago GM were harming the league. There are teams with worse rosters than Chicago, sure. But all of those teams have younger players, more young players and more picks to fix the team with. Chicago will get worse before it gets better, because of the way the team has been managed. Current and former GMs have posited that rebuilding Chicago could take six seasons. For the most part, people weren't criticising Chicago for the sake of it. They were doing it out of concern for the resulting effect on league health of having a team as badly run as Chicago.

Creating a team that looks set to be bad for six(?) seasons with a GM that is extremely argumentative and hostile towards people is bad for the league. No rookie in their right mind would want to go there, that's why so many rookies expressed their intention to play for any team other than Chicago. The circumstances that led to steel quitting are unfortunate and if any of my own contributions negatively affected steel then I'm truly sorry, but I sincerely believe that the league will be better off now that he's no longer Chicago GM.