*Baby Yoda Reviews the S23 NSFL Draft (Rds 1-4)

[SwagSloth]

Hi, everyone! Thanks for checking out my article.

I’m really excited about getting to know all of our new teammates, so I wanted to talk about that like I did last season. But then someone had a better idea and said I should write about all of the new players! And I think that’s a great idea because I’m sure everyone else is excited about their new teammates, too. It’s so fun making new friends. Since we’re talking about all of the teams this time, I decided to look at the rounds first and then talk about the teams afterwards. I also saw that a lot of people like to grade the teams when making their reviews, so I will be giving each team a grade as well. Good luck!

Round 1

Pick #1 - S Greedy Sly
Pick #2 – DT Tyler Montain
Pick #3 – LB Heinrich Kackpoo
Pick #4 – S Jadakiss
Pick #5 – DE Tycker Om
Pick #6 – WR Tychondrius Hood
Pick #7 – DE Son Goku
Pick #8 – S Raphael D’Alcott
Pick #9 – CB Ray-Ray Jackson
Pick #10 – S L’Carpetron Dookmarrio
Pick #11 – S Bob Bob
Pick #12 – OL Richard Thruster

A lot of people like Greedy Sly and were expecting him to go first. I am glad he did because we also picked a Safety at #4 and I think we would have drafted him if he was there at #4. People say he’s a good player and he probably is, but look at his name. It’s not good to be greedy or sly. He sounds like someone who is a bad person and would try to cheat to win games. I know we are outlaws, but we try to be good outlaws and not bad ones, so we need to avoid players that are greedy or sly. Jadakiss, on the other hand, has a cool name and they also have the same number of letters in their name as I have in my name (even though their name is only one word), so I’m sure we will get along great. I am told Jadakiss is a big fan of hot dogs, which are kind of yucky, but I’m thinking he just hasn’t found out about chicken nuggets yet. So, I will try to introduce him to those.

A lot of safeties went “off the board” early on in this round, so that was interesting to see. I know I find it tough when playing against good safeties, so I guess other teams have figured that out, too. Son Goku is a player that I am a big fan of and I am excited to see him in the NSFL. I hear he was a big rival of Prince Vegeta back in college, so that should make the Sailfish vs Otters games even more interesting to watch this season. It was also neat to see Richard Thruster go in the first round since he is an O-Lineman and they went a lot lower in previous drafts, but I think people are learning to value O-Line more. I love the O-Linemen on our team. They help block for me, so I don’t have to run into the big Defensive Ends or Tackles as often, which is nice because I am so small. However, I don’t know if he knows, but they had Richard listed under a different first name, which is actually a bad word. I think Richard should make sure they change that before the season starts just to be safe. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be associated with a word like that, so it was probably just a mistake on the NSFL staff’s part. To be fair, my first name is Maz-Ta, but my draft card had me listed under my nickname “Baby” Yoda and I like my nickname, so maybe Richard likes his nickname, too. But I didn’t want to assume anything, so I fixed the name in my list.

The only other note I have from talking to my teammates is that a lot of people did not expect a Wide Receiver to go off the board in the first round since there were so many good ones in this draft. A few people weren’t sure if this was a good pick. That seems mean to say, but I guess I should mention it in my review. For what it’s worth, I think Ty has a really cool name and he will probably be a great player.

Round 2

Pick #13 – LB Hingle McCringleberry
Pick #14 – S Eugene Smoothie
Pick #15 – OL Julio Jones
Pick #16 – LB Griffin Porter
Pick #17 – S CJ Riley
Pick #18 – DE Water Chestnut III
Pick #19 – RB Joseph Petrongolo
Pick #20 – CB LeSean Paris Crooks
Pick #21 – CB Bane Ka’ana’ana
Pick #22 – WR Kai Sakura
Pick #23 – DT Carl Wheezer
Pick #24 – LB Adelie de Pengu

We picked up two players in this round, Julio Jones and Joseph Petrongolo. Julio is an O-Lineman, which makes me super happy because I love playing with good O-Line guys. Joseph is another Running Back, which is cool because we have that in common. I find it’s easier to become friends with someone when you have a lot of things in common, so hopefully we have other things in common, too. Plus, I think two good running backs are better than one!

Another player that stood out, even though we didn’t get him on our team, was Kai Sakura. He is the second Wide Receiver picked this draft and, if I’m told correctly, the team “traded up” to get him, so they must have really wanted him. Good for him! This round saw two more safeties get drafted along with several Cornerbacks, so it looks like teams are going after their Cornerbacks early on. I guess this is a good move because Jay Cue tells me it’s important to “game plan” for really good defensive backs, so it must be good to have a lot of them.

Round 3

Pick #25 – WR Luca Scabbia
Pick #26 – WR Jackson Kingston
Pick #27 – RB Nicholas Ayers
Pick #28 – WR Benoit Blanco
Pick #29 – WR Dre Matthews
Pick #30 – DE Mike Karpaasi
Pick #31 – CB Michael Van Perkins
Pick #32 – WR Doug Howlett
Pick #33 – TE Rigby Raccoon
Pick #34 – RB Running Back
Pick #35 – QB Reginald Covington III
Pick #36 – WR Videl-San

This round was where a lot of the Wide Receivers finally got picked. We took Benoit Blanco, who probably had the coolest name in this draft class. It’s important to have a good name, which is why I gave my advice to Richard Thruster in the part about the first round. There were several good Wide Receivers in this round, though, so it was hard to go wrong. The round started with a Wide Receiver pick in Luca Scabbia and also ended with one in Videl-San, which I thought was pretty cool.

In addition to Benoit Blanco, we also drafted Tight End Rigby Raccoon and Quarterback Reginald Covington. I hear good things about Reginald from my old teammates in the DSFL who have met him. I think I will call him Reggie. We also have an awesome Quarterback, Jay Cue, so I was confused by that pick, but Jay told me that it is important to plan for the future because one day he will have to retire. That makes me really sad because I don’t like to think about my teammates having to retire, but I guess that is something the team needs to think about during drafts. Rigby Raccoon was a pick that I was really excited about. I don’t know if he is a real raccoon or not, but one of my favorite movie characters is a raccoon. That raccoon was from space, though, so I guess it’s not fair to compare Rigby to him even if he is a real raccoon. However, I won’t hold it against him if he isn’t one. It’s still a great name.

We did have two Running Backs go in this round, Nicholas Ayers and apparently someone who goes by the name Running Back. That seems confusing to me, but maybe it’s actually more confusing to have a name that is different than your position, so he could be onto something. I feel a little dizzy if I start to think about it too much, so I’ll try not to do that. Nicholas is also really talented and I hear he was a great value pick at this spot. Hopefully, he will be a really good player for the Hahalua.

Round 4

Pick #37 – CB Tomage McGullager
Pick #38 – K/P Datsom Phastballs
Pick #39 – LB Tyrone Woods
Pick #40 – WR Griff Oberwald
Pick #41 – K/P Karmichael Hunt
Pick #42 – K/P Philip Stein
Pick #43 – LB Eric Richards
Pick #44 – WR Brock Bodenhamer
Pick #45 – RB Quanter Skrills
Pick #46 – DT Braxton Sinclair
Pick #47 – RB Keynel McZeal
Pick #48 – DT Yuuto Kira Cloudera

This is the final round I will be reviewing. I wanted to review all of the rounds, but then I remembered I promised to grade the teams, so I figured I should be careful not to overdo it. We have a lot of work to do before the next season, so I’m trying to get lots of sleep and I didn’t want to spend too much time writing this. We saw three kickers get drafted this round. I’m told Datsom was the kicker that showed the most promise in the DSFL, so the Hawks did a good job by choosing him over the other two. Some of our teammates said his name sounds funny when you say it really fast, but that seems kind of mean. Coming from another country, it can be easy to feel hurt when someone makes fun of your name, so I asked them not to make jokes about that. If he is really the best kicker, then he should be talked about for that reason and not because people think his name is funny to them.

Other than that, this round had a really good mix of players from different positions. I’m told this draft had a lot of talent in it, so there were a lot of really good players still available at this point. We traded our pick in this round, so I guess we must have been really happy with the guys that we already had. One of my teammates did tell me he was very high on Linebacker Eric Richards (not to be confused with Richard Thruster). Eric got drafted by the Chicago Butchers, but they are in the other conference, so we don’t have to play against them as often as teams in our conference. This is good because Linebackers can make it really hard on Running Backs when we try to run the ball. Hopefully, a lot of the good Linebackers went to teams in the other conference.

Team: Arizona Outlaws
Picks: 4, 15, 19, 28, 33, 35
We are the very first team alphabetically, so I guess I will start with us. We have a very young team with a lot of potential, so we didn’t have to go after many specific positions. We did need a safety, though, but we took care of that first, which made me really happy. Afterwards, we got a Running Back to help me out in the backfield, a Wide Receiver, a Tight End (who may or may not be a real raccoon), and a Quarterback just in case something happens to Jay and he has to retire. We went after a lot of offensive players, which might seem bad because our offense did really well last season, but our defense had a lot of trouble. However, I’ve been told that the best Offense is a good Defense. Therefore, the best Defense is probably a good Offense. And we need the best Defense we can get, so I can see why we went for a lot of offense players.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: Austin Copperheads
Picks: 16, 36, 37
Austin’s first pick did not come until the 2nd round, where they picked LB Griffin Porter. Their only other picks in the first 4 rounds came at #36 and #37, where they chose WR Videl-San and CB Tomage McGullager. Linebacker is a big need for the team and there weren’t many good ones left, so they made a good call to grab Porter here. Videl-San may not see an immediate starting spot, but with Tidwell getting older, they made a good call to bring in a very talented player that somehow managed to fall to the back of the 3rd round. Several people told me that they thought the 37th pick was more of a surprise as the team has several young defensive backs and McGullager had become “stagnant” during his first year in the DSFL. I like the first two picks, though, so I will give them a pass.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: Baltimore Hawks
Picks: 2, 17, 20, 32
Baltimore had a lot of picks in the early draft, almost as many as we did… They make a good call early on with Tyler Montain, who can help them out on the D-Line. I had an easier job running against the Hawks last season and I’m sad to see that I’ll have to deal with a good player like Montain when we play them now, but I guess that means they did a good job. They have some good Defensive Backs, but they’re also a bit older, so it also seems smart to draft Riley and Crooks. The same goes for Wide Receiver. They have Errol Maddox, who is really old now, so maybe Doug Howlett can help them out. I hear he is very talented. I already talked about Datsom being a really good kicker; I just hope his teammates are nice to him and don’t make fun of his name.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: Chicago Butchers
Picks: 13, 25, 40, 43, 45
Their first pick at #13 was Hingle McCringleberry, who is a Linebacker and also someone whose name you shouldn’t make fun of. Even though Linebackers are usually very mean to me, I like Hingle. However, the Butchers already have several good linebackers. I would have drafted Eugene Smoothie here instead since he’s a safety and the Butchers could use another good safety. Galt Wilf told me that he was wondering if they would try to run a “3-4”,but I don’t know what that is, so I can’t really say whether that would be good or bad for them. I’m thinking they may have decided not to draft a Defensive Back since my friend Tyler Oles signed with them and they probably didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Their next two picks were really good as they picked a set of Wide Receivers in Luca Scabbia and Griff Oberwald. The Butchers had 3 picks in the 4th round and they used the first one on Griff, but the other 2 were used on Running Back Quanter Skrills and another mean Linebacker in Eric Richards. Since they were really nice to my friend Tyler and didn’t want to hurt his feelings by drafting another defensive back, I will give them a good grade.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: Colorado Yeti
Picks: 1, 12, 26, 48
The Yeti had the first pick of the draft and used it on Greedy Sly, which I didn’t think was a very good idea. I am glad he’s not playing for the Outlaws. However, even though he seems like a devious person, they are defending their championship next season and maybe they will need a player like that, so I guess I shouldn’t judge them too much for that. But I’m going to report him to the refs if he tries to cheat against us, so don’t do that. As I said earlier, I like Richard Thruster a lot even though the draft people called him a bad name. In the 3rd round, they grabbed Wide Receiver Jackson-Kingston and I got a little confused because he has two last names, but then I remembered that my mom also got a second last name after she married my dad. For a moment, I was tempted to make fun of him for having two last names like a girl, but in college, they taught us about “toxic masculinity” and said that we shouldn’t make fun of boys when they do things that girls like to do. So, if Jackson-Kingston wants two last names, I am okay with that. I wonder what his first name is, though. I guess there wasn’t enough room on the slide. Their 4th round pick was Yuuto Kira Cloudera. Yuuto had a slow start in the DSFL, but I hear he is working hard on improving and I think that’s great. Overall, if though I didn’t like them drafting the greedy guy, all my teammates liked that pick, so I will trust their judgment. But I’m keeping my eye on you, though, Greedy. No cheating!
Draft Grade: A+

Team: Honolulu Hahalua
Picks: 3, 9, 21, 27, 39
Wow! Honolulu had a lot of picks and two of them were in the first round. I wish we were that lucky. They used that first pick at #3 to draft Linebacker Heinrich Kackpoo and then the next pick at #9 to draft CB Ray-Ray Jackson. You guys know how I feel about Linebackers, but Ray-Ray has an awesome first name and seems like a fun guy. Both of these picks were positions of need, so they made the right call to grab them both. They then picked up RB Nicholas Ayers, who will be joining our old Outlaws RB Ruff Ruff. This made me really happy because Ruff Ruff had to run alone in Arizona and now he won’t have to run by himself anymore. I think everything is more fun with a friend! They then drafted another Cornerback, Bane Ka’ana’ana with the #27 pick, which may seem weird, but it looks like they needed two Cornerbacks, not just one. I’m not sure, but his name sounds like someone from Hawaii, so hopefully he doesn’t have to travel very far to go to work now. The final pick was another yucky Linebacker, but they already had four good picks, so I guess they still did good overall.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: New Orleans Second Line
Picks: 24, 44
The Second Line only had two picks in this draft. Ouch! I don’t know what they did with all of their picks, but they need to be careful not to lose them in the future. I know my mom used to yell at me whenever I would lose things growing up, but I’m too nice to yell, so I’ll just let them off with a warning this time. Overall, New Orleans has a really good team, so they don’t have a lot of specific needs, but they do have two older Linebackers and got a new Linebacker, so that should help the older guys out a lot. I don’t know a lot about Brock Bodenhamer, though, so I can’t really say much about him. I initially gave them a lower grade because they lost so many of their picks, but since I decided to let them off with a warning, I can’t hold that against them. But I will be more stern if I review next year’s draft and they lose all of their picks again.
Initial Draft Grade: A-
Updated Draft Grade: A+

Team: Orange County Otters
Picks: 11, 23, 47
This is such a weird draft. We had a player with two last names and now we have a player with two first names, Bob Bob. And Bob is not a very long word, so I don’t believe they ran out of room on the slide. Maybe his parents were mean and didn’t let him have a last name. Or maybe he lost it like how New Orleans lost all their picks. That second thing sounds kind of mean to me and I’m sorry if it is, but a last name is very important and there’s no excuse for losing it. I have to draw the line somewhere. After Bob (Bob) got picked in the first round, they used their 2nd round pick on a Defensive Tackle, Carl Wheezer. I wonder if he is related to the guys in the band. The last pick is Running Back Keynel Zeal, who I think he has a good career ahead of him. I think they got three pretty good guys here.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: Philadelphia Liberty
Picks: 5, 14, 29, 41
A lot of people expected Son Goku or Tycker Om to be the first DE taken and it turned out to be Om, who went at the #5 pick. One of Philly’s Defensive Linemen is retiring soon and another is getting up there in age, so this wasn’t a big surprise. It was more of a question of who they would choose. I said before that I’m a fan of Goku, but Om has a lot of talent and it will be fun to watch the two continue to grow as players. Safety Eugene Smoothie was up next and will help address another need as both of their safeties are also past their prime. Their 3rd round pick, Wide Receiver Dre Matthews, will also join their first two picks in addressing future concerns as WR Nacho Varga is also getting old, too. Karmichael Hunt was next at #41 and was one of a few kickers picked in close succession. This wasn’t the type of draft that will probably affect the team this season, but they made a lot of good long-term moves.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: San Jose Sabercats
Picks: 6, 18, 42
The Sabercats added WR Tychondrius Hood in the 1st round, followed by DE Water Chestnut III in the 2nd round and K/P Philip Stein in the 4th round. I talked to my teammates Zamir Kehla since he talks about the Sabercats a lot and seems to be an expert on them. He told me that the team “reached” for a Wide Receiver in the 1st round when they could have gotten one in the 3rd round if they hadn’t already traded that pick away. He also said that he wasn’t impressed with their other picks because “they’re a bad team who makes bad picks”. Everything he said made sense to me when we spoke, but after I thought about it a little more, I changed my mind. They seem to think that Tychondrius has the potential to be a great Wide Receiver and a lot of the great Wide Receivers in NSFL history were drafted in the first round, so maybe they’re onto something. Also, Chestnut looks like a great value pick in the 2nd round and being able to land a talented kicker in the 4th round and grabbing the last one available feels smart to me. I will share Zamir’s grade since I promised him I would, but I will still add my own grade, too, so people can make up their own minds on what grade makes sense to them.
Zamir’s Draft Grade: F
Yoda’s Draft Grade: A+

Team: Sarasota Sailfish
Picks: 7, 8, 30, 31, 34
With fellow DE Tycker Om taken and D-Line being a big need for the team, it was an easy choice for Sarasota to pick up Son Goku at #7. I’m partial to Goku and feel he was a “steal” (as in a really good pick) at #7. You always think of stealing as a bad thing, but in football, I guess it’s a good thing. They also had back-to-back picks in the 1st round and grabbed Safety Raphael D’Alcott with their next pick. D’Alcott was one of many promising safeties in this draft and I think they knew he wasn’t going to drop much lower, so they grabbed him while they could. Their next set of picks were also back-to-back at #30 and #31. Here, they grabbed another DE in Mike Karpaasi and Corner Michael Van Perkins. Karpaasi will have a hard time competing with Goku, but the two has spots open for them both, so that this is a good landing spot for him. Van Perkins is one of the stand-out Cornerbacks in this class and surprisingly fell this far, giving the team another “steal” if I can continue to use some of the lingo my teammates taught me. Their final pick came at #34 with a Running Back named Running Back. It’s a good thing he ended up playing that position or his name would be really confusing. A lot of their picks were spread out, but they got two steals and earned a good grade from me.
Draft Grade: A+

Team: Yellowknife Wraiths
Picks: 10, 22, 46
Yellowknife drafted Safety L’Carpetron Dookmarrio in the 1st round and got a good player. There have been a lot of safeties taken in the first round, but these guys were going to go early regardless of who took them, so Yellowknife made a good call to take him. Two of their defensive backs have started to get a bit older, so a player like Dookmarrio will help them out a long in a few seasons. They also picked up Wide Receiver Kai Sakura, who will have a chance to be mentored by and eventually take over for Nate Swift, one of the league’s best WRs. And finally, I think we have one more “steal” of a pick at #46, where they took Defensive Tackle Braxton Sinclair. I didn’t expect Sinclair to be there in the 4th round, so Yellowknife really lucked out getting this guy there.
Draft Grade: A+

Wow! This took a lot to write, but I had fun doing it. I hope you guys enjoyed reading my review of the draft. It was so much fun to watch live that I knew I wanted to share my thoughts with everyone. A big thank you to all of my teammates that helped answer my questions and teach me about good drafting, so I could learn more about it for my review. Also, as usual, thank you as well to my teammates that helped proofread and come up with the right words to use. When I’m not sleeping, I’ve been reading my thesaurus in my free time to help me learn new words, so I can continue to get better at writing. Thanks for reading my review!

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