(S23) - Ultimus Week

[Gwdjohnson]

Code:

11) Give a thorough examination of a league scandal from any point in time. What made this particular drama so noteworthy? Who were the major participants involved, and what was the offense? What kind of impact did this scandal create on the league, and have any permanent changes come about as a result?

Ah, say no more. I will take any opportunity to talk about the one sim league scandal that directly involves me, the Jeffie43 / Myrtle Beach tampering punishment. This was a really weird time overall, and just to give a thorough explanation of it from my viewpoint, here's my timeline.

First, I started to hear rumblings of a punishment coming to Myrtle Beach. I'm not a big ISFL guy, so I didn't care much for it. But then, things got a little weird when I had people asking me in DMs about stuff relating to Myrtle Beach and if I was coerced to retire my player in Norfolk to play there (Not from anyone in HO, of course, because they never contacted me). At this point I was like "wait, how am I of all people involved in this?" but then the punishment dropped. I was simply appalled upon seeing the decision,
mostly because I hadn't been contacted personally by Head Office on the site or on Discord, so I think they were missing crucial facts that would've helped them make their decision. At the time, Garfield Despacito was an inactive bum offensive lineman who I made as a meme around the time surrounding the "GIVE US A FAIR RUB" OL meme was prevalent. I had no intention of doing anything with that player or even sticking around the league, so for the existence of that player to be the root cause of the punishment was a joke to me. And then, upon appeal, not only was there no reduction/reversal of the punishment given more information, but the punishment to the Bucs was made even worse. All in all it was a situation that left a sour taste in my mouth but at least it makes for good writing material whenever I the chance to talk about it.

As for what came of it, nothing. I discussed this with some people in Myrtle Beach and I believe Orange County, but the spirit of the tampering rule is not at all centered around inactive players, and I think that's the big oversight on the punishment. Even if Jeffie did "tamper" me (which he didn't, all he did was give me advice on how to recreate because I said I wanted to), he was helping bring another active into the league, and he even did so successfully because I'm here and participating now. It's disappointing to me at least that there isn't some sort of discrepancy in the rulebook between tampering someone's active player to join your team, and helping someone currently inactive get the desire to come back to the league and assist them in doing so.

(446 words)

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6) The playoffs have finally arrived. Choose one playoff team that is not your own from either league and recount how they got here in 400 words or more. What challenges and hurdles did they face in the regular season? Did they cruise into home field advantage or have to fight off contenders for the wild card? Are they led by MVP players on offense, or is a stifling defense the engine to their success? Don’t be afraid to go deep.

Alright, 400 words about a sport I know nothing about let's go.

Today on Garfield News, we will be analyzing the season of the Yellowknife Wraiths and what gave them the edge they needed to top the NSFC this season. Legendary former Norfolk Seawolves offensive lineman joins us in the studio. Garfield? Talk to us about Yellowknife.

Thanks, Brad. So Yellowknife firstly had a record of 5-3-0 at their home games this season, with the losses only coming to three of the leagues best teams in Orange County, New Orleans, and Colorado. I believe this is due to the location of Yellowknife simply being awful for the average football team to play in, while you can clearly tell Wraiths players have endured the pain of the awful location enough to withstand it and gain an edge in that way. I mean, honestly speaking that's the only possible rationale you could give for putting a football team in the [expletive] Northwest Territories, how was this approved by the league?? Anyway, back to the subject...offense this season was another huge plus of theirs on the campaign, as their 406 points scored was good for 3rd in the league behind Arizona and Orange County. Bigsby, the well-known quarterback of the team, provided a solid backbone for this offense, as he passed for the second most yards of all quarterbacks in the league, with 3899 passing yards out of 573 attempts. Wide receivers Rodriguez and Jackson were not overly spectacular on the season, but they got the job done and synergized well enough with Bigsby to provide a great threat on passing plays. But rushing was arguably even more impressive than passing on the Yellowknife stat table, as star running back Handayi had a debatably MVP caliber season for the Wraiths offense. His 13 rushing touchdowns not only led all running backs on the season, but he was second only to the Otters' Tatsu Nakamura in total yardage on the rush. If we look at actual runs of games, their sequence of weeks 2-5 were huge, as they won those four weeks in a row, including a massive landslide result in a 54-0 smashing of Chicago. They also won five out of six games between weeks 9-14 to to secure a good finish in the league, but the end of the season was most interesting. In their final two weeks, 15 and 16, they lost heavily to Colorado and Philadelphia, but then had a Bye Week on the last matchday. I believe that on that final matchday, the Wraiths really took their time to sit down and gather themselves in order to bounce back strongly with a deep playoff run. Lo and behold, not only did they make a good playoff run, they silenced a lot of critics by going on to win the damn Ultimus altogether! I have to give my hats off to Yellowknife for a great season, and a very deserved Ultimus to end what has been an awful streak of finals appearances for them recently.

(493 words)

All 10 TPE secured, UW done