Tier 2:7
DSFL Defensive Player of the Year
Busch Light – LB – London Royals
Busch Light must be a serious contender for this award (awards committee, down to you I guess) but just in case he somehow slips under the radar I figured I’d remind you all what a season he has had in London. Now as a LB I’ve been paying close attention to his numbers – if he was slacking then my own player Burfict would be ready to stake a claim for a starting sport. This is not a rags to riches story for Burfict. No, this is me saying that Light has had an incredible season.
116 tackles puts him third overall in the charts through 14 games, plus he hit another 7 in the playoff victory vs Portland. Now the other solid LB in London is Juan Domine, and aside from tackles he looks to outshine Busch Light. “Why don’t you talk about Domine@ I hear you cry. Well overall data doesn’t always tell the whole story. Where did the tackles take place, how may they have impacted the season.
Busch Light had a slow start to the season and it wasn’t until week three where he lead London in tackles with eight. But it was his mid-season form which really stood out for me, and it’s this which would lead me to considering him for the award. He lead the team in tackles for four of the next five games – the only blip being when he tied in week six against the Seawolves. He hit double digit tackles in all other games. The major stand outs for me were in weeks seven and eight. In week seven the Royals had a tough visit to the Coyotes and ended up losing out by three. The gap was restricted through the brilliance of Busch Light; hitting 14 tackles (seven more than the next best LB in Domine) and two sacks. On fire was an understatement and saw him win Defensive POG. In week eight the Royals defeated the Grey Ducks, thanks in part to a second half in which they only conceded two points. But it was the first half with Light hitting nine tackles where he did his best to keep the score down as the other LBs (Domine and Burfict) had four between them. Without this first half showing from Light the Grey Ducks could have been out of sight at the half, and the Royals may not have made it into the playoffs. 59 tackles over those five games, let that sink in.
As the season progressed, Domine and Burfict both raised their game which meant Light was having to do less on the field. Domine ended the regular season with a huge claim for DPotY and rightly so – he is the king of sacks and was league leading LB for TFLs… but I like to think that the form of Light kicked him in to gear maybe just a little.
Both great players, I love them both, pleasure to play alongside them. Go Royals!
Tier 2:13
I’ll admit to being a little sceptical when first asked if I’d be interesting in joining the league; for one I couldn’t imagine how the whole thing would work, how it would be engaging, a good use of my free time. But sure, I thought I’d give it a whirl. This is where the game says to me “I told you so”.
I’ve been playing the game for what, six weeks or so? In this time I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with loads of players globally, and the vast majority have been absolutely sound people. Starting with the scouts, sure some of the conversations were a bit of a “copy and paste” exercise but there was still a degree of a personal touch behind that. With some many rookies to scout in my class I’m not surprised, and even amazed how active and engaged the scouts were. I think I gave a thank you to them all in my introductory media piece, they know who they are. The second round of scouting to move into the ISFL has been a lot more personal – I guess scouts have a lot more data to make their choices on who to chase down. All the chats I’ve had through discord have been very positive, very interesting and yeah, I’m looking forward to the next draft that’s for sure.
Being drafted by London in the 10th, following a few players I had struck up good connections with, was a great feeling and I think I was a good match for the locker room. The draft itself was great and you may/may not be aware that it kicked off at 1am for us here in the UK (insert shameless plug to 1377 podcast here for you to learn more). A locker room which I will add is bursting with amazing characters. Everyone is aware that Crunk and I are friends IRL; it even came up on draft day (sorry again that you didn’t get your man, qWest) so we already have that connection. But it’s the other folks in the locker room who have been so welcoming and helpful, such a great laugh in there and though Twitter. Now I don’t want to name them all here as I’ll well up but Syl and High, you did a superb job pulling together that group, I don’t think there is a bad egg anywhere.
So onto my player, linebacker L’Gazzy Burfict. He was delighted in being drafted at 77, quickly applying for a passport to get himself over to London. He was originally set up as a Run Stopper and playing behind two top top LBs in London I felt like despite earning max TPE something was missing from his game. A quick adjustment in archetype to Speed Rusher and things have been on the up ever since. He’s been lucky enough to be awarded two defensive player of the week awards in London and will be heading to the Ultimini very soon (oh crap, it may have been and gone when you read this… how did he do!?).
Finally, thinking about the league, it would be great if more stats were available to players who aren’t involved in simming. I’m a data driven stats man, well it’s what I do at work but my MacBook (and my free time) won’t let me delve into the sim files. So if more stats could be pulled and added into the index, that would be really interesting reading. Secondly, it would be great to see more of an incentive for players who take media and/or twitter seriously, and really try and build up personalities for their players. It seems too easy for this to be taken advantage of (certainly twitter automation) which is perhaps disappointing.
DSFL Defensive Player of the Year
Busch Light – LB – London Royals
Busch Light must be a serious contender for this award (awards committee, down to you I guess) but just in case he somehow slips under the radar I figured I’d remind you all what a season he has had in London. Now as a LB I’ve been paying close attention to his numbers – if he was slacking then my own player Burfict would be ready to stake a claim for a starting sport. This is not a rags to riches story for Burfict. No, this is me saying that Light has had an incredible season.
116 tackles puts him third overall in the charts through 14 games, plus he hit another 7 in the playoff victory vs Portland. Now the other solid LB in London is Juan Domine, and aside from tackles he looks to outshine Busch Light. “Why don’t you talk about Domine@ I hear you cry. Well overall data doesn’t always tell the whole story. Where did the tackles take place, how may they have impacted the season.
Busch Light had a slow start to the season and it wasn’t until week three where he lead London in tackles with eight. But it was his mid-season form which really stood out for me, and it’s this which would lead me to considering him for the award. He lead the team in tackles for four of the next five games – the only blip being when he tied in week six against the Seawolves. He hit double digit tackles in all other games. The major stand outs for me were in weeks seven and eight. In week seven the Royals had a tough visit to the Coyotes and ended up losing out by three. The gap was restricted through the brilliance of Busch Light; hitting 14 tackles (seven more than the next best LB in Domine) and two sacks. On fire was an understatement and saw him win Defensive POG. In week eight the Royals defeated the Grey Ducks, thanks in part to a second half in which they only conceded two points. But it was the first half with Light hitting nine tackles where he did his best to keep the score down as the other LBs (Domine and Burfict) had four between them. Without this first half showing from Light the Grey Ducks could have been out of sight at the half, and the Royals may not have made it into the playoffs. 59 tackles over those five games, let that sink in.
As the season progressed, Domine and Burfict both raised their game which meant Light was having to do less on the field. Domine ended the regular season with a huge claim for DPotY and rightly so – he is the king of sacks and was league leading LB for TFLs… but I like to think that the form of Light kicked him in to gear maybe just a little.
Both great players, I love them both, pleasure to play alongside them. Go Royals!
Code:
510 Tier 2:13
I’ll admit to being a little sceptical when first asked if I’d be interesting in joining the league; for one I couldn’t imagine how the whole thing would work, how it would be engaging, a good use of my free time. But sure, I thought I’d give it a whirl. This is where the game says to me “I told you so”.
I’ve been playing the game for what, six weeks or so? In this time I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with loads of players globally, and the vast majority have been absolutely sound people. Starting with the scouts, sure some of the conversations were a bit of a “copy and paste” exercise but there was still a degree of a personal touch behind that. With some many rookies to scout in my class I’m not surprised, and even amazed how active and engaged the scouts were. I think I gave a thank you to them all in my introductory media piece, they know who they are. The second round of scouting to move into the ISFL has been a lot more personal – I guess scouts have a lot more data to make their choices on who to chase down. All the chats I’ve had through discord have been very positive, very interesting and yeah, I’m looking forward to the next draft that’s for sure.
Being drafted by London in the 10th, following a few players I had struck up good connections with, was a great feeling and I think I was a good match for the locker room. The draft itself was great and you may/may not be aware that it kicked off at 1am for us here in the UK (insert shameless plug to 1377 podcast here for you to learn more). A locker room which I will add is bursting with amazing characters. Everyone is aware that Crunk and I are friends IRL; it even came up on draft day (sorry again that you didn’t get your man, qWest) so we already have that connection. But it’s the other folks in the locker room who have been so welcoming and helpful, such a great laugh in there and though Twitter. Now I don’t want to name them all here as I’ll well up but Syl and High, you did a superb job pulling together that group, I don’t think there is a bad egg anywhere.
So onto my player, linebacker L’Gazzy Burfict. He was delighted in being drafted at 77, quickly applying for a passport to get himself over to London. He was originally set up as a Run Stopper and playing behind two top top LBs in London I felt like despite earning max TPE something was missing from his game. A quick adjustment in archetype to Speed Rusher and things have been on the up ever since. He’s been lucky enough to be awarded two defensive player of the week awards in London and will be heading to the Ultimini very soon (oh crap, it may have been and gone when you read this… how did he do!?).
Finally, thinking about the league, it would be great if more stats were available to players who aren’t involved in simming. I’m a data driven stats man, well it’s what I do at work but my MacBook (and my free time) won’t let me delve into the sim files. So if more stats could be pulled and added into the index, that would be really interesting reading. Secondly, it would be great to see more of an incentive for players who take media and/or twitter seriously, and really try and build up personalities for their players. It seems too easy for this to be taken advantage of (certainly twitter automation) which is perhaps disappointing.
Code:
630 ![[Image: gazz.gif]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/771737978510114866/780569964469288980/gazz.gif)
