7) Awards season is a big part of the offseason festivities. Take the stand, in 400 words or more, for one or more players that are not your own, and argue why they should receive awards glory. They can be your teammates or anyone in the league. How did their stats and on the field contribution contribute to their case this year?
I think that current San Jose Sabercats kicker/punter ( and eventual hall of fame kicker/punter ) Matthew McDairmid should get the award for kicker and punter of the year for the ISFL. This may come as a controversial pick for the award, but I think that by going through a deep dive of the stats we can uncover the reasoning for why McDairmid is the clear-cut choice to hoist the kicker and punter of the year trophies. Looking at the index, the first statistical categories to judge kickers on are extra points made and extra points attempted. McDairmid comes in tied for fifth in extra points made at 36 and tied for fourth with 38 extra points attempted. While this does land him in a tie for sixth place apart from the three-way tie for 100% accuracy between Crisco, Prohaska, and Powers, it would be a bit unfair to only judge a kicker on one facet of their game. Being a kicker in the ISFL is more than simply just kicking extra points. It is the ability to hit leg dingers in all aspects of the game, whether it is extra points, field goals, kick offs, or punts. That being said, we should continue to look at other stats to truly understand McDairmid’s case.
Field goals are the other main facet to the kicker’s game. While these events never actually occur visually on-screen during games ( and now that I think of it, none of these kicker dots ever actually show up ), a team with an elite field-goal kicking kicker can take a team straight to the Ultimus trophy. Looking at the field goals made category, McDairmid landed tied for last with 20 field goals made. That isn’t a death sentence for his resume though. Taking a look at the field goals attempted gives us a better look at how accuracy played out this year. McDairmid ended.. 10th out of 12. Not great actually, but the elite level of talent at the kicker position has never been higher in the league. His final field goal accuracy was 87%, but that is neither here nor there are numbers never really tell the whole story. He was 12/12 for kicks below 39 yards which is pretty darn good if you ask me. His longest field goal was 47 yards, last in the league. Anyways, the man was the player of the game for the Sabercats Ultimus victory and that trumps all of the other stats from the season. McDairmid for KotY and PotY, McDairmid for MVP.
8) It’s always important to look forward to the future. Examine your team, and in 400 words or more, talk about how they can improve themselves to get a stab at trophy contention next year. Are you loaded with draft capital for the next draft? Do you have plenty of cap space to sign free agents? Go through the roster and note the different strengths and weaknesses, and how you think those will change over the next few seasons. How should your team adapt?
While the Sabercats did just come from an Ultimus-winning season 24, it would be ignorant to say that there isn’t anywhere to improve in our roster in order to find ourselves back in the position to hoist another Ultimus trophy in season 25. As one of the lower-TPE teams, we admittedly had a quite a bit of luck on our side to get to where we were able to. This is also likely why we had +900 odds to win it all in the eyes of the casino ( my bank account being $50mil richer was very thankful for those odds ). The first major area of concern for the Sabercats roster is the cornerback position. The end of season 24 brought about three major changes in the San Jose roster that will require some big moves to recover from. The first loss came in the form of Tyler Oles Jr. leaving the team to be re-signed by the Chicago Butchers in an unsurprising move which was originally done to preserve roster space pending the S25 expansion draft, but worked very well in Oles’ favor in gaining an Ultimus ring. The second secondary loss for the ‘Cats was losing CB Matt Krause to free agency. Krause was quickly signed as a free agent addition to the newly created Berlin Fire Salamanders expansion team. The final loss, and one that was the biggest bummer to me, was the retirement of HeHateMe PickSix. Although he was inactive during S24, PickSix was a vital member of San Jose’s Ultimus run and will be greatly missed. Fun fact: PickSix was on the same Portland Pythons team as me for a few games during S20, but was traded to Myrtle Beach after a couple games. Not so fun fact: our Portland team that year was very bad. I think we only won 2 games. Meanwhile, the Myrtle Beach team that year was stacked with players like PickSix, Prince Vegeta ( then Jeffrey LaVert ) and Dax Frost ( now Raphtalia Chan I think? ).
Anyways, back to the SaberCats roster. Another big position of need for us in S25 will be defensive end. Although we had a bright young talent in Water Chestnut III as our hopeful star defensive end of the future, sadly due to expansion technicalities Chestnut was forced to retire. That, coupled with our other defensive end being Chip Otle who has been inactive for four seasons leaves the ‘Cats with two glaring holes in their defensive line.
I think that current San Jose Sabercats kicker/punter ( and eventual hall of fame kicker/punter ) Matthew McDairmid should get the award for kicker and punter of the year for the ISFL. This may come as a controversial pick for the award, but I think that by going through a deep dive of the stats we can uncover the reasoning for why McDairmid is the clear-cut choice to hoist the kicker and punter of the year trophies. Looking at the index, the first statistical categories to judge kickers on are extra points made and extra points attempted. McDairmid comes in tied for fifth in extra points made at 36 and tied for fourth with 38 extra points attempted. While this does land him in a tie for sixth place apart from the three-way tie for 100% accuracy between Crisco, Prohaska, and Powers, it would be a bit unfair to only judge a kicker on one facet of their game. Being a kicker in the ISFL is more than simply just kicking extra points. It is the ability to hit leg dingers in all aspects of the game, whether it is extra points, field goals, kick offs, or punts. That being said, we should continue to look at other stats to truly understand McDairmid’s case.
Field goals are the other main facet to the kicker’s game. While these events never actually occur visually on-screen during games ( and now that I think of it, none of these kicker dots ever actually show up ), a team with an elite field-goal kicking kicker can take a team straight to the Ultimus trophy. Looking at the field goals made category, McDairmid landed tied for last with 20 field goals made. That isn’t a death sentence for his resume though. Taking a look at the field goals attempted gives us a better look at how accuracy played out this year. McDairmid ended.. 10th out of 12. Not great actually, but the elite level of talent at the kicker position has never been higher in the league. His final field goal accuracy was 87%, but that is neither here nor there are numbers never really tell the whole story. He was 12/12 for kicks below 39 yards which is pretty darn good if you ask me. His longest field goal was 47 yards, last in the league. Anyways, the man was the player of the game for the Sabercats Ultimus victory and that trumps all of the other stats from the season. McDairmid for KotY and PotY, McDairmid for MVP.
8) It’s always important to look forward to the future. Examine your team, and in 400 words or more, talk about how they can improve themselves to get a stab at trophy contention next year. Are you loaded with draft capital for the next draft? Do you have plenty of cap space to sign free agents? Go through the roster and note the different strengths and weaknesses, and how you think those will change over the next few seasons. How should your team adapt?
While the Sabercats did just come from an Ultimus-winning season 24, it would be ignorant to say that there isn’t anywhere to improve in our roster in order to find ourselves back in the position to hoist another Ultimus trophy in season 25. As one of the lower-TPE teams, we admittedly had a quite a bit of luck on our side to get to where we were able to. This is also likely why we had +900 odds to win it all in the eyes of the casino ( my bank account being $50mil richer was very thankful for those odds ). The first major area of concern for the Sabercats roster is the cornerback position. The end of season 24 brought about three major changes in the San Jose roster that will require some big moves to recover from. The first loss came in the form of Tyler Oles Jr. leaving the team to be re-signed by the Chicago Butchers in an unsurprising move which was originally done to preserve roster space pending the S25 expansion draft, but worked very well in Oles’ favor in gaining an Ultimus ring. The second secondary loss for the ‘Cats was losing CB Matt Krause to free agency. Krause was quickly signed as a free agent addition to the newly created Berlin Fire Salamanders expansion team. The final loss, and one that was the biggest bummer to me, was the retirement of HeHateMe PickSix. Although he was inactive during S24, PickSix was a vital member of San Jose’s Ultimus run and will be greatly missed. Fun fact: PickSix was on the same Portland Pythons team as me for a few games during S20, but was traded to Myrtle Beach after a couple games. Not so fun fact: our Portland team that year was very bad. I think we only won 2 games. Meanwhile, the Myrtle Beach team that year was stacked with players like PickSix, Prince Vegeta ( then Jeffrey LaVert ) and Dax Frost ( now Raphtalia Chan I think? ).
Anyways, back to the SaberCats roster. Another big position of need for us in S25 will be defensive end. Although we had a bright young talent in Water Chestnut III as our hopeful star defensive end of the future, sadly due to expansion technicalities Chestnut was forced to retire. That, coupled with our other defensive end being Chip Otle who has been inactive for four seasons leaves the ‘Cats with two glaring holes in their defensive line.
