Quote: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?
Not a hot take at all. Zoe Watts. Dallas Birddogs. Running Back of the Year. She was in the hunt for the conversation last season, but Theeks' domination eliminated her from contention. Now, in Season 24, it is Wartts that is eliminating others from the conversation!
Watts was electrifying this season. Most rushing attempts. Most rushing yards. Most touchdowns. And competitive and comparable yards per carry when compared to other running backs with a comparable number of attempts. Although Watts didn't take the Dallas Birddogs to the top of the standings list, she was an impressive force. Although true that Watts was not leaps and bounds ahead in every category, she definitively edges out the competition in some form or another. Her critics would argue that some statistics are admittedly only a few ahead of potential other winners. For example, Rogers is 20 yards behind her for the year. In years past, analysts could look back and see several players in a certain range, and they would have to choose a winner based on the other metrics. For example, last season, Theeks, Fakon, and Rogers all had 11 Touchdowns on the year. Batista and keppler has 10. It provided for interesting debate and the ability to creatively argue by pinning numbers against each other. In this case, however, Watts has a clear podium to stand on. Watts is the only player to crack double digits in Touchdowns. Theeks and Kitchens came close with 9 and 8 respectively, but both are hundreds (plural) of yards away from her in offensive production.
Therefore, the sheer number of touchdowns creates a hard argument that anyone else should where the crown. It places her in a "Red Zone Threat" category. Most DSFL showed a varying approach to Red Zone success with 14, 16 or even 20+ touchdowns through the air from their receiving corps (except you, Grey Ducks). When coupled with the fact that this team only had 7 passing touchdowns on the season, it translates to, not only the running backs from being the workhorse of the offense, but Watts being the Birddogs most reliable option to offensive success. While all teams this season were splitting carries between multiple backs and while all teams had a running back with more touchdowns and less touchdowns, Watts' statistics are impressive because no other red zone running back had the number of total rushing yards that Watts did. Therefore, no matter how you spin it, Zoe Watts is currently the best running back in the DSFL.
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420 wordsQuote: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?
I apologize, but I -- like 90% of other people choosing this topic -- have to talk about this bachelorette nonsense.
For starters, the noteworthy-ness of the scandal is that it involved the Commissioner directly. And, indirectly, all of Head Office. Obviously there is the obvious questions of "How?" and "Why?" and "What?" which are solid questions for many reasons. However, what I found the most troubling was the amount of backpedaling the was done following. Head Office immediately distanced themselves from the event despite the fact that it was posted as an official announcement and despite the fact that the post referred to itself as a "sim league event" SEVERAL times.
Others have covered the above to a thorough degree. Obviously, from an outward image standpoint, this is very cringey, and there could have been other ways to do the same thing. For example, you could easily change the prize and choose another gameshow where prompts and writings could be submitted and winners chosen. The aspect that I specifically am curious about is ... what exactly was the endgame goal? What was the vision for the end result? I can understand the value of community engagement, although... is this the community engagement we want? Clearly another Ultimus Week post topic or media post for the future. But, if this was all done in the name of community engagement, then I will try to concede that. People create some humorous pitches for themselves, perhaps play some games, submit some funny answers to funny prompts, and share some laughs, etc. Fine. However, once a winner was chosen... what was expected to happen afterwards? The problem with a romantic theme surrounding a show about strangers potentially deciding to get married in a ridiculous, irresponsibly short amount of time is that... it does provide some interesting questions about what our "version" of that would be like. Is it a date? How would that pan out long term? Clearly it appeared as though that was the thought given that entry criteria was 18+ and being single and ready to mingle! If one of the last parts of the post was true that it wasn't supposed to be taken that seriously, then what was the 18+ and single requirements for? Literally, if anyone has seen the tv show "Taskmaster" in the UK .... we could have literally done that and had the same level of community engagement with prompts and winners and laughs.
Although I have no qualms with finding romantic partners online, I'm not sure it is something that should be a promoted perk or feature of a sim league -- no matter how in jest it may be. This scandal definitely created some image issues, and I hope that it created some discussion about Head Office needing to work in a more collaborative nature because either 1) the Commissioner and associates were allowed to create an official league event with no one knowing (scary), or 2) Head Office knew about it but figured that someone else was looking at it to make sure everything was above board or, in conclusion, they knew about it but everyone was asleep at the wheel (also scary).
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