4. I don't think I've ever seen a stranger series of results in my 5 seasons watching than this year's New Orleans Second Line. Good teams falling flat on their face and losing their way out of the playoffs happens often (although the Copperheads may have done it a bit harder this season than usual). Mediocre teams beating a few good opponents for timely results happens often enough, sometimes well enough to win teams an Ultimus or two if the luck breaks hard enough. But the way that the Second Line did their trip to the playoffs is what is so shocking. While their points for and points against make them look like an average enough team, their yards for and yards against show a completely different story. So what caused low point given up total? Probably their defense having the 2nd most forced fumbles, 3rd most recovered fumbles, most interceptions, and most defensive touchdowns of any team. Turnovers are pretty random as is, even in the NFL, and it's more drastic with this squad which is in the bottom half of defensive TPE with under 10K.
But that's not the big reason this team is so shocking. New Orleans is most shocking because of the names of who they beat and lost to. New Orleans faced 10 different teams over the course of this season. Out of those, they beat 7. Those teams are the 7 best teams of those who they played. This is a team that, against other playoff teams, went 4-2, and then won another 4 games against teams who many had making the playoffs this season. When facing their top tier competition they went 8-2. Their record was 9-7.
Against the 4 worst teams that New Orleans matched up against this season by team strength, San Jose, Honolulu, Chicago, and Balitmore, the Second Line went 1-5. While San Jose played like a decently strong team in the first half of this season, they were also the team that the Second Line actually won against. New Orleans gave fully half of the wins this season to the teams who had 3 wins or less, giving the Honolulu Hahalua 2 wins and the Baltimore Hawks one. The Hawks, to remind people, are still in the middle of a deep rebuild, and the Hahalua are starting a rookie QB with less TPE than the once regressed, inactive since December, Luke Skywalker.
To be frank, New Orleans lost to bad teams and beat good teams despite being a bad team themselves. They are a team lacking one of the 22 Linebackers with over 1000 TPE, their running back is under 750 TPE while the other 5 teams in the playoffs average 1.2 RBs with over 1000 TPE. Their receivers are a little better by absolute numbers, but they still come in at 10th, 11th, and 18th among playoff teams, and they didn't have or get top tier QB play. But they are in the playoffs nevertheless.
The other side of the coin, who was most sim cursed, has really only one candidate, and while I hate to somewhat double dip from an earlier article I wrote, the Copperheads were truly cursed this season. This was a team that multiple people in my locker room put to win the ASFC (granted, as a member of Arizona, one of the more pessimistic locker rooms in the league, what that actually means is that we thought they were the 2nd best team and that we would most likely collapse and lose the top spot.) This was a team who finally brought a good enough QB to the team, coming off of an Ultimus appearance. Their 3rd best linebacker was Dex Kennedy, who never had less than 1000 TPE and is right now at 1200. They had 3 members of their secondary over 1000 TPE. Even on their comparatively weaker defensive line, they still had Troen Egghands at over 1300 TPE to be a strong point. And yet this team gave up the 4th most points on the season and spent 3/4ths of the season averaging over 30 points allowed per game, a mark only surpassed in actuality by the Hawks and the Sabercats. I believe these actually ended up being some of my only missed spots on the seasonal rankings chart, and the other pair (Yellowknife and Colorado) were much closer together in terms of being swapped around.
I guess Colorado was a bit of a surprise? They run a strategy focused on an immense amount of passes, didn't have anywhere near as productive a performance from Caliban this time (I'd argue he shouldn't even make the nominations for QBotY, when last season I had him as QB3 and he won it), and yet despite a poor performance from Caliban the Yeti had the 2nd best record in the league this season, and if not for a surprise loss to the Second Line would have tied for the best, although I believe they would have still lost the 1st overall seed to the Salamanders on Conference Record in that scenario. Nowhere near as much of a surprise as the Second Line or the Copperheads, though.
But that's not the big reason this team is so shocking. New Orleans is most shocking because of the names of who they beat and lost to. New Orleans faced 10 different teams over the course of this season. Out of those, they beat 7. Those teams are the 7 best teams of those who they played. This is a team that, against other playoff teams, went 4-2, and then won another 4 games against teams who many had making the playoffs this season. When facing their top tier competition they went 8-2. Their record was 9-7.
Against the 4 worst teams that New Orleans matched up against this season by team strength, San Jose, Honolulu, Chicago, and Balitmore, the Second Line went 1-5. While San Jose played like a decently strong team in the first half of this season, they were also the team that the Second Line actually won against. New Orleans gave fully half of the wins this season to the teams who had 3 wins or less, giving the Honolulu Hahalua 2 wins and the Baltimore Hawks one. The Hawks, to remind people, are still in the middle of a deep rebuild, and the Hahalua are starting a rookie QB with less TPE than the once regressed, inactive since December, Luke Skywalker.
To be frank, New Orleans lost to bad teams and beat good teams despite being a bad team themselves. They are a team lacking one of the 22 Linebackers with over 1000 TPE, their running back is under 750 TPE while the other 5 teams in the playoffs average 1.2 RBs with over 1000 TPE. Their receivers are a little better by absolute numbers, but they still come in at 10th, 11th, and 18th among playoff teams, and they didn't have or get top tier QB play. But they are in the playoffs nevertheless.
The other side of the coin, who was most sim cursed, has really only one candidate, and while I hate to somewhat double dip from an earlier article I wrote, the Copperheads were truly cursed this season. This was a team that multiple people in my locker room put to win the ASFC (granted, as a member of Arizona, one of the more pessimistic locker rooms in the league, what that actually means is that we thought they were the 2nd best team and that we would most likely collapse and lose the top spot.) This was a team who finally brought a good enough QB to the team, coming off of an Ultimus appearance. Their 3rd best linebacker was Dex Kennedy, who never had less than 1000 TPE and is right now at 1200. They had 3 members of their secondary over 1000 TPE. Even on their comparatively weaker defensive line, they still had Troen Egghands at over 1300 TPE to be a strong point. And yet this team gave up the 4th most points on the season and spent 3/4ths of the season averaging over 30 points allowed per game, a mark only surpassed in actuality by the Hawks and the Sabercats. I believe these actually ended up being some of my only missed spots on the seasonal rankings chart, and the other pair (Yellowknife and Colorado) were much closer together in terms of being swapped around.
I guess Colorado was a bit of a surprise? They run a strategy focused on an immense amount of passes, didn't have anywhere near as productive a performance from Caliban this time (I'd argue he shouldn't even make the nominations for QBotY, when last season I had him as QB3 and he won it), and yet despite a poor performance from Caliban the Yeti had the 2nd best record in the league this season, and if not for a surprise loss to the Second Line would have tied for the best, although I believe they would have still lost the 1st overall seed to the Salamanders on Conference Record in that scenario. Nowhere near as much of a surprise as the Second Line or the Copperheads, though.
