(S31) Ultimus Week

[Haseo]

Code:

Task 6 - 847 words

“Sim gonna sim” is literally how I would describe Season 31 for two teams: the Honolulu Hahalua and the Orange County Otters.

Going into the beginning of the season, the Otters were extremely excited at the prospect of making it back to the playoffs. For everyone in the war room, the Otters were testing at 8-8 at the absolute worst, with wins over the Arizona Outlaws, New York Silverbacks, Colorado Yeti, Sarasota Sailfish, and the Austin Copperheads. All of these teams were considered the top playoff teams in the league. We managed to win against Arizona… twice. That was the highlight of our season though. We finished 4-12, and ended up with the second overall pick in the draft. Our best player was, as usual, GOAT TANJ (@Eldorian). Even my player, Zack DiNozzo, who is one of the most promising Tight Ends in the sim after having almost 900 yards receiving in Season 30, had a huge sophomore slump (after my testing had me hitting the 1,000 yard barrier) while the Otters Quarterback for the last few seasons, Suleiman Ramza (@Blasoon) had his worst season as a Quarterback. My testing had Ramza throwing ~30 touchdowns to 9 interceptions with DiNozzo being his favorite target in the red zone. That clearly didn’t happen.

The Otters defense was damn near unstoppable in my testing, with Rean Schwarzer (@bowl0) most likely earning Defensive Breakout of the Year after doubling his tackle and interception numbers, and Brandon Booker (@Memento Mori) had a season similar to Rickie Vaughne’s Season 30 (almost 10 INTs with 2 Defensive touchdowns). Our defense felt like a turnstile in a subway for a while. We didn’t give up too many points against, I thought. We just didn’t have a pass attack. We can’t feed GOAT TANJ the ball 50 times or we would probably win every game.

Now, the Honolulu Hahalua.. wow I did not expect them to have the season that they did. For the past few seasons, all I’ve seen or heard is “lol, it’s the HAHAlua”, like they were the butt of a lot of jokes in the league. This team came to play with a vengeance this season, improving to 9-7 and a playoff berth this season compared to 6-10 in Season 30 and missing the playoffs. The Hahalua actually won their first Ultimus trophy! Congratulations to the entire Honolulu organization. I think this might be the first Hawai’i team I’ve seen win some sort of championship, actually. That’s pretty cool now that I think about it!

Honolulu was spearheaded by the dominant rusher, Cobra Kai, named after one of the best shows on Netflix. I still can’t believe they made a sequel to the original Karate Kid movies, and that it’s actually as amazing as the movies were! Kai improved upon their Season 30 rushing total by almost 200 yards, and finished the season with 12 touchdowns. They lost almost 400 yards in receiving compared to last season though, so they probably didn’t get as many fantasy points. Shame!

Eleven Kendrick-Watts was electric as always in the receiving game, finishing with almost 100 yards shorter in Season 31 compared to Season 30. They did, however, score two more touchdowns compared to last season. There weren’t as many 40 yard+ plays, but Kendrick-Watts did some work in the off-season since they dropped exactly half as many passes in Season 31 than they did in Season 30 (10 to 5).

The unsung hero in the whole offense would have to be Joliet Christ Jr. Simply put, Christ Jr didn’t lose games. He kept the offense moving at times, and allowed his playmakers to… make plays. I can’t stress this enough: you don’t need a Patrick Mahomes type player to win championships. You can get away with your Baker Mayfields and your Jimmy Garappolo’s… ok maybe not the Jimmy’s. You can have a game manager and still win championships. They won’t lose the game for you. If you build a good enough team around them, and have a defense that keeps the opponent from scoring too much, you could have a championship caliber team on your hands, especially in this sim. Case in point - Honolulu had the fewest points scored compared to any other playoff team.

When your defense allows the third fewest points against in the league, you’re gonna have a good time watching them. The Honolulu defense allowed 340 points, which is only 10 points away from first (the Chicago Butchers only allowed 330 points against them). This just proves a point my boss at work always says - “defense wins championships”. If your opponent can’t score, they can’t beat you. So, when your defense is playing as well as Honolulu’s did this season, you can let your defense do all the work while your offense doesn’t lose the game for you.

Honolulu didn’t have a great start to the season, but damn did they finish VERY strong. It’s almost like they were blessed by the sim or something. Whatever; they’ll take it any day of the week (especially Ultimus Week! hehe)