(S22) - PT3 - Boom or Bust

[bk1689]

PBE PT

[The_Kidd]

There's a common saying in sports - "The Draft is a Crapshoot" - which speaks on the unpredictability of selecting amateur players who have yet to display how well they will translate to the professional leagues. However, that does not excuse certain cardinal sins such as drafting for need over BPA, spending high capital on projects instead of proven players, and a more unspoken one because it's generally understood never to do so: DO NOT DRAFT SPECIALTY PLAYERS HIGH!

In football, it is foolish to draft a kicker or punter in the draft at all, unfathomable to even relish the thought of spending a high draft pick on one. Yet, in Season 14, the Wraiths committed the fateful error. They drafted Stephen Harris Jr in the first round. Now drafting a kicker is bad enough, but they drafted an average kicker. They created their own Roberto Aguayo situation. To add to the buffoonery, Harris Jr. missed the entire S17 and upon his return, his numbers bombed out. He became one of the most unreliable kickers in the NSFL before finally becoming an IA retiree after S19.

Now let's add some more pain to this already miserable decision. Leighton Lee, a pro-bowl LB, was taken with the next pick after Harris. Think that was bad enough, as LB is one of the most crucial positions in the sport, in a QB rich draft that produced 5 pro-bowlers out of 6 draftees, the Wraiths ended up picking the one QB that didnt make the pro-bowl. Maybe one shouldn't wait until the last round to draft a QB.

To add the final cherry on top, the other kicker taken in the draft, Alfredo Crisco, after a slow start in NOLA ---- blossomed into a massive weapon after being picked up in the S18 expansion draft by the Copperheads and has been one of the best kickers in the league the last 4-5 seasons. Often setting the longest FG distance mark and reigning near the top of the accuracy table. So let this be a lesson learned: draft the BPA, and stay away from special teams players until the end of the draft.

[Naosu]

PBE PT

[Jo3fish5]

Well, as a rookie doing this point task was not easy. I barely know anybody from this season, let alone season 19 and before. But with some help from various league members, I've decided that defensive tackle Brayden Ennis. He was drafted in the Season 17 National Simulation Football League draft by the Baltimore Hawks, but was shorty thereafter traded to the New Orleans Second Line, not even playing a single snap for his original team. As a player on the Second Line, Ennis had a very underwhelming season, underperforming terribly for a 4th overall pick. This poor play earned him a new team, this time in Austin, Texas playing with the Copperheads. Brayden Ennis had a pretty good start to the 18th NSFL season but gradually became more and more irrelevant as the season progressed. The Copperheads did make the playoffs that year, but the defense did terribly, giving up 33 points to the Outlaws and failing to advance. In the offseason, Ennis was cut from the team and went to free agency, where he received offers from only 2 teams. He would end up signing with the San Jose Sabercats, his 4th team in 3 seasons, along with Action Jackson (a much better player). Brayden Ennis has now signaled that he may retire after his next contract because of injury to his ACL (this is a BS excuse there is no injuries in the sim). So far in his career, Ennis has had 5 sacks. 5 sacks in 3 seasons for a 4th overall draft pick defensive tackle. He really was a massive bust for the (insert half the league here).

[DatSmolBoi]

As a still new growing member in this community, yeah this was very hard to choose. So by researching and asking people who was the greatest bust in the NSFL I come to a conclusion that Willie B. Hardagain is the greatest draft bust, for his original team. In the season 19 draft he would be drafted by the Chicago Butchers on pick #19 in the second round. Butchers fans were excited to see what Willie Hardagain could do for their team. Well guess what? The next day they instantly trade him to the Outlaws just to get Beat, Josh Allen, and Zack Vega. Such is the Butchers way to trade him off the team not even playing one game with the Butchers. During his time with the Outlaws, He would tally up 537 yards and 5 TDs in his season. Yes I do still believe that he was a draft bust for his original team. Butchers making draft picks just to waste and trade the rookie off to a random team. Heres where the draft bust really comes in, as Hardagain only tallied 346 yards and 1 TD in season 21 which is a very different number then his last season. However, once the Wraiths signed him, He turned into a machine racking over 402 yards in the season currently right now. Did the Butchers miss out on Hardagain? Well, to be honest yeah. Is he in a better place then Chicago? Yes. Hope Hardagain keeps grinding on those points and wish him a thank you for being here as my greatest draft bust from his original team.

269 words

[Rabidsponge21]

PBE PT

[s4ndr0p]

As a relatively new player to this league I can not really tell you much about draft busts so I figured I would just tell you about Bobby Ruckus who was drafted 10th overall by Colorade in Season 6. Ruckus started playing safety for the Portland Pythons in S5 and ended his first season with an okay statline. 55 tackles, combined with 2 sacks and 2 interceptions. If this is enough to justify being picked at 10th overall is debatable. His skillset was pretty good, sitting at 72 agility and 75 speed, but it's also not mind-blowing. After being drafted into the NSFL Ruckus only got a little bit better, raising his strength +5, and speed +3 before becoming inactive shortly after that.
Ruckus also did not have a great leap in his performance because of that. Ruckus ended up with 68 tackles (which surprisingly is 13 tackles more than in his DSFL season), 1 Sack and 1 pass deflection. To be clear this was BY FAR the worst season for a starting strong safety that year. In case you wondered how the Yeti season ended, they went 0-14 in the 6th season.
His next year was going to be his most productive one. Ruckus racked up 66 tackles, 2 Forced Fumbles and 7 sacks. Unfortunately this was a one year thing for Ruckus and he fell right back into his S6 statline in S8.
It took only 3 Years for him to never play a single game again. He was not on an active Roster in S9.

258 words

[AL_GRINGO]

PBE Welfare

[Bruins10]

Lucari Felix

Drafted in S10 by the Philadelphia Libery, Lucari ended up going inactive shortly after being selected. He did not help the Liberty whatsoever by doing so and they also lost out on what was a top pick at the time, selecting him with the 3rd Overall pick in the draft. And what hurts even more than that? Hall of Fame Quarterback Joliet Christ was selected by the San Jose Sabrecats with the 4th overall pick, literally the pick right after Felix. Now yes, I understand that maybe the team was not looking for a QB and needed a CB instead, but, best player available is always a great way to draft in such leagues.Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say, so forsure they were 1 pick away from getting a Hall of Famer on the team or even having a great trade piee if they did not need a QB.
Looking a little deeper in the Season 10 draft, another thing noticed is how there was a Pro Bowler Cornerback taken by the San Jose Sabrecats on the 2nd round. So, the Sabrecats made 2 better choices than the Liberty in this particular draft, selecting Xandra Troyski who had a short lived career it seems by his Wiki page. The Liberty would have been able to trade down and still address their needs at Cornerback with Troyski and have the possibility of adding another good piece to their team at the time.

All in All, it seems as though this is the summary of Lucari Felix
Drafted 3rd Overall by the Liberty
4th overall selection becomes a Hall of Famer, Joliet Christ
Active and serviceable Cornerback goes to the Sabrecats in the 2nd round.

Philly screwed up with that one, sorry Felix

[Jay_Doctor]

I contemplated doing Dylan Deluxe, but the name still makes me shake my head and vomit in my mouth a little when I read it. Instead I will follow suite and do Sweet James Jones. This one is an interesting case to say the least. Without knowing this as 100% fact, SJJ and I joined the league the within a day or two of him and really close to draft time. The first person I remember talking with in the league was Bex, closely followed by Tom Hanks and Butter. All that being said, the person I remember seeing most in the first couple weeks was Sweet James Jones. Early on he did make a disclaimer that he was going to talk a lot in character, but that only goes so far. He was quite mouthy, and it felt like the painting was on the wall. Still, I did get to know him a little bit and he always talked normal in messages. He was easy enough to get along with when he was out of character and I’d say overall, I really enjoyed him most of the time. He was drafted to the Solar Bears early in the first round and they had a rough season to put it lightly.

He ran his mouth off quite a bit, but their record wasn’t really backing it up at times. Regardless, he was earning at a solid level and won his fair share of awards at the end of the season. By the time the NSFL draft rolled around, the S19 class was pretty well laid out. There were some questions who would go where still, but there were also some obvious choices on who shouldn’t go anywhere near certain teams. One of those situations was SJJ and Chicago. Sweet was quite vocal about not wanting to go to Chicago and most would have thought Toasty couldn’t have been paid all the fake money in the league to bring him there. They talked shit back and forth to each other all the time (this will come into play later). Well the draft rolls around and Chicago had picks 4 and 6. Sweet was getting forecasted by most to go for sure in the first round. It was a weird draft though, with only 5 teams having a first-round pick in a class that was not deep at all (NOLA had 3, Chicago, Orange County and Yellowknife had 2, and San Jose 1). NOLA took a couple of the top earners early; San Jose grabbed their legendary player and then Chicago was on the clock. They went with WR O’Leary, a player who has been top in the class and really doing well to this day. Orange County grabbed the best secondary player in Dream (who is also been elite this whole time), so Chicago was back on the clock at 6. They had talked a top receiver and had other major needs still, but for some reason took none other that Sweet himself.

Sweet was less than enthused but went through with things. He got paid an insane amount of money his rookie year and actually seemed excited to play for Chiraq (as he called it all the time). He max earned the whole next season and things looked promising for him as a player at the least. Then the biggest drama of recent league history unfolded. I won’t go into detail, but the quick version is that SJJ’s real life best friend quit the league because he felt slighted on a situation. Sweet also quit and it seemed to be the end of that. Some people would have stuck in the league still, but I can’t necessarily fault him for leaving with his best friend. If that had been the end of things, I wouldn’t have called him a bust.

Out of the blue a couple months later, Sweet and his best friend came back to the league. The sheer excitement about having them back (more so Dylan than Sweet, but still) was insane. Once again, the quick version is that they didn’t actually come back to join the league. They aimed at destroying it. More so Dylan than Sweet, but he certainly played a part. Once Dylan left again, Sweet actually stuck around again and was earning some. I had expected to see him leave as well, but he said he was back in action. That was certainly not the case though. Him and Toasty went at it harder than before, to the point where there were lines that got crossed on Sweet’s end. Shortly after, he was permanently banned from the league just like Dylan.

I wasn’t planning to write a novel on this one and there is a ton of details I left out as well. Still, it was an interesting journey for Sweet. If I’ve learned anything from it, playing a character in this league fails 98% of the time when that character you play is a cocky douche. Sweet wasn’t the first or last, but probably the biggest example of how it can and most likely will turn wrong. If you actually read through this, thanks for listening lol. (I don’t think people actually read these, do they? DM me SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET if you did for shits and gigs).