Offseason Point Task - 25th Anniversary Special

[Number 82]

Not really sure what the league means to me so I guess I'll write about some of the things that I've liked since joining the league. I joined as part of the Season 22 class, kinda on whim. Didn't have any sim league experience or for that matter had any desire to join one but I figured why not? Season 22 ended up being quite a big class with over 270 prospects at the time of the DSFL Draft. There were users who were vying for the 1OA in the S21 DSFL Draft, some trying doing media, some looking to pick up jobs and some just generally talking up a big game to get attention. In a big draft class it can be difficult to get much attention, so FurFurFurson had the idea to create a group for some of the defensive backs and RussDrivesTheBus (who essentially is a big safety anyways) so that we could work together to possibly improve our draft stock in the lead up to the draft. FurFurFurson wrote media about the position groups on safety and cornerback and would make sure include some nice lines about each of us.

Worked out quite well as the majority of us were picked up in the early rounds of the S21 DSFL Draft and also the S22 NSFL Draft. Being part of the group was probably a big reason why I stuck around and decided to try to max earn. They were among the first people I talked to in the league and it was the discord server that I spent the most time in. The group shifted from improving our draft stock us wanting to become the best defensive players in the league. While the group is down to 5 and not as active as it was previously, it still something nice to be part of.

What things could look like in the future, 25 season from now? Well, given the move to rename the league to the International Simulation Football League, I guess we'll might be seeing more teams overseas teams if we expand further. Perhaps existing teams may be on the move, which is something that we saw recently with Myrtle Beach relocating to Bondi Beach. I'm guessing that in 25 seasons we'll have more international teams in the ISFL to the point that we maybe end up rebalancing/reworking the teams in each conference or perhaps even a move to change the structure of the conferences. 2 conferences with each conference having 2 divisions. I haven't had a look at DDSPF 21, so not sure if that would possible. 25 seasons is a long time, and maybe during that time we end up with a new sim as well. As with what has happened with DDSPF 16 with people digging into the sim and metas being established, I wouldn't be surprised if the same were to happen with DDSPF 21 as well, so may very well end up seeing some rebalancing for some archetypes.

Code:

500 words

[timeconsumer]

Okaaay 400 words about some more ISFL stuff. Let's see I've already covered some of my favorite moments in league history with different Ultimus and PT tasks in the past. I wonder what to talk about here. I kinda feel like grandpa sharing odd stories about the war or the great depression when I do this.

Today I'm going to tell you the story behind one of the greatest shifts in team power and makeup we had ever seen. And how I caused it. Today we are talking about how I killed the offensive line.

Some people might not know this but I was the first offensive lineman in the ISFL. Ever. I was the first person to create as offensive lineman and during those early days was widely considered one of the best offensive linemen. There were lots of other really good ones too though, so don't get caught up on that part. But the problem with the offensive linemen during those early days is that there were not a lot of them. Meanwhile on the other side of the ball there were a ton of Dlineman. And much like DLine today it doesn't take a whole lot to scale up quickly and become really good, really fast.

On the flipside offensive line had the opposite problem and they did not scale up as quickly, even for the active linemen. But the bigger issue was the number. Most teams had maybe 1 active lineman, sometimes 2. Almost nobody had 3 active and high earning OL. It got so bad by about season 3 that it wasn't unusual to see 12 sacks in a single game, by one team. Holy shit did it suck.

So I proposed a solution. Offensive line was broken and we needed a fix. A few ideas were out there but the idea that stuck the most was just to get rid of offensive line entirely, let teams use cap space to buy OL bots, and let tthe linemen move to different positions. What happened after that was one of the biggest shifts in TPE the league had ever seen. Suddenly a team like OCO with 2 high active OL moved their guys to defense and essentially were able to increase their defensive TPE by a massive % without their OL taking a hit in the process. Other teams that had struggles with QB activity were able to move their top earner to QB like Baltimore or Yellowknife did.

In the case of a team like OCO because they already had the QB and weren't replacing one this shift to defense allowed them to dominate for several seasons while the teams like YKW and BAL were really gearing up fast, Philly also. Some of these teams had a lot of bad luck and should have won more than once in their window but the result was still the same. The murder of the OL was able to shift the balance of power in the league.

[ryd029aird13]

I love this, will always love this, I also love my stats.

Number 1 fullback

Drafted by the New York Silverbacks in the 2040 draft. Bawlls soon made a name for himself as some kind of unicorn, this was due to him being the only real fullback in the ISFL. Bawlls improved massively over the season and became an integral part of the offense, running and catching the ball out of the backfield for 493 all-purpose yards and found the endzone in 2 occasions. Both these touchdowns were on the ground and the first was also New York's first rushing Touchdown. As you can see below in the stats table, Bawlls was well known for knocking defenders over and piled up 31 pancakes on the season, while only giving up a single sack on the season. Bawlls is currently still a work in progress and still some way off the finished article, but don't give up on this unicorn just yet.

Love the grind, love my team, love my brothers.

Is this enough for 2TPE.

Please and Thank you.

[TheDangaZone]

So while I may not have been a top earner in the ISFL in my time here or ever been the absolute most active on the forum threads the league still means a lot to me. I first joined the league as a draftable free agent back in S1 as a safety. I ended up in Orange County (which ties in later) and the LR was great. There were a lot of people there who made the league enjoyable and having a football league just seemed so fun on top of my normal duties in SHL (which was my main league). In the end though I had stepped away because I was getting more involved in SHL and gaining jobs over there as well as GMing which took up a lot of time and I just didn't have the time (or drive maybe) to really go hard in 2 leagues back then. So I retired and waited. A long time after though after hearing how much fun a lot of my friends in SHL were having I decided to come back and give it another shot. And that's when the magic really started happening and showed me what the league means to me. The friendships, the celebrating in LRs together, the fun of winning as a team, talking with all the wonderful people in the lockerrooms, sharing stories and laughing. Oh and the championships and awards didn't hurt either. So when I returned I was drafted to Tijuana where I came in with quite a few friends from SHL as well who were already there like Blastmeaway and Caltroit. They made that LR so much fun and when we all were able to win the Ultimini in back to back seasons it was one of the best times I've had on this site. I'm in that LR now as well with my newest player after winning yet another Ultimini there and it's been as fun if not even better than it was when I won 2 with them all those seasons ago. With that same player back then though I was also able to be drafted to Orange County, which I know is a very polarizing team in much the same ways the Yankees are in baseball. Success breeds contempt from others and thats 100% fair. With that team I had yet another great LR that I was able to return to after so many seasons away from the league and once again see some of the same people waiting for me with open arms and a smile. And that smile was reciprocated as those seasons in Tijuana and Orange County were some of the most fun I've had in any league not even just in ISFL. In Orange County we were able to win another 2 rings for my player Ricky Adams and in the process I even won an MVP. Now I know this somewhat makes it seem like winning is fun and it is but I think the important thing here isn't that winning is fun, it's that the locker rooms these teams have created and been able to keep at the high level of activity and enjoyment that they have has made the players enjoy their time in the league. It makes us want to keep updating and to be the best players we can be for those teams so we can continue to have fun with our friends (and strangers) in a LR as we celebrate and laugh from all around the world. That enjoyment is able to keep the players more invested which in turn makes them even better in the league and keeps the circle going. So for me the most important thing in the ISFL, and any league, is the friends we make and continue to talk to on a daily basis. The lockerrooms where we can go and enjoy ourselves after work, school, or whatever it is we have going on that day. The locker rooms and community of this league are what keep it and other's like it going and there's no better feeling in the world then coming in to say hello to all those great people when you get online for the day.

[enigmatic]

I have been on the ISFL since season 1 so I have seen it all. It's a place where the best and the worst of what sim leagues have to offer is on display. I have felt exhausted by all the drama this league can produce, hence my periods of inactivity, but I always end up coming back. I guess I do find some enjoyment in it after all.

I ended up on fun teams, was part of one of the most famous "dramas" in league history (LVL retires many) and also lived through all the bullshit the ISFL had to offer. It's usually that drama and next level bullshit that drives me away from the league for a little time but I've learned to enjoy the enjoyable parts and now rarely read about anything related to the league. The locker rooms is where the fun is at.

More recently, I have joined one of the best locker rooms I have been a part of in my sim league career so in over 5 real life years. The Dallas Birddogs turned out to be exactly what I needed during this shit year and I can never thank them enough for selecting me and welcoming me to this strange band of misfits. You never know the impact you can have on someone, especially on the internet where things are supposed to be more impersonal but they have helped me go through really hard times without probably knowing it.

Looking at it from that point of view, what the league means to me is a place where I can talk with people and I know I won't be judged no matter what I say. I know I can be difficult and I complain a lot but my teammates always lend an ear and never make me feel like an idiot.

308 words because honestly I can't bring myself to write another 100 for 1 tpe.

[Sermokala]

The league is a lot of things to me and if there is one thing that stays the same is that things change. There's a really nice undercurrent that the league develops and forces change to happen but at the same time doesn't force the people in it to change what they enjoy or what they get out of the league. There is structure and yet flexibility, people care but understand, there are deadlines but there are always options. Everyone hates the sim but at the same time they're happy when the sim gives them something good. The awards are either the greatest thing or nothing more than a giant politics and corruption fueled conspiracy to spite the "out" group and reward the "in" group. People are encouraged to make content and the ones that make good content are always rewarded even above imaginary dollars.
And the league isn't even about a specific thing. If we didn't use the sim we use now we'd use a different sim. If we didn't have discord I don't think the league would exist but at the least its not delved into as deeply as anything else in the league I don't think. The HO bearly has an announcement bot and things like a bot channel for seeing what our stats and our bank account/transactions aren't critical or used every single day. I went through a few phases with online games where there were tools that we used every single day and every few hours with bots that were pretty poorly made but were still a focus of what we did day to day. What I'm trying to say is that we could just as easily do the leauge with older forms of software like teamspeak, vent, mumble, or god forbid some stupid thing from google.
Even the divisions make things interesting. Sports is about making people hate other people for things that don't matter in an attempt to relive their anger over things that do matter. 2020 has been a really rough year but having something to cheer for and against in the lean months of the summer was really important to be at least.
If nothing else the league gives me something to look forward to. Seasons change players develop SJS somehow is a great team now and even the expansion teams are pretty good. We're going to be moving to a new sim soon and even if its still a tire fire like the current one I know that the sim doesn't make or break the league. The people in the league make or break the league and its the people that make the league mean something to me.

[Jay_Doctor]

Happy Silver Jubilee ISFL/NSFL! You've made it through 25 seasons now, a feat that feels pretty monumental. I think a lot of us take it for granted that these sim leagues are just up and running, but that is never a guarantee. Joining the Grass Roots Soccer League from close to the start, I saw the insane amount of work it takes just to get a league like this up and running. Once that is done, it still takes the dedication of a lot of people to keep things running smoothly. For over one year of my real life now, I have been a part of this league. 

From day one, this league was something I was fascinated in. I loved the idea of doing different activities each week and slowly making my player improve over time. I remember watching my first sim and almost getting turned off though. The chat was going crazy for these stupid little dots and I was really unimpressed at first. I thought that the structure was cool, but I didn't really feel like I was watching much when my player was on the field. After a couple of days though, I started warming up to the idea of 22 little dots running through a 60 minute game in just about 5 minutes. I've come to really love those silly little dots, though sometimes I do wonder about what it would be like to see a more life like presentation. The other aspects of the league is where the magic really happens though. 

The scouting process and draft is hands down the coolest aspect of what we do. Having all of the teams reach out and scout you was an awesome feeling. I feel like scouting has really made a shift to being much more impersonal with the stupid questionnaires these days, but those who reach out and do it the old fashioned way get big props from me. It just makes a more personal touch from the beginning and probably goes a longer way for that prospect.

Besides scouting, I think the other best aspect of this league is the locker room structure. Being in a place with all of your teammates really does feel like a locker room. You get to shoot the breeze, talk sports and of course talk about anything league related. This is also something that has changed quite a lot since I first joined, but luckily where I'm in we have a closed locker room. I know a lot of people prefer an open locker room, but I strongly disagree with that sentiment. I think the whole point of the team locker room is to keep it to just current and former players of that organization. If you want to socialize with the rest of the league, go to the dedicated server that literally 99% of the league is a part of from the start. I also don't understand the allure of being a part of 17 different locker rooms and trying to communicate in all of them. I can barely keep up with 2 these days.

Of everything I've mentioned, the single best part of this league has been the users I've meet. A large majority of the users I'm closest with stem from NOLA and Tijuana. When I was more active as a GM and Rookie Mentor, I did get to meet a ton of awesome people in that regard as well. For the sake of not leaving anyone out, I won't start naming names. I think anyone who I have become close with knows already. To those people, I just want to say thank you for everything you have done. The league is in a better place because of you being here. I also feel like I am a better person for getting to know so many of you this last year. Keeping being awesome! Here is to wishing another 25 seasons for the ISFL.

[qWest]

I have two huge stand-out experiences in my first few months here in the league so far: my ISFL draft night and winning my first award in S24.

I had a great time being a part of the S22 ISFL draft class. There was a lot of buzz and media leading up to the draft given the historical size and activity present with the class. Having a few seasons of experience now as a scout in both the DSFL and ISFL, I really miss that experience of getting scouted. As a prospect there are so many endless possibilities for the future of your player's career at that point. I created a long media post about my potential draft destinations, grading them all as I went. I learned a lot about all of the teams in the process of writing that article and I learned a lot about what I wanted and what was possible with my player. Probably the best thing that came out of the article is that I called out several of the ISFL teams which had yet to reach out to me for scouting, spurring those teams to reach out, including Laser, the GM for the Orange County Otters. Some part of our conversation and my time exploring and learning more about that team drew me to them. I hadn't specifically said it to anyone, hell I hadn't even admitted it to myself, but I really wanted to become an Otter. I created a signature for my player in the couple of days before the draft in anticipation of finding my new ISFL team. I made sure to mark clearly the layers that would need to be edited so that I could quickly swap in the colors and branding for whichever team I ended up going to, but in order to properly test the swap, I used the OCO branding as the default. I guess I probably should've known then it was destined to be.

Since S23 I've been the team rep for Orange County on the awards committee. I've learned a lot in these 3 seasons working with other reps to create the nominee lists that we send to GMs and HO for their votes. I've nearly pulled my hair out too. As a member of the committee, I want to send the best nominees possible regardless of team, but I also understand that as my team's rep, I need to represent the Otters that have had deserving performances every season. Balancing a desire to fight for my teammates and a need to make the best, most unbiased decisions can be difficult at the best of times, and we have systems in place to do that as well as we can. However, having your own player up for different awards adds an extra level of stress. I have to try even harder to come off as unbiased in order to make an effective argument for my player's achievements and it's even more stressful to listen to other reps disagree with putting up your player for an award. Every day leading up to the presentation was stressful. I wasn't hopeful for OPotY or MVP, but I was biting my teeth for RBotY. Having all of that anxiety and anticipation pay off, receiving my first ever award in the ISFL (or DSFL for that matter) was amazing, and I'm so excited to put in the work to rack up even more hardware in the future!

[ddrector]

I've been in the ISFL for well over a year now and have had a lot of fun in that time. I found this place through a reddit recruitment right before the 2019 NFL season started. I had no idea what to expect, but if you told me that I'd still be here 15 months later and I would've made friends that I hope to keep in touch with no matter if I'm in the league or not I would have laughed at you. I never thought I would get so invested in a place like this. It has pretty much killed all of my interest in fantasy football, which I used to spend tons of time every week looking into. Now I have become the general manager for the New Orleans Second Line and I spend my time trying to make this team the best possible team it can be. I've even brought a couple of my close IRL friends on board and it's been fun to be able to talk with them about stuff going on in the league.

If you don't know about the beginnings of my time in the league you may not know that I was on the verge of going inactive pretty early on. I had been drafted by the Norfolk Seawolves in the S17 DSFL draft and the team had previously been an all bot team in the DSFL and because of our large draft class the Seawolves had been resurrected from the grave. Unfortunately, our general managers weren't the best and mostly neglected the team and it was just IsaStarcrossed, Bex, and myself that were active on the team. If not for those two I probably would've gone inactive, but instead I stuck around and while my update was totally screwed up because of a simple misunderstanding the genius that is TomHanks was able to realize I had tons of unclaimed TPE and brought me into the Second Line in the S18 draft where Isa was able to help me get my updates back on track and I ended up being one of the top TPE earners in the draft class. After the S19 draft I was invited to join the Second Line's war room where I was able to help with making decisions about the draft and keep the team afloat. We even won the Ultimus in S21, which was really exciting. I'm hoping as GM I can help bring more Ultimuses to NOLA and with the sim changing I hope I can captain what might be a very interesting time in the league as a new sim will most definitely bring tons of new challenges. Here's to another 25 seasons ISFL!

[Kotasa]

This league has made such an impact on me, from the moment I joined many members reached out to me. I was invited to a bunch of locker rooms and was thrusted right into the scouting experience which was a joy. Being part of the R/NFL reddit class made for my class to be gargantuan in size, which made me a little nervous. I figured I would be a fifth or sixth round pick, but low and behold at number twelve overall in the DSFL draft the Tijuana Luchadores called my name. I thought they had no interest in me as I never received a locker room discord but the S25 GMOTY Mithrainder scouted me personally and must’ve liked what he saw in me. I do own a luchadore mask in real life, so I think that sold them on me. Excited to get to work I met my fellow rookies such as the new GM of the Philadelphia liberty Pat, who owes me beer for many reasons, at this point he should just drop off a keg. GuitarMaster who recently became the enemy and was announced as a DSFL HO intern, I still have my TPE lead over him though! DeadLunatic who was taken from us a year too soon, but I believe should get an honorary ring. He still comes in the locker room from time to time. There are plenty more to mention in our huge class, 209tacos, Emperor, the infamous Ben, among others were all such a joy to share the locker room with. During interviews to be drafted in the DSFL, teams asked me if I planned on max earning. I told most teams I wasn’t really planning to max earn but being in the locker room of Tijuana made me want to be the best corner I could possibly be. I started working towards my equipment and in a season where we dominated the regular season, we ended up having a heart-breaking playoff loss at home. The LR was in shambles due to who we knew we would lose and with the draft coming up we figured we would lose some key pieces. However, we were lucky and had some solid send downs. I was also lucky in that I went in the first round to the defending champs at the time, who would go on to become back to back champions, the San Jose Sabercats. They didn’t need my services immediately in an expansion year and I was happy to be able to stay down one more season and help achieve an Ultimini ring for Mith and Swanky. I love this league and everything it has done for me; the community is fantastic and I am very happy to have found it one day on reddit.