(S28) PT 3 - What If?

[TheRocheLimit]

The biggest moment of my ISFL career was being picked first overall by the New York Silverbacks in the expansion draft. But what would have happened if I would have been selected by the league's other expansion franchise, the Berlin Fire Salamanders, instead?

Looking back over the last 3+ seasons both expansion franchises have followed similar paths. A rocky first year (to be expected, of course) followed by a few years of solid play. This year both teams are near the top of the standings. So what would have been different if Jack Banks had become a Fire Salamander instead of a Silverback? I may have been able to help the team eek out a win or two more over the past few seasons but, honestly, I'm not sure I would be the player I am today in Berlin. That's through no fault of theirs, mind you. I had a very pleasant conversation with them pre-draft, but in New York I found the place that got me excited again. The team embraced me immediately, and that in turn propelled me to become a much better, more invested player. I think I ended up exactly where I needed to be.

The future looks bright for both teams, and I look forward to competing with Berlin for many Ultimus titles, but there's no place I'd rather be than New York.

[katarn22]

First off, what a great idea for a PT. Hats off to Mojo for this one. I think the one that I want to focus on is what if Portland had actually drafted Crunk with the first pick in the S24 DSFL draft. For those not in the know, Portland really, REALLY liked Crunk. Understandably though, they went with a recreate, Raven, as their first selection. They again passed on Crunk in the second for Dan Foster from user Arkz. Don't get me wrong, those are two solid picks. However, had they selected Crunk with one of those, he certainly would not have fallen to London in the second. Crunk was a large part of London's success my rookie year, along with several other members of that draft class. Part of this was sim testing. S24 London was a sim testing powerhouse and I believe is a significant reason they had success in the Ultimini. It is possible Portland might have instead won in London's place. Also interesting to think about would be who London would have selected here. According to Syl, London got their top 3 guys with their first 3 picks. So I imagine that platanocat would have been the pick here, a round eariler than where he was drafted.

[mcgriddleluver]

[LewisMelville]

Well here we are, we have just completed week 10 of season twenty eight in the international simulation football league. There have been a few surprises this season in regards to teams positions and a few surprises in regard to players who are standing out from the others. The most notable surprise I think most would say this season is the Berlin Fire Salamanders current record of eight wins and two losses. Now you would expect a team that has quite a front loaded schedule to win there fair share of games. However what you need to take into consideration is the fact that this team has already made history in regards to the fact this is the first time in their short time as being an expansion team where they have managed eight or more wins. Their quarterback Nick Kaepercolin is playing career football despite throwing on average at least 1 interception a game. The big what if for them this season is that they would probably be undefeated and favourites for the Ultimini if the Baltimore Hawks had accepted their trade for Tony Yeboah (safety) and Felix Archstone (offensive lineman) you can see the immediate impact they had on a slightly lesser team (Austin Copperheads) imagine if the Baltimore General Managers had not mislead the players before accepting the trade, this Berlin Fire Salamanders team would be even more fearsome.

[LB3737]

Season 27 of the International Simulation Football League was of course a big one for the Sarasota Sailfish, possibly the biggest one in the franchises short lived history to date, as it would be the first season in which they would capture the most coveted prize in the whole of simulation football, the holy grail of the dots, the Ultimus Trophy. This was not the only reason for it being such an important season for the Sailfish however, as this would be the first season they would have stud defensive end Demon Jaxson lining up for them. Looking back on the season though, you just have to wonder to yourself, “what if the Sailfish didn’t have this sexy edge rusher on their team, how would things have gone?” Maybe if this god like figure hadn’t been there to get a sack, forced fumble and 2 fumble recoveries for them in the first week of the season in Colorado against the Yeti, this would not have given them the momentum to snatch the first seed in the league. Even bigger than that though, maybe if he hadn’t been there to clutch up in the biggest game of them all, the Ultimus, with a crucial touchdown to put daylight between themselves and the Second Line, they wouldn’t have won, and the franchise would have fallen into bankruptcy. Luckily for the Sailfish however, they made the right choice, and did draft him.

[PMoney]

Not many things in the league affect your experience more than your ISFL draft. For most people it’s where they spend the most of their time in the league and become some of the people they know best. My personal what if moment revolves around Patrik Money’s draft position as he ended up going to Yellowknife in round 5. However, Money was not the only Coyotes DE taken in round 5. Only a few spots before Money his teammate Ismael Sanchez was drafted to the Colorado Yeti. Ismael was a fun locker room presence and at the time fully deserving of his spot in the draft but proceeded to drop out of the league before he reached 400 TPE. Money on the other hand was higher TPE and has since become a top 15 TPE player in the league and become the GM for Yellowknife.

What effects would this have had on the league if the players had been reversed? In the second season in the ISFL we won the Ultimus and this may very well have continued in the same way as the players were at similar levels at that point. However, the S26 win may have been different if Colorado had another strong DT at that time as they only just missed the playoffs. I likely would have not ended up as a GM considering the strong GMs in Colorado at the time of my draft and since, but it would have also prevented the trade that send Honolulu legend, Immanuel Blackstone to Honolulu for a day as unlike Ismael Sanchez, my name is not that similar to Immanuel Blackstone.

[TheCC]

This probably wouldn’t have been a big deal in terms of changing “league history”, but it’s fun for me to speculate on what could’ve happened with my ISFL career if certain things had played out just slightly differently. The first big scenario that could’ve been different is my DSFL draft. At pick 162, I wasn’t a very highly sought after user. What if I had caught on much quicker? I ended up being a GM of the Minnesota Grey Ducks for several seasons. If I had landed with the Grey Ducks, but got ingrained into the league better, would I have become a GM faster than I did? What if I had been taken by a different team? Then maybe there wouldn’t have been a GM opening, and I never would’ve gotten into that part of the league. If I had been drafted by any number of other teams besides the Chicago Butchers in the ISFL draft, there’s a very good chance that I wouldn’t be an ISFL GM right now. The Butchers were kind of the perfect team for me to land with. They didn’t need a new GM right away, but they needed one several seasons after I was drafted. That was good because I was able to show my worth. If Muford had wanted to step down several seasons earlier, I probably wouldn’t have a chance to be a GM for a long time. Maybe I’d be trying to get an expansion team? There are infinite possibilities! It’s fun to think about.

[JBLAZE_THE_BOSS]

The Sarasota Sailfish are the defending Ultimus Champions and are currently entrenched in a playoff race with Berlin, Yellowknife, and Colorado in a difficult NSFC; but what would’ve happened if they didn’t draft QB Mike Boss Jr.? For the Sailfish, the chances are they would’ve taken a QB who can actually throw touchdown passes and not look like he’s got an arm anchored down by 500 pounds of lead. For Boss Jr personally, he would’ve ended up down a dark path. Chances are he would’ve tried to give it a go as a backup in the league, but his refusal to play anywhere other than QB would’ve turned him into the league’s version of Tim Tebow—pathetic and lacking self-awareness. Boss Jr would’ve tried to play baseball, but failed miserably after his delivery of performance enhancing drugs gets stopped by federal border patrol. The arrest would make Boss Jr. a felon and therefore unable to find any meaningful work once his sentence was complete. Boss Jr. would quickly add to the recidivism rate by shortly being arrested for drug possession with intent to distribute. His father would constantly be ridiculed by the media for his inability to reign in his out of control son, and Jr. would ultimately succumb to his own self-inflicted injuries in a jail cell near the USA-Mexico border. Good thing none of this ever happened and it’s just a hypothetical. Go Sailfish.

[236 words]

[frazzle14]

In my mind a decision that I think changed the course of a few people’s ISFL careers was Glims getting the KCC GM job way back in S24. Glims was a excellent GM for us, especially as he was a S25 player like myself so was new to the league when he got the role and he took to it very well. Glims getting the job got myself, WAU, Slate and Cody into the war room and really involved with the team.

Now obviously they four people are all current GM’s in the DSFL or ISFL so getting involved with the team helped push us to wanting to do more and is one of the reasons that got us to where we are now.

I also think that Glims getting the KCC GM job led to me and him going to Austin. It may seem strange how they link but to me they do. Because when Glims decided to step away from the job he asked me to be his replacement which I happily accepted. Once I started that job I was able to experience being a GM and I realised how much I liked GM’ing, which in turn pushed me to apply for the Baltimore GM position when it came up, which led to us both getting traded from Baltimore to Austin.

So that decision, even though it was a while ago in ISFL terms led to a lot of major events in my ISFL career so far.

[musha6570]

I will fully admit this is going to be a tough assignment. I am still very new and learning about the league as a whole. That being said I am confident I can come up with something to write here. Ironically I expected to go in the first round of this season's DSFL draft. It did not turn out that way although I did end up basically where I expected. Reflecting on things if I had been drafted one spot earlier it would have been to the Pythons I believe. I happen to know they were looking for a tight end to come in. I have done an arch swap and Switched to the vertical threat. This was done so I could play receiver and thus get more playing time because of the presence of a tight end in the house already. I think had I gone to the pythons likely I never would have done the switch as a tight end was needed. I figure I would have been the tight end I set out to be but honestly not as good as I am now. I have become a solid receiving option for my team and would have been less so elsewhere. The speed and hands boost I locked in pretty much says it all. I can reflect but am glad things worked out as they did.

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