*Life As A Python (Vol 1)

[youngcricket]

[div align=\\\"center\\\"]How My Season Went - Leighton Lee[/div]



Going into this season, I didn't know what to expect. Last season was a tough one to swallow with the Pythons and I wholeheartedly expected a similar result going into this season. I didn't claim many TPE before the NSFL draft, so a lot of GMs didn't view me as overly valuable, it also probably didn't help that I didn't have the best reputation before I left. When I got drafted by the Arizona Outlaws with the 9th overall pick, I was excited but definitely felt slighted by all the other teams, including the Outlaws. I wanted to be in the pros and start my career, but looking at the Outlaws, I saw that we had just about no chance to win anything this season. So I, with my lovely teammate, Stokeley, decided that we should go down to the DSFL, earn a ton of money, and win a lot of games. We knew that with the Pythons and hoping they have a good draft, we could ultimately end up owning the league and winning ourselves a nice little ring. Even though we didn't perform well in the playoffs last year, I knew that we would be an elite level team. As the start of the season was approaching, I hit my cap for the DSFL and realized that I could no longer continue to improve myself for this season. I still haven't claimed a lot of my points, but I believe that I am one of the top earning TPE earners from my class and I fully expect to see that trend continue as time goes on. I think that overall, my off-season went really well as I had the opportunity to train and become a better player even when I wasn't technically getting better in the sim. I saw all of the great players we were able to land in the DSFL draft and I instantly knew that we had a great shot to win the championship. We had Franklin Armstrong at QB who I had heard a lot of good things about then us send-downs got to anchor the other side of the ball. On defense there was no doubt in my mind that we could be an elite one as we had active older guys, as well as younger guys who were consistently asking how they could become better players to help the team win.

Week 1:
After a 2-2 pre-season, my expectations for the team were slightly tempered. I realized that we were a good team, but might not be the best team in the league because we didn't look to have the dominant defense or offense that I expected. We were overall a very average team. Week 1 we got the opportunity to play the Tijuana Luchadores. Going in all I knew about them was that they had Havran, a returning player, as their quarterback and I'm pretty sure he was a top 2 pick last season. After the pre-season, I did not have high expectations for our team, but we absolutely obliterated them by a score of 41-0. Yes, you read that correctly, 41-0. I expected me to have dominated or our defense to have forced a lot of turnovers, I only had 7 tackles and I led the team. Our offense absolutely dominated possession of the ball and we got to keep their quarterback off the field. Our top two running backs, NA and Chess, combined for 191 yards and three touchdowns in this game, absolutely dismantling the opposing defense.I had seen Johnny Slothface rack up a lot of tackles and I was slightly afraid at this time that he would be in the running to beat me out for tackles king. They had a lot of tackles, so I was slightly frustrated with my personal performance, but extremely happy with the way the team played. This rein stilled some confidence that I had lose due to the pre-season.

Week 2:
We definitely felt on top of the world after our first game. We won easily and it was against a team that was expected to be a large piece of competition all season. I don't know if we were necessarily favored, but I know that everybody viewed us as somewhat of a threat to win the title. In the second game, we got to play the SeaWolves who were not seen as much of a threat at all coming into the season and I think the whole team expected to come out of this game with a win. Except, we didn't. We lost 24-20 at the hands of Longshaw and his goons. I did up my tackles to 9 that game, which was still much less than the pace I was hoping for coming into the season. We did not do enough to slow down their offense as we saw Apollo Reed go over a hundred yards and get into the endzone. We also saw Allen Josh go off with 10 tackles and 2 sacks to continue a hot start that he was able to get off to on the season. Our offense didn't play terrible, but I would be lying if I thought they played great. Franklin tossed an interception with no touchdowns and our biggest gain on the ground from a player was 64 yards. All in all, we didn't expect this game after the first week, but it definitely humbled us and showed us that any team is beatable on any given night. While I think we were outplayed by a lot in this game, the final score didn't really showcase this. This gave me confidence that we would be able to hang in games even where we didn't play super well because we are a dog it out team.

Week 3:
After week 2, I definitely wasn't too high on hope overall. After all, we lost after being dominant in week 1 so I just wasn't too confident that we would be able to step up and get back to winning. With that said, I knew we were playing a team that didn't look too good on paper in the Coyotes. They weren't an awful team coming into the game, but they had ultimately not played as well as we had. The Coyotes weren't viewed as a threat so we took them kind of lightly. We ended up winning the game 28-13, but it was 21-3 at half. Franklin Armstrong played amazing on offense with a rating of 129.8 and he slung 2 touchdowns with only six incompletions. It was easily his best game of the season so far and he played like the MVP level quarterback that we knew he could be. Bonaberi Jones was on the receiving end of both of those touchdowns, showcasing how dominant of a receiver he can be for the Pythons. For me personally, I had 9 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, one sack, and a pass deflection. It was also my best game to date and I was super happy with the way I performed as I got to cause negative yards more than once and also stopped them numerous times. As a defense we had 4 sacks, and RDA5 actually had 5 tackles, 2 sacks, and an interception. He was the defensive player of the game and it made sense because he was pretty dominant in the back end for us. This was the first game we got to see how fast and effective our defense was when it was clicking on all cylinders. Rose Jenkins, who's second year it is in the DSFL, was absolutely shut down by our stout defense and we knew this could be something that propels us to make a big run in the future. We shut down an offense that should be elite and we did it as a team with all of us really contributing. We were definitely excited to go onto our next game and to continue to prove ourselves.

Week 4:
Coming into this week we were feeling confident, but definitely cautiously. We were playing the Coyotes again and everybody knows its hard to beat the same team twice, so we didn't want to get ahead of ourselves in thinking that this game was a gimme. Even though we had seen them before, they were still a team with the potential to upset any other team on any given night. One theme throughout my research on the season is how much polarity exists in the DSFL, as anybody can really beat anybody with player so close to each other in TPE. We ended up winning the game 29-17, but we were losing going into the 4th quarter. Luckily the whole team stepped it up and we were able to get a win on our home field. Armstrong had a 121 rating again with no picks and was able to throw a touchdown to help keep us in the game. Jones had 98 more yards receiving and a touchdown. The big story was Chess, who had over 100 yards rushing, 90 of which came on a touchdown run. He got to the house twice for the squad. I racked up 8 tackles, a tackle for loss, and a sack for the squad. The real standout was my boy Stokeley who had 8 tackles, a pass deflection, and THREE sacks. RDA5 also had a big game for us, forcing and recovering a fumble for the squad. We again had 6 sacks and looked like a team that can dominate the flow of the game with our suffocating defense to go along with a strong running game to control the clock. We were stoked because there were again no huge performers on the Coyotes, showing that we can not only play grind games, but can come from behind and do it against a team that we just did it against. We looked very good and we all felt incredibly confident at 3-1. We were ready to take over the DSFL and I was ready to get the hardware that I thought I was going to get in the previous season.



Week 5:
Week 5 we finally get our shot. The other best team at this point in time was clearly the San Antonio Marshals, a team that has been known to choke in the playoffs but is always stellar in the regular season. They are led by Cooter Bigsby and were the best team coming into the season. With Bigsby at the helm they were the undisputed preseason favorite to win the DSFL. Unfortunately for us we lost at the hands of Cooter, 31-25. Now you will see in a second why this loss is not nearly as bad as it sounds. For us, I was able to secure 11 tackles and do just about nothing else. We held Cooter to under 100 yards passing and only gave up 17 points defensively throughout the whole game. We looked like a team primed to run away with the championship. On top of that, our quarterback managed to toss three touchdowns and we were near 200 yards rushing again. It was truly a glorious sight to see. Now the only bad news was that, in addition to the three touchdowns that Armstrong threw, he also tossed three interceptions. Vander Jones actually intercepted two of them and what did he do? Took both of them to the house. It is so unlikely that somebody ever gets two pick sixes, so we definitely felt like this was a tad bit of a fluke and not something that we should expect every time that this matchup occurs. Their running game did rather well, as they also amassed in the area of 200 yards. A lot of this responsibility falls on Stokeley and I, as we allowed ourselves to be gashed by their running game. We realized this after the game and were disappointed with how poorly we did in pursuit and support to prevent the ball carrier from getting down field. We need to do a better job of containing and making sure guys aren't just running at a pillow soft defense.

Week 6:
3-2 coming into week six is a bit worse than we expected to be honest. I thought we would be 4-1, the game we lost before the Marshals hurt my confidence a decent amount, but I definitely felt like our San Antonio game was winnable. So, coming into this game, the team morale was still relatively high and I wanted to get back into the lead for tackles to I definitely needed to start performing. So what did we do? We came out an won a game 29-7 real quick against the Seawolves. We got our revenge on them which felt oh so good, and it was in dominant fashion. I myself had 11 tackles and limited their run game to 92 yards, much better than how we did against the Marshals the previous week. NA and Stronglegs both played very well and were instrumental in us being able to secure the victory. They controlled the clock and looked dominant. Bon'aberi Jones played extremely well again as he went for almost 100 yards and a touchdown. The team looked very good offensively. CrayCray Lewis was actually the defensive player of the game because he got a sack for a safety in the game and helped get us going with that in the first quarter. The team ended up looking very good after this week and we were all excited with how we played. Nobody did anything super flashy, but we definitely had a very solid team effort to help propel us to the victory. We were excited for week 7 so that we could build another winning streak.

Week 7:
This week was big for us, we needed to get on a winning streak and get up to 5-2 so we could feel like we had been doing well. We got matched up with another struggling team in the Solar Bears. It was our first time playing them, but they had not been very good so far and we hoped that would continue. We felt hot and we came in to get that win, 31-19. We were, however, down 16-10 going into the fourth quarter before we kicked it into hyperdrive. Armstrong paced us with two passing touchdowns, even though he threw and interception as well. He played a solid game and managed it well for us down the stretch. Our running game was very balanced as all of our big three averaged over five yards a carry and they combined to get two touchdowns on the ground. The offense was extremely efficient. I took over the game and was able to leave my print on it as I had 15 tackles, one tackle for loss, two forced fumbles, and a pass deflection. I was all over the field and was playing extremely well, the best I had yet. Stokeley also had 13 tackles, showing that we, in tandem, were locking down the middle. We were simply winning the line of scrimmage as we plugged the holes and did not allow their running game to take off. Our guy Ridley also got his first interception of the season, which is huge for a young guy to see and do. I was very excited that he was able to get on the board with that and build some confidence in his play. While Bortboy and Bigby did have good games running the ball for them, it was mostly due to the volume with which they carried the ball, which ended up helping us keep possession of the ball and keep them in front of us. With this win, we were 5-2 and feeling on top of the world. We knew we could beat the Marshals and just showed that we were able to beat the SeaWolves, despite the first game. At this point I noticed how much I loved this team and how excited I was to make a playoff push with them.

Words: 2684

[SwagSloth]

Great work, my man!

[ScorpXCracker]

Sorry you had to go through such a traumatic moment of being a Python