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QuikSand Sprints Through the One-N-Done Like There's No Tomorrow
My micro-dynasty:
My pre-draft deals move us to having four picks in the top 20, at 1.4, 1.6, 1.12, and 1.16 – I intend to consider dealing down more once I see what is available at each slot. I don’t really have a serious plan for this team, other than to probably focus on offensive players at the hard-to-fill positions with my very high picks. 4. Golden Hill - Clemons, Bryan, T, Albany 6. Golden Hill - Winters, O.J., RB, Idaho 12. Golden Hill - Newman, Sammie, WR, North Carolina 16. Golden Hill - Mayhem, Bert, QB, Appalachian State 34. Golden Hill - Reeves, Jerry, WR, Boston College 65. Golden Hill - Barlow, Fernando, DE, Washington State 82. Golden Hill - Newhart, Mike, DT, Northwestern 98. Golden Hill - Hutchins, Barry, CB, Minnesota 100. Golden Hill - Emerling, Dexter, CB, Army 129. Golden Hill - Ramos, Lance, G, Louisiana State 144. Golden Hill - Hoffman, Jimmie, DT, Southern Methodist 148. Golden Hill - Irwin, B.J., T, Sacramento State 162. Golden Hill - Mahoney, Kurt, QB, Washington 193. Golden Hill - Campbell, Lorenzo, OLB, Purdue 212. Golden Hill - Rawls, Floyd, S, Florida State I really don’t mess around a lot with draft-day trades – I tried to move down from 1.4 and 1.6, but just didn’t feel like I was getting that much in return, so I stood pat and took my BPAs at both slots. I don’t usually build around RB and OT, but here I am. |
Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2008a - OND 2008b)
We got a huge camp from our RB, as expected, but I’m not that wild about our success at QB – I love Bert Mayhem’s name, but with only a +1 training camp, I’m a little worried that he might not be good enough to really lead this team to the promised land. |
We’re cut to 53 (didn’t have anyone injured enough to go to IR, dang) and are ready for our first try at this.
Code:
Roughly what I suspected – a really bad team, but we did get better toward the end of the year, escaping what seemed like a potential 0-16 season. I thought LB Zack Swift might have a shot at DROY (common thing to watch for on crappy teams full of rookies) but he missed out to DT Marcus Danek (a guy I really wanted to draft) who went at 1.24 and posted 71 tackles and 11.5 sacks. We have no gripe with that selection, of course. RB Tyrus Torres posted fewer yards than did our RB OJ Winters, but Torres had more TDs and earned the OROY honors. We’ll see who pans out to be the better long term back. Long term, my hope is that this turns into a pretty decent and balanced offense with my top RB and top two receivers all “creeping” and that our defense…well… doesn’t completely suck. |
2009
We hire new coach Dan Lofton, DC Roger Sheldon, and OC Bernie Greenham – hopefully these guys will be with us a long while. Lofton is EX in avoiding injuries (seems key for this career) and in defensive playcalling, which our group clearly is going to need. Here’s the year two camp results: Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2009a - OND 2009b)
Looking shaky on defense, once again. This strategy may not have been ideal, after all. **surg** Keeping every guy I could find named Sanderson might have been subpar also. |
Code:
Well, we are making pretty rapid signs of development. The QB was above water this year (TD>Int) and we were only –2 in turnovers. That’s not so bad. By the numbers, we are essentially an average team on offense. Our defense remains horrible, of course. Injuries really hit us badly this year – I have two guys (LB Rico Coleman and LT Arnold Banks) who are on the CEI watch (not good for this setup) and one more (my superstar LT Bryan Clemons, natch) who is listed as doubtful with arthritis, but will not play. If Clemons is hampered long term, we are in real trouble. RB Tyrus Torres manages second team all-pro honors with his 1,318/11 season, while our boy again suffered especially from the TD shortage. Again, roughly the season I would have predicted for us. Injuries are the big worry here – if we lose our solid reserve OT or backup MLB, that would be a tough blow this early on. |
2010
No retirements, at least. Whew. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2010a - OND 2010b)
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Well, into another season we go… hoping to get past these injuries and put together some more progress.
Code:
Front Office Football 2007So, our offense is rounding into one of the better ones in the league (5th in yards per carry, 4th in yards per attempt – that’s great) but the defense is just terrible, reliably so. I think my better play here would have been to just got for DBs with interception skills, as we are making no real effort to stop anyone, it would seem. At least we might have landed a few big plays, instead. Injury update – it looks like LT got past his arthritis fine, oddly enough. But in our week 16 game, we lost both RB OJ Winters and WR Sammie Newman to serious injuries. Newman’s is tagged to have him out until “late 2011” – but I’m hopeful Winters will be okay to start next year with only an O-8 tag. If we basically lose Newman, we’re screwed – I just don’t have enough talent around him at WR to cover up for his loss. |
Three seasons through, I'm sure of one thing -- I *really* wish I had invested more time just working through trades to squeeze out some more middle round picks. In most careers, getting an extra 4th or 5th rounder doesn't seem like that big a deal to me -- I usually find the after-draft guys to be close to as valuable. Here, I now look back at my middle round picks and find several guys who are substantially better than what I got in the after-draft... making me wish that I had (a) acquired more 3rd and 4th round picks, if possible, and (b) done a bit more homework acquiring my after-draft guys.
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2011
Okay, quick important updates: RB OJ Winters looks fine. WR Sammie Newman is listed as out for 3 more weeks, but bars look okay at “probable” LT Bryan Clemons looks fine after playing 10 games last year It **seems** as though we might have just skated past the graveyard there, with our top three overall draft picks. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2011a - OND 2011b)
So, we get some continued growth from QB Bert Mayhem, but a few really disappointing dropoffs – DE Fernando Barlow and SS Barry Hutchins have both been guys I had been counting on, and both took a pretty big drop here. Disappointing. |
In preseason, we have 3 of our 7 LBs listed as “out” and I have to make my first player sacrifice to remain legal. DE Lorenzo Campbell is moved to MLB to accommodate the shortage – it isn’t terrible (he was a LB before I moved him to DE as a rookie) but he is not much of a player after the move. Still might be good enough to start for us, which is more an indictment of us than a praising if him. (Perennial tackles leader Zack Swift will hopefully be available a couple games into the season, after recovering from a concussion)
Code:
So, we really, really struggle through a ton of injuries – we even have to shuttle Lo Campbell back to DE to cover over a shortage there – and we manage to field our starting two wide receivers for only three of our 16 games. This really bodes poorly, and whatever we had going on offense last year is clearly mostly gone this year. We are a strong rushing team, posting nearly 5 yards a carry, but we can’t pass the ball without our total personnel out there, and slipped all the way down to 6 yards an attempt on that side – just terrible. We also suddenly became a turnover machine, with Mayhem causing…well…mayhem out there with his 21 picks. This team really isn’t progressing all that much. I though last season it was coming together, but this year we didn’t get anywhere. 5 wins a year isn’t really responding to the “challenge” here – especially as I read other people writing about their frustrations trying to win the championship game in their first few seasons and everything. Alas. |
2012
Not much to report in this offseason. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2012a - OND 2012b)
So, a decent bump back up for SS Barry Hutchins (who took a hit last year), but nothing much of note here. I think other than a possible random boom or bust, we’re done watching these guys develop – they basically are what they are. Regrettably. |
Code:
Front Office Football 2007Well, we made some overall progress – getting the defensive ratings up from something like 29th to 18th and, well, 29th. We really can’t stop anyone. I don’t know what has happened with Mayhem – but he now seems to be really mistake-prone. I guess maybe the earlier season with the good control was the aberration. Nice to see some pass rush developing here, though. Those are respectable numbers from Barlow and Malcolmson. Too bad nobody on this team can cover anyone. LT Bryan Clemons makes second team all pro – I think that is our first guy to get any honor whatsoever. **checks back** Yup. |
2013
Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2013a - OND 2013b)
So, no meaningful ratings movement… I am still holding out hope that one of my scrubs will suddenly have a random boom, and I will out of nowhere have, oh, I don’t know, a playable linebacker or something. |
Code:
Front Office Football 2007Well, well. Playoffs. How bout that? We remain a dreadfully poor team on defense, but did enough on offense to get by. We got hammered with injuries this season, especially at OL and safety. Two guys (S Sherman and MLB Zack Swift) are in danger of suffering CEIs here, but we’re heading to the postseason for the first time. In our playoff debut, Good Bert leads us with 5 TDs and no picks to a big win. Sadly, Bad Bert shows up in the second game, and his 0 TDs, 4 interception stat like tells the ugly story. It’s pretty clear by now that Bert is a defining player for us – and his tendency to throw more than a pick a game is likely going to keep this team from ever really taking off. Even if the defense gets incrementally better with cohesion, I’m just not seeing this team good enough to overcome being negative in the turnover margin. Maybe if we tried to run the ball a lot more, we’d be better off. I may actually tweak the gameplan to see what we can do. Oh, and we’re very grateful that Sammie Newman made it past an early injury that looked like a career killer. He is turning into quite a player for us, needless to say. He makes first team for us this year, and LT Bryan Clemons is named second team. Oddly, our RG Lance Ramos is tagged as the League’s Strongest Man. **shurg** |
2014
First order of business – check to see if we have really lost anyone, either really lost (due to retirement) or just lost productivity to serious injury. S Kenny Anderson (sorry, I mentioned the wrong guy before) is already out for this year – and he has the best coverage skills of anyone in our entire secondary. He’ still at 24 weeks, and that bodes poorly – I suspect when he returns next year he will be a shell of a player. MLB Zack Swift, though, looks good to go. That’s another big bullet dodged. We retain our entire coaching staff with my paltry maximum offers, and are ready to go. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2014a - OND 2014b)
Okay, so now we are firmly into the “only bad news” range for training camp. Lots of guys lost several points here, and only a handful of guys gave us trivial +1 bumps. From here on, it’s mostly seeing who became **completely** useless. That –7 loss for OJ Winters is really troubling, though. We, uh, need him. |
Code:
Front Office Football 2007(Nice little side note – midseason here I just double checked my global options, and realized that I had injures set to 150, rather than 100. That helps to explain the trouble I have had – self-inflicted, at least in part. Alas.) We were doing okay on offense until Bert got hurt – he had a 14/6 ratio at that time, but Ellard is terrible in his stead. So, I decide to load up the SmashMouth offense from the public gameplan library, and see how that works for this team. It is a shift toward the run, which may make sense for us, and I tweak the passing just a bit. We limp through a 2-3 stretch trying to pound the ball, and I revert back to basics for us, with our pretty balanced downfield passing game. We split our last two games, and end up 7-9 in a pretty disappointing effort. We’re shut out of the awards again, no surprise – especially since LT Clemons was hurt for a few games. |
So, where are we?
Code:
Front Office Football 2007We stand at 73 points right now… just not very inspiring. We didn’t completely misfire here, but I’m feeling like we’re sort of limited with our potential by an interception-prone QB. Turning the ball over is going to be a lot to overcome for this team – we might hover around .500 for a while, but I don’t sense us taking another great leap forward to becoming a 12-win team. And soon, we will start seeing all our RB really fall off, limiting our ability to do much of anything. |
From: Team Owner
The owner of your franchise is starting to grumble about the overall value of the franchise. You should address these concerns within the next couple of seasons if you want to remain in charge. |
2015
S Kenny Andersen is not completely wiped out post-injury. I don’t really understand whether this will make him “injury prone” from here on out, but we need every live body we can get. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2015a - OND 2015b)
Oh, dear. Lots more –7 and –5 hits all around. Looks like Year 8 is a reckoning year for defensive front and maybe OL – we got crushed there, just like we did last year at QB and RB. Oh, well, we know how this goes. |
Well, halfway home we are “even steven.” 4-4 record. Bert is dead even with 14/14. We seem dead set to land right at 8-8 for the year.
Code:
Front Office Football 2007…and that we do. Another pretty disappointing season, but what little actual talent we have on this team is obviously eroding – our best years are now behind us. So, we have an erratic QB, a very good RB entering his twilight, one very productive receiver, one surprisingly quiet receiver, a stud left tackle, and a bunch of chaff on defense. It might be amazing to see what sort of tackle numbers we’d be getting had we just invested one decent draft pick into a solid middle linebacker – this guy Zack Swift is putting up really big numbers nearly every season, but he’s still pretty lousy (52 Run D makes him a titan on this team, but nothing special generally). With more and more of our talent just wearing out, and retirements likely just around the corner, this is looking really, really shaky. I hate to have a team go 8-8… it just reeks of “if things had just broken a bit better here or there, you could have done something with the season.” Considering that I think our window is basically closing on us, that’s not a good way to feel. |
2016
We ended last season with every single player content. Our biggest challenge is to make sure everyone stays around. We once again completely dodge the retirement axe – that is the best luck we have had so far in this career. I’m holding my breath for training camp – another platter of –10s is what I expect, and if they land in bad places, we could be in for a real downhill trip here. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2016a - OND 2016b)
Wow, a massive bloodbath. At least Mayhem didn’t get clobbered. Best thing I can find to say about this. Oh, that and a nice little bump for our… wait for it… backup tight end. Great. Just what we needed, that. Maybe we’ll get 180 yards instead of 14 from him this year. Fabulous. |
Okay – we get to our halfway point at 6-2, and it’s a weird season. We have injuries piling up literally everywhere. Somehow my injury settings got moved back to 150 again – I don’t know how this works, but it’s pissing me off now.
At the 8-game mark, we also have WR Sammie Newman sitting on 1,051 yards receiving on 90 targets, which is really great. Meanwhile, Jerry Reeves, healthy all year, rated 50/50, and with a 68 in route running, has managed only 43 targets. He’s only been in on 170 pass plays to 223 for Newman, but the bottom line is Newman is just leaps and bounds better, for reasons that are not obvious to me. Statistically, we still don’t look like much of a team – pretty good offense, really bad defense still. Well, we technically are down to 7.0 yards per pass attempt – I guess that’s progress. Se, we shoot toward the playoffs with a tight division race that comes down to our last home game – where we lose and end up as a wild card rather than a bye week team. Code:
Front Office Football 2007Easily Bert Mayhem’s best season, if for not other reason than 12 picks rather than 22. Sammie Newman cools off, but still stays over 100 yards a game on average. And that was a pretty solid season from SS Bobby Hutchins – maybe the best season from any of our defensive players (ignoring raw tackle totals, that is). In the playoffs… Good Bert wins out first one leading two fourth quarter TD drives and ending the day with 2/0. But Yates gets the best of us once again (third time this year) as they win 33-21, keeping Bad Bert to 2/3 on the day. WR Sammie Newman is a first team honoree for the second time in his career, and is joined on the list by second teamers LT Bryan Clemons, K Joel Bass (!), and strongman Lance Ramos. Our best season so far – 10 wins is solid, but this still does not have the feel of a team that has any shot to win it all. |
2017
Okay, our spotless walk around retirements has finally ended – we lose RB Cedric Hoffman and DE Henry Turnbull this offseason. Neither is a critical cog for us, but the numbers game is going to catch up before too long. We can live with 51, though. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2017a - OND 2017b)
Oh, the carnage. I must look away. OJ Winters remains a very viable threat at RB, despite the erosion. Bert is still Bert, he hasn’t dropped yet. LT Clemons and our two receivers are still solid. But nearly everyone else is really at unplayable levels, including basically every single player on our defense. MLB Zack Swift ( a contract holdout, incidentally, though easy to resolve) is the proverbial “one eyed man” back there, and should have another big-numbers season. We are trying to get by on cohesion at this point, and very little else. |
Fucking forum settings.
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Our roster rating is a majestic 2, with the second-worst being a 41. Ouch.
Code:
Not a lot to say here – Zach Swift indeed puts up stellar numbers on the empty defense, and Sammie Newman remains the only guy on the team who can catch a pass. But whatever we had last season to be a contender is just gone now – 4-12 is probably better than we belonged, given these stats. This just is not a good team at all. Zack Swift is a first team all-pro. Nice. I know it’s because we suck and he sucks slightly less than everyone else. But it’s still kinda cool. I feel pretty awful for him, all told. He’s still rated 35/35 overall, with a 54 in run defense – the guy can make a tackle. Unlike, say, anyone else on my defense, EVER. Meanwhile, I can’t help but noting – QB Peter Briggs is 102-58 playing for Sanborn. He has one ring, and a list of accomplishments about three screens long. That is clearly the one that got away here. If we draft him at 1.6 instead of OJ, and just fill in with whatever RB we could have gotten later on, we would have been a pretty different team. (Though Briggs, admittedly, does seem to throw a fair number of picks also) |
2018
Holding my breath to see if we get to enjoy another glorious 1-15 season, or if this thing is mercifully over right now… We lose 5 players – dropping out roster to 46 guys. Everyone can be active, and we at least have a shot to make it through year 12 ahead. Woo hoo, 1-15, here we come baby! Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2018a - OND 2018b)
Nice camp for OJ. He remains by far our best rushing option, but any thoughts of just shoving the ball to him every play have long since drifted away. He’s now a thoroughly marginal player, and that streak of 10 thousand-yard seasons is surely over. |
Okay… we’re ready for the season, such as it is.
Code:
Front Office Football 2007ZOMFG! FIVE WINS! In what is certainly our swan song, Bert miraculously puts it all together, posts an unlikely 28/10 ratio and a 96 passer rating, and we pull out 5 games despite literally shuffling zombie players around almost every week. OJ and Sammie each put together great seasons – how does OJ basically not even miss a beat after taking a -32 drop in camp? Honestly now, what is that? Where was all this magic cohesion when we still had enough players to do something with it? G B.J. Irwin, oddly, is our only all-pro honoree. Second team for a season where he posted 28/76 KRBs and only 3 sacks in 411 pass plays. Mazel tov! Anyway – we will run the offseason routine, I have everyone signed for next year, but I have to think we will get whacked and totally wiped out. |
2019
Okay, we bring 46 guys out of 2018. We can try to muster onward with 38 or 39, but I expect we’ll lose more than that. Okay… the good news is we have 39 players. That is technically enough. The bad news is, I don’t think I have enough fatties to play OL and DL. Have to see what I can do there. **time passes** Okay, it took a lot of movement… but I can just barely field a legal roster. Had to find the two-move trick to get it to work (finding a FB--> SS--> LB was the key) but now we have a technically legal roster. I am carrying exactly one extra player, currently at DB, but I think we can field a team with these 39 guys. It will be Bert, and Sammie, and pretty much nothing else. I reckon our top RB will end up being former QB Myron Frysinger, who is a lofty 3/11 pre-camp. And one guy listed as “out” will kill the career at most places on the roster – but we at least can get through camp and into the preseason. Golden Hill Player Report (OND 2019a - OND 2019b)
Side note – we have 29 mentors! W000000t! That will really come in handy! The big preseason. Injury avoidance is everything… I don’t think we can win a regular season game, but it would be nice to play one. … Well, it looks like I’m stuck after all. I have every position group covered, and I have my entire depth chart filled out. But I’m getting the message that I need 44 players. I **know** it is possible to play a game with fewer than 44 players, but I don’t know exactly where the line is drawn. Apparently somewhere north of 39 total. Unless I can crack this next little code, I guess I’m done. |
Total Score:
Record = 70-122 Winning % = 36 Wins = 72 Bowl bonuses = 0 SCORE = 108 |
Quote:
Those who now have access: please note the above, and refrain from discussing undrafted players in Quik's view. Thanks! --Ben |
*shurg*
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QS, the similarities here are disgusting. We had 3 of the same RBs, glad you picked Clemons, best overall in the draft. Also, funny you moved Lorenzo Campbell to DE as I did too, albeit due to injuries later in the career.
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I had both Mayhem and Fernando Barlow. I won't tell you how they did for me, but it was interesting to see how they did in your universe.
(I also had a bunch of other guys that you had, but those two stand out) |
DE Fernando Barlow put together a couple very productive seasons for my team, and seemed like he was headed for bigger things... but it never really came together for either him or my defense generally. Willie Malcomson also was pretty decent for us at DE.
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So, from what I see in my league plus what I have gleaned from the aether... it seems that my *big* mistake was taking OJ Winters at pick 1.6. Not that he didn't give me everything I could have asked for from a workhorse RB, but I lost a ton of capital by taking him there when he could have been had far later in the draft. It looks to me like taking Briggs at QB (duh) and being there to say "wow, that sleeper RB Winters sure is falling" was the real way to go here.
I suspect the core ideal team includes Briggs, Winters, WRs Newman and Reeves (?), and one or two additional top players. From my draft positions (less than optimal, I'm sure) I could have taken LT Clemons at 1.4, Briggs at 1.6, Newman at 1.12, and then dealt down from 1.16 to pick up Winters in the late 1st/early 2nd, and added perhaps another pick or two in the middle of the draft to try to use to grab one more semi-capable CB or DE. That's got to be a lot closer to the ideal plan -- Mayhem has a few strong ratings and was a mild creeper, but it's clear to me that the difference between him and Briggs is monumental. |
Winters was my real "success" of my draft getting him exactly one round later at 2.6. Unfortunately, the QB I took in the first round was a dog.
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Reeves was my wunderkind, since I passed up on OJ for another RB that I thought was too good to pass up. Reeves got up to 69/69 for me at one point, and was the career leader in receptions when my onendone ended.
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At the last moment I gave up on Winters at the top of the first round and went with McMillian. After having played three full seasons, I really wish I had taken more time with the draft and trading for better picks.
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