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G Mason King and LB Troy Pelletier retire. King has been a stalwart for us. Our one truly successful C to another spot position change. He was a 60+ G for us for almost the entirety of his 11 year career before dipping at the end. He was a starter for us that whole stretch and won 4 rings. Pelletier had a little run as a big time part of our edge rush and then just kind of kept coming back the last four years in a marginal role. He won four rings as well.
QB Richey and WR Botta are back. So is LB Thomas Rhodes, who is another of our once defensive centerpieces who hasn't done much in about four years. It's cool to see him come back. He and Richey were in that first class of Dragons. They're both coming back for season 14. I like the symmetry there, even if I'm probably ultimately rooting for Richey to outlast him.
Richey is a little over a thousand passing yards shy of the career record in this universe. There's basically zero chance we don't get him there unless he loses multiple appendages.
Botta put himself in some kind of outside chance position to get to the career receptions mark if we force it as well. 1397 is the current record and he's at 1268. I would have written him off but 129 doesn't seem so far-fetched coming off a 142 catch season. We're definitely stat-chasing if he gets there. I don't really love any of our next generation of WRs yet, but one or two are ready to take the baton if we're being impartial. (We're not.)
The Frederick team that beat us in the conference final has been the most consistently successful AI team. The best overall record at 332-208-4, a .613 winning percentage. They've been to the playoffs 21 times and won 2 Bowls. They lost the Bowl last year to Toronto. Not surprisingly, their success has been riding pretty heavily on a smooth transition between two good QBs and 12+ year runs with each of them. It's probably at least another 15 years of similar play by us to get to the top of the Team Performances board.
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