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Old 03-19-2015, 03:51 AM   #84
Rawhide
High School Varsity
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Australia
Another great three-season span of single-player FOF7.

I started a league with a preference draft and picked up a young, pass-heavy team in the Browns.

After seasons of yo-yo achievement, ranging from an early Front Office Bowl apperance in 2015, to 5-11 in 2018, we started to play with a slightly different strategy with a view to capping-out our contracts in an effort to maximise talent at our disposal.

During 2018 we traded away our Trent Richardson analogy to division rivals Cincinnati for a range of future picks. At the end of the season, foundation quarterback Floyd Coles (80/80) was traded to the Titans for future picks, and we picked up Lions backup Donovan Walker (49/49) in free agency. Walker has a great pre-season and jumps to 56/56.

We make consecutive AFC Championship games in 2019 and 2020 but can't get past the dominant Buffalo Bills, who are in the process of winning consecutive NFL championships.

2020 sees our team at a bit of a crossroads. We have a young RB, Jo Borg (25/35) who is largely a bust but is finding the end zone far more often than our starter Calvin Samuels, who we got from Cincy in the 2018 mid-season trade of running backs. We have to start over at this position.

With quarterback Walker off contract at the end of 2021, we begin renegotiation talks and it's quickly apparent that our venn diagrams of demands and prices will never meet. I start shopping for potential trade partners.

Philadephia are the only team that show any interest, at a whopping 99 (the next best team was lukewarm at best with 55 interest). I decide to bundle up a few of these future picks and swing a big deal that sees LCB Peyton Fehr (77/77) become a Brown. We also get RT Jameson Peters (55/55) from the Eagles as part of the package.

We go after Bills backup quarterback Greg Johnstone (45/45) in free agency and are fortuitous enough to get a useful stopgap running back as well.

The best player on the roster may well be LDE Thurman Tenney (76/77 in 2020). Drafted fifth overall in the previous season, he is a sack monster with 19 in his first two seasons.

All of the pieces seem to be in place for a strong playoff run in 2021, but instead we stumble into the wildcard round with a 9-6-1 record. We are blown out of the water by division rivals Pittsburgh and the dream is over.

Coach Vincent Talley (37-33-1 in four seasons) is fired and we start looking for his replacement. It comes in the form of Emmanuel Statler, all of 35 years old, who has one season as an assistant in Minnesota to his name.

Statler turns out to have great fortune in drafting Dominique Boehner at the bottom of the third round. Rated 36/36 off the draft, he explodes to 54/55 following training camp. We have a long-term solution at running back. Boehner becomes our first 1000-yard rusher in eight years of SP play.

Tenney wins Defensive Player of the Year for his 22 sacks, and leads the dominant Browns defense to a division title.

We have a scare in the division round, tying the Jaguars 27-27 on the last kick of the game and go on to win in extra time. The Miami Dolphins are seen off in the AFC Championship game 26-13, meaning we're off to our second Front Office Bowl game, this time against the third Floridan team we would face in three games, the Bucs.

Our game manager QB Johnstone has a mild shocker, completing only 13 passes for the entire game. We are down 13-0 at the main break but draw level through a pair of field goals and an intercept TD from Peyton Fehr, the CB we traded for from Philadelphia.

The comeback is sealed when Boehner crashes over from seven yards out. Browns win the Bowl 20-16!

In the 2023 off-season, we go hard after an attractive free agent QB from the Packers, and get our man when Mackenzie Akbar (54/54) signs on the dotted line. The plan is to let Johnstone test free agency in 2024.

2023 continues much like the season before, with a dominant defense and effective running game now being added to by a skillful quarterback. Akbar goes down with injury in Week 11 and Johnstone deputises well enough to propel us to the second seed.

Akbar returns for the playoffs and we beat the Chiefs 20-0 and Colts 35-16 to win another AFC Championship.

Dallas is our opponent for the 2023 Front Office Bowl and only are threatened at the end when the Cowboys stage a comeback from 30-10 to close us to 30-27. Akbar manages a great final drive to safely give Cleveland a second championship!

Johnstone leaves in 2024 to get his payday at the Lions. We play the salary cap game well, resigning Boehner and Tenney, and 2024 proceeds much as the two seasons before. This time we earn the #1 seed, and Akbar's accuracy is off the charts. 30 touchdowns and just 4 interceptions.

Disaster strikes in the playoffs though when Akbar's knee explodes under the weight of three Jaguars linemen. His season is over.

We turn to backup Logan Bierce (30/30), expecting only game management from a person who had previous experience with six other teams. Instead, we get a star-studded performance of 4 touchdown throws, and the Jaguars are put down 40-26.

In the AFC Championship game, the Titans are comfortably taken care of 27-7, Bierce 3 touchdowns.

We face Greg Johnstone's new team, the Detroit Lions, in our quest to win our third consecutive Front Office Bowl with our third different quarterback. The game isn't even close as Bierce puts in an MVP performance of 4 touchdown throws - his record in the playoffs is 11 touchdowns, no picks. Cleveland wins 34-3 to put the punctuation point on a dynasty.

Three seasons for our young (still only 38) coach Emmanuel Statler, who boasts a record of 44-13. Three championships with three different quarterbacks.

Salary cap hell is just over the horizon but for now the Browns are savouring this recent rich vein of success.
__________________
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd, I cried to dream again.
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