The State of the League 1980
When I look at the other user-created leagues in MFN, and the current upheaval in the game, I have to say the USFL/WFL is in a pretty good place.
This league is heading into its seventh season, which puts it ahead of most. Look at the list of user-created leagues that have been abandoned by their commissioner after one or two seasons and are sitting idle, waiting to be deleted (and MFN sure takes its sweet time deleting those ghost ships).
We are going into the new season with 32 coaches again, pretty rare among user-created leagues. It did take a while to fill the two vacancies at the end of last season. I attribute that to the general downturn in the number of MFN users. I think that, when leagues are getting deleted, a lot of coaches are just leaving and not coming back. I also think that not much marketing is going on, other than word-of-mouth. I hope this changes soon.
Version 4.3
This will be the first season under V4.3. Members of the other leagues that have experienced this transition have given 4.3 a pretty resounding thumbs-down. I know I have spent way too much time trying to figure it out. My best advice to all of you is to play a few games this season and then do a playbook audit. Eliminate the plays that aren't working. From the forum language, it sounds like V 4.4 will be released sooner rather than later. It was originally intended to improve the running game, but the priority has now become fixing the issues in 4.3 with QB play, dropped passes, and the general ineffectiveness of the short passing game.
Competitive Balance
As far as competitive balance goes, I think we are still pretty good. There are 26 teams that have made the playoffs during the first six seasons. Some of the other six are seeing improvement under new coaches and some of the less experienced coaches are really starting to figure out the game. For instance, the recent upward movement by the Baltimore Stars and Washington Federals tells me the day may be coming when someone other than the Pittsburgh Maulers is (finally) going to win the Atlantic Division. The Philadelphia Bell franchise is about to step into contention in the East Division. The West Division and South Division are always candidates for a three-way tie at the top and I see the gap in the middle of the Midwest Division closing soon, perhaps as soon as this season.
Future Changes
I am always open to suggestions for change we can discuss. I did begin a discussion last season about becoming a rosters-only league. Nobody was interested, so it stopped there. Baltimore coach Duval has opined that cutting the salary cap would result in more players being released into free agency, resulting in a more equal talent distribution. We can discuss that, although it would be difficult to enforce in just our league. I will also open the discussion soon about adding a Hall of Fame to our league. Be thinking about how we can best facilitate nominations for this and what eligibility requirements we should add.
Welcome
We want to welcome two new coaches to the USFL/WFL this season, RoyceR (Oklahoma Outlaws) and brxnivy (New York Stars). RoyceR is brand new to the game, while brxnivy joined 10 months ago, but his original league has been deleted. Please be as helpful as you can to these new coaches. And, no, "helpful" doesn't mean offering your ninth-year OL for their first-round draft pick.
Ocean's Fifteen
I want to tip my hat to the 15 coaches who have been here since the first day of the allocation draft. Commitment is hard to find in online sports leagues, particularly in those where there is no entry fee. It is amazing that original coaches still constitute nearly half of our league's membership. I really appreciate these guys hanging in there through good times and bad. The 14 coaches other than myself are:
- trslick, Honolulu Hawaiians
- SunBlaze22, San Jose SaberCats
- Danny-G96, Southern California Sun
- Smirt211, Arizona Wranglers
- Pernbronze, Portland Storm
- Booger926, Houston Gamblers
- ToroTex, San Antonio Gunslingers
- CrimsonWolfZ, Chicago Blitz
- eyeballll, Detroit Wheels
- Loftusranger, Shreveport Steamer
- UKRAIN, Charlotte Hornets
- Otterpop, Pittsburgh Maulers
- pdoug20, Boston Breakers
- raidergreg69, New Jersey Generals
