The Totem Pole

[Sharkn20]

Great game played by Gino Smith and the Bills this weekend man!!

[Guest]

Great game played by Gino Smith and the Bills this weekend man!!

We have a saying where I come from, it's short but sweet. It goes like this:

"Same old Jets."

haha

[Sharkn20]

We have a saying where I come from, it's short but sweet. It goes like this:

"Same old Jets."

haha

hahaha Well the Patriots will play at Carolina in a bunch minutes... Maybe I will eat my words in a few hours

[Guest]

hahaha Well the Patriots will play at Carolina in a bunch minutes... Maybe I will eat my words in a few hours

Patriots sure like to whine about ref calls when they lose. I thought the old school football thing to do was say "We should've played well enough that we didn't need that call to win?"

[Sharkn20]

Patriots sure like to whine about ref calls when they lose. I thought the old school football thing to do was say "We should've played well enough that we didn't need that call to win?"

Yeah I think that too... That fumble of Ridley in the Red-Zone... That stupid penalties of Talib... Great game anyway

[Guest]

Yeah I think that too... That fumble of Ridley in the Red-Zone... That stupid penalties of Talib... Great game anyway

I watched the highlights, that Cam Newton run was crazy

[Guest]

This team was 10-1 and it looked like we were going to lock up a bye soon, despite being without WR #2 Herb Newman and Will Duckworth & LB Toby Prather nursing hamstring injuries. Then the team went right in the toilet, finding a way to lose their final 5 games and losing the division, only to back into the playoffs with a 10-6 record and a wildcard game on the road.

In week 17 we finally benched Ted Pleasant who has underwhelmed for weeks. I should be able to do better with this guy, but I guess I'm not a very good offensive coordinator. I just tricked myself into thinking I was last year! When Brian Douglas started week 17 we lost again, but the offense actually had some pop in it. He threw a pick, but I decided to go with him again in the wild card game. SUCCESS. LOSING STREAK BROKEN, despite Dakota trying its damnedest to give the game away with two key fumbles.

Douglas gets another shot to start in the divisional game against San Francisco, and if he plays well Ted Pleasant may be playing elsewhere next season. This team is talented but old, and Ted Pleasant killed us in the Bowl game last year. This year we'll see how far the young Brian Douglas can take us. (Hopefully, a little further than Kaepernick took the 49ers last year!)

We've been a Duckworth-centered offense all year, but his YPC is the lowest of his career. We have the WRs to succeed here but I don't think we really have the QB or offensive line to exploit them yet. He'll have to perform well like he did in the wild card game if we're going to make another bowl appearance.

[Guest]

"IT'S FUCKING OVER." -Chuck Bednarik, to a mauled Frank Gifford.

It may be fucking over for the aging Totems, who never had the QB to helm what was otherwise a very solid team. That talented team is getting older now, and we'll see how we stand after the offseason. If enough players hold steady we might be able to patch together another title run. If we can plug whatever holes appear with our two first round picks next season, maybe we can pull off one more shot at the title.

QB - This position was messy again. We got off to a 10-1 start with decent performances from Pleasant, but he, for some reason, totally went into the tank late in the season, eventually leading to his benching in Week 17. He has high ratings, but I just can't seem to get him to perform consistently. He throws a few more interceptions than I'd like, even though it's not a huge amount of interceptions. It was fine when he was performing well while throwing the occasional pick, but down the stretch he wasn't even passing well at all. I'm not sure if Douglas is ready to take the reins yet, but if I get an offer I can't refuse for Pleasant in the offseason he could be dealt. Otherwise we'll have a QB competition in the preseason.

RB - Duckworth had a down year, averaging only a little over 3 YPC. We were a bit one dimensional on offense and it allowed the other teams to stack against the run. Thought he'd be able to power through it since we have a decent run blocking line and he's a talented running back, but it was too much to ask. We drafted a bevy of young decent but not great running backs to spell and eventually replace him.

WR - We have enough talent at WR that we could run a pretty good passing offense with the right QB. That QB (inexplicably!) doesn't seem to be Ted Pleasant, but maybe Brian Douglas will be the guy. If Herb Newman sticks around another year we'll have a very strong WR corps. Rowland hasn't lived up to his draft stock, but he's been an impact player at times, especially on special teams. However, we are fairly deep at this position and have little to worry about even if Newman crashes/retires. He's spent a great deal of the previous two seasons injured anyway.

TE - Burt Shephard is getting old but he's still truckin'. He'll probably start for us again next year unless he has a huge ratings crash. UFA TE B. Broady is a creeping blocking TE who will probably be with us for a decade.

OL - We're set at center with the talented Jeremy Register, but Dustin Chorak is getting old and he never has been dominant. Jamal Dotson's ratings fell this year, and he's more of a reserve than a starter at this point. Burton remains solid and had a bounce back year, but our RT position is only adequate. Probably need to do a little upgrading here.

DL - These guys are aging quickly, but AJ Hassett had an amazing year despite a ratings drop. We could use an upgrade to our longtime RDEs who both dropped this season, Kyle Ackerman and Wes Pimentel. Jerome Howe is due too much bonus to cut no matter what happens to him, even though his ratings already dropped this season.

LB - Amos Irwin is the killer pass rusher we've never had on this team (with the exception of AJ Hassett.) Totally worth the draft pick we spent on him. Cole Motz has been excellent but his rating dropped this season too. Toby Prather's high price tag may result in him not returning next season, and cheapo Turd Ferguson did a pretty good job starting in his stead while Prather spent most of the regular season on the bench with a hamstring injury.

CB - Hutchins returned from his severe knee injury last year and was the same borderline elite CB he was in previous years. Troglia took an age/vol hit but is still an average starter. Our backups Eugene Farnell and Gene Sinclair are barely adequate. May need to upgrade here. Jumbo Raffray, our nickle back, had his ratings drop this year also, but limiting his playing time seemed to give this low endurance CB better results.

S - Lamar Rivera, our long time zero endurance starting SS missed some time with injury and (SURPRISE ... had a ratings drop this season.) but he was the same solid guy he's always been. We're deep but not spectacular at this position. It may be shaken up a little bit next season.

P/K - The Marcum/Selmon combination with K. Horn as a kickoff specialist is probably locked in for another season. Selmon finally had a year worthy of his high rating.

[Guest]

Been a while. We didn't even post anything in here for our close Super Bowl loss to Utah with Douglas, but that was a good season full of.... DAKOTA FOOTBALL.

We followed it up with an injury plagued 2033, where we lost Douglas for around 10-11 weeks in Week 2, and backup Nicky Stevens suffered a groin pull but stayed in the game. We lost that week in a choke job against eventual Bowl champion Morgantown, who went on to win despite us killing their star WR for revenge. We miraculously went 3-1 with Rico Newton who was sitting on a couch somewhere waiting for a needy team to call, but fell apart down the stretch including two awful, interception-filled performances by Brian Douglas, back from injury. Rowland was knocked out late in the season with a concussion, and Artie Lovejoy missed almost the entire season with a high ankle sprain, so we'll take that 8-8 season as a slight overachievement.

The injury that will permanently effect us was the severe knee injury that took out our promising young 1st round pick CB: Claude Race, who was to fill our shutdown cornerback role when we parted with Hutchins. Race lost about 30 points by the time the season ended. He might not even make the roster next year. Fortunately, we signed Hutchins a few weeks into the season instead of letting his holdout continue or trading him, and he should have a few years left.

We have some youth infusing the offense, at least. Douglas is still young, and WR Jude Hutchins was a steal late in the 1st round. We nabbed a starting G in Markus Lueken who performed well in his first year. However, we're probably going to be needing to find 3 new offensive line starters in the draft and FA next year. The declining Dustin Chorak and Sean Burton are unrestricted FAs who will probably not be back, but good ole red flag Wendell Hayes might sneak back.

We're going to have holes to fill on defense, though. Our starting LB Duane Alamar has retired, as has our longtime defensive line leader Preston Janis. AJ Hassett will most likely be back for at least this year with the franchise tag, and we have his heir apparent in Everett Lindsay, who is the 'lite' version. Outside of Amos Irwin, we will probably be running all new starters at LB. We are now dreadfully thin at CB behind Chris Hutchins after Race's injury and Troglia's decline. Safety isn't looking much better, with longtime starter Corey Maiher (From our great 2025 draft which really stocked this team with good depth and some starters) declining. 6th round draft pick Colin Craig will be in the mix, but we will probably need to replace Lamar Rivera and maybe Patrick Francis, depending on his price as a free agent. We had to release long time NT Jerome Howe to make cap space for the Hutchins deal, and will most likely be starting a new NT as well.

Goodbye, cohesion. With middling players demanding bigger salaries in FOF7, this is a situation that will probably occur for us more often, but the old guard was getting quite old anyway.

Speaking of old, Quack Duckworth is getting up there in years. He might have one year left in him, and I hope he does, because we really need to spend our draft picks on OL and defense.

I'd like to take a moment to celebrate that great 2025 draft which formed a good core for this team for nearly a decade:

1(6) : Chris Hutchins - CB I really wanted to trade up for one of those WRs, but the price was too high. I was a little disappointed I had to draft a CB with such a high pick and many needs, but it worked out pretty well. Hutchins is Dakota's career leader in interceptions and 4th in passes defensed.

2(5) : Artie "Reverend" Lovejoy - WR I was surprised he lasted this long and I figured he was late 1st round talent, especially back in the last version where receivers were king. He's been a solid WR and sometimes punt returner for us for nearly a decade, although he's often been bumped down to #3 on the depth chart due to a surplus of talent at the position. He's been a poor man's version of former Dakota "great" Seth "Rabbi" Shapiro, who he was drafted to replace.

3(?) : Some Scrub - TE Some TE looked good to me and I drafted him in this round, but he was out of the league in a year or two without getting any snaps, IIRC. Nobody's perfect.

3(3) : Wes Pimentel - DE He never was quite as good as we expected him to be, but he was a good situational pass rushing RDE for us at times. His run probably ends now after sticking with the team just due to cohesion and affinity last year. He logged quite a few snaps.

3(10) : Jeffery Gaylor - DE We drafted a LB who looked like a guy who would bump but had absolutely no ability in pass coverage, so obviously we changed him to DE. He did bump but didn't turn into much of a pass rusher, but was a solid rotational DE for us for about 6-7 years.

3(13) : Corey Maiher - S Bam. Solid starting safety for a decade. With the way I draft, that's a pretty big win. Will probably start for us again next season unless he bombs in TC.

3(15) : Lorenzo "Turd" Ferguson - ILB This guy was pretty solid but didn't always start due to more talented players ahead of him. He'll still be with us and possibly starting this season.

3(21) : Leslie "Troll" Troglia - CB Took over the starting RCB job opposite Hutchins by week 4 of his rookie year and didn't look back for 8 seasons. In season 9 our first round pick from the previous year, Claude Race, beat him out and then suffered a knee explosion. Troglia had declined and wasn't really starting quality anymore, but he was still a better option than the perennially disappointing nickel back, Jumbo Raffray.

4(20) : Jorge "Brian" May - SS He bumped and he was a thumper who couldn't really cover well. Affinity helped make up for that a little and he logged a lot of snaps and overperformed. We still got a solid 6-7 seasons out of him where he tended to log a lot of snaps for the zero endurance starter, Lamar Rivera.

5(?) Did we have a fifth round pick this year? I don't think we did, but if we did, he sucked because he's not on the draft history anymore.

6(5) Rex Kristosik - OLB He bumped but had a low rating to start with. Logged 100 snaps as a rookie but didn't make the cut in a deep group of linebackers in year two. No one picked him up and he retired.

Probably our best top to bottom draft of all time, since I usually falter late. I desperately wanted to trade my 3s that year out of fear I'd blow them, but there weren't really any takers. Worked out pretty well for me, fortunately. Doubt I'll ever have 6 third round picks in a draft ever again, but I'd sure like 4-5 right now to rebuild my defense!

[Sharkn20]

6 3rd round picks not too bad man. ..

[Guest]

6 3rd round picks not too bad man. ..

Yep! That was the bounty from the sell off I had from my rebuild. Worked out well!

[Sharkn20]

Yep! That was the bounty from the sell off I had from my rebuild. Worked out well!

Really well I think!

[Guest]

Mr. Foos,

Thanks for trading me.

Love,
Ted

[Guest]

Mr. Foos,

Thanks for trading me.

Love,
Ted

You're welcome, Ted. You just cost too much money to keep around anymore. Thanks for giving me above average QB play for most of your three years. If we won that first championship game against Boston I think we would've taken it all that year.

Brian Douglas needed to spread his wings!

No hard feelings,
-Mr. Foos

P.S. Nice try in the 2032 NC championship game. ;)

[Guest]

Honestly, I think his ability to gain yards on the ground makes up for my relatively weak offensive gameplanning skills.