Expansion:
Three new expansion teams will be joining the league this year, playing in Denver, Nashville, and Orlando. Here's a sneak peek at what they'll look like (although I'll be posting the full brands pretty soon anyway).

Coaching Changes:
The Philadelphia Row parted ways with head coach Millan Gonzales after going 26-94 over the past three seasons. They will make a somewhat controversial decision in bringing in former Hogs head coach Nicolas Stroke. General manager David Flight said they believed Stroke had been limited by Hogs GM Billie Arsenault and wanted to give him a second chance “outside the pigsty.” Coincidentally, the signing also fits well with the team name; Flight joked that the incidental pun “didn’t factor into the decision at all, at least not that much.” The three expansion teams all picked from the college pool, with Orlando hiring Anthony Simmons out of North Carolina, Nashville taking French transplant Olivier Six from North Dakota, and Colorado picking up Erik Bryant out of Indiana.

Free Agents:
TEX F/C Tim Edwards to NY - The Redbacks couldn’t quite keep their superteam together over the offseason. While B/K Semarias Garcia took a pay cut to stay with the team, the 31-year-old Edwards took a 12-year deal to play in the Big Apple instead. Combined with the expansion draft, this should nerf Texas somewhat, though they’re still in excellent position to make a deep run.

CHI B/ZB James Terry to SEA - Terry had been flying under the radar a bit in Chicago, with the likes of F/C Michel Blanchard and B/ZB Ed Maxwell running the show. In a contract year in 2021, though, he stepped up, and was rewarded with a much better contract with the Sawyers. He will also be one of the bigger names in Seattle, where they have very few true stars.

TOR F/ZB Jerry Miller to ORL - It didn’t take very long for Orlando to make a splash, signing Jerry Miller to the highest contract in NDL history. Miller signed for 11 years and $117 million, nearly $20 million dollars higher than California B/ZB Steve Gibson signed for in 2019. At 25 years old, Miller should be able to make an impact in central Florida for a while.

Trades:
COL receives F/K Chris Gray
CAL receives COL 2022 1st round pick, COL 2022 4th round pick
Gray was also a free agent this year, and was able to re-sign with California for 10 years, $110 million, thanks in large part to Jerry Miller’s contract. With Steve Gibson’s big contract also on the books, though, the Sea Lions weren’t able to keep Gray around, trading him to Colorado. Most people around the league agree that they only signed Gray so they could trade him and get more value, and they now own what should be a very high draft pick next year because of that.

NSH receives F/K Chuck Vaughn, B/ZB Alvin Milling
NY receives B/K David Jones, NSH 2022 1st round pick
Nashville wasn’t able to land names as big as their expansion cousins, but they were able to pick up some quality pieces from New York in this deal. Milling has produced big on defense in two years with the Chargers, and in moving to Nashville, he becomes a headline piece. Also included in the deal are two quality keepers, although Jones does have the upside of being nearly 7 years younger than Vaughn.

Expansion Draft:
The expansion draft occurred on October 1, 2021. It lasted 12 rounds, with each existing team losing 4 players. Teams were each able to protect 8 players initially and an additional 2 players after each player they lost. Here are the highlights from each expansion team’s draft:

NSH - Nashville picked first, and took F/K Wayne Carey from Texas. The Redbacks had also left F/ZB Sean Perez unprotected, but Nashville thought Carey was more valuable, as he’s younger and plays a rarer position than Perez. They also grabbed Sea Lions legend B/C Thomas Notz in the second round; at 38 this year, Notz isn’t quite the talent he was during the Lions’ championship runs in 2017 and 2018, but is still a solid piece who should give them some leadership for the next couple of seasons. Other notable picks include W/ZB Joe Sweitzer (TEX) and B/ZB Tommy Meeks (SEA).

ORL - Orlando took quite a risk by taking free agents with their first two picks. They took B/C Andi Effendi from Seattle with their first selection and nabbed B/ZB Evan Smith from the Tooths in the second round. They were able to sign Effendi to a four year deal, but Smith decided to resign with LA instead. Other notable picks include B/ZB Charley Parker (TOR) and W/ZB Mason Shale (PHI).

COL - Colorado's first pick of the expansion draft was Hogs W/ZB Perham Jahanpour, who at 32 years old, is likely past his prime, but his talent was high enough for him to go in the top three. After that, though, they focused on youth, taking 24-year-old B/ZB Vachel Vardon from Chicago in round two, and all but two of their remaining picks were under the age of 25. Other notable picks include B/C Jeff Siegel (NY) and W/ZB Pacifico Ugalde (SEA).

Entry Draft:
1. COL - B/ZB John Thompson (Mississippi State)
2. ORL - W/C Marshall Hall (Houston)
3. NSH - B/ZB Jamie Stearns II (Northern Colorado)
4. TEX (from PHX) - W/K Xarles Forget (Wake Forest)
5. PHI - B/C John Evans (North Carolina)
6. NY - W/ZB Will McLaughlin (VCU)
7. LA - B/ZB Oziel Duran (Oklahoma State)
8. CHI - B/ZB Frank St. Peter (Indiana)
9. COL (from TOR) - F/ZB Dennis Conway (IUPUI)
10. SEA - B/ZB Anthony Brady (Missouri State)
11. CAL - F/K Freddie Jones (Tulane)
12. NSH (from TEX) - W/ZB Allan James (Stephen F. Austin)

Colorado got the short straw in the expansion draft, but they got rewarded by picking first here, and they got a gem in John Thompson. At only 19, Thompson was clearly the best player on the board and can really only go up. They, along with Nashville, also traded up from the top of the second round to the bottom of the first round to pick again. Additionally, after quite a few drafts with not a lot of variety in position, this one was more evenly spread out; in fact, the first round could play together as a lineup if they were all on the same team.

News:
The league will stick with the three-division alignment, with Orlando joining the East, Colorado and Nashville joining the Central, and Phoenix moving back to the West. While there was some concern about putting two expansion teams in the same division, this alignment won out on practicality. Additionally, the league will shift to a 50-game schedule, with each team playing 6 games against its division rivals and 4 games against each of the teams outside its division. The postseason will expand to 6 teams, and will function like the NFL. The first round will be a 3-game series, with games 1 and 3 hosted by the higher seed. The semifinals and finals will also move to a 2-2-1-1-1 format (games 1, 2, 5, and 7 will be hosted by the higher seed, like the NBA and NHL).

In other news, Sea Lions owner Joshua First passed away of cardiac arrest in December at the age of 61. In honor of his influence and success with the Lions, the NDL Championship Trophy will be (rather aptly) renamed the Joshua First Memorial Trophy. His son Jim will take over ownership of the team, and in doing so, he will become the youngest owner in the league at age 35.

Steelman wrote:

BUSY offseason. Looking forward to the new identities. I hope Edwards has fun in NY but it would have been more fun to win a bunch of championships. 12 year deal? Geeze.

Out of curiosity, do you track all player contracts? And if so, what’s your system to do so. I’ve been thinking of adding in some of that for my league as it progresses into more modern eras.

I do track all contracts. Each player's contract is generated based on their age and their overall rating, with a random factor thrown in as well. This does occasionally generate contracts that I think are kinda ridiculous, but then again, that happens in real life plenty often too. As for keeping track of them, I have four columns in my spreadsheet: the full length of the contract, the time remaining on the contract, the total value, and the value per year. This allows me to easily keep track of total team salaries and find free agents. Hopefully that helps!

Charlotte is certainly on the table, though Raleigh did pretty well in the expansion vote, coming fifth out of eight teams, so it's probably a bit more likely that they get a team instead.

Bro! I think that's one of your best logos. Really just a super set from top to bottom. Nice work.

Steelman wrote:

Bro! I think that's one of your best logos. Really just a super set from top to bottom. Nice work.

Thanks! This is definitely one of my favorite logos in the series so far.

CCLXXXVII wrote:

Looks great, especially that white alt.

What is the story behind SandStorm Sports, though?

Thanks!

There's not much of a story tbh. I didn't want to use a real company because I didn't want to have to try and match a style (this was probably just me being paranoid). I was brainstorming ideas and I came up with the name SandStorm and a double S logo that looked kinda twister-y and I was like hey that's pretty good so I whipped it up and used it.