Coaching Changes:
After three subpar years in the league and no playoff appearances, the Phoenix Palms have fired head coach Joseph Johnson. They will replace him with Robert Morris University head coach John Fuller, who led the Colonials to a national championship in 2018.

Roster Changes:

Free Agents -
LA W/ZB Perham Jahanpour to TOR - Toronto is looking to build on the success they saw last year, and proving they aren’t afraid to go out and sign top free agents. Jahanpour, one of the highest-trending players over the last few years with the Tooths, should add veteran leadership to a very young Hogs team.

PHI B/ZB Alvin Milling to NY - Milling had mostly flown under the radar for the past two years, but took a big step up during the past year, when he helped carry a Philadelphia defense that had been hit hard by injuries. The Chargers are hoping the 23-year-old can keep that role up in the Big Apple.

CAL W/ZB Justin Smith to CHI - Smith was one of the best players for the Sea Lions over the first two years in the league, even at 19 and 20 years old. However, it doesn’t appear that he has fully recovered from the Achilles injury that had him on the IR all of last season, and the Sea Lions let him walk to the defending champion Frost.

Trades -
LA receives W/ZB Raymond Johnson (PHX)
PHX receives B/ZB Maurice Caumont (PHI), PHI 2020 2nd round pick
PHI receives B/C Branco Bonilla (LA)
Not much exciting going on in this trade, just three teams swapping role players. Johnson was one of the Hogs’ more exciting players before getting picked up by the Palms this offseason; Caumont was one of the Row’s best players before dropping off after the last few years; and Bonilla has spent the past few years sharing a starting role in LA. All three of them should see plenty of playing time this season.

CHI receives F/ZB Peter Schmid, B/K Ronnie Northern
TOR receives B/K Gregg Larkin, CHI 2020 2nd round pick
Toronto sends their top zone back and their top keeper in order to upgrade to Gregg Larkin, who has worked his way up from solid backup to one of the best keepers in the league. Chicago, for its part, moves down a bit at keeper, but picks up an excellent replacement in Northern and adds major defensive talent with Schmid.

Draft -
1. NY - B/ZB Anthony Wallace - Marist
2. PHI - B/ZB Kurt Watts - George Mason
3. PHX - B/ZB O’Landry Compass - Bishop’s
4. CAL (from SEA) - B/ZB Junior Butterfly - Santa Clara
5. TEX - W/ZB Joe Sweitzer - Virginia Tech
6. TOR - F/K Wayne Carey - Texas Tech
7. LA - W/ZB Viktor Ilić - Serbia
8. SEA (from CAL) - W/ZB Patrick Ryan - Southern Illinois
9. CHI - B/ZB Nick Phipps-Joseph - North Carolina

With back/zone backs taken at the first four picks, this draft was relatively unexciting. After some deliberation, New York went with local prospect Anthony Wallace at #1. California traded up to select the last of these, Junior Butterfly, at #4, though in hindsight, this may have been a mistake as the next B/ZB went to Chicago at #9. Notably, this was the second straight year in which eight ZBs were selected in the first round, Texas Tech’s Wayne Carey (TOR) being the lone exception.

Both excellent updates! Philly's colors are are a little too contrasty for me but it's a well-designed set. Tough to get light blue and red to mesh perfectly together. But I imagine the fourth jersey wouldn't look too bad in person. Nice work.

The 2020 regular season was perhaps the most boring season in the NDL’s short history. The three divisions were all decided with over two weeks left in the regular season, and all three division winners combined for just three losses within their respective divisions. Most of the games weren’t close either; only 17 games all year were decided by 5 points or less, and not a single one went to overtime. Sure, there were some exciting games, like on June 10th, when Seattle’s W/ZB Dan Williams hit a full-court buzzer-beater off the rim and into the net to beat New York 116-115, but for the most part, there wasn’t much to talk about.

Speaking of New York, the Chargers looked pretty good during their sophomore season. They actually finished second in the Eastern Division, ahead of the Philadelphia Row, who struggled to come back from a 2019 season filled with injuries. The Chargers were technically still in the wildcard hunt until that Seattle game, but neither New York nor Philly was ever really in the divisional race, which once again belonged to the Toronto Hogs. Unlike last year, however, the Hogs won the East in style, running away from the pack over the second half of the season. They ultimately finished 29-11, clinching the second seed, and should be dangerous in July with the offensive play of W/ZB Michael Lawler and W/C John Gray.

Toronto will host California, who won the West for the fourth consecutive season. However, it was clearly the weakest division of the three. The Sea Lions went 16-0 within the division, replicating the Hogs’ feat from last year, but like those Hogs, they didn’t look very impressive outside the division, going 10-14 against the East and Central. Seattle, meanwhile, regressed quite a bit from last year, winning only 12 games, and LA took its turn at the injury carousel, losing B/ZBs Lucas Nagel, Marino Reyes, and Michael Courtney for most of the season and leaving their backfield very depleted and leading to a dismal 3-37 season for the Tooths.

That leaves the Central, which was clearly the strongest division this year. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean it was competitive. The Chicago Frost looked like favorites to repeat their championship this season, but lost star F/C Michel Blanchard to a broken nose on April 1st. Chicago was deep enough to stay in the playoff race, but the door was left wide open for the Texas Redbacks, who ripped through the league, going 37-3. Everybody on the team seemed to be having a career year, which led to multiple trades and one of the most interesting weeks in leauge history. Texas was in trade talks with both Toronto and Seattle in mid-April, and dealt backup B/C Aciscio Castañeda to the Sawyers for B/K Clyde Edwards, F/C Don Toomey, and a first-rounder. Once the Hogs caught wind of the trade, they immediately expressed interest in Edwards, and within a few days, Edwards was playing for his third team in less than a week. Interestingly enough, he played two games with star Redbacks F/C Tim Edwards, so both had to wear their first initials on their backs for a few days; look for these jerseys to become big collectors items for uniform nerds.

Anyway, with the top 3 all but set and most of the other teams out of it, Phoenix and Chicago were fighting for the final playoff spot, and unlike everything else this season, it would come down to the end of the season. The Palms were in Chicago playing their final game; the Frost had one more game against Texas the following day, but this game would determine the wildcard team regardless of that result. It was a tight game all around, with 32 lead changes, and ultimately, the Palms staved off a few desperation plays by the Frost to win by 6. As exciting as that game was, however, it likely won’t matter much, as the two teams combined for a 1-15 record against the top-seeded Redbacks.

All right Redbacks! (Which I also submit as a classic fan chant)

Time to go Hoggin'!

Coming into this season, the Texas Redbacks and Toronto Hogs had combined for one playoff win in their histories; now, they would be competing for the NDL Championship Trophy. If you thought that would make anything less exciting, though, you would be wrong. Both teams came out swinging in Game 1, and it would be a classic. The lead went back and forth most of the game and was never higher than 14 for either team, and it looked like it would come down to the team who had the ball last. It would. B/ZB Wayne Jones hit a 3-point basket to put the Redbacks up by one, but left 12 seconds on the clock for the Hogs. With time winding down, B/ZB Dan Kirkpatrick found W/ZB Michael Lawler just inside the 3-point line. Lawler went up for a jump shot, drawing Texas B/K Ares Preciado just enough for Lawler to pull down the shot and slip the ball to F/ZB Derick Lee Jr., who tapped it into the wide-open net for a one-point Hogs victory.

Vitalized by their Game 1 win, Toronto’s defense stepped up in Game 2, holding the Redbacks to just 110. In particular, B/K Gregg Larkin had a big game and made a few acrobatic saves, and the combination of W/ZB Perham Jahanpour and B/ZB Ax Nilsen only allowed three touchdowns over their four periods. Texas’s offense would show up again in Game 3, and they kept it close for most of the first half. When W/C John Gray and F/ZB Jerry Miller led the team on a 22-5 run in the fifth inning, though, the Redbacks had no answer, and the Hogs would keep the lead at about 20 for the rest of the game.

The Redbacks were now down 3-0 and would have two more games to play in Toronto before moving back home, if they even made it that far. Game 4 started out well for Redback faithful, as Texas was able to push the lead to 21 as late as the sixth inning. However, it would quickly become a nail-biter, as the Hogs brought the lead back down to just a single point over the last few innings. B/K Semarias Garcia found the back of the net with 11 seconds left to push the lead to four, and Dan Kirkpatrick’s 5-point heave would deflect harmlessly off the backboard, allowing the Redbacks to avoid the sweep.

Game 5 looked like the mirror image of Game 4 for the first three quarters or so: Toronto spent the majority of the game building up a solid lead, but the Redbacks caught fire in the last quarter. W/C Elide Amigazzi put up 17 points in the seventh inning on his own. The Hogs frantically tried to keep up, and managed for the most part, though Amigazzi and Ares Preciado held strong at center and keeper respectively during the final frame. Texas had a chance to put it away with 10 seconds left, but B/ZB Carl Goldstein’s pass to W/ZB Phil Puster was knocked down in the end zone by Ax Nilsen. Nilsen found Michael Lawler, who was quickly double-covered by the Redback defense. Lawler passed to Derick Lee, who passed to B/K Clyde Edwards, and Edwards’s shot from 31 feet out banked in at the buzzer. The Toronto Hogs, only two years removed from a 4-36 regular season, were now NDL champions.

Last edited by ItDoesntMatter (7/19/2019 4:31 pm)