ItDoesntMatter wrote:

QCS wrote:

It's finally over. After 5 straight years of suffering, the Redbacks are finished. Of course, I say that, but they're still an amazing team that will be contenders for a while. I'm curious, did the expansion cripple them enough to give other teams a shot or was it simply age?

Definitely a mix of both. Across the two expansion drafts, three Redbacks were taken in the first two rounds, so I'm sure it didn't help that pieces of their starting lineup kept leaving. On the other hand, a lot of the mainstays on the roster are between 33 and 35 and are definitely past their prime, though they're obviously still really good, and you're right that they're probably not finished quite yet. (While we're on the subject, the Row are in a similar spot right now; all but three players on their entire roster are at least 30 and Ray Thomas is turning 37 in September, so their window might not be around for too much longer either.)

Interesting. So within a few years we should start to see a "new guard" of sorts. Who's in the best position to make a big run after the Row and Redbacks age out of their window? I would assume teams like Chicago and Nashville, but are there any other teams with a ton of young talent that should be competing soon enough?

I guess all things come to an end eventually. Congrats to the Row. I'll be curious if these two teams return to the finals next season.

QCS wrote:

Interesting. So within a few years we should start to see a "new guard" of sorts. Who's in the best position to make a big run after the Row and Redbacks age out of their window? I would assume teams like Chicago and Nashville, but are there any other teams with a ton of young talent that should be competing soon enough?

It sort of depends on how long Philly and Texas are hanging around. Chicago and Nashville are definitely two teams whose windows are open right now, and I'd probably add New York into the mix as well, but they aren't exactly young teams and they might not get much of an opportunity to truly compete after the Row and Redbacks are out of the way. In terms of teams with young talent, I'd look at the two playoff newcomers this year: Toronto and Orlando. Both teams' cores are just starting or about to enter their primes, both have elite talent that should be able to lead the team in big moments, and both have young players that they can develop over the next few years, some of whom now already have experience starting playoff games.

Did I just name the top 7 teams in the league as the teams who have the best chance at winning soon? Yeah, I did, but it seems like the rest of the teams are either on the decline and needing to rebuild or just started rebuilding (or building in the case of the expansion teams).

Is this thread dead? It would be a shame to let all this work go to waste.

September 13, 2029
Leave it to a Justin Ross press conference to turn one piece of off-season news into three. News #1: Ross introduced Tanner Reinhardt as Deputy Commissioner. Reinhardt will be assisting Ross with his duties as Commissioner and is likely to take over once Ross retires. More importantly, though, Reinhardt will be overseeing news #2: the NDL’s new developmental league. The National Developmental Dashball League, or NDDL, will play its first season in 2031, with 16 teams, each of which will serve as an affiliate to an NDL team. (It’s unclear whether a potential third-tier dashball league would be named the NDDDL or what that would stand for.) Of course, the new league will need a logo, which brings us to news #3: in preparation for the new minor league, the NDL will be getting a new logo for the 2030 season, to be released in the coming weeks.

October 6, 2029
The big storyline coming into tonight’s draft was what LA would do with the first overall pick. Would they take Yale B/ZB Christopher Strine, the best collegiate prospect in league history, or would they use that leverage to trade down and potentially get another pick or player? The jury was still out, at least among media types, but the Tooths front office seemed to have things figured out, as it took them just a few seconds to select Strine. That left Boston, one of the main potential trade candidates, to pick B/ZB Isaac Stutz, Jr., one of four in a tier below Strine. The remaining three went 3-5: W/ZB Joseph Dushkin to Minnesota, B/ZB Sean Sweetser to Montréal, and W/ZB Jacob Babinec to Miami. Other than the two keepers who went next, there wasn’t much in the way of skill positions in the first round, but the strength of the players involved makes up for it in our book. Here’s the full rundown of round 1:

1. LA - B/ZB Christopher Strine (Yale)
2. BOS - B/ZB Isaac Stutz, Jr. (New Mexico)
3. MIN - W/ZB Joseph Dushkin (Siena)
4. MTL - B/ZB Sean Sweetser (Hawaii)
5. MIA - W/ZB Jacob Babinec (Indiana)
6. DC - B/K Paul Gartside (Hull)
7. CAL - B/K Angel Camacho (Texas Tech)
8. CHI (from ATL) - W/ZB Nkem Carter (Marist)
9. SEA - B/ZB Anthony Nail (Presbyterian)
10. ORL - W/ZB Jeremy Smith (Vermont)
11. TOR - F/ZB Zechariah Ogle (VCU)
12. NY - W/ZB Dillon Hopkins (Virginia)
13. SEA (from NSH) - W/ZB Garrett White (Troy)
14. CHI - B/ZB Nicholas Geary (Ball State)
15. TEX - F/ZB Derek Davis (Texas State)
16. PHI - B/ZB Trevor Ortega (Rutgers)

November 9, 2030
In a classic case of the rich getting richer, the Philadelphia Row have signed W/C Evan Simon. Simon had a breakout year in Montréal last year, and has been rewarded with a 12-year contract in Philly. Honestly, this seems like a bit of a risk for a team that just won a championship; Simon is only 22, has had exactly one good year, and in the eyes of many, has yet to really prove himself. That said, Philly does need to start getting younger if they want to maintain this run they’re on; without Simon, the youngest player on their roster might have been 27-year-old Benny Ochoa, and even he is several years younger than most of his peers.

December 10, 2030
As usual, we’re back with another NDL free agency update, but this time, we have two major signings to report. First up, W/K Rufo Torrez has decided to take his talents to Trashville. Torrez will give the Fugitives a star W/K on both sides of the switch, with Will Orleans handling the opposite half of those duties. Toronto is probably smarting from the loss, though, and early rumors have them looking to swing a deal for Sabertooths W/K Larry Dal as a replacement. The other news of the day involves Redbacks B/K Semarias Garcia, who today signed a 3-year, $32 million contract to stay with the seven-time champs. At nearly $11 million per year, Garcia’s deal is currently (and is likely to remain) the second-highest per year in this free agent class, behind only Orbits F/C Mike Mill. Garcia turns 36 next month, and speculation has already begun as to whether or not these three years will be his last, but he should get good value out of them regardless.

January 13, 2030
Reports of a big three-team trade in the NDL have started to crystallize. From the looks of it, Minnesota is the big player in this deal, picking up F/ZB Jerry Miller from Atlanta and B/K Kein Cabanero from Chicago. The Lights have given up a hefty package in return, sending B/ZB Dan Volland and F/ZB Antônio Oliveira to the Records and B/ZB Brian Jackson and B/K Ben Umbs to the Frost, but all in all, they should be dangerous, especially adding those two onto free agent pickups B/ZB Swen Struve and W/ZB Carl Goldstein. Chicago and Atlanta have also made an interesting swap in this trade, with 38-year-old W/ZB Dwight McCann heading to Chicago in return for 22-year-old W/ZB Beau Ferland.

February 26, 2030
The NDL season kicks off in just a few days, and I’ve got a lukewarm take for you: the Orlando Orbits will get their first postseason win in franchise history this year. There’s been a lot of talk about Minnesota’s offseason, and rightfully so, but I think they’re still a year or two out from competing for a playoff spot. Orlando, on the other hand, had probably the second-best offseason of any team, and they were already the seventh seed last year. Not only were they able to re-sign both of their major free agents (F/C Mike Mill and B/ZB Alvin Milling), but they also signed B/ZB Khamzat Yusufi away from the Fugitives. Don’t get me wrong, they won’t end up competing with Texas or Philly unless they harness some of that Universal magic, but they should end up with a mid-tier playoff seed, and do you think they can’t win at least one game against a team like Nashville, New York, or Toronto? 2030 is the year that the Orbits go where no Orlando team has ever gone before.