The time has come. There is a chill in the air as September rolls into Dublin. Owner Matt has only just begun to pick up on the intricacies of Irish culture. It has only been in the last month or so he has come to terms with the fact that they don’t just listen to Flogging Molly on repeat and that Lucky Charms isn’t Irish cuisine. Alas, while Owner Matt may be ignorant to Irish Culture, he knows the football like the back of his own hand. The Shamrocks may not be a complete team but with an infusion of young players he is optimistic they can do exactly what he wants this season, look good while still losing and getting a high pick. While he is not public about these plans, the word “tanking” is still being tossed around. Owner Matt takes a sip of Irish Coffee as he looks out over their new stadium, the time of the Shamrocks has begun.
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To recap here is the lineup coming into the season:
The preseason was largely uneventful other than our starting HB Peyton Barber going down for 6 weeks in Game 3. This forced our hand a bit and we ended up signing Giovanni Bernard, 78 OVR, to help fill the void. We also made the decision to sign Robert Foster, 75 OVR, to be our WR2. That decision wasn’t an easy one as we have some young rookies I’d really like to get reps. Foster is still young though and having only one WR over a 72 didn’t seem like a good idea for K-Dubs growth. Our final signing to try and help K-Dubs was to get him a TE. The Browns, unfortunately, wanted a kings ransom for Njoku despite having him on the Trading Block. Unwilling to give up high-end draft capital, we ended up signing Jags reject Seth Devalve, 75 OVR, to be our new starting TE.
Filled with as much promise as we have holes on our roster, the Shamrocks march into Week 1 unsure of what to expect.
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Week 1 @Cleveland
The Browns are a better rated team than us, as are almost all rosters in the league, but I’m hoping we at least give them a fight. K-Dubs is getting the start from the jump, so these early games will be crucial to his development. You can watch the game below
WE WIN!!!! OMG WE WON!!!!!!!!
K-Dubs ends up leading two TD drives in the fourth quarter. He had one pick on a drop but played efficient football other wise. He passed for less than 130 yards but ran for 77 and a TD. Didn’t expect to win this one but I’m proud of our guys for doing the unthinkable. K-Dubs scores his first TD and has a beautiful 2-Point Conversion throw.
Week 2 vs Minnesota
Another game we should lose but after last week who knows. Our rushing attack is potent and the more we let K-Dubs use his legs the more things seem to open up for us. This will be a tough one but if our Defense can slow down Minnesota we might have a chance. First game in Dublin, can we do it?
wow. just wow. We win 20-6. Is this team good now? Similar slow start by our offense but once K-Dubs’ legs got going the Vikings didn’t stand a chance. Our defense held the Vikings to negative rushing yards. What a first game for our guys, Whiskey all around. Also please watch this move, it was perfection.
The Shamrocks are 2-0 and I simply don’t know what to do with myself. K-Dubs is well on his way to being the Lamar Jackson type player I imagined he could be. Are we ahead of schedule?
Week 3 @NYG
Logic stands that if we can beat the Browns and the Vikings than the Giants should be a cakewalk. Winning our first division game and starting 3-0 was unthinkable to me when we started, but now anything seems possible. Will we go 16-0?
No we will not. We get pretty thoroughly smacked by our rivals. K-Dubs throws for over 300 Yards but also three Interceptions. Was this game a fluke or were the first two?
Week 4 vs The Rams
I’m gonna speed this up a bit now, we lose 20-26. Sitting at 2-2 this feels more like the team I expected. I go back to hoping we lose and get a higher draft pick. I just want our young guys to learn and have fun.
Weeks 5-9
Our next games go as follows
W vs Seattle 26 -14
L vs Baltimore 38 - 17
T @ SF 10 - 10
W @ ATL 27 - 21
L vs PIT 24 - 21
We’re 4-4-1 and I am just confused. I debate a few different changes I could make to the roster but I don’t know what direction to go. We’re only one game out of the Wildcard in a down NFC at this point. K-Dubs is having an up and down season but is also leading the ROTY race. My worst fear is we finish 8-8 and out of the playoffs. Since we currently have the 16th best record in the NFL we are on pace to do just that. I take a deep breath and commit to just seeing how this all plays out
Only other update worth noting is that Ryan Kerrigan informs us he wants to test out Free Agency. It seems he misses home and doesn’t care for the weather in Dublin. We’ll be sad to see him go but ,ultimately his replacement was already on the roster in Montez Sweat, and it will open up even more Cap Room for what could be a very busy offseason for us.
Weeks 10-17
I still don’t know how to feel but the rest of the season awaits. I tell our coach just to do his thing and he confusedly left my office. I nervously await the rest of our results which go as follows
W @ CIN 24 -1 7
W @ PHI 31 - 14
L @ DAL 28 - 10
L vs PHI 21 - 17
L vs DAL 39-31
L @ ARI 38 - 7
W vs NYG 25 - 15
Y’all we’re 7-8-1 and out of the playoffs, this is the worst case scenario. We were so much closer to the playoffs than I imagined, which is promising, but I’m just concerned how much this will hurt our draft picks. The bright side is we have a whole lot of young players and with how close a lot of those losses were, maybe this team is better than I thought. I check the standings and we have the 14th Overall Pick which is fine but much lower than I expected. The final division standings are below
Hard to know whether we’re good or the NFC East is just that bad but I suppose we’ll find that out in the future. The bright side is that K-Dubs is officially the ROTY!! We hold a parade in his honor, something the locals are a little confused about but seem to enjoy regardless. I simply can’t resist a good Akron success story. Here are his final stats for his Rookie year
Not too shabby all things considered. Buck Lamb, the man who won the Heisman over him in college, barely sees the field for the Jags but looks like he may overtake Minshew this next season as he has a Superstar development trait. Those two should have a fun rivalry for years to come. I’m just beaming for the pride of Mentor, OH.
I do make the tough decision to fire our Head Coach, my third firing in two seasons. Matt Hedrick seems confused by the decision but I tell him he simply isn’t “real” enough for me. He starts to have an existential crisis so my personal assistant Liam Neeson quickly escorts him out. I then give a call to the recently fired Doug Pederson. I hire him on the condition he tells me everything he knows about the Eagles, he quickly agrees to my offer.
We have a few Pro-Bowlers but nothing else to note award wise. The Cowboys end up losing to the Browns in the Super Bowl which means we beat the Super Bowl Champions. I debate having a UCF style SB parade but my staff quickly talks me out of it.
Having tasted what winning could feel like I decide my tanking days are over. From this day forward I commit to the Shamrocks being a winning franchise. Heading into the draft and free agency Owner Matt will spend whatever it takes to bring Dublin a winning franchise.
The Offseason:
First step for us in the offseason is free agency. The big needs for us, whether we fill them in FA or the Draft, are OLB, TE, a Stud WR, Backup QB, HB, FS, C and O-Line depth. We have a lot of money to spend but I don’t want to put us in a hole either as our young guys will need to get paid eventually. This FA class is pretty deep but not necessarily at the positions we need. We do end up getting some studs though.
HB Phillip Lindsay, TE David Njoku, C Mike Pouncey, ROLB Kenneth Murray, K Will Lutz and FS Xavier McKinney all agree to take their talents to Dublin.
I’m a big proponent of building through the draft but, especially since I let a decent amount of guys walk, we needed to make some signings to fill holes. Most of those guys slot in as starters right now unless we can get better options in the draft, which is our best case scenario. Also Patrick Mahomes leave the Chiefs and signs with the Dolphins. The Dolphins are the only team that started this project with a worse rating than us so that will be an interesting storyline to follow.
The Draft:
We shored up a lot of our immediate needs in the offseason but depth is still a major issue for us. We’re sitting at 53 players but that’s including our ten practice squad guys from last season, guys we don’t necessarily want to make the roster. Even if we don’t get immediate starters like last season, we at least want to procure good depth pieces here.
The draft starts here and is honestly a pretty fun watch
If you don’t want to watch I’ll save you some time. The Jags once again have the Number 1 Overall pick, Go Jags, and take yet another defender. Madden gets a lot of crap for being unrealistic but I gotta say, they’ve nailed my Jags down pat.
We end up being between OLB Cassidy Kitchen and FS Corey Brackett. They are both graded as early 1st round talent according to our scouting and should be future starters. They’re also both super fast based on their 40 Times and speed kills. We debate trading back but none of the offers are worthwhile. Cassidy Kitchen is an amazing name but looking at their Physical metrics we end up deciding to take Corey Brackett out of UCF and…..
Y’all, he was the best player in the draft. It was such a close decision for me and we ended up drafting the best player in the entire class. I am beyond pumped. He is a day one starter and although his dev trait is hidden I suspect it is at least a Star level trait. The McKinney signing now becomes a depth move and our defense just got even scarier. Having Brackett and Landon Collins patrolling our secondary with McKinney potentially sliding to Nickelback is just so promising for our future.
The rest of the draft goes as follows:
2nd Rd Pick: Dom Kline LT Ok State 72 OVR
3rd Rd Pick: Turner O’Connell RT UCONN 69 OVR
4th Rd Pick: Brooks Yoder TE Notre Dame 66 OVR
6th Rd Pick: Mitch Austin QB Kent State 55 OVR
7th Rd Pick: Cedric Bonds LOLB TCU 56 OVR
While we certainly didn’t get the depth in the late rounds we got last year our first four picks were all slam dunks as far as I’m concerned. Kline will push for a starting job at either LG or LT and then both O’Connell and Yoder provide valuable depth guys who could eventually start. There are rumors Owner Matt drafted Mitch Austin from Kent State just to cut him but he refuses to comment.
That’s where we’re leaving off but I am very excited for the future of this team. If we can take another big step forward this season I don’t think SB dreams are as far out of our future as we once thought. Development at WR is going to be big thing for us to watch as last years 2nd round Pick Ishmael Billups has been revealed to have a Superstar Development trait. He’s only a 72 OVR but I’m gonna find ways to get him reps so he can hopefully develop into our long-term answer at the second Wideout spot. We also start getting a consistent influx of Akron talent in the draft this season so the NFL Draft becomes even more intriguing for us. Get your Washington and Brackett jerseys ordered now Dublin, because we’re about to shock the world.
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Thank y’all so much for reading! As always hit me up on Discord or in the comments if you have any questions. I’m also happy to send/post any box scores or stats you all are curious about. In the future I will split the season up into at least two posts to help deliver the information in a cleaner format. That also means we will likely watch more games! Check the blog or Discord for updates on the next stream but I am tentatively planning for Saturday or Monday. Much love and Go ‘Rocks!
https://discord.gg/tVB5bbQRh5
K-Dubs doing his patented dubstep move in Dublin as you get the W's. His old coach loves to see it.