2011 - All Defense. All the time.
With the novel idea of a fantasy football league that focused solely on the defensive side of the game, Coach Schroeder established the All Defense League in 2011 with his founding team Orange Crush as an 8 team league intended to showcase some of the great defenses of NFL history. Coach Crash and his franchise Dome Patrol was the second team to join the brand new league and would go on to win the inaugural season's Championship by way of the fantasy overtime of stat corrections issued after the game. Of historical note. it was Coach Crash's first ever fantasy football championship win.
2012 - Rise of the TEAMS
In the second season of the All Defense League, Commissioner Schroeder redesigned the scoring rules, drastically increasing the value of the Team Def/SP position in an attempt to encourage the use of historic NFL defensive squad names and fan-based Team Defense selections. Results were mixed. With a dominant Denver Bronco defense, Orange Crush went from last to first, while 2011 Champion Dome Patrol went from 1st to 2nd to last. With IDP players becoming practically irrelevant under the new scoring rules, several franchises abandoned teams midway through the season, including 2012 Champion Monsters of the Midway who beat Orange Crush with an idle line-up in the Championship.
2013 - Civil War
With several teams having abandoned the league in the 2012 season, Commissioner Schroeder announced no intention of returning for a third season. Coach Crash asked for and received league management permissions, but the break-up of the All Defense League continued with no 2012 franchises returning. Commissioner Crash returned the scoring settings to their 2011 values, rebranded his Dome Patrol as the Chinese Bandits, and renamed the league - first the Department of Defense, and finally settling on the Legion of Defense. Incoming franchise Slobberknockers was the first team to join the redesigned defensive league, going on to lose to Ngata Chance in Hell in the all new Legion Bowl I.
2014 - The rEvolution
In 2014 the hemorrhaging of teams continued as the Legion of Defense lost all 2013 franchises except for the Commissioner's Chinese Bandits, but the Evolution of the rebranded league continued. An entirely new set of scoring rules were introduced, score sets that were battle tested from use in other Associated Leagues, and despite the high turnover of 2013 teams, the Legion was optimistically expanded to 12 spots, however 5 of the new franchises did not finishe the season and were ejected for inactivity. 2014 also marks the beginning of the AF era for the Legion, and the season of evolution brought in new AF certified franchises Battering Rams, Mighty Pats, Sacks Fifth Avenue, and Have A Day securing a foundation to build on.
2015 - 3 Kings - 1 Crown
Partly as a result of the high rate of franchise turnover, culminating in the 2014 ejection of 5 teams, the Battle of 2015, as it came to be called, saw the Legion restructure itself in a bold and experimental fashion, aligning into 3 tiered divisions based on prior season record. The idea was to funnel the best and most stable franchises towards the top of the food chain where competion would be the toughest among established teams, while the lower tiers could could sustain a high turnover without effecting the Legion's growing core of teams. Along with the tiered division set-up, the Legion instituted a number of other radical new changes including a draft lottery, a quadruple round robin in-division schedule, and a championship tournament in lieu of a playoff system. The Battle of 2015 was also notable as a season of absolute dominance for rookie franchise Public Enemy who set records across the board in all possible categories - many of which still stand - on their way to rolling over Sacks Fifth Avenue 105 - 31 in Legion Bowl III. After their highlight reel season, Public Enemy rode off into the sunset leaving nothing but records and war stories from the teams they destroyed.
2016 - New Blood
The Battle of 2016 will always be best remembered for the blockbuster Rookie Class that included Animal Kingdom, the Cavalry, Sleeper Agent, and Suspension Freaks. In any other set-up, these four may have been the last 4 standing, but aligned together in the lowest of the Legion's tiered divisions they proceeded to undertake a brutal campaign of intramural combat, that eventually eliminated two of them from title contention. Sleeper Agent and Suspension Freaks made it into the Championship Tournament along with Insane Clowney Posse and Mighty Pats, while the veteran Battering Rams were eliminated in the Wild Card Game. Coach Shane of the Freaks' Legion entry application included the now famous prediction: "Just applied and I'd love to win this league." which turned out to be a bit of clairvoyence as the Terrible Tigers swept through the Championship Tournament 2-1 after a 10-4 season and went on to beat Insane Clowney Posse 77-58 in Legion Bowl IV in what was their only victory all season vs the Clowns.
2017 - Mercenaries Wanted
In 2017 the Legion lost and gained 3 franchises, but it appeared the league had finally began to stabilize itself from the days of revolving door participation. The top level Premier Division proved to be the elite grouping it was intended to be, aligned with the cream of the 2016 Rookie Class - Suspension Freaks and Sleeper Agent - along with Legion veteran powerhouses Insane Clowney Posse and Mighty Pats. Competition in the top tiered division was intense, with all four teams having a clear path to the Championship Tournament right up to the final Monday Night Game of the final week of the Regular Season, but in the end, Agents were odd man out, with Mighty Pats securing the Division Title and the Freaks and Clowns lining up the chance to face each other in the Wild Card Game. Insane Clowney Posse avenged their 2016 Legion Bowl loss, beating the Freaks and going into the Championship Tournament with the Pats and Sacks Fifth Avenue and Gates of Delirium, but were shut out 0-3. It was the Pats and Sacks that survived to make it to Legion Bowl V, Mighty Pats winning 66-43, settling the tie they had played to in round 2 of the CT.
2018 - VS
Near the end of the 2017 season, unconfirmed rumors began to surface that the Legion was planning to abandon the entire tiered division experiment, and in the 2017-18 offseason those rumors were confirmed. At the request of the Association, LoD restructured their rules book, and realigned into two, equal divisions of 6 teams each. The Championship Tournament and Play-In Bracket remained, but the draft lottery was gone as well. A scheduling format was set up that included cross-division play in the early season and intra-division ladder scheduling in the late season to mimic the intra-mural combat of the old format. Dubbed: VS, the Battle of 2018 was dominated from the beginning by Suspension Freaks, who started the season on a tear, going for 9 wins before suffering their first loss. Insane Clowney Posse proved once more to be the Freaks' achiles heel, delivering their only 3 losses of the season - twice in the regular season and again in the Championship Tournament - and bringing the teams' all-time series to 4-8 in favor of the Clowns. But it wasn't enough to stop the Terrible Tigers, who took the #1 seed, a 2-1 record in the CT and then defeated arch-rival Sleeper Agent 71-64 in Legion Bowl VI. The Freaks also won the Deacon Jones Award, breaking the league record for Season IDP Sacks with 70.5 total, and finished second in the league in Fumbles Forced/Recovered by just 1, with 23 total.
