World League Shocker: Devils Announce Retirement
WORLD LEAGUE – Coming off of their fourth consecutive winning season and their third post season run in 4 years, the World League‘s Dacusville Devils have announced their retirement. The Devils final game was a 113-124 Wild Card loss to the eventual Western Conference Champion Buenos Aires Blue Dogs in last years playoffs, giving them a 42-28-0 career win-loss record for a .600 lifetime average, second only to Old England’s .616 lifetime tally.
Dacusville hosted the 2017 World Bowl 6 after winning the 2016 World Championship in their most successful year in the league. They retire with the League Record for total seaason points (1715.80) set in that World Championship season, and also hold the positions of 10, 14, 16, and 19 on the league’s top 20 all time single game scoring list. In 5 seasons in the World League, they’ve made the playoffs 3 times and acumulated regular season records of 6-7-0 (2013), 10-3-0 (2014), 7-6-0 (2015), 9-4-0 (2016, and 7-6-0 (2017). The Devils’ Coach Darrell released a simple statement to league offices, saying, “I’ve decided not to return and play in the World League next year. As a matter of fact I’m dropping fantasy sports all together. It’s been fun the last few years and I want to thank all of you for making the league a fun one. I wish you guys all the best!”
The city of Youngstown, Ohio has been granted a franchise to replace Dacusville in the World League’s Western Conference where AF Stat Director, Coach mattoaks will be taking over the talented Devils lineup that includes 5 2017 All Conference players. Youngstown will assume Dacusville’s draft position of 8th and will start their league career minus a 1st and 4th round draft pick (and with an extra pick in round 3) as a result of 2017 trade deals.
In other offseason franchise news from the league, founding franchise New Orleans Acadians have announced a relocation in advance of the 2018 season. After a 10-4 run and finishing as league runner-up in their inaugural 2012 season, the Acadians have finished a dissapointing sub .500 in their last 5 consecutive seasons. Due in large part to being on the losing side of multiple trade gambles in the last couple of seasons, the franchise has cited a desire to reinvent themselves for the long rebuilding road ahead as
the primary reason for their move and mascot overhaul as they begin play in 2018 as the Arizona Thinderbirds.
Capping off the 2017 season, the World League’s All Conference Teams have been named for last year, and the Eastern Conference came out ahead in the East-West game with a score of 3376-3314. The Conferences have alternated wins over the past 3 seasons since all star teams began being named. The All Conference Teams are named based on filling a standard roster with the best available players (by season points totals) from within each conference. The full line-ups for both teams can be viewed on the WFL’s League Page.
The league’s Most Valuable Team (MVT) Award and the Golden Globe Trophy (Coach of the Year) have been issued over the off season as well, and the trophy’s complete a pair of hat tricks for the leagues rival British franchises. The League MVT is awarded to the team with the statistically strongest, or most valuable, roster. The league uses a formula to calculate roster power ratings for every team in the league, and awards the team with the highest rated roster the League MVT. Teams receive 5 points each for every All-Conference player on their roster, 3 points each for the number of players on their roster that finish the season in the top 3 (based on season points) at each position, and 2 points each for the number of players on their roster that finish in the top 10 at each position. Teams are also credited for total season points, with the league’s highest scoring team receiving a 12, the second highest, an 11, and so on in descending order. Those values are added together to produce the roster power rating (see leftt)
For the third time in league history, the Old England Patriots have been named League MVT with a Roster Rating of 55. The Patriots edged out Dacusville for the honor, turning in the highest rating ever behind a first place regular season points total and a roster that included a top 4 running back, two top 3 receivers, and a #2 defense. England posted an incredible 11-2 regular season record last year, and was the bettor’s favorite to win a championship, but, after receiving a first round bye, they stumbled against the eventual champion Scandinavia in the Eastern Conference Championship, 103-116. The Pats won the award in back to back seasons in 2012 and ’13, and are not only the only team to have won the award three times, but no team has even won it twice.
Sharing the same distinction as their biggest rivals, London Falling‘s Coach Kev is now the only WFL coach to have been named Coach of the Year multiple times as he wraps up a third Golden Globe for the 2017 season. In naming a coach of the year, the league takes a team’s Versus League (VsL) % – the theoretical win-loss percentage of a team’s record if every team in the league played every other team each week – and multiplies it by 1000. That sum is added to a value for teams’ total season points (120 for highest season points, 110, for second highest, and so on in descending order). The final numbers are ranked as Coaching Points (see right), and the coach with the highest score is named Coach of the Year. Coach Kev has previously held the distinction in the 2013 and ’14 seasons, and curiously, although London has played in two World Bowls (winning and losing once each) all three of their Golden Globes were awarded in seasons where they were eliminated in round 1 of the post season.
The preseason trading period has already begun in the World League as teams begin to prepare for 2018.
