The Roland Report: Week 2
THE ROLAND REPORT: WEEK 2
Man, what a time to be alive. I woke up this Sunday morning ready to take on the world. I was coming off the high of the Fishers Freight win over San Diego last night (IFL reference) and I was being blown up yesterday about a lot of SFL things. So, I decided that today might be a good day to put out the Roland Report. There are things I wanted to talk about anyway, but some things need to be addressed. This article is not probably going to be received well but things need to be said. First let's get through some good. Then the rough part
WHAT IS WRONG WITH MINNESOTA?
Minnesota is one of those teams that had high hopes. And before the season when you saw their opening schedule (@Chicago OKC) you would think “Man 2-0 start for Minnesota”. I'll admit it, I had high hopes for them. Let's start with Chicago. CHI played probably the best game in CHI history. Perfect game from Ty Ptak and the defense looked legit. A lot of us can say “Ok it's Week 1 Chad! Let them slide.” Ok I have no problem with that. Week 2 vs OKC who won just 1 game was coming into town after not playing in week 1. And OKC came out firing! I mean King Jackson who has had a rough start in his career came out 29/55 for 440yds and 4 TOUCHDOWNS! Yes 4! Against this Minnesota defense?? That's crazy work ESPECIALLY IN NORTHWOODS STADIUM! Trust me I know how awful that place is because of the smell of sasquatch but man that's a tough place to win as a road team. So, seeing them go in and kick them in the teeth was insane. Now the question is can we blame the new coaches in Jay Balmer (OC) and Stefaun Forge (DC)? Or has Axel Raven lost a step now that some teams are catching on to how his gameplan is? Only time will tell. They have a bye week in Week 3 and then they have QCC at home. If they fall to 0-3, their playoff hopes and aspirations will be just like their mascot… A myth and not real
CHARLESTON AND CLOSE GAMES
Charleston and OT seem to go hand and hand so far this season. Both of their games went into OT. They survived a scare against LA where after watching it I felt like LA just simply lost that game. I will be honest here as you all love it when I am. I was not impressed with Charleston. Again, it's Week 1 and it's something I am trying to keep in mind. I was looking forward to watching their week 2 game against a Bossier City team that I am really not high on this season. But I will say this. Charleston did not win this game. Bossier City lost this game. After watching this game, I am curious if BCS let the wrong QB walk. Pichler did not look great. Not sure if its gameplan or simply the way he is managing the game but it's not good. They need to look in the mirror and think about the future of that position because the way he played, they won't go far. But that's another discussion for another day. Back to Charleston. I will say Yayo Montana showed why moving over to RB is a good move. But am I the only person that thinks that's all Charleston has? Like if you stop Yayo, what else do they have to offer? Not much according to tape. Kopek is getting used to the starting role so the WR core will take a small hit. But if Yayo doesn't go off Charleston isn't even in this game. It will be interesting if defenses just start bringing 8 or 9 in the box to stop Montana. If they do I hope Charleston has a backup gameplan. So far, I have low hopes on that
STOP THE PRESSES
Now for the reason for the early edition. Back in the day, when I created “The Streets are Talking” one of the things we were going to do with that show was to have “Stop the Presses” type of shows if things come up that absolutely can't wait until normal show times to discuss. And my DMs, Texts and yes even phone calls had me decide this was a topic that needed to be brought up. And I hate to be that guy but it's my obligation as a media person in the SFL to talk about it. I am referring to the SFLm. A lot has gone wrong in the SFLm and quite a bit of it is not SFLm Commissioner Alex West fault or even his sidekick JW Hartshorn. Like is he an assistant? His title is Assistant Developer according to the article that I am going to reference. So, I guess he has a title. Anyway, that's not the point.
(https://www.simfl.net/news/continuing-the-journey-inside-the-sflm-dev-team)
Ok let's get this done. This is the part of the article where I say this, and I will be quoting Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights here.
BUT WITH ALL DUE RESPECT
On July 5th an article was dropped by SFLm Media Director S’cylle Aldmiir that was titled “Continuing the Journey: Inside the SFLm Developmental Team”. When you open it up, you see S’cylle sit down for an interview with JW Harstshorn to “pull back the curtain on what the developmental team really is”. It goes on for a little bit of them talking and then if you scroll all the way down to the bottom they reveal the development team. THATS RIGHT! THEY REVEAL THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM! This article came out on the website on July 5th. I worded it like this for a reason. THERE IS NO MENTION ANYWHERE IN THE SFL DISCORD ABOUT THIS! According to sources this info was released in the SFLm channels (can't confirm at time of writing this since I have no access to that area). There are owners that have reached out to me with complete reporter confidentiality that are not very happy with this. I have also had players that are “on the dev team” reach out and express their frustrations because they progressed their players after week 1 when they shouldn't have. Now for full transparency SFLm Commissioner Alex West put out a post in League Alerts and an article dropped on the site telling dev players to not progress due to the portal on July 10th. But how does that help anyone if YOU DIDNT POST THIS LIST ANYWHERE! When owners and players that are on the list don't even know they are on the list that is a bad look for the SFL. Let's be honest here. I hate to use this word, but I can't think of anything else at this time but because of the incompetence of the SFLm big wigs, I think any player that progressed in Week 1 needs to be refunded. I think that is truly the only way this works
PART 2
So, you thought that was it?? No, it's not. Once again, this system is flawed. I have said this before. I will say it again. There are players on this list that I have no idea how the hell they are on here. Let's go through it
The first one that comes up is Jaylin Wells. Yes, JAYLIN WELLS IS ON THE SFLM DEVELOPMENTAL TEAM! Are you KIDDING ME?? This is Jaylin Wells 13TH SEASON IN THE SFL! Thats pitiful
NICK FARGO HAS BEEN HERE FOR 17 SEASONS! 17…. MY GOD PEOPLE HE HAS BEEN A 8 TIME ALL STAR AND HE IS ON THIS LIST!!
Robert Henson Jr is a 4-season veteran that can't decide between FB and TE. The position swap is why he is on this list.
Sammy Seatbelt (4 seasons) Pink Leisa (6 Seasons) are on this list.
Do you see my point here SFLm big wigs?? I have said this publicly before in the Streets server and here I go again but this is broken. It's broken and it needs either majorly overhauled, or it needs to be scrapped. The SFLm was almost gone at one point and Alex West took it so that it would stay alive. Let me say this. I know I have been negative here and I am only writing this to help but seriously Alex you have to be better about communication. You can't just drop an article about the dev team list and not even make a separate post in the SFL server about it. Please don't come at me saying “Well they should read the article” or “Well we said it in SFLm General”. You can go ask Cam himself about this, but I have gotten into it with Cam about his communication skills, so I have no issues saying that to you. We want you to succeed. We want to see the SFLm bring in the next crop of talent. It has its great moments but if there are owners in SFL that don't even know about this stuff, that tells me someone is not doing their job.
So please for all of us, Let's keep those lines of communication open