Overreactions & Reality Checks for PML
Arod
It is always the mid-low tiered users who began the ‘who should go to carousel’ movement every season
Reality or Overreaction: Reality
Every season we hit the point, usually around week 14-18, where the PML chat begins their ‘who should go to the carousel’ witch hunts. It’s like clockwork, happens every season for as long as I can remember. There is something funny I have always noticed about this. The witch hunts are usually always led by mid-low tier guys, who are on the cusp of removal themselves and might be trying to create a deflection. You never see S-tier or A-tier guys looking below them and calling for the heads of the lower users. It is always the C, and sometimes even D tier guys, who are more than likely a little nervous about their standing in the league who look to start narratives about users who are below them in whatever capacity. Just some food for thought as the hunts should become a little more aggressive in the coming days.
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Mali has a legitimate beef about his punishments, but the way the league is moving, it wasn’t worth an argument
Reality or Overreaction: Reality
I am sure we all pretty much seen what transpired over the course of the past few days regarding Browns user Mali and commish JT. Here is my take on the entire situation. It may have taken a while for me personally, but I have realized bringing a gripe to gen chat almost never works out well. We have never seen any sort of punishment or consequence reversed or re-examined based on going the gen chat route. Mali’s case could be thrown in the cabinet with the other 10 or so ‘unjust’ suspensions, fines, etc. None of them were reversed, people have had way harsher consequences, and the fact is bringing it to gen chat will just rally people against you because of the ‘punishment’ culture we have developed this cycle in the league. Users are craving consequences on others and it just feeds into the fire when they see a user upset over it. You will be trolled, ridiculed, and brought down by others because watching you upset, is just entertaining and fun to them. The league has moved to a much more rigid rule, and breaking a rule or cheating by accident or unknowingly, there is only 1 user who can get away with stuff like that, so pushing commishes buttons in public will not end well. We are all passionate about our teams, we put a lot of time and work into content so I definitely understand the loss of 20 points and what it says about our time over something so ridiculous that did not create a competitive advantage, but there is a bigger picture to it all that we must address. This is not, and maybe will never be a case-by-case league, because like I have said before, the league is not ready, nor can we handle a case-by-case ruling on similar situations.
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Codes
The Commish Team Struggles to be Consistent/Communicate
Reality or overreaction: Reality
I’m not here to hate on the commish team, I appreciate all the work they do for the league. However, when it comes to punishments/rulings they are very inconsistent and don’t communicate the “behind the scenes” stuff very well and it comes off the wrong way. Example: Herbert got suspended for having and passing with starters up 28+ in the 4th vs Fallen, I completely deserved the suspension (the -20 was a bit much but they had to make an example I suppose), I later find out Drama did the same thing the same week. I asked Nef the reasoning behind Drama getting away with it, and he told me to watch the 4th and I will see why. So I did and Drama was pinned back in his own 5 and was passing with Dak to get out of that territory and there were a few run plays where he forgot to sub out Lamb, but the situation was different to mine because he passed minimal times and it wasn’t a big deal. That made sense to me, until this week when Que said they don’t go case by case and only black and white… well if that’s the case then why didn’t Drama get suspended? He broke the rule technically without the case by case approach he would be guilty. Que tells me to DM a commish and keep it out of gen chat, so I did. I ask my liaison and he said he wasn’t there for a ruling so he can’t help much, so then I ask Que. He said the commish team voted on the Drama situation and came to the conclusion he doesn’t need a suspension, but they are ruling from “black and white”, but they “ALWAYS have discretion if we feel like we need to step outside of current ruling.” basically meaning things are black and white unless they feel like they don’t need to be which ultimately means it’s not black and white. I told Que it comes off picking and choosing. Y’all chose to use context and not go strictly by the rule for Drama, but y’all can’t do that for people who had a depth chart reset and they quickly change it in game? He did say they would communicate when they use their own ruling and be more transparent which I appreciate. In my opinion they need to be more clear cut, if they wanna go the route they are going which is generally go strictly by the rules until they think differently, they need to explain WHY it’s different. With the Drama situation Nef kept just saying “go watch it”, just tell me why you think of it differently… you aren’t apart of the CIA and gotta keep things a secret. I think the openness will benefit them from being questioned/favoritism and will be great for discussion. Once again this is no hate to them, they put a lot of work in and nobody is perfect.
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Mali f***** up
Reality or overreaction: Reality
As someone who has been suspended/punished a decent amount of times, I have questioned authority and even JT directly. I have sometimes questioned favoritism or certain punishments were unfair. Everyone has opinions/different perspectives and not everyone is going to agree, so it’s not crossing the line. However, demanding a refund and calling JT a b**** is way too far. I have called JT a b**** in a joking way and so have many others, but I have never called him out of his name when “mad”. There’s a certain level of respect that’s needed when addressing JT when it’s a “serious” situation, this man has put in YEARS of work to make OUR experience better. All this time you talk about doing content isn’t even 10% of the time JT has put in for the league. So to ask for a refund and call commishes “cucks” when you disagree is not a good look. JT confronted Mali and called his bluff, asking him THREE times if Mali wanted the refund. Each time Mali either ignored the question or directed the convo in a different direction. JT finally asked a 4th time if he wanted that refund and Mali replied “nah im good”. There’s a reason he avoided it 3 times, he knew he was wrong for doing that, yet JT gave him a pass. Then the next day he has the guts to ask for free points in aab and disrespect the commish team in the message. Mali can’t read a room, we as a community don’t agree with what you did. Was the ruling fair? Yes because others have got hit for the same thing this cycle AND LAST. Does the rule make sense? Not really. Does that mean to call JT a b**** and demand a refund like a 42 year old divorced soccer mom who wants to talk to the McDonalds manager? Definitely not. I’m not sure the -1,000 aab that JT submitted (and everyone upvoted) will actually go through, if it does that’s the end of Mali. If it doesn’t make it’s a wake up call to Mali showing him you have to go about things the right way. If he does stay I think this will probably go into next cycle and affect team selections.
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**Guest** Deebo
Take 1: A Team Rebuild is NOT for everybody!
Reality!!!
Good Users are struggling with terrible teams this cycle because of how much harder it is to scheme trash players this cycle. Great coaches Fallen, Cammy, DK, King Mike and others are giving flashes of their skill but the personnel at some point lets them down in the game. Countless time son streams you can see coaches putting their players in positions to make plays but the players don’t get the job done. This can truly mentally fatigue someone that is used to winning more than they lose. It will be interesting to see what coaches can rally around offseason moves and take some Ls with grace early in the cycle, in order to prevail in the end to compete seasons 3-5… or 6? 👀 We will also see who throws in the towel and begins to prepare for Madden 25 cycle.
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Rules are in place to make the game realistically competitive, prevent cheating and limit cheesing. They should never interrupt the flow of the game or handicap. Most leagues need a Rule Reform.
Reality!!!
This is not really a PML problem but I felt like speaking on it. Remember nano bltizes, remember the days when you can sub a WR at TE? Remember when you can play an entire game without throwing a single pass and win by 50? Remember when you could cover the flat, middle, deep middle and corners with a middle linebacker? Me too! Those days are long gone. Yes more athletic players still cover ground well but nowhere how they used to. EA still needs monitoring in some areas as it’s a buggy game but grown men shouldn’t. New slogan should be “rather than make more rules, boot those fools!” It’s something about witnessing a grown up cheat and cheese their way through a season in “free leagues” that’s cringey. Most leagues need to flat out boot and replace cheaters and cheesers because if your league is good enough the waitlist is usually long enough to replace users quickly. Commissioners make their life super hard adding rules and waking up having to monitor “ok who cheated while I was sleeping?” Less rules and more booting fools!
PS- The one rule that is too lenient in most leagues is 4th down rules! Shorten those and reward defense! Gracias!
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KMFO
Tbandit should be replaced in PML with a wait-list guy
Reality or Overreaction: Overreaction
Tbandit is the kind of guy we want in PML, and this season of struggles in his performance is only showing that more. The knock on Tbandit in the past has always been his contribution to content, never his on-field performance. He has always been considered a shoe-in for the playoffs and a potential Super Bowl contender. This cycle, it’s not starting off that way as we see him at the bottom of the pack. However, we now see a Tbandit that’s more engaged in content than he has ever been in the past and still putting his head down and pushing forward through his struggles. That is not easy and not common among usual contenders. When you’re accustomed to winning a lot, finding yourself struggling to get any wins and sometimes not even be competitive can become really draining and make you quit all together. Instead we are seeing the opposite, and that makes me excited to see what Tbandit does later on in this cycle when he puts it together on the field.
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Evolve is critical to finding the next great member of PML
Reality or Overreaction: Reality
You don’t just turn it on and off, either you love PML and put everything into it in order to get a team, or you don’t. Even the least active current members of PML are producing double digit numbers and playing every single game (except those that go on midseason cruises) so in order to take one of their spots, you have to prove you will be even better than that! And those bottom numbers of activity in PML would be top numbers in any other league. So at the minimum, you got to play 100% of Evolve games, produce content about your evolve team or other PML users, do the immersion system tasks, and take part in chat, betting, etc. If you can’t do that, then how can JT have confidence you’ll be an improvement on a current PML user?
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