The Leopards Hall Of Fame - The Bright Spots

It's time to honor the players of Class of season 21.

The board of the Leverkusen Leopards has again sit together and invited randomly picked fans.
Remember, a player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team or the game itself.

This time a lot of players were in the mix to get the honor of becoming member of the Bright Spots and most of them got the final call.

Hans-Herbert Schäfer got drafted in season 12 and did play 228 games for the Leopards, until he and the management divided and he left for another team.
Regardless how he left and why, his 10 seasons with the team were some of the most challenging ever, including Elite league season.
He won the Bowl in season 16 and was an anchor in the linebacker squadron for seasons.
He is right now TOP 6 in INTs for the team and TOP 5 in defense TDs.
Hans-Herbert was never shy of competition and left as one of the best LBs in franchise history.
Welcome to the Bright Spots.

Karl-Wilhelm Maier was drafted as DL in season 11 and left after season 21 to play for another team.
His 11 seasons with the team were great regarding team success and he was a major part of that success.
Still active right now he is still out there pounding opponents and punishing runners and passers.
He is TOP 6 in tackles and second overall in tackle for loss.
He will be always be a part of this team, that's why he is now part of the Bright Spots.
Happy to have you here, Karl-Wilhelm!

Tadeusz Thomas is one of the longest lasting members of the Leopards, ever.
He came to the team in season 3! by youth pull and was developed into a fine defensive back.
He retired after 19 seasons with the team and 360 played games.
You won't find him high on any record list, he was just that guy you can rely on when needed and he was one of the locker room icons you need to keep a team together.
Too young to win the league title with the seniors in season 6, he was happy to win it in season 16.
A Bright Spot for sure. Thanks Tadeausz.

Aldo Hofmann was bought to the youth academy in season 8 and became a major player in the offensive line a few seasons later.
He left the team after season 21 to play for some more seasons, but his major contribution was with the Leopards for 14 seasons.
His 266 games are a good amount of time he had with the team and he was a valid player on every position Tackle, Guard or Center.
We are proud to have him within our Bright Spots team from now on.
Aldo, you are more than welcome to join!

Manu Etxebarria came to us as transfer to boost the RB and returner position.
A quality RB throughout his career, he was unlucky to have always even better RBs ahead of him on the depth chart.
He adjusted to his role as game closer and backup players very well and never let the team down.
He might never have made the front page, but for sure he is a fantastic player and more than worthy to be part of the Bright Spots.
Manu, be part of this team again!

Rudolf Lexa was bought in season 10 to become a QB in our team, which slowly shifted from run heavy to pass heavy.
Rudolf did play 297 games in 12 seasons for the team and when he retired he had thrown more yards for the team than any QB before.
His average yards are still the most of any QB so far and he also is TOP 2 in TDs and has still the best QB-rating the team ever had.
He was the guy who lead the team to a bowl in season 16 and he did also lead the team into 4 Elite seasons in a row.
Thanks Rudolf and welcome to the Bright Spots. Ready?

Vittorio Müller entered the team with the draft in season 9 and did play 327 games with the team in 13 seasons.
He became our joker on the defense back crew and even if he never made it high on any record list, he was a major part of the success the team had in the past.
When he decided to quit the team was in general sad to see him go, but now, we can welcome him back to the team, as part if the Bright Spots.
Vittorio, thanks for all the season and welcome back.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8
- Teddy Field OL, left season 9
- Bryce Barela DL, left season 9
- Logan Herring CB, left season 9
- Jewell Temple DL, left season 9
- Ramon Gifford LB, left season 10
- Adolfo Zarate OL, left season 10
- Carrol Mcgovern FB, left season 10
- Long Ponder SF, left season 10
- Graham Akers RB, left season 10
- Rüdiger Möller OL, left season 10
- David Abell K, left season 11
- Irwin Guerra P, left season 11
- Nicolas Schulte OL, left season 11
- Gaylord Vail CB, left season 11
- Murray Waterman CB, left season 12
- Keith Hoy DL, left season 12
- Rusty Cramer WR, left season 12
- Coleman Selby OL, left season 12
- Josef Schuhmacher LB, left season 12
- Paul Cote SF, left season 13
- Bernd Neumann RB, left season 13
- Lambert Wagner QB, left season 13
- Max Krause LB, left season 13
- Sylvester Kraus DL, left season 13
- Burkhardt Fischer DL, left season 14
- Freddy Kaiser DL, left season 15
- Gabor Herrmann OL, left season 15
- Hans-Otto Schneider OL, left season 15
- Theo Thomas OL, left season 15
- Manfred Schreiber LB, left season 15
- Jochen Schulz SF, left season 15
- Wilson Vazquez CB/SF, left season 15
- Hans-Josef Beck WR, left season 15
- Henning Schröder QB, left season 16
- Sieghard Schröder TE, left season 16
- Rueben Houghton OL, left season 16
- Franz-Josef Roth SF, left season 16
- Nils Heinrich RB, left season 16
- Rubén Oliver TE, left season 17
- Karl-Hermann Neumann P, left season 17
- Mohamed Walter DL, left season 17
- Tillmann Hartmann FB, left season 18
- Holm König LB, left season 18
- Uwe Schneider DL, left season 18
- Günter Meyer OL, left season 18
- Ignacio Mauldin WR, left season 19
- Carlos Rojas DL, left season 19
- Vicente Giménez WR, left season 19
- Hardy Busch LB, left season 19
- Doston Kozhabayev TE, left season 20
- Hubertus Schulz DB, left season 20
- Hans-Herbert Schäfer, LB, left season 21
- Karl-Wilhelm Maier, DL, left season 21
- Tadeusz Thomas, CB, left season 21
- Aldo Hofmann, OL, left season 21
- Manu Etxebarria, RB, left season 21
- Rudolf Lexa, QB, left season 21
- Vittorio Müller, CB, left season 21

"The *peeeeep*ing Leopards did it again!

After season 6 and season 16, 4 seasons in Elite League and 2 disapointing tries after that in the 1.1 we won the *peeeeeeeeeep* title again!

The team gets an extra hookers, extra vacation and extra *peeeeeeeeep*ing everything for that!

Next season will again be *peeeeeeeeeep* or be *peeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*ed in Elite League.
But that is on another day.

THIS night it's *peep*ing party time!

Let’s do a review of season 22.

After the failure in season 21 the Leopards were still in the Monarch Region and were one of the favorites to win the League.
At the end did we win all regular season games except 1 and finished 15-1 as the second best team in the whole league.
In the playoff the team did win against Blood Kings in the Divisional Round, again, but lost to Grand River Snakes in the Conference Title game, which was the second Conference Title game loss in a row.
A disappointing finish. Nevertheless are coaches, management and players motivated to do it in a better way in season 23, again.
The Supercup came down to the game against Brasília Muscles, which was won in a close game. Therefore the division was won with a 15-0 record there. The team made the playoffs of cause and made it to third round only to lose against a strong The Notorious Pub Gang team. The management had done a bad selection on playbooks prior the game, so it’s unknown, whether the Leopards would have competed better if they would have been 100%.
Better luck next time.

We drafted Kemal Sulayman to become a LB and got RB Dunc Cox in second round who will likely be converted to SF and in third round we got K Ilaitia Kuresa, who was shipped short time later.
This draft is considered average.

No big changes on the roster during the season, the team is very much in revolver mode, few in, few out.

We sold:
Franz-Josef Schuster, Gustav Becker, young players with no roster spot in his future went to other teams.
Ianis Marcone, a 3rd round draft pick from season 21, which position on the roster was not finalized after a season and who went to another team.
Ilaitia Kuresa, as mentioned the 3rd round pick of the draft of season 22, likely a K.
Markus Crow, a LB drafted in season 19 with 2nd round, which had to make room for younger players and who became expendable.
Clemens Pohl, long time a WR and TE, had to make room on the roster and became too expensive.

We bought:
Clemente Trent, a 19 year old for the Youth Academy to become a SF in a season or two.
Pascual Carreras, a 19 year old for the Youth Acadamy to become a RB in season 23 or later.

A few veterans did call it a career:
Hans-Henning Frank, a lifetime OL, drafted in season 9 in the 3rd round did call it a career and we had to agree on a canceled contract before season rollover to create some roster space right in time for the Youth Academy players to come.
Theodoros Koch, another lifetime Leopard, DL, promoted from the Youth Academy in season 8 retired at season rollover.
Both are expected to become Hall of Fame members sooner or later.

Thanks to all players!

We promoted WR Urs Stein, QB Wolfram Vogt, DL Miroslav Wolff, SF Vitali Schumacher, LB Jonas Heinrich and OL Eugen Weiß from Youth Academy to senior team. We think many of them will make the team for several seasons, maybe until they retire. Some will for sure not make the team for long, depended on the draft in season 23. It was the first time we had such a high quality on 6! YA-players since start of the franchise.

Season 23 will be again the hunt for the Bowl win in Monarchs League 1.1.
The Elite league does send only 1 active team back, so the competition will be a little bit less strong as normal, but the Monarchs league teams will do improve fast, so it will be also a challenge to win against those.

The Leopards Hall Of Fame - The Bright Spots

It's time to honor the players of Class of season 20.

The board of the Leverkusen Leopards sit together and invited randomly picked fans.
Remember, a player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team or the game itself.

After a long discussion 2 players were selected.

Doston Kozhabayev came to the team in season 11 and was aquired by transfer market.
Not many players had such an impact in such a short time.
Even he playered as TE and only 197 games for the Leopards, he is at the moment at position 6. in yards for all receivers with an amazing average of 19.8 yards per catch.
Of all players with such long plaiyng times and plays only the great Tony Speer had more.
Doston is also 4th in touchdowns, with 230 scores over his career and 5th in broken tackles with 505.
Until now no player under 200 games for the Leopards became a member of the Bright Spots, but Doston as our TE broke also THAT tackle and made it to the house.
He is still active for another team and we are sure he will be honored also there.
Today the Leopards do honor him as Member of Class Season 20.
Thanks Doston for all your effort!

Hubertus Schulz was drafted beginning of season 7 and stayed with the team until he retired end of season 20.
A DB for live he made an early impact and stayed on top for most of his career.
He was there went it counted the most and had crucial tackles, crucial sacks, crucial interceptions and crucial touchdowns.
We loved him as part of the family then, we love him as part of the family now.
Hubertus, a Leopard for live, is now also a Bright Spot, for live and beyond.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8
- Teddy Field OL, left season 9
- Bryce Barela DL, left season 9
- Logan Herring CB, left season 9
- Jewell Temple DL, left season 9
- Ramon Gifford LB, left season 10
- Adolfo Zarate OL, left season 10
- Carrol Mcgovern FB, left season 10
- Long Ponder SF, left season 10
- Graham Akers RB, left season 10
- Rüdiger Möller OL, left season 10
- David Abell K, left season 11
- Irwin Guerra P, left season 11
- Nicolas Schulte OL, left season 11
- Gaylord Vail CB, left season 11
- Murray Waterman CB, left season 12
- Keith Hoy DL, left season 12
- Rusty Cramer WR, left season 12
- Coleman Selby OL, left season 12
- Josef Schuhmacher LB, left season 12
- Paul Cote SF, left season 13
- Bernd Neumann RB, left season 13
- Lambert Wagner QB, left season 13
- Max Krause LB, left season 13
- Sylvester Kraus DL, left season 13
- Burkhardt Fischer DL, left season 14
- Freddy Kaiser DL, left season 15
- Gabor Herrmann OL, left season 15
- Hans-Otto Schneider OL, left season 15
- Theo Thomas OL, left season 15
- Manfred Schreiber LB, left season 15
- Jochen Schulz SF, left season 15
- Wilson Vazquez CB/SF, left season 15
- Hans-Josef Beck WR, left season 15
- Henning Schröder QB, left season 16
- Sieghard Schröder TE, left season 16
- Rueben Houghton OL, left season 16
- Franz-Josef Roth SF, left season 16
- Nils Heinrich RB, left season 16
- Rubén Oliver TE, left season 17
- Karl-Hermann Neumann P, left season 17
- Mohamed Walter DL, left season 17
- Tillmann Hartmann FB, left season 18
- Holm König LB, left season 18
- Uwe Schneider DL, left season 18
- Günter Meyer OL, left season 18
- Ignacio Mauldin WR, left season 19
- Carlos Rojas DL, left season 19
- Vicente Giménez WR, left season 19
- Hardy Busch LB, left season 19
- Doston Kozhabayev TE, left season 20
- Hubertus Schulz DB, left season 20

Let’s have a review of season 21.

Back in the Monarch Region were the Leopards one of the favorites to win the League.
At the end did the win all regular season games (16-0) as the only team in the whole league to do so.
In the playoff the team did win against Blood Kings in the Divisional Round but lost to Torchwood Aliens in the Conference Title game.
A quite disappointing finish, but coaches, management and players are motivated to do it in a better way in season 22.
The supercup was based on the divisional game against The Northern Riviera, which we lost, and with it the division top spot. Still the team made the playoffs and made it to second round only to lose against a strong Fighters de Pλris team.
Better luck next time.

We drafted Raymond Assis to become a LB and got RB Tao Teng in second round who was later sold since he did not fit into the roster and in third round we got WR Ianis Marcone, which position inside the team is still not finalized. It could happen the he also will be sold later.
This draft is considered average at best.

No big changes on the roster during the season, the team is very much in revolver mode, few in, few out.

We sold:
Woo Toan, drafted player from last season, didn’t make the cut.
Tao Teng, already mention drafted player from this season, didn’t make the cut.
Karl-Wilhelm Maier, a long time DL, had to leave because of roster spaces needed for the Youth academy players.
Hans-Herbert Schäfer, another veteran who had to leave because of roster space.
Louis Sauer, a promising K/P, became expendable with an even better prospect from Youth Academy.
Aldo Hofmann, an aging OL, still willing to play, but we needed the roster space.
Francisco Kuhn, youth academy player, with no future on the Leopards senior roster

We bought:
Kende Ungvári, a 21 year old player to fill in on DB.

A few veterans did call it a career:
Tadeusz Thomas, self made Leopard from Youth Academy, played DB. Sad to see him go.
Rudolf Lexa, Star QB for several seasons, left with some anger, since he thought to have several seasons left in the tank, but no team was interested and we had to let him go for roster space. He later decided to retire.
Manu Etxebarria, a career backup RB, who did not draw any attention on the market and decided to move on to another profession.
Vittorio Müller, future Hall of Fame DB, left to go fishing. Heartbreaking loss for the team.

Thanks to all players!

We will probably see some of the players who left again when they become members of the bright spots.

We promoted the new DL Hans-Heinrich Sauer, K/P Hanns Bergmann, OL Jens Neumann and WR Hans-Adolf Schulz from Youth Academy to senior team. We think they will all make the team for several seasons, maybe until they retire.

Season 22 will be again the hunt for the Bowl win in Monarchs League 1.1.
Some tough competition came from Elite, but the Leopards are confident to get to the Bowl.

The Leopards Hall Of Fame - The Bright Spots

Finally we can shift into an annual mode, praising the players of a single retirement class.

We did cover so far all seasons until the class of season 18 retirements, so this season we will s e l e c t the Bright Spots of season 19 retirements.

Again did the board of the Leverkusen Leopards sit together and invited randomly picked fans.
Remember, a player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team or the game itself.

After a long discussion 4 players were selected.

Ignacio Mauldin was brought onto the team in season 11 as gap filler in the defensive backfield.
He was never considered a long term solution.
Regardless he did play every down with all his strength and speed and did hold his ground until the team did decide to give him a chance on another team to compete, due roster spot problems.
We would have loved to have him with the team until he decides to call it a day, but Ignacio did like to play and he still does so far.
Never the less he will be always a Leopard and from today on he will also be a member of the bright spots!
In 245 games he was our CB on the field and we will be thankful for every play he played.
Thanks!

Carlos Rojas come to the team as transfer youth player in season 9, we did build him, train him, formed him and he delivered, big time.
A DL with a heart of gold and a will of stone he did defend the trench until the whistle blows.
After 313 games with the team he left the team for another chance, while we got room for the next generation.
It's an unthankful business, where limitations are set were non have to be there, but Carlos did understand that side of the business as well.
We are happy to have him back on the team of the best!
Carlos, you will be a Bright Spots, fully deserving that place in history.

Vicente Giménez came also as transfer player to the team and was also at the end a roster spot victim.
Never the less, he did play 242 games for this team and since season 11 he did play with every bit he had.
Now, after another rough 60 games for another team he called it quit.
Well, Vincente, please join our team again, as equal under all the Bright Spots of Leopards football.
You may never were the record setting WR like others, but you did catch those balls when needed, over 1000 times.
A champion, a teammate, a great person and finally, a Bright Spot.

Hardy Busch is the only Leopard drafted player in this class.
He came in season 8 and did play 388 great games.
A LB in the best LB tradition the team ever had and will have.
A great one under great ones and Hardy is still the player with the second most INTs in Leopards history with 70 and he did does also record the second most defense TDs with 58.
It was hard to find a successor, we are still not sure we did find one.
All those players can do is to play the best they can and the rest will history sort out.
One think is sure, Hardy did the same to succeed the great Josef Schuhmacher and we all think he did it.
Hardy, welcome to the Bright Spots, in company with all the idols you had in your playing time.

That's for this season. The management and the fans will s e l e c t further players of later seasons, soon.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8
- Teddy Field OL, left season 9
- Bryce Barela DL, left season 9
- Logan Herring CB, left season 9
- Jewell Temple DL, left season 9
- Ramon Gifford LB, left season 10
- Adolfo Zarate OL, left season 10
- Carrol Mcgovern FB, left season 10
- Long Ponder SF, left season 10
- Graham Akers RB, left season 10
- Rüdiger Möller OL, left season 10
- David Abell K, left season 11
- Irwin Guerra P, left season 11
- Nicolas Schulte OL, left season 11
- Gaylord Vail CB, left season 11
- Murray Waterman CB, left season 12
- Keith Hoy DL, left season 12
- Rusty Cramer WR, left season 12
- Coleman Selby OL, left season 12
- Josef Schuhmacher LB, left season 12
- Paul Cote SF, left season 13
- Bernd Neumann RB, left season 13
- Lambert Wagner QB, left season 13
- Max Krause LB, left season 13
- Sylvester Kraus DL, left season 13
- Burkhardt Fischer DL, left season 14
- Freddy Kaiser DL, left season 15
- Gabor Herrmann OL, left season 15
- Hans-Otto Schneider OL, left season 15
- Theo Thomas OL, left season 15
- Manfred Schreiber LB, left season 15
- Jochen Schulz SF, left season 15
- Wilson Vazquez CB/SF, left season 15
- Hans-Josef Beck WR, left season 15
- Henning Schröder QB, left season 16
- Sieghard Schröder TE, left season 16
- Rueben Houghton OL, left season 16
- Franz-Josef Roth SF, left season 16
- Nils Heinrich RB, left season 16
- Rubén Oliver TE, left season 17
- Karl-Hermann Neumann P, left season 17
- Mohamed Walter DL, left season 17
- Tillmann Hartmann FB, left season 18
- Holm König LB, left season 18
- Uwe Schneider DL, left season 18
- Günter Meyer OL, left season 18
- Ignacio Mauldin WR, left season 19
- Carlos Rojas DL, left season 19
- Vicente Giménez WR, left season 19
- Hardy Busch LB, left season 19

Here a short review of season 20.

This became the fourth and last season in the Elite league so far.
Even we did finish with a 8-8 record, which does match the record of season 17 to be the best record we had in the league so far, we were not good enough to keep the second place in the division.
We were able to stop the losing streak against Black Dragons, but lost the rematch a few weeks later, hopefully not to start a new one.
The whole season was a fair mix of losses and wins, we made some upsets and were upset.
The 3 game losing streak at season end was unfortunate, but the team did their best.

We drafted Clyde Bunker to become a LB and got Woo Toan as WR and Safet Todorovic, who was send packing right from the start, got sold to another team right after the draft.

Woo Toan was evaluated and kept for the season, but long term it looked already dark for him, since his physicals were not as expected with no room to improve.

This draft is considered average at best.

No big changes on the roster during the season, the team is very much in revolver mode, few in, few out.

We sold:
Safet Todorovic, the already mentioned drafty, no listed as LB on another team.
Doston Kozhabayev, our former TE, was sold due roster space issues.
Kibwe Onobanjo, our DL transfer from season 13 was sold, also for roster space.
Baharn Traivut, bought last season for LB work, was sold due not making the cut long term.
Visarion Hanescu, bought for youth academy a while ago for OL development, was sold due new approaches on training and being the least developed player. He did draw some interest on the market to become one of the most expensive players the team ever sold.
HansJürgen Hahn, Hans-Gerd Becker, Wolf-Rüdiger Wolf (went to England and adopted a new nationality and name, for whatever reason. Good luck!) and Michael Schneider were all youth prospect not making the cut to senior team.

We bought:
NONE!

Again this season only 1 veteran did leave because of retirement:
Hubertus Schulz, a long time DB, playing SF and CB over his career did leave after 14 seasons on the roster.
Sad to see him go, he was a very reliable player!
Thanks!

We will probably see some of the players who left again when they become members of the bright spots.

The team did win not win their division in the Supercup (lost to Pumas Madrid) but went o the playoffs and lost in second round against Rio Rancho Roadrunners, at that time also an Elite team.
A step back from last season results.

Again no CoC this season.

We promoted the new DL Sigmar Bauer, FB Aleksander Friedrich, OL Adalbert Weber and WR Hans-Georg Lange from Youth Academy to senior team. We think they will all make the team for several seasons, maybe until they retire.

Season 21 will be back in the Monarchs League after 4 season in the Elite and the Leopards will be one of the favorites for the Bowl win.

The Leopards Hall Of Fame - The Bright Spots

And another round of players was selected to the Hall of Fame of the Leverkusen Leopards – The Bright Spots!

The last introduction ceremony did cover players from season 15 and 16 and the coming ceremony will be the last which covers multiple years 8at least that’s the plan). So next season will cover only 1 season, but this time we will cover season 17 and 18.

Again did the board of the Leverkusen Leopards sit together and invited randomly picked fans.
As result were a great number of former players selected.

Remember, a player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team or the game itself.

Let's start with the players who left the team after season 17:

Rubén Oliver come to us in season 2 and became a backup on the TE position quite fast. In later seasons he did take over the starting job and stayed the starter until we had to let him go shortly his retirement.
His 264 games with the team did help very much.
Of cause he was not happen when we decided to cut him, but he knew the process and the business.
Now, he will be back on the team, forever.
Thanks Rubén for being a part of the team for so long, from prospect to backup to starter.

Karl-Hermann Neumann was a youth pull in season 3 and we did develop him into a Punter. He did take over the Starter spot late in his career for all games and did excel on that spot.
We had to fire him prior season rollover to create roster spots, but he wanted to retire anyway, and he was not mad about it. With 216 games in total he is the second longest serving Punter the team ever had.
He still holds the record for the longest punt ever on the team with 59 yards.
Karl, welcome on the Bright Spots! You deserve this.

Mohamed Walter was drafted in season 6 and was a defensive line monster.
He did play 389 games for the team, is 4th overall ever on TFL with 354, 2nd overall for sacks with 111 and 3rd overall on Forced Fumbles with 27.
He retired with the team after season 17.
We were happy to get such a great player on that draft and we are happy to have him now on the Hall of Fame.
Mohamed, it was always a pleasure to see you play, thank you!

Now, let’s more forward to the guys from season 18:

Tillmann Hartmann came to the team with the draft at season 6 and was named weak and not ready for the pros by the press.
The Leopards did gave him a chance and boy, did he deliver.
In 407 games did Tillmann play as FB and he became one of the most successful FB the team ever had. He is 2nd in plays of all backs. He gave everything for the team and we are thankful for his commitment to the team.
He was fired before season rollover to create roster spots, but he did intent to retire anyway, so he accepted the cut and enjoyed the shorter season.
Hartmann the hard man is now back with the team as a Bright Spot.
Tillmann, great to have you back!

Holm König is a LB in the tradition of the greatest LB the team ever had. Drafted at season 8 he did punish the opponents throughout his career, played 352 games and did finish as one of the best LB ever.
Due his short playing time he did not record giant numbers, still he managed to have the 9th most defense TDs ever with 31.
He had to create roster space prior his retirement, so he left with a pink slip before rollover. That was just a business decision.
We were lucky to have Holm on the team and we are lucky to have him now among the greatest Leopards ever. Holm, be a King among them.

Uwe Schneider was drafted at season 7 and played 394 games as DL for the team. He did record the 3rd overall amount of TFL ever with 404 and the 7th biggest number on sacks with 53.
Uwe did play on all spots on the line over his career, but did flourish as DE.
He also left the team prior his retirement and was fired to create roster spots.
Uwe will now be the next big addition on the Bright Spots roster, this time with no end in sight.
Günter Meyer had the worst chances to become a player. Marked as weak, drafted at last in season 7, playing behind giants.
But he did took up the chance and became a backup and later a starter.
Now he will become a legend.
He did retire with the team and we are proud we had him with us, all 389 games.
Günter, make yourself comfortable, this spot is yours!

That's for now. The management and the fans will s e l e c t further players of later seasons, soon.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8
- Teddy Field OL, left season 9
- Bryce Barela DL, left season 9
- Logan Herring CB, left season 9
- Jewell Temple DL, left season 9
- Ramon Gifford LB, left season 10
- Adolfo Zarate OL, left season 10
- Carrol Mcgovern FB, left season 10
- Long Ponder SF, left season 10
- Graham Akers RB, left season 10
- Rüdiger Möller OL, left season 10
- David Abell K, left season 11
- Irwin Guerra P, left season 11
- Nicolas Schulte OL, left season 11
- Gaylord Vail CB, left season 11
- Murray Waterman CB, left season 12
- Keith Hoy DL, left season 12
- Rusty Cramer WR, left season 12
- Coleman Selby OL, left season 12
- Josef Schuhmacher LB, left season 12
- Paul Cote SF, left season 13
- Bernd Neumann RB, left season 13
- Lambert Wagner QB, left season 13
- Max Krause LB, left season 13
- Sylvester Kraus DL, left season 13
- Burkhardt Fischer DL, left season 14
- Freddy Kaiser DL, left season 15
- Gabor Herrmann OL, left season 15
- Hans-Otto Schneider OL, left season 15
- Theo Thomas OL, left season 15
- Manfred Schreiber LB, left season 15
- Jochen Schulz SF, left season 15
- Wilson Vazquez CB/SF, left season 15
- Hans-Josef Beck WR, left season 15
- Henning Schröder QB, left season 16
- Sieghard Schröder TE, left season 16
- Rueben Houghton OL, left season 16
- Franz-Josef Roth SF, left season 16
- Nils Heinrich RB, left season 16
- Rubén Oliver TE, left season 17
- Karl-Hermann Neumann P, left season 17
- Mohamed Walter DL, left season 17
- Tillmann Hartmann FB, left season 18
- Holm König LB, left season 18
- Uwe Schneider DL, left season 18
- Günter Meyer OL, left season 18

The way too late review of the Season 19 is done short and quick.

The third season as elite league member did start with a win, but went downwards from there on until midseason. An 8 game losing streak did not help, but winning the last 6 of 7 games sealed a 7-9 season, which was good enough to stay in the league for another stint.

We drafted Ruslan Muhadov, Markus Crow and Hipólito Lasa.
All 3 will as it looks at the moment play LB, but Lasa will do that with another team, since he was sold shortly after the draft.
This draft is considered good and did fill some gaps on the LB position.

No big changes on the roster during the season, the team is very much in revolver mode, few in, few out.

We sold:
Abra Verma, a draft prospect from season 16, who did not make the cut for a backup spot.
Emin Krause, a Free Agent we bought some seasons ago, who did not develop as expected.
Hans-Dieter Schneider, a youth academy player, we did not make the team.
Marius Frank, another youth academy player, not ready for the big boys.
Oldo Schenk, also a former draft pick, from season 18, left after he became expendable.
Hipólito Lasa was already mentioned from this seasons draft.
Vicente Giménez, a former WR, was sold to created roster space.
Carlos Rojas, a former DL, also sold for roster space.
Ignacio Mauldin, a former free agent CB became also a roster spot sale victim.

We bought:
Kareem Maddox, to become a LB
Baharn Traivut, also to become a LB

This season only 1 veteran did leave because of retirement:
Hardy Busch, a long time LB did leave after 12 seasons on the roster.
Hardy was a force on a very good LB crew and we will miss him.
Thanks!

We will probably see some of the players who left again when they become members of the bright spots.

The team did win their division in the Supercup and went to the playoffs until they lost in third round against the T’Pau Vulcans.
Not really an improvement to last season, but also not worse.

Again no CoC this season.

We promoted the new SF Piotr Stein, RB Klemens Ziegelbrenner, OL Enoch Monson and DL Saban Lehmann from Youth Academy to senior team. We think they will all make the team for several seasons, maybe until they retire.

Season 20 will be tough, but we do look positive into the future.
Some adjustments on the coaches setup were done and we hope that this will help the defense.

The Leopards Hall Of Fame - The Bright Spots

We did cover a lot of ground in the last few seasons, building our team hall of fame from the ground since 4 seasons.

We left the last introduction ceremony with all players from season 14 or before and with now being in season 19 of live playing, we decided to lower the speed of covering ground.
So instead of covering another 3 seasons of former Leopards, we decided to cover only 2 seasons this time and maybe the next one and will then shift to an annual event covering only 1 season.

Again did the board of the Leverkusen Leopards sit together and invited randomly picked fans.
As result were a great number of former players selected worth to be in the Leopards Hall of Fame - The Bright Spots.

The focus will now be on players from season 15 and 16, as mentioned above.

Remember, a player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team or the game itself.

Let's start with the players who left the team after season 15:

Freddy Kaiser was one of the early youth pulls, which became big after their time in the youth academy.
He played as defense linemen and become one of the members of the quite elite group of defenders with 1000+ tackles. His tackle for loss is 7th overall until today and with 230 games was Freddy a big factor over a very long time.
Freddy never became the star defensive end or the big time pressuring nose tackle, no.
He became only the linemen reliable enough to play the most plays in many seasons of all linemen.
Others did record sacks and tackles more often over the season, but Freddy did punish the opposing linemen as often as possible and created the space for others to make the play.
He left the team in preseason of season 15, knowing he became old and expendable on a deep roster.
He the 1st player given a place in our HOF being still active!
So far he added another 160 games to his career, still counting.
We are proud he was part of our team and especially, that he was one of our kids.
We hope he will play for some seasons more!
Freddy, when ever you are ready, we will welcome you home.

Gabor Herrmann was pulled as youthie in season 1!
He was developed in the building phase of the franchise and played offense linemen through his career.
Gabor did record over 10000 blocks and is only one of four on our team doing this so far.
His time was up, when younger, stronger players did take over and roster spots were needed to develop the team further.
He knew he would retire soon, but cutting him after season 15 was one of the hardest decisions ever made, but over time did Gabor thank us for his forced retirement, enjoying still life healthy and active.
He still misses the game and the team mates, but whenever he wants, he can join us at the sideline, now in civvies, but with the same energy.
Thanks Gabor for your service, you are one of the best ever.

Hans-Otto Schneider was drafted in season 4 and became one of the cornerstones of our offense line.
Also a member of the 10000+ blocks club he did only record a few less blocks than one other player (who will be the next one our list).
Hans-Otto did was also cut after season 15, knowing he would retire anyway at season end.
He knew the business side of the game.
With him did we lose one of the big bad linemen the team needed over our building phase, helping running backs to run for record and quarterbacks to flourish under new systems.
Hans-Otto was one of our greatest linemen ever and is now rightfully member of that elite club called the Bright Spots.

Theo Thomas was drafted in season 3 and is the offense lineman with most recorded blocks ever in our team.
With over 13000 blocks, it looks like this record will be held until franchise end, given the new policy of managing the team and the players.
We couldn't care less, whether someday some player might break the record.
Theo is a model of a player, a heck of a personality and a true leader.
He retired after season 15 and did leave a hole in the locker room.
We are glad, that hole is now filled by having him back as member of the Bright Spots, being one of the brightest.

Manfred Schreiber came to this team as drafted player beginning of season 3.
He became one of the best linebackers we had over the years and if there wouldn't have been Josef as star on the same position, Manfred would have gotten much more attention.
The good part is, he and Josef were friends all along and he did not care much over missed media coverage.
All he cared was the team and his teammates.
Only one player did play more games on defense and he was even able to record 1 stat higher than Josef in his fine career.
No linebacker did force more fumbles that Manfred, stripping the ball 25 times from the offense.
Without him, that team would have been much worse over the seasons.
He won it all, he had nothing left on the field.
We did left him go after season 15, and after a short period of thinking of his goals for the future, he retired from football and went on with his live.
Now he joins his teammates again, becoming one of the brightest spots on our team.
Manfred, welcome back.

Jochen Schulz was drafted in season 5 as one of the famous '3 QB Draft Class'.
He was converted to SF very quickly and did become one of the best ever on that position.
Only second best on sacks as Safety and missing only 3 tackles in 312 games!
Instead of playing QB as 3rd stringer or on some other team did Jochen play defense as starter with an impact with the Leopards.
Thanks Jochen for being a fighter, a teammate, a funny guy and a leader.
That draft class was one of the best ever and you were a good reason for that.
He demanded his release after the season 15, knowing he would retire anyway and saved the team that way some money.
With such things no longer an issue, Jochen will now stay forever on our team, as Bright Spot,

Wilson Vazquez was at the time he was cut (before season end in season 15) one of the few last players from the initial roster of season 1.
He did play as defender where ever needed, most of the time as defensive back, first corner, than safety.
No defender did play more games than him (489), no defender did record more plays (26754) and he is 3rd on all time made tackles, way beyond the 1500 tackle mark and 5th on interceptions on the team.
Wilson did dedicate his live to the team, no less.
We did cut him for money and spot issues, but did come clean with him later on.
Now, he and we are proud to have him back, on a team of bright spots, he is one of the finest.
Wilson, you deserve this.

Hans-Josef Beck came as transfer to the youth academy of this team in season 2.
He was schooled to become a wide receiver and he did not only exceed the upsides we saw in him, he shattered them.
With 1683 catches did he catch the most ever and over 500 more balls than the next player on our record list.
With 23796 yards did he has more yards than any other player and over 7000! yards more than the second placed player.
He is also leading in TDs (384), yard after catch (16503) and breaking tackles as WR (615).
It's hard to imagine any new player will shatter those records, ever.
Hans-Josef did retire from football after season 15.
Now, we have the best WR ever back on the team of elite players.
Under good company, he will be still a star under stars.

So far the players from season 15.
Now we will focus on players, who left in season 16:

Henning Schröder is the 3rd QB from the famous 3-QB-Draft in season 5.
He did battle Wagner over his career very long time for the starting position, until the management decided to go with Henning as Starter.
Henning holds still the record as QB in games played, plays, attempts, completions and at the time he decided to retire he held also the record in passing yards and TDs.
The team would never have been the team it became after we drafted him, if we would have passed on him.
He is one of the all-time greatest at the QB position and deserves to be part of the Bright Spots!
Huddle Up!

Sieghard Schröder was developed in our youth academy since we pulled him in season 2.
At that time the main focus was on TE development and Sieghard became the crown jewel at that time, when he was promoted to senior team.
He played a very long time in a quite balanced attack and when he retired he did hold several records for TEs including yards and TDs.
Nobody was able stop him, and he helped our RBs with his blocking skills, when ever needed.
Sieghard, you made us proud when you did play with such dedication and you make us proud now as member of the Bright Spots.

Rueben Houghton is the last initial roster member, who will be part of the bright spots.
His 528 games are unmatched in our team and this record will very likely never be broken.
As Center he was the central piece on our offense line and even if he was short and some did say he was weak, in 16 season did he play tough ball and nobody was able to beat him on his position.
A true team player, a true leader.
Rueben, thank you very much!

Franz-Josef Roth was drafted in season 6 to boost the safety position and boy did he do that.
A natural leader did Franz-Josef play 365 games as safety and is still the record holder of recorded sacks on his position in our team.
He never was a big media figure, but he was a major locker room personality who did keep the team in the game, when needed.
The Bright Spots are a fitting place for such a fine player and we all know, he will be among friends.

Nils Heinrich came into this team through the draft at season 4.
Quickly he become the starting RB and stayed as such until he retired in season 16.
With 422 game he is one of the players with a lot of games for the team and he will very likely be the record holder for plays, rushes, yards and in a balanced attack he still got the 3rd overall TDs as RB, ever.
He also did set a record in career broken tackles with 871!
We are all sure, there will be no RB like Nils again on the team.
With a changed personal policy and a much better recruiting each season, the chance a RB will play so many games as starter for us is almost zero.
Nils, welcome to the bright spot as one of the brightest.


That's for now. The management and the fans will s e l e c t further players of later seasons, soon.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8
- Teddy Field OL, left season 9
- Bryce Barela DL, left season 9
- Logan Herring CB, left season 9
- Jewell Temple DL, left season 9
- Ramon Gifford LB, left season 10
- Adolfo Zarate OL, left season 10
- Carrol Mcgovern FB, left season 10
- Long Ponder SF, left season 10
- Graham Akers RB, left season 10
- Rüdiger Möller OL, left season 10
- David Abell K, left season 11
- Irwin Guerra P, left season 11
- Nicolas Schulte OL, left season 11
- Gaylord Vail CB, left season 11
- Murray Waterman CB, left season 12
- Keith Hoy DL, left season 12
- Rusty Cramer WR, left season 12
- Coleman Selby OL, left season 12
- Josef Schuhmacher LB, left season 12
- Paul Cote SF, left season 13
- Bernd Neumann RB, left season 13
- Lambert Wagner QB, left season 13
- Max Krause LB, left season 13
- Sylvester Kraus DL, left season 13
- Burkhardt Fischer DL, left season 14
- Freddy Kaiser DL, left season 15
- Gabor Herrmann OL, left season 15
- Hans-Otto Schneider OL, left season 15
- Theo Thomas OL, left season 15
- Manfred Schreiber LB, left season 15
- Jochen Schulz SF, left season 15
- Wilson Vazquez CB/SF, left season 15
- Hans-Josef Beck WR, left season 15
- Henning Schröder QB, left season 16
- Sieghard Schröder TE, left season 16
- Rueben Houghton OL, left season 16
- Franz-Josef Roth SF, left season 16
- Nils Heinrich RB, left season 16

In Season 18 did the team play their second season in the Elite League and did almost went down.

The Leopards were able keep the spot inside the Elite League, finishing second inside their division with a 6-10 record and only a few points ahead of the third placed team.
No playoff spot possible with that record.
The supercup performance was better this season, but far from great.

We drafted Víctor Prieto, Oldo Schenk and Marijan Cisneros.
Pieto will play LB in season 19 already and Schenk got some training, but will very likely not make the team for the furure coming. Cisneros was send packing right from the start.
This draft is considered OK, but not great.

No big changes on the roster during the season, the team is very much in revolver mode, few in, few out.

We sold:
Sharokh Lalit, a former Drfat pick from season 17, not making the teams as OL.
Kichirou Tarumi, a WR we had to sell because of roster spots.
Thaddäus Schneider , Manuel Mayer, Pavel Schröder and Dieter Zimmermann, youth players not making the team.

We bought:
None!

With the season rollover some old veterans did call it quite.
Uwe Schneider, a long time DL
Holm König, a ver ymuch missed LB
Tillmann Hartmann, a veteran FB
Günter Meyer, also a vertran, on OL.
We are honored we had all those guys on the roster for so long.
Thanks!
We will probably see all of them again when they become members of the bright spots.

All contract talks are now done, and the team is quite stable for the next season.

"The Elite league did the team not treat well, so far but we survived."

Hall of fame selection process went in its third stage and will continue.

The team did make the the Supercup playoffs, even with two good team.
One of those teams was our opponent in round 3 of the playoffs and we did lose, again.
Not good enough, we will try to improve that in season 19.

No relegation in the Elite League, second place and a just enough to stay ....

"Until mid season it looked like we would finish third and would have to relegate back to Monarchs region. Sounds familiar to last season. Only the collapse of one opponent did open a small door to jump to 2nd place at season end and at the end it came down to a few points we were ahead of the 3rd places Panthers.
There is no easy game in the league and we are not sure, if the next season will be better or worse.
Teams are tough, all over the league."

No CoC this season.

Draft needs?

"We will look for the best available prospects. Most of the time on defense.

What about the youth academy players?

"We promoted the new CB Abdul Krüger, DL Emanuel Downing, OL Michael Meyer and WR Horst Hildebrand from Youth Academy to senior team.
We always try to do the best to have them ready in the near future, but with the new transfer market policy of our front office, there are no guaranteed spots.

The Leopards Hall Of Fame - The Bright Spots

A bit late for this season, still not forgotten, the board of the Leverkusen Leopards did sit together again and invited another wild bunch of randomly picked fans and selected the next wave of players worth to be in the Leopards Hall of Fame - The Bright Spots.

The last time the players until season 11 were in the mix, now we will focus on players from season 12 to 14.

Remember, a player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team or the game itself.

Let's start with the players who left the team after season 12:

Murray Waterman started with the team his playing career when the team was founded and was sold in season 12.
It was obvious he won't help the team at that point anymore and after a few chats we agreed to give him the chance to play for some other team a more important role.
No bad blood on that decision, only a bit of sorrow on both sides.
We are proud of Murray contribution to the team over all those seasons and therefore it's only the right thing to put him into the group of our best.
As a CB he did play to the max as long as he could and was never shy the competition.
He is still 8th in terms of defense plays all time on the team and that's a lot of time on the field.
With 332 games he did everything he could including 44 career interceptions with our team, which is 3rd on the team.
A last cheer for one of our heros. Murray, welcome back!

Keith Hoy was that kind of player you need to keep a team in competition when the fatigue did hit the team or when injuries occurred.
Without those backups you are stuck with doom and Keith might never been a real starter, but he was a real backup, always there when needed, when a hole in the DL had to be stuffed or an extra body was needed.
He played 256 games for the team and played even further after we had to split.
Not a game changer, but a team changer.
Without his effort from day 1 of that franchise, the team would have been never so successful as is was.
It's an honor to put such a player into the company of his teammates of the past.

Rusty Cramer did start playing with the team on the 1st practice session ever and played for the Leopards for 409 games and the end of season 12.
Most games as WR, most plays as WR, 2nd most catches, 2nd most yards and 2nd most TDs as WR ever on the team is hard to understand on a team which did run the football for a very long time as 1st option.
Rusty did it all and played until his body gave up.
He didn't really wanted to quit, but had to, injuries and age did catch him at last.
It's great to have him on the Bright Spots, since there are not many which did contribute more than him.

Coleman Selby came in on the initial team and did most of his career as OL.
He might never become one of the best OLs we ever had, but he was for sure one of the most reliable.
With 396 games he stayed on the field as long as physical possible. It's the 3nd most games number of any OL we ever had.
He was there when needed and made the team one of the best rushing teams at that time.
Thanks Coleman!

Josef Schuhmacher was drafted as the 1st player of the team and was one of those players you don't get very often.
Without giving the other Bright Spots a downgrade, Josef is one of the brightest, ever.
He did reinvent the linebacking and did accomplish many record.
His most outstanding as a player was 248 career interceptions in 377 games.
He scored 203 defense TDs!
Whenever scoring was needed, and the offense did maybe sputter a bit, Josef did score and saved the day, more than once.
He's a shining star under so many bright spots, you can't miss him.
It was a sad day, when he retired, it's great day to have him here.
Josef, you will be a part of this team forever.

Now we move on to the players we lost in season 13, which were quite a few:

Paul Cote, a SF, was, when left the team with season 13 to play with another team, one of the last players from the initial team.
He did play for 339 games for the Leopards and was a defense back almost the whole time.
A corner stone of the defense to prevent the deep passes or to stop the big plays he did not play much until late in his career, being a backup most of the time.
Still, he is a worthy member of the bright spots, being a member of our team for so long with his heart and soul.

Bernd Neumann was one of the best RB we ever had, taken with the draft start of season 4, but was overshadowed his whole career by the starting RB, which was even a bit better.
Over his career with our team he did make a name of himself becoming a star as returner and backup RB.
In season 13 did the team decide to give him a chance to become a starter on another team.
Bernd still holds the record on the team in return yards and is the only one ever returning a ball from endzone to endzone.
Thank you Bernd, being the patient and reliable player you were.
You were part of the best RB duo in the world ever.

Lambert Wagner was part of the famous 3 QB draft in season 5 and become very fast the starting QB.
Later in his career he felt behind and become a backup, but for many season he was the still a great backup, any other team would have wished to have as a starter.
In season 13 we agreed to let him go and he became an instant star on the next team.
He may have had a rough career, but rough is what football players like to play.
Now he is back with the team, part of the best, as he always was.

Max Krause was the 2nd pick of our LB-draft in season 2 and even if Josef did overshadow him a bit, Max was the finishing touch on a great LB group stopping most of the threats coming.
He had 406 games with the team and is beside other great achievements 3rd all-time in defense TDs.
You don't find many players as him and we still miss him.
Well, at least he is now again part of the team, part of the bright spots he does belong to.

Sylvester Kraus is another initial team member and did play as a backup most of his career.
The team did let him develop for several season until he became the run stuffer we had in mind.
A career DLs, worth to be part of a team of heroes.
Sylvester may have played only 244 games for the team, but all of them were worth the effort, teaching him, playing him, winning with him.
Without him, the team would have been much worse, for several seasons.

With season 14 was the team rebuild completed and only a single old here did retire.

Burkhardt Fischer came into the team at season 3 and went into the DL-starting lineup fast.
He is until today the career leader in sacks in the team, with 186 sacks in 407 games.
Burkhardt became a cornerstone of the defense from day 1 and it was a sad day, when he had to retire after a long career.
Now, he is back on the team, with no limit.
A bright spot among all other bright spots.
Worth to be remembered as one of the greatest, worth to be remembered as one of the finest.

That's for now. The management and the fans will s e l e c t further players of later seasons, soon.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8
- Teddy Field OL, left season 9
- Bryce Barela DL, left season 9
- Logan Herring CB, left season 9
- Jewell Temple DL, left season 9
- Ramon Gifford LB, left season 10
- Adolfo Zarate OL, left season 10
- Carrol Mcgovern FB, left season 10
- Long Ponder SF, left season 10
- Graham Akers RB, left season 10
- Rüdiger Möller OL, left season 10
- David Abell K, left season 11
- Irwin Guerra P, left season 11
- Nicolas Schulte OL, left season 11
- Gaylord Vail CB, left season 11
- Murray Waterman CB, left season 12
- Keith Hoy DL, left season 12
- Rusty Cramer WR, left season 12
- Coleman Selby OL, left season 12
- Josef Schuhmacher LB, left season 12
- Paul Cote SF, left season 13
- Bernd Neumann RB, left season 13
- Lambert Wagner QB, left season 13
- Max Krause LB, left season 13
- Sylvester Kraus DL, left season 13
- Burkhardt Fischer DL, left season 14

In Season 17 did the team play their first season in the Elite League.

The Leopards were able keep the spot inside the Elite League, finishing second inside their division with a 8-8 record.
No playoff spot possible with that record.
The supercup performance was a downer again, the team was not able to make the playoffs in a strong division.

We drafted Sharokh Lalit, Djadi Ababneh and Otto Cloete.
Ababneh and Cloete went straight to the transfer market, it was obvious they would not make the cut for first team any time in the future.
Lalit was trained until his physicals become more clear and was sold after that at the beginning of season 18.
This draft is considered as one of the worst ever in history of the team, of not THE worst ever.

This season was without much movements on the roster. Beside the 3 drafties we sold only a few players and did only buy some players for future development.

We sold:
Steffen Klein, a homegrown player wa slet go, because he did not made the cut against other strong players.
Kristian Jäger, also a homegrown player, became expendible, once the quality of the season 16 draft become clearer.
Karl-Hermann Martin and Heini König, two youth players searching for playing time somewhere else.

We bought:
Visarion Hanescu, a good strong player was bought to fill the gap on OL the weak seaosn 17 draft did left.
Emin Krause, a young CB, was bought to fill in as CB or even LB.

With the season rollover some old veterans did call it quite.

Mohamed Walter, a long time DL, did call it a day.
We are honored we had him on our team his whole career and we wish him, one of the best DL of the team ever, all the best.

Karl-Hermann Neumann, our Punter, did quit quite young, but if you lose your passion, you should not keep on playing.
Karl was one of the best, if not the best Punter we had, ever.
Thanks!

Rubén Oliver, a TE from day one, ended his career as starting TE.
His path to this position was long and painful, but Oliver never gave up.
He gets a spot between all the other great TEs our team had so far.
We wish him well for the time coming.

We would like to thank all players for their contribution to the team over the years.
We are proud to had you on our team for so long and we will probably see all of them again when they become members of the bright spots.

All contract talks are now done, and the team is quite stable for the next season.

"The team is getting in shape for the Elite league, but of cause other teams will improve as well."

Hall of fame selection process went in its second stage and will continue.

The team did not make the the Supercup playoffs, due two losses against Elite teams or now Elite teams.
Not good, we will try to improve that in season 18.

"Inside the division it became quickly a nail biter.
Barcelona and Manchester as tough teams, not easy to overcome.
At the beginning of the season we had some issues with the coaching changes, but the Machine loss during the season was the worst that could happen.
If we would have won that one, we woul dhave made the playoffs, even with one loss."

No relegation in the Elite League, second place and a bad PD ....

"Until mid season it looked like we would finish third and would have to relegate back to Monarchs region, but some upsets in the last few games did put us into the position to stay in the Elite league.
There is no easy game in the league and we are not sure, if the next season will be better or worse.
Teams are tough, all over the league.
The playoffs were unreachable at that time we finished, and one less win would have meant relegation, since the team did suffer heavy defeats, but only slim wins."

You played CoC the first time since ages and went quite far.

"yes, but the first few round were against quite weak teams.
We reached the last eight teams and lost a close game against the Barcelona Yellow Jackets."

Draft needs?

"We will look for the best available prospects.
Most likley we will look for defenders, but the players will be selected based on their upsides.

What about the youth acadamy players?

"We promoted the new CB Guenther Becker, DL Carl-Heinz Busch, OL Visarion Hanescu (bought on TM at beginning of season 17), QB Hans-Dietrich Herrmann and WR Mirco Müller from Youth Academy to senior team.
We always try to do the best to have them ready in the near future, but with the new transfer market policy of our front office, there are no guaranteed spots."

The Leopards Hall Of Fame - The Bright Spots

This season the board of the Leverkusen Leopards did sit together with a random pick selection of fans and picked the next bunch of players worth to be in the Leopards Hall of Fame - The Bright Spots.

Last time we discussed the beginning phase of the club and left with players leaving or retiring from the club at season 8.

So now we start with season 9 and will cover the players until end of season 11. Not much you say?
Don't be so fast.

Remember, a player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team or the game itself.

Let's start with the players who left the team after season 9:

Teddy Field is one of those player we can't honour the right way he deserves.
Honestly, as a pro team we treated him as good as we could, which was probably still a bad way.
We were glad, he had a second career after he left us and did play further.
With years passed, the Leopards and Teddy were able to fix their relationship and we are proud to give Teddy a spot under our to- be-remembered-heroes.
Teddy came as many others into this team with the first roster; he was one of the founding players.
Basically blesses with lots of talent and a heart of a champion, he lacked the skills to become one of the starters.
During his career with our team he played as OL for 274 games, never complained, never retreated.
He was there to fill the gaps.
In Season 9, the team had to make some tough decisions and one of the toughest was, to give Teddy away.
He went on and did build a second career, even when he was angry and depressed, since he had to leave the team he helped to grow.
Now, he understands the situation, but we still like to give Teddy a special thank you for being with us for so long.
With the place under the bright spots he gets what he always deserved, being part of the Leopards best players. This one is for you, Teddy.

Bryce Barela, to face the truth, was never a great player. Never.
He himself will tell you that.
He was one of those players of the initial roster at the end of the locker room, lurking between the players you do recognise, you see on the highlight reels, while he was one of those you might forget.
Well, not us. Bryce did play for 201 games for our team and as a DL he did give lots of teams a headache, every game.
Without him, the team would have been weaker up front in all those years and if you ask me, that's the one thing that counts.
If you can ask about a player, if he would have been missed, If he wouldn't have been on the roster and the answer is 'yes', mark him as special.
Never great? Sure.
Never misses? NO!
We had let him go in that difficult season 9, but we missed him.
Now, Bryce gets the place he deserves, a place under the Bright Spots, having him NOT forgotten, no longer anonymous in the locker room, but here up front where he was best to deliver headaches, now to be seen by everyone.

Logan Herring was there on our doorsteps, when we initially started the club.
We were proud, when he retired with the team at the end of the season 9.
He was one of the lucky ones from the initial team, blessed with talent AND Skills.
As a CB and special teamer, he did play 315 games for the team and was successful.
Granted, he had to play on the shadow of some other great players on that position, but whenever he came in as the first backup, he made it count.
Believe it or not, he stills holds the record for most tackles on a special teams over his career.
He might never been a shining star on daily basis, but for sure he is one of our Bright Spots.

Jewell Temple was from season 1, when he helped to found the team, until season 9, when he retired the DL who cause havoc on the opposing teams.
When he retired, he held the record for TFL and he still at 7th place today, playing only 10 seasons as a pioneer on an emerging league.
With 317 games, he did everything he could to stop the opposing offense from scoring, gaining, playing.
On a not very sack happy team, he is 4th overall in sacks.
We do remember him as a never stopping motor, on the field, on the sideline or in the locker room.
If you were in need for a motivation to give more than you could, all you had to do was stepping next to Jewell and in no time he had you willing to step on the field and you DID over perform.
When he left, it did leave a hole in the team.
With this bright spot we will get that hole stuffed, for good.

Now we move on to the players we lost in season 10:

Ramon Gifford did also made the initial roster and did play for the Leopards, until we had to empty roster spots for future developments.
He was a slowly developing player which had his highs and lows during his career with us and did only play little more, after he left for another team.
But we won't forget his 217 games he had with us, his performance as LB on the field.
Never the ultimate impact player, still the player you could count on, if needed.
Never underestimate a player willing to sacrifice for your team.
Ramon is now part of our heroes and he deserves it.

Adolfo Zarate came in as a joke on day 1 of the club. 'Need a QB?' he ask? 'Yes, but much more a liner' was the response and so he stayed and played.
As an OL he was a major part of the tremendous rushing attack the Leopards had in the beginning.
Once it was clear the team had to be restructured, unfortunately for us and him, Adolfo was let go.
He gave everything he had in 307 games and played over 60 more in his next club.
Without him, our former rushers wouldn't have been the stars they were.
It's easy to forget the men behind the spot light positions, but not us.
Adolfo will be remembered by us and the fans.

Carrol Mcgovern was the natural choice for FB from day 1 of the club.
He still holds the record for TDs as FB with unbelievable 300 TD over his career, which is 2nd overall for all runners in the team, ever.
Even later playing star RBs were not able to crack that number.
Carrol was the #2 of the 1-2-punch during the first 10 seasons. But he still does discuss that sorting. He always felt #1.
Whenever a FB dive was needed, be sure he delivered.
Even when we had to let him go for future development he stayed in contact and ever was and will be one of the faces of our team.
We are proud to give him a spot on our Bright Spots list, the greatest FB the team ever had.
Some might say he was a product of his time, but who cares.
He was great when we needed it most and that's what we will remember.

Long Ponder was never in his career with the Leopards, from season 1 as beginner on the initial team, until start of season 10, when we had to let him go, a spectacular defensive back.
But that's not what a team need.
A team needs a safety doing his job and that's what Long did over his career.
Almost invisible the whole game he secured win after win to help the team.
An incredible player we lost during the rebuilding phase.
Believe it or not, he played 269 games for us and when he moved on, he played 121 more for other teams.
He never gave up and when he decided to go, nobody did take a notice, because of his relaxed, but effective play.
All the team did notice was that after he was gone, some things got worse in the backfield.
Today we announce that we will remember him as one of the great defenders we had, one of the players who made the team better, over a decade.

Graham Akers don't have to be described to Leopards fans.
Some might argue over 'the best RB' the team ever had, but we won't go into that discussion.
We will honour the cornerstone, the star, the workhorse, the player, the man Graham was.
He carried the team to more victories than imagined, when he stepped on the training field on the start-up- try-outs in season 1.
He is still the all-time leading TD king of the runners.
He was the #1 in the 1-2-punch of the first decade in club history, even if Carrol might argue about that, in his charming way.
We had to let him go, but he went on, played over 100 games in addition to his 242 with the Leopards and will from now on be member of our Bright Spots.
Graham will lead the charge from now one.

Rüdiger Möller was the first player we ever drafted. And what a good hand we had at that pick #28 overall.
Rüdiger became the heart and soul of our offensive line over the next decade and help our 1-2-punch to ... well, punch the way they did.
Members of the OL normally get overseen, because the ball carrying positions get the TV time, but Rüdiger was not to be overseen in 313 games over his career.
He was a giant and still is one.
I'm glad we can put him into the company of our great runners on the bright spots.

With season 11, the rebuilding progress was almost finished. Those are the players we found worth a place with our gone heroes:

David Abell become in the first season (basically at the first practice of the club, ever) our K and he still holds the scoring record of the club with 4156 points.
Scoring is no official stat, but 504 field goals and 2644 XPs in 352 games do sum up to that number.
That's almost double the number the next in line has.
David was the first Kicker we had and he probably will be the longest playing Starting-Kicker we will ever have.
Modern training technics do change the way players get into the team and David was the first and last one of the old-school-kickers.
That's compliment, since he was never shy of playing the game, never shy of pressure, never shy of responsibility.
The team still regrets the fact we had to send him into retirement starting of season 11, but at that time it was the right decision.
David knows that and he never was angry about it.
It was a business decision in a wild business.
Today, David come a team member of the elite players of our team, a bright spot on the Leopards.

Irwin Guerra is also one of those bunch of players founding the club and he became the Punter fast.
At the end of his career he recorded stats in 285 games and punted 1453 times for a sum of 49991 yards.
Still a record on the team, in a time the Leopards were top of the field and did not lose many games.
Irwin was also one of the players we had to cut lose at the start of season 11 and that did hurt.
But the circumstances demanded cuts and Irwin did offer his spot.
He wanted to retire anyway, but was not ready to quit, always thinking he would let the team down, if he would retire.
We honour him today to bring him back to his teammates, forever.

Nicolas Schulte did fight for his whole career.
He never was a starter over several season, never was able to develop as fast as other members on the offensive line, but he did fight, every down on the field, since season 1 as founding member until season 11 when we had to cut players.
We decided to give him the chance to play for another team and he did, played 254 games for us and in total 362 games with all teams.
Nicolas was a workhorse you need in the trenches, an unsung hero, until today.
The bright spots do get another worthy member with Nicolas.

Gaylord Vail was the corner every coach likes to have on his team.
Since season 1, Gaylord did play the position and it was clear, that he, as a founding member, will keep the job as long as would leave the team.
At the end of season 11 he decided to quit and only then were younger players able to get the starting position.
In 336 games did Gaylord cover the field when ever needed, tacked, intercepted and brought terror and destruction onto opponents passing game.
We are proud he did play for us and we are proud he becomes one of the bright spots, today.

That's for now. The management and the fans will s e l e c t further players of later seasons, soon.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8
- Teddy Field OL, left season 9
- Bryce Barela DL, left season 9
- Logan Herring CB, left season 9
- Jewell Temple DL, left season 9
- Ramon Gifford LB, left season 10
- Adolfo Zarate OL, left season 10
- Carrol Mcgovern FB, left season 10
- Long Ponder SF, left season 10
- Graham Akers RB, left season 10
- Rüdiger Möller OL, left season 10
- David Abell K, left season 11
- Irwin Guerra P, left season 11
- Nicolas Schulte OL, left season 11
- Gaylord Vail CB, left season 11

Season 16 was a very good season!

The Leopards were able to win the League Championship the second time after season 6.
Before that the team did finish strong in the division and was able to win the division title in a tough competition.
The conference title was of cause the ticket to play in the bowl.
A little downer was the supercup performance.
We made the playoffs, but went out in the first round, again. Again against a tough opponent.

We drafted Egeas Speros, Jabari Gonthier and Abra Verma.
All made the first roster cut and are on track to be developed into good players.
Speros will become a CB, Gonthier will probably end up as TE and Verma will mosr likely become a LB.
It's tough to tell, which one will really see serious playing time someday, since every year the team is under review and only the best will make the first team roster.

Overall is the draft is considered good, again.
The next draft will be critical to fill up needed to develop players.

This season was almost without much movements on the roster.

We sold:
Ahmet Busch, a homegrown RB, which became expendible, after the signing of Jabir Sall last season.
Vukan Stojadinovic, a FB, once bought to be developed in the YA, destined to take over the starting job someday, but a younger prospect developed faster and it became obvious, Vukan will never become starter.
Steven Martin, Ramon Simon, Ingo Weber, all YA-player without a spot in our own program.

We bought:
Endre Vitéz, a quite good trained young player, went into the YA, got a bit trained on DL and will now be further trained on that position.
Klemens Ziegelbrenner, a very young prospect to be developed in the YA.
Enoch Monson, also a very young prospect to be developed in the YA.

With the season rollover some old veterans did call it quite.

Henning Schröder, one of the 3 QBs we drafted in one season become the starter, went backup and become starter again, only to become the QB with almost every team record as QB.
His personality will be missed.

Sieghard Schröder, one of the first YA-acadamy superstars we were able to build.
Become the best TE we had, ever.

Rueben Houghton, the very LAST member of the inital roster of season 1!
He was way too good to quit the past 16 seasons, with all his errors and faults, no one was able to get the starting center job as long as he was on the roster.
He won every title the team was able to win in the last 16 season.

Franz-Josef Roth, a drafted Safty did never switch position and become one of the cornerstones of our defense over the years.
He went out as a champion.

Nils Heinrich, our record setting RB.
There won't be a RB like him again, ever.

We would like to thank all players for their contribution to the team over the years.
We are proud to had you on our team for so long and we will probably see all of them again when they become members of the bright spots.

All contract talks are now done, and the team is quite stable for the next season.

"The loss of the starting QB, TE, RB, C and SF will not be overcome in an easy way, but the team is prepared."

Hall of fame selection process was started, we will soon name the next members of the bright spots.

The team did make the Supercup playoffs again, but lost in the first round.

"Inside the division it was quite clear we will win it all. We had to play michigan state spartans, the season 16 League champ of the Seadevils region, in the first round and lost by 11 points.
No the best game, but still a strong performance.
Hard to leave after one game, anyway.
We look foreward to season 17."

Bowl-winner!

"Yeah! Elite League and CoC we come.
We did win the division with a very good record in a strong field with tough opponents (3 of 4 went to the playoffs) and did win in the playoffs the first game in the divisional playoffs against Division rival Down Under Devils.
We then won the conference final against Adelaide Crows and went right to the Bowl.
There were able to be the Manchester Machine in a game, which will go into the books as Field-Goal-Bowl.
We are looking foreward to the Elite league now and we also love the Champ of Champs Cup opportunity."

Draft needs?

"We will look for the best available prospects.
Most likley we will look for defenders, but the players will be selected based on their upsides.

What about the youth acadamy players?

"We already promoted the new CB Steffen Klein, DL Endre Vitéz (see bought players), FB Helmar Schneider, RB Ante Schneider and WR Kristian Jäger from Youth Academy to senior team.
We always try to do the best to have them ready in the near future, but with the new transfer market policy of our front office, there are no guaranteed spots."

"The *peeeeep*ing Leopards did it!

After 10 seasons of sweat and blood and other body fluids we won the *peeeeeeeeeep* title again!

The team gets an extra vacation to *peeeeeeeeeeeeep* their *peeeeeeeeeeeeep*ing brains out with *peeeeeeeeeeep* literally 1 million hooker ... ah .... fans and after that we will join the *peeeeeeep* Elite league to *peeeeeeeeeep* a little bit around or get *peeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* in the *peep*."

We do regret the explicit language, but those were the best comment we were able to get from manager Jack6 regarding the new league Championship in the Monarchs region.
My personal note would be that he is a *peep*ing moron.

"You bet your *peep*, you damn *peep*ing *peep* *peep* *peep*! *peep*ing right! Now let's get on with those ... ah ... fans! *peep*!"

Since the introduced system for a Hall Of Fame is considered as not that optimal, the Leopards decided to honour their former players on their own.

Today we start with the first few heroes who did help to build the team.

After long discussions we came to an agreement that players who left in the first 5 seasons are not considered as Hall Of Fame worthy.
Yes, some of them did contribute to the first few Division Titles the team earned and even to the conference title we won in season 4.
We thank them for that, but you need to do more to get into our team HOF, than just show up and be part of the team for a few seasons.
A player worth the HOF had to have some impact on the team, the game.
Unfortunately the players who left in the first 5 seasons were not that kind of players.
At that time good backups and reliable players, but not the impact players we consider HOF worthy.

So, let's jump to the players who left the team after season 6.
Even here we only consider one player worth the honour to be part of our HOF:

Cletus Bautista came into this team with the first roster, he was one of the founding players, who made himself a career in our team.
Playing most of his career as Safety, Cletus played 202 games for the team.
Later in his career he lost his starting spot to new drafted players, but never made a big thing out of it.
He did understand the business and lived by it.
Compared to other players we will later bring into the HOF, Cletus did lack the talent and the skills, but when we needed him in those first 6 seasons, he was there.
You can question his overall football skills, but never question his desire to give everything he was able to give for the team.
Cletus was the first true hero of our young team.

Through Season 7 we lost 3 very good players who the management and the fans do consider to be worth a spot on the Hall Of Fame List.

Jamey Johansen was also a member of the initial roster.
He played with passion and strength for the team and was one of the early cornerstone of our offensive line.
As many initial roster members did Jamey step by step lose his starting spot on the offensive line rotation, but as all the great players did, he accepted his new role and was even glad when we sold him after the Bowl win in season 6 to give him a chance for a new start on a new team.
Jamey did play 203 games for the Leopards and went on to play another 89 games for a team called Munchies.
We honour Jamey never ending desire to play today. Our first hero of the trenches.

Justin Engle came to the team with a phone call. The team was in status of founding and Justin was known to be fan of the game and physically fit.
He became one of the founding members and never looked back.
He became one of the Receivers on a rush first team, but did what he could, once he got a ball in his hands.
Justin played 247 games for the Leopards and retired as one of the first WR on the team.
He did lose his starting role as many other players from the initial roster later in his career, but still, he was a leader in the locker room and helped to make the next generation the players they later did become.
A leader through his career, we honour Justin with a spot on our HOF.

Tony Speer will be remembered as one of the founding members helping the first superstars of the team to shine.
A Tight End through his career, Tony did 90% of the team help to open those huge holes in the line to let the running backs do their thing the best they could do it.
When he got the ball as receiver, he was an unstoppable force.
He might not be the best catching tight end on the roster we ever had, but he still has the most blocks on any TE we ever had.
In 239 games did Tony do everything he was able to give to keep that team running.
Tony will be remembered as the only offensive lineman who was able to catch a ball.

Of those players we lost through Season 8, only two receivers made the cut to become Hall Of Famers.

Anderson Tobias was since season 1 part of the team and did play a few positions, until he became a WR permanently.
He lost his starting role over the seasons, and was sold after season 8, which he understood as part of the business.
He played 208 games for the Leopards and did then play another 172 games on the team called Doomsday Sin, which converted him to a Tight End.
Tobias was one of the early heroes on a thin receiver corps.
We were glad he had such a great career, even when he left us, so with proud we put his name into the Hall Of Fame today.

Angelo Spence become out of those initial roster players one of the first stars.
Even when he did not play much as receiver, he was an unstoppable force, one he got the ball.
He retired as the unquestioned starter on the Tight End position.
Later great Tight Ends do still speak with respect about Angelo, who had one of the most disciplined training ethics of all players on the team.
Angelo, we are proud we had you on our team. Welcome to the Bright Spots of the Leopards.

That's for now. The management and the fans will s e l e c t further players of later seasons, soon.

To have a complete list, here are the members of the bright spots:
- Cletus Bautista SF, left season 6
- Jamey Johansen OL, left season 7
- Justin Engle WR, left season 7
- Tony Speer TE, left season 7
- Anderson Tobias WR, left season 8
- Angelo Spence TE, left season 8

Season 15 was a good and bad season.

We did win the division again and that with only 2 losses.
We did make the playoffs in the league, but did lose in the conference final, again.
We did not play too well in the supercup, made the playoffs, but went out in the first round. Granted, against a tough opponent.

We drafted Nicolás Gracia, Uffe Hansen and Sharjeel Chandrasekar.
All were kept on the roster, since a huge wave of retirements were expected for the end of the season.
Gracia and Hansen will be OL prospects, Sharjeel Chandrasekar probably a LB in the near future.

The draft is considered good.
The next draft will also be critical and we will have to grab the best players available.

We had only to clean up the roster a little bit, basically to have the roster spaces for the next youthies and draft.

We sold:
Hassan Omar, a veteran TE, which became to expensive.
Edwin Herrmann, a home grown veteran LB, who became one of the expendible players.
Freddy Kaiser, also a home grown veteran, played DL and also became a bit expendible.
Andy Schmitt, Jan-Peter Schwarz, Tomislav Hildebrand, Benedikt Schulz, Augustin Meyer and Torsten Bauer, all YA-player without a spot in our own program.

We bought:
Jabir Sall, a young and very well trained RB, became the backup very fast and will be starter after this season.

The season end did see some losses because of age, which did hurt the team a bit.

Gabor Herrmann, a Leopard youth player, which became a corner stone of our OL.
He was one of the best LT, we had so far.

Hans-Otto Schneider, a Leopard draftie, who was also a productive member of our starting OL.
Late in his career the starting RT, which he was until he played his last game.

Theo Thomas, also a draftie of us, played OL his whole career, starting OG.
Second most plays of all OL of the franchise and also over 400 games for the team.

Manfred Schreiber, one of the best LB the Leopards ever drafted.
Played most games as LB for the Leopards, second most as a defender.
Third most forced fumbled in Leopards history, also thirst most defense TDs.

Jochen Schulz, a drafted defender, played SF for most of his career.
Over 300 games as a Leopard and always in the safty rotation.

Wilson Vazquez, one of the last founding members of the team. Played CB most part of his career, later switched to safty, where he had a late blooming highlight.
Most games and plays as a defender, ever.
Third most interceptions, seventh for defense TDs.

Ivan Saldana, bought as youthy, trained in our Youth Academy, played as Kicker for his career.
Came in as starter, when the franchise best kicker retired and did not missed a beat.

Hans-Josef Beck, a home grown WR, retired also.
Hold the record for catches, yards, broken tackles and TDs of all Leopards receiver, ever.

We would like to thank all players for their contribution to the team.
We are proud to had you on our team for so long.

All contract talks are now done, and the team is quite stable for the next season.

"We did lose a bit of the punsh, since to many players did retire and that will continue in the next season, but we keep the team on a high level."

Hall of fame selection process is not finished yet, but the next few weeks will be the start of the anouncing process.

The team did make the Supercup playoffs again, but lost in the first round.

"Some nice games inside the division, but not real treat in the division, so winning it was very easy.
We had to play Galrauch Raiders, the season 15 League champ of the Admirals region, in the first round and lost by 4 points.
Nothing to shame about, only hard to leave after one playoff game, in meaning of competition and financially.
We look foreward to season 16. Nothing else we could."

Conference Final and you lost, again.

"We did win the division with a very good record and did win in the playoffs the first game in the divisional playoffs against Burnaby Bruisers.
We then lost in the conference final against Vilbler Wasserbube, who later would win the Bowl and did advance to the RZA Elite league.
Of cause we wanted to do that instead of Wasserbube, but they did win fair and square a nice match."

Draft needs?

"We will look for the best available prospects.
Most likley we will look for defenders, but the players will be selected based on their upsides.

What about the youth acadamy players?

"We already promoted the new DL Drago Schmitt, WR Rüdiger Lange and K Constantin Wolff from Youth Academy to senior team.
We always try to do the best to have them ready in the near future, but with the new transfer market policy of our front office, there are no guaranteed spots."

Season 14 did develop quite nicely, the big splash was still out of reach.

We did win the division again and did make the playoffs in the league, but did lose in the conference final.
We did not play too well in the supercup, made the playoffs, but went out too early.

We drafted Suani Suwamy, Borja Gómez and Lisias Spino.
Only Suwamy did made the team, Gómez and Spino were sold on the transfer market.

Suwamy will play CB.

Off cause he is not ready for the team, but will develop nicely.
The draft is considered OK, but could have been better, especially in the second round it was not well picked.

We had to clean up the roster a bit and we did made transfers from the market into the team.

We sold:
Gavin MacNamara, a LB, who did not had enough upside to be kept.
Heimo Bauer, a great WR, who did basically lose in direct compare to other players on the roster.
Booker Crawford, a CB who was not god enough to be kept, until he would be starter.
Boon-Mee Chao, also a CB, in the same situation.
Hussein Khaleel, thought to be a OL, but it was clear he would never be as good as expected. Now a FB on the new team.
Wesley McDaniel, a young LB prospect who did not make the team.
Reza Hoffmann, a young player picked from our scouts
Leif Wagner, another young scout prospect
Borja Gómez, second round drafty as mentioned. Now a RB.
Lisias Spino, third down drafty as mentioned, now a WR.
Stefano Schuster, a young player picked from our scouts
Robby Martin, YA-player
Manfred Bauer, another YA-player
Sandro Günther, and another YA-player

We bought:
Kichirou Tarumi, a WR monster to be.
Emanuel Downing, bought for YA
Hans Rudolph, another young WR, soon to be monster.

We will shake up the roster a bit more after the draft, but not much.
Probably a DL and a LB has to go, and also one or two drafties.
All contract talks are done and the supposed to leave players are informed.

"We did clean the house a bit to get ready for the next few seasons. The core team is still intact and will compete strong.
Rating agencies did rate us the first time with 70%+, which is great!"

The league did introduce a Hall of Fame feature.
"The first reaction was great, but on the second thought it was a bit messy.
The league did respond, but unfortunately not the way we would have liked it.
We already made some moves to build our own Hall Of Fame, but we are still in progress to get the relevant data.

Burkhardt Fischer will retire at season end.
"Burkhardt was drafted start of season 3 and did really, really good!"
407 games, 186 sacks which is 1st on the team with over 100 more than the next, 44 forced fumbles (also 1st on the team) and 26 Defense TDs (5th on the team).
He is 2nd on played defense plays overall, 8th on made tackles, 1st on tackles for loss with 322.
A stunning career, Thanks Burkhardt, we will miss you!

The team did make the Supercup playoffs again.
The division was quite easy, so no real competition there.

"Some nice games against the runner ups, but many felt to BOT status later in the season.
We managed to get into the 3rd round (top 32) again, but did lose against Ramdozers.
Again a very close game at that stage.
Hopefully next season will THEN be a step forward."

Conference Final and you lost.

"We did win the division with a very good record and did win in the playoffs the first game in the divisional playoffs against Winds of Erytheia.
We then lost in the conference final against Down Under Devils, who later would win the Bowl and will advance to the RZA Elite league.
We had that planned for our team for this season, but were not able to deliver.

Draft needs?

"We will look for the best available prospects. There are basically no real need, so we will take whatever is available and chances are high that at least the 3rd round pick will be sold."

What about the youth acadamy players?

"We already promoted the new CB Fredrik Idegran, LB Jerald Saxon, OL Gayle Libby and WR Lajos Závada from Youth Academy to senior team and all will hopefully become cornerstone of the team in the near future.
We always try to do the best to have them ready in the near future, but with the new transfer market policy of our front office, there are no guaranteed spots."

Season 13 was one of the worst in team history.
We did not make the playoffs in the league for the first time.
On the other hand did we play quite good in the supercup.

We drafted Folker Schulze, Zoltan Schultheiß and Ortwin Werner.
Schulze and Schultheiß did made the team, Werner was sold on the transfer market.

Schulze will play DL and Schultheiß will become a WR.
They are not ready to step into the line up, but soon will be.
The draft is considered OK, but could have been better.

Again we had to clean up the roster and we did made some splashes in the transfer market.

We sold:
Paul Cote, a long time backup safty. He just did not make the cut for the future roster.
Viorel Moldovan, a youth prospect which was just not good enough to make the roster.
Ortwin Werner, the draftee was already mentioned.
HansJosef Voigt, a nice defender, drafted in season 10, but he also was not good enough compared to other players on the roster.
Cemil Jung, a draft prospect from season 8 was let go, since it was clear he will never become the OL we always wanted him to be.
Bernd Neumann, a long time backup RB was the 2 in our 1-2 running back punch, but we had to clear roster spots for younger players. Sad.
Lambert Wagner, our aging long time starter had to let go, since he became too expensive and we could hold him and his then backup now starter Henning Schröder, which is younger and almost as good.
Fabian Schmitz, a youth academy prospect, did also not make the roster, once we were able to get some better DL players on the TM.

We bought:
Nimmit Raje, a young CB, nice upside
Wesley McDaniel, a young LB prospect
Seth Bappoo, a DL prospect
Kibwe Onobanjo, another DL prospect
Jerald Saxon, a soon to be LB, still too young to make the senior roster

We will shake up the roster even more after the draft, since we will need a few more free spots for the draftees, and the youth academy players.
All contract talks are done and the supposed to leave players are informed.

"This year was a youth injection needed. We hope to set the right signals for the future development of the team."

The team did cancel the contract of Max Krause after the regular season and the supercup ended for the team.
Max wanted to retire latest at season final.

"Max asked for the move, once we were out of the competitions. He knew it was coming and handled the situation very professional."

We like to thank Max for his work in the past.

Max is 2nd in alltime defense plays for the team, 5th in interceptions, 4th in forced fumbles, 2nd in fumble recovery and did score 46 touchdowns during his career.
He was one of THE corner stones of our defense and we will miss him, bad.
Max, we love you!

The team did make the Supercup playoffs again, this season was a bit easier, since the competing teams in the division were less challenging.

"Still some nice games against the runner ups! We did lose some of those kind of games in the past, so nice work here.
We managed to get into the 3rd round (top 32) did lose against the *Pawn*Stars* in a avery close game.
Hopefully next season will THEN be a step forward."

Any words on the League results?

"Desaster. We did start strong, but did lose 6 games in a row, which did cost us at the end the division title and the playoff spot.
We did some playbook adjustments, but that is not finaliced yet."

Daft needs?

"We look forward to the draft to address the next team needs. Probably again a very defense oriented draft"

What about the youth acadamy players?

"We already promoted the new CB Daniele Schmidt, OL Ruben RichterDL Fabian Schmitz and RB Jan-Peter Schwarz from Youth Academy to senior team and all will hopefully become cornerstone of the team in the near future.
We alway try to do the best to have them ready in the near future, but with the new transfer market policy of our front office, there are no guaranteed spots."

Season 12 did show some promising results and we are a bit more optimistic for the future.

We drafted WR Frank Kühn, RB Hans-Herbert Schäfer and Hellmuth Frank which we sold on the transfer market since we did not see any future for him on the roster.

Kühn and Schäfer have some training in front of them, but soon they WILL be big parts of the team.
The draft is considered OK, but could have been better.

We decided to clean the roster an bit and buy some new promising players.

We sold:
Minh Singer, a CB who was always a good backup but never lived up the potential.
Murray Waterman, a long time DB, getting old and expensive. We like to thank Murray for his work in the past!
Daniele Wolf, a promising young WR out of our YA, who just was not good enough for the roster.
Yusuf Klein, also a project out of our YA, not good enough as DL on our team.
Peter Baumann, another young player from our YA, who did not make the team as RB.
Taye Maksimov, who was too greedy that we could not find a contract agreement.
Keith Hoy, a long time DL for our team. Thanks for the commitment in the past!
Ekkehard Becker, the 3rd round FB from last season’s draft who was just not fast enough in his progress.

We bought:
Booker Crawford, a CB with a nice future ahead of him.
Manu Etxebarria, a RB with also a nice learning curve.
Va l t e r Pich, a promising QB
Hilario Potter, another WR prospect.
Hussein Khaleel, a very nice OL prospect

"Again a very nice roster shake up to get the team in the right direction. Still, there is room to grow and prosper.

The team did cancel the contracts of Josef Schuhmacher, Coleman Selby and Rusty Cramer at season end, since the wanted to retire anyway.

"We did that because of the money, sorry to say that.
We like to thank all three of them for their work in the past.

Josef is at the moment the LB with the most interceptions in the whole business.
He was the corner stone of our defense and we will miss him, bad.
Josef, have a nice retirement!

Coleman was a very nice OL for the team, even if he never was a star. We still own him a lot of the past.
Coleman, was one of the first and was a locker room leader.
Thanks!

Rusty was a late blossomer at WR but always refused to give up.
He was also one of the oldest players on the roster and was a leader in the past few seasons.
Far well!"

The team did make the Supercup playoffs!

"Yes we did it! And we went right under the last 32 but did lose against the San Diego Hurricanes. Hopefully next season will be a step forward."

Any words on the League results?

"Regular season was OK, we did lose some games not necessary to lose, but won the division title, won the first wildcard match against Down Under Devils but lost against Black Dragons in the divisional playoffs by some stupid turnovers.
Still a step forward in comparison to last season."

We look forward to the draft to address the next team needs.
We also will have again a deep look at all the needed changes to get the roster spots we need.

We already promoted the new DL Fabian Schmitz, FB Sebastian Bergmann and CB Viorel Moldovan from Youth Academy to senior team and all will become cornerstone of the team in the near future.

Hard days are coming, but we are still able to get the team strength up."

Season 11 was probably the worst ever. Maybe we should get used to that.

First tough decision was to let both longtime kicker and punter go.
Both were members of the initial roster and did play for the Leopards their whole career.

David Abell will probably be THE record setting kicker in Leopards history, any successor will have a hard time to match those numbers.
Same goes for Irwin Guerra as a Punter. His numbers will also stand as record for along time.

Thanks to both of you, we will miss you.
The hard truth is, the got too expensive by league rules and we had to clear roster spots in addition.

We drafted LB Karl-Wilhelm Maier (will shift to DL), QB Victor Busch (will shift to LB) and FB Ekkehard Becker (will shift to WR/TE).
All of them got some training to do to get into the rotation, but soon they WILL be big parts of the team.
The draft considered quite OK.

We decided to make some bigger splashes in the free agent market and bought Gavin MacNamara as free agent.
He will become a decent LB.
We also bought Hassan Omar from the Gems Hunters for a very small price.
He has tremendous catching skills and will soon be a very campable TE.
Vicente Giménez was signed as a free agent and he will become a very good WR in the future.
Boon-Mee Chao will serve as CB or LB once he is polished. He came from the free agent market as well.
Doston Kozhabayev will also bolster our TE roster in the near future. He was also a free agent.
Last big addition was Ignacio Mauldin, a young CB from Frederiksberg Dreamers.

We also sold some players due to limited roster space and the free agent additions.
Muzaffer Schulz, Hans-Eberhard Groß, Horst Schneider, Joaquín Reyes, Aziz Winkler, Juan Duarte, Nicolas Schulte were all backups or prospects.
We hope they will have the chance to play at their new localtions.

"We did chance a lot this season, unfoutunatelly it did not pay off so far.
We did a whole coaching shift for a lot of positions and we hope it will bring us better results in the future.
The drafties are fine, the free agents also. They just have to be developed."

Edwin Hoy was let go, a few weeks before his retirement?

"We did love what Edwin did bring to the team in the last 2 season, but business is business and we had to take care about that."

Gaylord Vail will retire.

"He was a warrior. Period. We would like to thank Gaylord for his contribution for the team and wish him the best for the future.
One of the best CB we had so far in the team."

The team did not make the Supercup playoffs.

"The whole team redesign did not help with the critical games. We hope next season will be better."

Any words on the League results?

"Regular season was a desaster. We did not win the division title, went into the playoffs as 6th best team, went out of the playoffs in the first round against Vilbler Wasserbube.
We have to be better than that."

We look forward to the draft to address the next team need and we will have a deep look at all the needed changes to get the roster spots we need.

We already promoted the new OL Aldo Hofmann, RB Peter Baumann, P Ewald Schulz and soon also DL Jörgen Dietrich from Youth Academy to senior team and all will become cornerstone of the team in the near future.

Hard days are coming, but we are still able to get the team strength up."

Season 10 was a bad one.

First of all we did reach out for some free agents and we were willing to pay a few more dollars.
We did welcome Edwin Hoy of the CARDIACJACKETS, a veteran WR who will strengthen our receiver bunch for a few seasons.
We did obtain Harun Sane of Next DreamTeam but it was obvious after the season that he won't find a spot on the roster next season and we sold him a few days ago.
Third we got Rudolf Lexa of Undertaker 21-0 to have a QB for the future.

We drafted OL Saban Schneider, WR Clemens Pohl (will shift to LB) and QB HansJosef Voigt (will shift to SF).
All of them got some training to do to get into the rotation, but soon they WILL be big parts of the team.

The draft was quite nice.

"We got some really nice additions here, especially there upsides once they adjusted to their new positions will be great."

But the future is not as bride as you might think. Rüdiger Möller will soon retire and we don't know the next few players to retire yet.

"Rüdiger was our very first Draft pick! We love what he did for the team!"

Any words on the additional cuts?

"we were force to free some roster spots to make room for the next generation.
Chadwick Waggoner, Adolfo Zarate and Ramon Gifford did leave at season beginning and we like to give them a last THANKS for all the years they did play in our gang.
They are pros, so they know the game and we are still in a good relation.
They had and still have the chance to play on a high level on their new teams.

Dimitrios Hoffmann did leave because of Lexa as new 3rd string QB, but it looks like the new team will make him a LB.

Carrol Mcgovern and Graham Akers are the saddest leaves we had this season.
Both are 1st and 2nd in Career rushing on that team. Both did run like the devils they are in the first few seasons.
Unfortunately age and roster spots made such movements necessary.
I hope they can add some more years to their career.
THANKS Carrol and Graham!

Long Ponder was sold, since the new young players in the DL will have him on the bench for the rest of his career in our team, so we sold him to give him the chance to play.

The team did not make the Supercup playoffs.

"We messed that one up. We lost against a weaker team and won all others, but did not drive up the scoreboard, so we missed the playoffs by a few spots."

Any words on the League results?

"Regular season was OK, except the late season let-down. We lost the first round match, because our teams just went into it unprepared and not ready.
There is no excuse for that. No disrespect to Vilbler Wasserbube, but we should have won that one ...
Well, we did not and so we dropped out.
We will see, if we can change that for the future."

The team will NOT play Champ of Champs Bowl again next season.

"Yes, that will cost us a lot of money .... again"

We look forward to the draft to address the next team need and we will have a deep look at all the needed chances to get the roster spots we need.

We already promoted the new OL Hartmuth Zimmermann and CB Hartmut Becker from Youth Academy to senior team and both will become cornerstone of the team in the near future.

We also promoted again several good talents from the Academy over the season to develop them further.

Hard days are coming, but we are still able to get the team strength up."

Season 9 went as expected.

A long time ago we decided to do all team related additions by a few rules, including not to pay sky-high prices for free agents.
The result is, that we do increase much slower than other teams.
Fine with us.

We drafted Receiver Henner Simon (shifted to Linebacker), Defensive Cornerback Vittorio Müller and Quarterback Hans-Henning Frank (shifted to Offensive Lineman).
All of them got some training to do to get into the rotation, but soon they WILL be big parts of the team.

So far the draft went quite nicely.

"We got some real good players, even if it looks at the moment that way we have some issues with the positions, it will all get better, once they are full developed."

But the future looks cloudy. Rüdiger Möller, a corner stone in our offensive line will retire after season 10 and we lost some good players at season rollover.

"Yes, some great players did leave and will leave in the future, but we have that under control."

Any words on Logan Herring?

"Logan did never crack the starting lineup, but was a well respected member of our team.
In fact he was here, when we FOUNDED that club, and did never complain regarding his playing times.
At this point I'd like to say THANK YOU LOGAN!"

And what about Jewell Temple.

"Jewell was our most aggressive defensive linemen. He was also a founding member and I will try do explain his value to us by his record.
2nd most games played OVERALL, 2nd most plays on the field OVERALL, most Tackles, most Tackle-for-loss, 2nd most sacks, most forced fumbles, 2nd most recovered, 15 defensive TDs and 2nd most MVP points on defense.
Tough to get a better player.
THANKS Jewell!"

The team went unbeaten in the Supercup regular season but lost in the first round.
Satisfied?

"Of cause not, but we lost against the later Supercup winner, so no shame about that.
Supercup will always be some kind of lottery."

Any words on the League results?

"We did quite good in the regular season and won the wildcard match against Down Under Devils.
Then we lost against the Black Dragons in the Divisional Playoffs.
That seems to become a habit."

The team will NOT play Champ of Champs Bowl again next season.

"Yes, that will cost us a lot of money ...."

No big roster movements are planned, all players are on their position or will move when their time will come.

We look forward to the draft to adress the next team need.

We already promoted the new DL Carlos Rojas from Youth Academy to senior team and he will be a starter on the interior line from day one.

We also promoted again several good talents from the Academy over the season to develop them further.
Next season will be crucial because of the so many probably retiring players, but we will manage that.

In Season 8 was quite good to summerize it.
Even if now big titles were won.

We drafted Linebacker Hardy Busch, Defensive Lineman Holm König (shifted to Linebacker) and Receiver Cemil Jung (shifted to Offensive Lineman).
Both Linebackers were integarted into the Linebacker rotation, the Offensive Lineman was kept in the developing squad for the future.

So far the draft went fine.

"Again we were lucky to get one of the most talented player left in the third round. Cemil will develop into a very good lineman, once the growing pains are overcome."

But the future looks cloudy. Many players will reach the critical age of 30 next season.

"That's true, but most of them are not starters and we have capable backups in place."

Except for Angelo Spence?

"Angelo is by far our best Tight End and we will miss him, for sure, but there are some replacements on the roster already.
Don't get me wrong, we would like to thank Angelo for his dedication the last 8 seasons.
He is leaving as the player with second most plays as receiver on the field, most games so far, most catches as a TE, most yards as a TE, second most TDs of all receivers, second most broken tackles and so on and so on.
He got one player trophy in season 7 (2nd best TE in Monarchs 1.1) and he might get another one this seaosn.
But much more we will miss his locker room spirit and his positive attitude on the sideline."

The team managed to lose one game in the supercup but did get into the the playoffs.
Then it lost in the second round. Thoughts?

"There is nothing to be ashamed about. In the division we lost against one of the best teams in the world and in the playoffs, we lost against a tough opponent.
Could have gone either way, at the end we did not do enough to advance."

And Champ of Champs Bowl was fun this year, right?

"Very much, yes! In the second round it looked like a already decided match against one of the powerhouses of all teams but we did upset them!
Then we advanced until we lost against our league rival Patriots.
TOP 8 teams, is very good."

Any words on the League results?

"We did bad in the regular season.
We lost twice against Wasserbube and did almost not win the Division.
Not that Wasserbube did not deserve the wins, the team did just sucked in those games and did not play 100%.
But at the end we won the NC South the 7th time in the row (with 13-3).
We did play good enough against GatorNation in the Divisional Playoffs, but did again suck against the Black Dragons.
Hopefully we get that under control next season."

The team will NOT play Champ of Champs Bowl again next season.

"Yes, that will cost us a lot of money ...."

No big roster movements are planned, all players are on their position or will move when their time will come.

We look forward to the draft to adress the next team need.

We already promoted the new DL Theodoros Koch from Youth Academy to senior team and he will be a starter on the interior line from day one.

We also promoted again several good talents from the Academy over the season to develop them further.
Next season will be crucial because of the so many probably retiring players, but we will manage that.

"Holy *piep*!"
Jack Six was standing in the locker room and was unable to speak.
All reporters are trying to get a word from him, the coaches or the players but the locker room is just having a big party and the only word the reporters are getting as response are "Awsome as *piep*", "We DID it!" and "Holy *piep*!"

The Leopards did just win their Champ of Champs Cup game against the massive favored Majalorca Pigs by a field goal.

The experts of the media did think that the Pigs were much stonger (8% rating difference) than the Leopards, but those cats do eat the Pigs alive and did win by good offense and defense.

"Holy *piep*!"

Still stunned ... We can understand that.
Back to the studio.

In Season 7 the team took a step back but did on the other hand a nice step forward.

We drafted Defensive Lineman Uwe Schneider, Cornerback Hubertus Schulz and Offensive Lineman Günter Meyer (shifted from FB).

Uwe Scheider became instand starter, Günter Meyer became backup center and Hubertus Schulz did became a prospect for the further future.

Every position in need was filled with bodies so Jack Six was satisfied with the draft.

"That third round pick was a bit of steal this year. Günter will soon become an anchor of our line. We will keep building up our Defensive Line and will probably also further address Offensive Line additions."

That will for sure give some more depth on the weaker parts of the team. But the team will also lose two players due retirement this season end.

"Yes, we are sad about the upcoming loss off Justin "The Eagle" Engle and Tony "Spearhead" Speer.
Let's start with Justin. No Receiver on the team did play more games then him until now.
He did basically started with this franchise and build it from the ground.
He did play probably longer than he should have and we will never forget that.
He was never that flashy bigtime superstar receiver, but he was there when needed. Always!
And Tony ... it took some time for him and us to bring him in that perfect position in which he then became one of the best on our team.
Last season was his, no doubt. he became the best TE of the League Monarchs 1.1.
Any questions?
He did have more receiving yards over his career than any TE on the team so far and there are only two players with more receiving yards overall.
He also is the leader in receiving TDs and MVP-Points overall.
That's amazing for a tight end.
Tony, we will miss you.

Good news is, that we adressed those retirements some seasons ago, so there will be a very smooth transition.
No step back.
We only get stonger.

The team managed to lose one game in the supercup but did NOT made the playoffs. That crucial game did almost destroyed the season, right?

"Yes, it did. Almost. We just motivated the team over the top and we won!
But the price was an exhausted team which then did lose in the Champ of Champs Bowl and some games in the league.
For some time it looked like a bit of a playoff choker, but we overcame those conditions and did great until the league Bowl game.
Unfourtunatelly the Supercup wins did not add up to the playoffs and we have to think very hard for next season, if we do such thing again.
So, Supercup was a down year this season."

And Champ of Champs Bowl?

"We did advance to the third round, but lost there against a very strong team, the Urshult Gladiators AFC, because of our Supercup strategy and because they are a strong team.
In that condition we never stood a chance. Still we came further than ever, so an Up-year here."

Any words on the League results?

"We almost did suck but managed to win the NC South the 6th time in the row (with 11-5).
We did play a bit with shaking knees in the Wildcard game (Down Under Devils),did win quite good in the Divisional playoffs (Dreigiau Cymreig) and did play probably one of the best games in the Conference Championship game (Black Dragons).
In the Bowl it looked like we had all offensive power used in the games before.
Except one good dive and one big play we did not moved anything against St. George's Dynamo Patriots and were on the other hands not able to stop the opponents from marching over the field.
They won fair and square a the better team.
Better luck next season for us, I hope."

The team will play Champ of Champs Bowl again next season, which is good.

No big roster movements are planned, all players are on their position or will move when their time will come.

We look forward to the draft to adress the next team need.

We already promoted the new DL Freddy Kaiser from Youth Academy to senior team and he will be a starter on the interior line from day one.

We also promoted several good talents from the Academy over the season to develop them further, again.
They will serve as practice squad members or backups in the upcoming seasons, but their time will come.

In Season 6 we did ROCK! At least a bit.

We drafted Safty Franz-Josef Roth (shifted from CB), Defensive Lineman Mohamed Wa l t e r (shifted from LB) and Fullback Tillmann Hartmann (shifted from RB).

All of them did learn behind starters their new jobs and some of them will probably be starter next season.

This time Jack Six did only get complains because of the late round pick Hartmann, because it is believed he will not be good enough to play in that league.

"If you have almost the last pick in the 3rd round, there is not much to chose from anymore. Still we got a quality player with Hartmann and I'm sure he will be a good FB in seasons to come."

The Safty positions seems to be in good shape now, after converting last years QB to SF and drafting this year another one.

"Yes, we did good with those moves. That's one position we have to to worry about the next few seasons. Cletus Bautista will retire soon and the new kids will take over.
I like to thank Cletus for his dedication to the team the last six seasons. He leave with the second most plays on defense and the second most games on defense in our franchise."

But the lines need some work, especially the defensive line.

"That's true and we will hopefully find some good players in the upcoming draft. Wa l t e r was only the beginning.
But to be honest, every team needs good linemen, so we have to see what will happen."

The team managed to lose one game in the supercup but did made the playoffs, thanks to a new playing format.

"we did not win the division, which would now garantee a playoff spot, but we did win big enough to get into the list of best teams for the few spots left of non division winners.
Unfourtunatelly we lost in the first round of the playoffs."

But we did win the league Bowl and became CHAMPIONS in season 6!
After winning the NC South the 5th time in the row (with 12-4) we did play strong in the Wildcard game (Drunken Sailors Borshow), the Divisional playoffs (defending champion Black Dragons) and the Conference Championship game (Dreigiau Cymreig).
But we saved the best for the Bowl game, at least it looks that way. After leading only with 1 point beginning of the 4th quarter, the Leopards did score 20 unanswered points to win against the Dolni Chabry Patriots.
First time in team history we did win the big one.

Jack Six reaction was "Holy *peeep* we did win this *peep* *peep* *peeep* Bowl! Can you believe it? Those *peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* should get in that pool fast, because we want a *peeeeeeeeeep* party with lots of *peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* and *peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*"

Well, obviously he was glad.

So, Champ of Champs Bowl will be again played next season.

The management will of cause have a look at the roster, right after the last season training but it seems unlikly that some players will be switched.

We look forward to the draft to adress the next team need.

We already promoted the new TE Sieghard Schröder from Youth Academy to senior team and he will be a starter immediately for next season.
We also promoted several good talents from the Academy over the season to develop them further.
They will serve as practice squad members or backups in the upcoming season, but we are sure they will one day become starters.

We will try to get into the lockerroom just in a moment.

Oh, the party is in full swing as we can see based on all those naked girls in the whirlpool.

Let's have a deeper look here .... Autch! That was the security. Autch. They are not finished yet. Autch! Obviously they don't like the press to sneak into their championship party.

We will be right back, after this break with more details on the Leopards first Bowl-Championship!

Autch!

Season 5 was a failure in any book.

It started with the drafting of three QBs.

Henning Schröder, Lambert Wagner and Jochen Schulz were chosen in the three draft rounds and Jack Six got hate mails and "for sales" signs in his front yard.

Jochen Schulz was later in the season converted to safety and it will take a few seasons to have him on track.
"He will be a great safety, it will only take while to have him really DO the switch in his head."

Henning Schröder became the starting QB immediately and Lambert Wagner served as his backup.

The team managed again to lose 2 games in the supercup and did not make the playoffs with a 13-2 record. Very disappointing results, again.
"Yes, we have to work on that. We are confident to play better next year."

In the league games we did win 13 games, lost only to the Bees, Atlantes and the Monarchs.
The Division title was won also, and we reached the Conference Finals against the Black Dragons.
Unfortunately we lost due some missed field goal attempts.

In the Champ of Champs Bowl, where we will not play next season, we lost in the second round, which was also a disappointment.

The management will have a look at the roster, right after the last season training and will probably convert some players to new positions.
This will not change draft plans, since all changes will only affect backups and backup backups.

We will promote in a few days the new WR Hans-Josef Beck from Youth Academy to senior team and he will be a starter immediately for next season.

The team is excited, that next season we will train four very promising players in the Youth Academy and at least one will be of a very high quality.

"Well, we did play, that you can't deny.
We did win the first round, you can't deny taht, too.
We did lose in the second round against a team with about 5% less overall rating than us ... by a mile ....
We looked like shit and played like apes.

The coach did get some "for sale" signs in his frontyard of his house and his kids were asked, if it's true that they will move to Freezingcold, Alaska?

Let me tell you this, the coach isn't going anywhere. He is bound to a chair in my garage and will get the special electric massage at his family jewels right after that interview ... huh ... did I say that loud? Is this microphone one already?

Oh dear. You took that for real, right ... hehe .. no he is not in my garage ... no I have no special electric massage ... no he is not ... no ... no .... stop that ... OK, interview is over ...."

Looks like the manager of the Leopards Jack Six is quite in a mood, after their Champ of Champs Bowl exit on friday.

Stay tuned, while we brake into his garage to determain if rumours of the coach kid napping are true or if we have to go to jail for trespassing ...
Right after that commercial ....

*dududidu You can't get your pole standing upright anymore? Get that blue pill and everything looks right again. dududidu
- users of this pill might die by a heartattack -*

We are back and we will now break into Jack Six garage. Here are my tools ... let's see.
Oh damn, that's the gardener and he has an electric lawnmower ... he is racing right to us and the mower is turning by 5000 turns per seconds.
He is attacking by feet, oh that hurt ... now my leg .... Cut cut cut!

*dududidu You can't get your pole standing upright anymore? Get that blue pill and everything looks right again. dududidu
- users of this pill might die by a heartattack -*

We are sorry, we lost contact to our reporter at Jack Six garage. Be assure we will keep you informed. Now pack to that blue pill commercial ...

*dududidu You can't get your pole standing upright anymore? Get that blue pill and everything looks right again. dududidu
- users of this pill might die by a heartattack -*

"I don't get it! Those Generals Guys did let us get to their area, give us big defeat and then send us home like we were *peeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* in the *peeeeeeeep* from a bunch of *peeeeeeeeeeeep* while it is *peeeeeeeeeeeeeep*-day of the year.
I mean, look! Those guys came out with eyes as big as an eight-ball and showed no pain or did substituted because they had to catch theit breath! Hello?
The zebras where all blind and maybe paid, I don't know.
It's not like I mind them General their win, no. But the game was wierd and I will try to get a study on this case."

Well, obviously was Jack Six mad about the defeat in the supercup. We apologies for the explicit language.

"I think they also did empty the minibar of the bus! They did *peeeeep" ...."

OK, lets stop this interview, it seems we can't get any facts on that game.

But let me give you a hind for the situation. They lost their first game in the supercup and the chances to make it to the playoffs for one loss teams are slim. In fact since the first season, when a one loss was still a 100% garantee to get into the postseason (maybe coincident) it was around 25% in season 2, almost 25% in season 3 and a bit over 20% in season 4 of all one loss teams to get into the playoffs.
So they now have to be better then 80% of all 1 loss teams. Not that easy.

"Ok, let's face it. The regular season will be a lot of easy games with some challanges to test the team.
Last game was one of these challanges." said Jack six, King of The Ring called Leverkusen Leopards.
"If not for the selfdestroying love of the Spawn CityKillers for going for it on fourth down, this game would have been way different."

Indeed, the Killers did play EVERY fourth down and did not do very well on that area. They did turnover the ball that way many times, even in the redzone of the Leopards.
"Well, you have to admit, we DID stop them!" jack Six was well pleased with this result throughout the interview, while his personal assistent wiggled under Jack Six desc for "comforting matters".

For sure a feet massage.

next big game will be in the supercup. Those Generals will be a tough cookie, for sure if they can motivate their players beyond the typical yaddayadda before a game.

"Any news, regarding the 3 QBs?"
We probably will transfer one of them to safty, problem is, we don't know, which one ... "

We left Jack Six for his massage and went right back into our shabby brownstone office.

The fans were stunned.
Wenn the draft finished, the Leopards had picked 3 QBs and no other new player on any other position.

"We needed a SF! We needed a DT! And Ok, also a QB. ... But three? THREE!"

The fans did start to cry, they started to brawl, they started to fight.

The President Jack Six did issue a statement, saying "We are excited to get this 3 young talents and the team will do great with them. We are confident that the rest of the team is able to play well and we get a big plus on the QB position on EVERY DOWN of a game. Great."

The fans were still crying, brawling and fighting ... the will probably do for the rest of the season.

Season 4 was almost perfect.
We drafted RB Nils Heinrich, OL Hans-Otto Schneider and RB Bernd Neumann. Heinrich and Schneider became starter immediately, Neumann became a Backup for the RB position and did also play as a KR.
The team managed to lose 2 games in the supercup AGAIN and did not make the playoffs with a 13-2 record. Very disapointing.
Luckily we won in league games all regular season games and the division with 16-0 and a first round bye. We reached the Bowl, where we lost against Kharkiv Atlantes.
So as the NC Champion we will play for the champ of champs bowl next season and have the first title ever.
Following the season final game, the roster got another, this time smaller, rework by converting players to new postions, where the coach thinks the player will serve best.
This did not change draft plans, since almost all changes did have no effect on starting positions.

We also got our first real new player from the youth academy OL Gabor Herrmann, who will play starting OT next season.

The team is excited, that from this season on, almost every season a very high quality player from the youth academy will join the senior team to make an impact immediately.

Season 3 was not that successfull.
We drafted DL Burkhardt Fischer, DL Manfred Schreiber (was after the season converted to LB) and OL Theo Thomas. They all became starter immediately.
The team managed to lose 2 games in the supercup and did not make the playoffs with a 13-2 record.
In league games, we won the division with 14-2 and a first round bye. We reached the conference championship game, where we lost against the defending champions, the Aces.
So no champ of champs bowl next season and another season without a title.
Following the season final game, the roster got a major rework by converting players to new postions, where the coach thinks the player will serve best.
This did change draft plans and the sorting for the draft was adjusted.

The Season 2 was a new start in Monarchs 1.1 league.
We drafted LB Max Krause, LB Josef Schuhmacher and OL Rüdiger Möller, all of them became instant starters.
The Divison was won, 12-4 and the season ended again in the Divisional Playoffs.
In the Supercup, the Division was NOT won, we recorded a 14-1 record and finished 2nd with a playoffs spot. But within the top 32 teams the playoff run came to an end.

Season was a fresh start for the Leopards.
They started with a bunch of pub campers and made them tough and hungry.
It resulted in a 14-2 Season, a defeat in the Divisional Playoffs and promotion from Monarchs 2.1 to 1.1 through BOT-flush.
Supercup Division was won 15-0 and the team got under the best 16 teams.