I spent most of it on cake and novelty hats, the rest I just wasted

Roel: We are back! Welcome to the second edition of the relaunched Blowing Smoke. In this issue we are going to go down, all the way to Dragons 2 to see what is living down there, what is evolving and what might come up to bite you in the proverbial @ss in a few seasons. To do that we are going to investigate the divisional leaders. "A bit too early you" I hear you say. Ah but you are wrong my dear reader. As here in Dragons 2 life is hard and brutal and it takes a lot less time to separate the wheat from the chaff. So, we will start with the division that I call my home: AC East.

To avoid conflict of interest I am going to be handing off though to my fellow editor, the immensely well-respected* Jonny Bravo...

*The views and opinions of Roel do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Dragons community

Jonny: Thanks Roel, the easiest thing to point out about turigtians esport club is that we’re five games in and they’ve already won more games this season than in the whole of last season, if that doesn’t shout “on the right track”, then I don’t know what does!

They tick a lot of the boxes I view as being important for young teams; fully built stadium, they’re not spending obscene amounts of money before setting their foundations and a young squad to train as time goes on.

They’re middle of the field in the four basic offence and defence categories and have turned that into a 4-1 record at this point. This again points to good building, in my eyes, with a good balance across their squad, too often I see teams spending huge amounts on either O or D then the other side of the ball lets them down.

There’s a part of me that wants to try and impart some knowledge on, or give advice to, new teams, but, and I’m sure Roel will agree with me on this, most of us really don’t know how a huge amount of this game works! What works for one team often doesn’t work for another, and the best method will often be working out what works well for your team. turigtians esport club look like they have a good future ahead of them, I’m honestly interested to see where this goes.

Roel: Thanks for that Jonny. So at the top of the AC North we find the Badalona Cheetahs. They are from the tiny country of Andorra that is wedged in between the borders of France and Spain. Interestingly enough; I found out that Badalona however is a city near Barcelona, Spain. This is already the sixth campaign of the Cheetahs, having joined during season 35. They won a divisional title in season 37 (12-4 record) but lost in the divisional play offs. Since then, they have not won a title since. They did make the play offs last season with a wildcard but didn't get past the wildcard round.

They have started the season unbeaten and are sitting pretty on top of the AC North with a 6-0 record. And to be honest, with a whopping 4.5 mill weekly player salary they should be. They have an overall rating of 64.2% which puts them second in the league. They are 12th in passing and 3rd in rushing. There is only one other metric in which they stand out and that is interceptions in which they are 4th in the league.

One thing of note is that it seems that none of their players are either not physical freaks or are not capped in physicals. This might be reason that despite having six campaigns under their belt and having a 4.5 mill salary bill they can be seen as underperforming. The editorial staff of BS will contact the owner for a comment.

We will now go back to Jonny to have a look at the...

Jonny: AC South and the number 1 pass defence of Rexes causing havoc to opposing quarterbacks! Leading the league in sacks and interceptions and a 6-0 start points to a strong team, and they’re not doing it by blowing the budget. Very reasonable wages and a good coaching set-up gives them huge amounts of room to grow with a team that has an average age of just 22.5, definitely liking what I’m seeing of this team.

I like seeing teams doing something slightly different to the norm, looking at their games I see an offence leaning more on the run than the pass. They’re not averaging particularly high rushing yards, but what they are doing is forcing teams to play run defence and opening up the backfield for their receivers, this is where we see big average numbers! Their receivers are averaging 12 to almost 15 yards per play, Kenny Nylander leading the way with 14.8 yards per catch! This team has the potential to cause damage to the “big” teams, what do you do defensively? Do you stop the rush and tempt the receivers? Or do you fear the big play and allow them to run right through you all afternoon?

Now that we’ve started the D2 episode I’m realising how many potentially great teams we actually have in Dragons, this is going to sound horrible, but I expected to see teams making all kinds of odd choices as they started off figuring out the game, I’m seeing the total opposite so far! Roel, I think your Deventer Devils have their work cut out for them getting through this league!

Roel: You are spot on Jonny. In Thunder you automatically get promoted after one season as it's all bots. I was not pleasantly surprised to see that Dragons 2 had almost no bots and that a lot of teams are actually good. I will definitely have to earn my stripes before I can join Dragons 1.

So let's then look at another contender in Dragons in the form of the Wuppertaler Greyhounds. This team should not be an unknown to our readers as they did spent last season in Dragons 1. I am not sure how they actually got promoted as in S39 they went out of the play offs in the divisional round. Perhaps they benefited from a bot flush? Anyway, they got relegated straightaway.

They are not suffering from relegation hangover as right now they have a record of 5-1, their only loss coming from a close loss to a 6-0 team (29-27). This is their fourth campaign so again not a total noob. That shows as well in their financial management as they are one of the teams that have managed to maintain a healthy check book: their wage bill is just below 1 mill. With that low wage bill they however have the 5th ranked team. On top of that, they are ranked 1st in passing offense, 4th in rush offense and 4th in rushing defense. So they are definitely getting value for their money.

I would say that one of their potential issues is that they are not tactically well developed. They consistently score a thumbs down from the karma commissioner and only run a few different plays per game. This might be holding them back, especially when they get to the play offs where they will face the better teams who might be running a good play book.

With that we have covered the AC which means we will go over to...

Jonny: ...the NC. In the East the Rockwell Rockets are coming off their first loss of the season, that was against the undefeated Nuthuggers though, so we won’t start panicking yet.

12-4 last season and just missed out on promotion after losing to the Underachieving Steamrollers in the relegation/promotion playoff. The Steamrollers have spent 11 seasons in Elite and Aneez is a great manager, so again, no reason at all to panic there. One thing I will say though is this is a team on the verge of D1 and with wages getting close to 4 million should be looking to make the jump to the next level, once their coaching set-up is finished it should help a lot.

A tough Supercup group will do them no favours this season, luck of the draw can often be a pain in the *expletive deleted. Management of morale loss could be a key factor here, if the have the swimming pool and players lounge facilities, which work every night of the week for morale when they’re activated, they should be able to stay on top of this.

Offensively these guys look like they rush heavy out of one or two formations, as I said before, this can be good for opening up the big play, but I worry about the “lopsided tactics” effect when it’s primarily out of one formation. They’re great at protecting the ball, both on interceptions and fumbles, if they can bring the amount of sacks they’re taking down, it could be the one thing that puts them over the top. Especially with their defence surging in sacks and interceptions.

How are the deadly Black Mamba’s getting on Roel?

Roel: The Black Mambas are doing pretty well and are sitting unbeaten atop the NC North. They have had their bye week already so they have a 5-0 record. I must admit, With my old team being a NC North team, I have to admit that with the cool name and the division they're in, these are my favorites in the NC. This team made their debut in S37 and were initially named after another posionous animal, namely the Scorpions. They went unbeaten in their first full season only to get destroyed 70-20 in the Divisional Play Offs with their QB being picked off 7 (!) times. Having watched the game back I can see his game plan included medium passes which in this league is no go. It looks like it was a lesson he learned the hard way. Next season he went 14-2 but didn't win the division but made the play offs, only to stumble at the first obstacle again. Last season they went 13-3 but again, didn't win the divsion despite having an excellent record. This time they won their first play off game but lost the Divisional play off.

So this is a team that has been sniffing at the gate to Dragons 1 for three seasons now. And they have a squad that is ready as well. They are the no.1 ranked team in Dragons 2 and just based on their overall rating of 78.3% they would be able to stay up in Dragons 1. Looking at their salary of 6 millionm it is clear that manager Cupfer is fed up with being in Dragons 2 and are in win now mode.

They are ranked top 7 in three of the four offensive and defensive categories so look well placed to make a deep run into the play offs this season. Their only achilles heel remains interception having being picked off 11 times already in 5 games.

Jonny: My favourite D2 division right now, the NC South! Zero teams on a losing record and if the season ended now they’d be sending three teams to the playoffs. As I said previously, Nuthuggers are undefeated, yet we’re looking at divisional leaders’ so our focus won’t be on a 6-0 team!
Cool name by the way, also have a soft spot for Lithuania as one of my best friends is Lithuanian. She taught be some of the best phrases of all time, my favourite being: Whilst watching a game together, it became clear the coaches and players were not on the same page, they were awful, with a frown on her face, Aiste said to me “the head doesn’t know the arse is shitting”, I was in hysterics and have used the phrase many times since.

The leaders in the South are of course Cargese Dolphins. Young team, 8-8 last year and things have really stepped up for a 6-0 start this time around.
So how do you win American Football games? Run the ball, stop the run. These guys have the number 1 ranked rush offence and rush defence, that’s how to win games, but have they been tested in the league yet? They are yet to play a divisional game and have a couple of other strong opponents in the Wuppertaler Greyhounds and Black Mambas on the schedule. My worry is their potential for throwing interceptions with a high reliance on throwing out of SG4. This is where the fear of lopsided tactics comes in, I could be wrong on this, hopefully I am, but in my experience, I feel I see more turnovers against strong pass defenses when everything is coming out of one formation.

With all that being said, this team only started last season, they’ve made a great start, need to concentrate more on getting that stadium maxed out, but in general they look like they’re developing well. If they don’t promote this season (my money’s on Nuthuggers to win the division) opponents need to look out next year!

Roel: That cannot be said of any team in the NC West where all teams have a losing record! St Pauli Packers therefore have the dubious honour of being the only divisional leader with a losing record (2-3). Although this is their third campaign their. stadium only holds 49,950 people and their wage bill is below 200k. Interestingly enough they have been very active on the transfer market. And despite buying 44 players, they also sold 34 players. 20 of those were sold last season so it seems that perhaps they might have been trying to avoid financial trouble? At least it can be called a mini-reboot and with an overall rating of 47.8% this must be a disappointment for their fans and it shows on the field.

They did have a winning record of 12-5 last season and made the play offs as a wild card team but stumbled at the first hurdle. So I think this season was all about going back to square one for this team and I think realistically it will be two seasons at least before they will challenge for promotion.

So that concludes our review of Dragons 2. As my co-host already said, a lot of quality in this division and I think now we might have to give this division the attention it perhaps deserves. With that I will hand it back over to Jonny to close this edition of Blowing Smoke.

Jonny: Thanks Roel, this honestly has been an eye opener, I am really impressed with the quality I've seen, especially considering how young some of these teams are and how well it appears they've understood the game. I hope the current D2 teams stick with RZA, i'm looking forward to following their progress, and just because we didn't mention you in this episode, doesn't mean we didn't look at your games and team

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading our BS, we appreciate it a lot
Smoke 'em if ya got' em folks, see ya next time

awesome You both did a great analysis of the Dragons 2. Very deep into detail. I can still learn a lot about the teams even though I've been in the league for some time.
Thank you for livening up the forum so well, great. My English is not the best so I am often reluctant.
To me and my Black Mambas:
Other teams in other leagues have an easier way to moving up to League 1. But I like the tough competition here. Those who climb up into Dragons 1 really deserve it and have a good chance of staying there.
Last season was my first serious attempt, with a squad ready for Dragons 1. But wit the Zürich Moneybags I had tough competition in NC North. Unfortunately I didn't manage to win this group. I had also imagined the playoff differently. After the season, I was very depressed
But now I'm optimistic about making the jump into Dragons 1 again. I'm ready and my team is strong enough for Dragons 1.
But first I have to fight against many strong teams in this league. Luck and bad luck can make a difference here.
That´s the Reason why this league makes fun

cheers to all for a great season

Great analysis! I suppose it will improve D2 managers morale. Things there are pretty difficult and competitive but is usually let on second plan.

Now we are all waiting for an analogue D1 analysis on next edition of BS.

Hi Cupfer, we've all had those seasons that make us want to quit, I remember this game in particular hurt: Them Damn Boars! Leading 24-6 in the 3rd and ended up losing after a fumble with just over 20 seconds left. I promise it's worth pushing through the depressing times
Also, your English is easy to read, don't worry, and it should be us English speaking folk who should be thanking you, and everyone else, who uses English when it's not their first language (if Roel started speaking Dutch to me I would have a clue what he was saying!).
So, to everyone using a second language, thank you, we lazy English speaking people truly appreciate it

De nada! Disponha!

Google translate had my back

thank you for the comments but my 5-1 is the result of chance, with my first team, at the beginning of this game, I have learned enough and the doubts that come to me are answered in the Spanish forum by a friend at the time.
salut everyone
salut quim
salut y força turyg

Salut i força al canut !

Awesome Analysis!

I just started up near the middle-end of last season, so still figuring things out. Loving the depth so far.

Inappreciate you putting all of this together. Makes things a lot more fun.