Those responsible in the HAMBURG SEA LIONS organization always knew that S59 would be a tough one. Too many great players left and too little was done to make the transition to the new great players easy. But after winning the 3rd home game in a row against the up to this point unbeaten Willoughby Wookies in Week 10 of S59, the HAMBURG SEA LIONS led the NC West. Their record wasn’t great at 5–4, but they still had 4 division games to play, so it was in their own hands to stay Elite.

But then they put together the second 4-game-losing-streak of the season, after already having assembled losses in weeks 2 though 5, and found themselves at the bottom of the division. They were not able to win one of those 4 divisional match-ups, in fact only won one more game at all and finished 6–10 after the regular season. Not only was this their worst record since S49, but as the mechanics in the Elite league go it meant that, after 7 consecutive seasons with the best of RZA, they were relegated back to the Dragons region.

Thus ends an era for the HAMBURG SEA LIONS, but they look back on that time with joy. They met many great teams and won over the course of these 7 seasons more games than not, took the division crown in the Elite NC West once and made it to the playoffs twice.

A lot of great players helped to achieve these things, and some of them were inducted into the HAMBURG SEA LIONS Hall of Fame recently. First and foremost the leader of the offense in the first 5 seasons of Elite RZA Football, with him being in the Top5 of Regular Season MVP Votes in 4 of them, always providing guidance since he joined in S49 from GLADIATORI ROMA – QB Nicoló Stanzetti. He is accompanied by two players equally as long a valuable corner stone on their respective positions in the offense: TE Sherman Schmidt, who also joined the team in S49 as a Wide Receiver before being repositioned to Tight End (as which he appeared in 52 All Star Games), and FB Roberto Mora, who never missed a game and helped to fuel the offensive game play by keeping Stanzetti upright and scoring 21 Rushing TDs for the SEA LIONS.

Welcome to the Hall of Fame to all three.

Ahead now lies a new beginning. The HAMBURG SEA LIONS front office decided to use this relegation and fully rebuild the squad over the course of the next few seasons. Many great players that were drafted and developed found homes somewhere else to compete for championships. Assistant Coaches have been fired and the squad was downsized significantly. Rumors are heard that even some players were surprised by the swiftness in which things changed these last weeks. There are some sources that tell about the manager of the SEA LIONS seeking guidance from far more experienced and successful RZA mangers, and it seems as if the franchise is doing quite the course correction.

The faithful do observe patiently. These past 7 seasons have been a great ride, and although this last season did not go as they hoped, it does seem as if those responsible in the organization did learn a lot, and are about to use these learnings to guide the HAMBURG SEA LIONS back to the Elite one day… maybe even being better than they were the first 7 seasons.

It’s certainly something to look forward to.

We’re proud do announce the newest Hall of Fame induction, and the player in question doesn’t really need any introduction. Everyone knows about the chants that the crowd was yelling whenever he touched the ball: „JEFFEEEEEEE!!!!!“ And usually that had the same meaning as success.

He was drafted in S48 by the Green Mark Packers and immediately was a part of greatness, as the Packers were Elite that season. He did not play much in his rookie season, though, and even though they secured a spot for another season at the highest level, he was sold and joined the HAMBURG SEA LIONS at the start of S49.

He was an instant starter in their run-heavy offense, although he had to step back in favor of veteran Back Enric Montserrat, who he’ll now join in our Hall of Fame. But he would take his head down and work on those mind numbing fumbles he had in his first seasons, and he also improved his positioning and vision. And therefore he exploded in S50, his third year, with 11 Touchdowns in 16 games. He was hot right from the start when he scored a TD in week 1 against the team that drafted him, adding to what was then seen as one of the bigger Admirals league upsets in recent history.

He averaged 1.000 Yards in this and 3 subsequent seasons and was crucial to for the accent of the HAMBURG SEA LIONS to Elite Level. Even though his numbers became less as the passing game surrounding recently retired QB Nicoló Stanzetti more and more took the game over, he still was the team’s leading rusher of the last two seasons that he played. His game was spectacular, and his sportsmanship was even better, as he took the same approach that he had learned from Enric Montserrat and showed the young Draftees the ways. He has been a vital part in developing Mo Bolen into the great player that he became, and it’s traits like these that make a player almost invaluable for a team.

That’s why we’re happy that he ended his career with us, and that we can put him where players like him deserve to be: Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Jefferson Micombero!

When Season 57 started only few in the organization expected that the team would end up there, but this time finally came true what the fans were waiting for: The HAMBURG SEA LIONS advanced to the Elite postseason and played their first playoff game at this level ever.

The season started pretty good, despite losing the home opener to the Mustangs 17:18. We went on to win 6 of the next 8 games, but then hit a though stretch of games against RZA royalty. The squad was able to win 4 games on the back end of the schedule, though, so we managed to get to a great record of 10–6 at the end of the season. It took a loss of the Ravens in week 17 for us to sneak into the postseason tournament, but we also had to win the last game, which we did, 16:13 against the Olivos Borrachos. And thus we made the first playoff appearance in the Elite league happen.

There we met the Space Kraken, the #1 team in all of RZA. We kept it close, but ultimately lost because of an ill advised interception in the redzone in the second quarter. That was one of few opportunities to score in the game at all, so in the end we had to go for the TD instead of kicking a FG to win, and failed to convert 4th Down with 5 minutes to go. We lost 10:14.

We take pride in the fact that the game we played was by far the closest one in the Wildcard round, with all the other games ending on a spread of at least 30 points. But losing on such a situation is annoying, as it again shows that it’s the small situations that will decide a game at this level.

The Supercup this season was far less successful than our play in the league. We missed the playoffs for the first time since S50, mostly thanks to the fact that that we played the back-ups to gather experience and get the new QB up to speed. The latter must take over right from the start of next season, as starter Nicolò Stanzetti will retire, along with starting FB Roberto Mora and veteran TE Sherman Schmidt.

The new season will likely be an uphill battle for us. Both lines improved last season, but especially on the Tackle position of the O-Line there’s still a lot of room to grow. It will take all the speed and agility the new QB has to buy enough time to get the ball down the field. The OC is already working hard on solutions to lessen the load for the trigger man by developing a playbook more predicated on the ground game.

It is tough to play the Rush successful in the Elite league, though. So it will be no surprise if the SEA LIONS will struggle mightily in season 58. We will celebrate the games nonetheless, as we’re going into our first 10-year-anniversary-season. We’ve come a long way in these past seasons, and the postseason appearance in this last one was a nice confirmation of all the hard work we put into the game.

Hopefully we’ll be able to start the next 10 seasons with some success, too.

The HAMBURG SEA LIONS are happy to welcome their next inductee into their Hall of Fame, and it’s a player whose presence was felt right away, but so was his absence when he retired at the end of Season 55. He mainly played on the defensive end and was a sure tackler that put fear into the opposing quarterbacks: Pairat Vanich.

He was drafted by Quack Attack in Season 45 and played 6 games in his Rookie season. After only having played one game in Season 46 he returned with a vengeance in Season 47, playing 13 games, in which he collected 3 Sacks and forced 3 fumbles. He could not quite repeat this success in Season 48 and was put on the transfer market, where he was acquainted and signed up by the HAMBURG SEA LIONS for a bargain of $1.52 Mio.

From the start he was a force to be reckoned with, caused fumbles and/or sacked the opposing passer multiple times in every season that he’s played for this franchise. He was a staple on the defensive line for all of the 7 seasons that he wore the uniform of the SEA LIONS, helped them to win their first championship in Season 52.

And in the Elite seasons that followed he put up even better numbers than before. It seemed as if the higher competition made him even better, and with him as the anchor the defensive line helped to get better each season, even sniffing at the playoffs of the Elite league in his final season. It was not meant to be, but overall his last season with the SEA LIONS was one of the best he ever played.

He retired at 30 after 282 games, over 1.000 tackles made with an astounding success rate of 82 %, and nearly half of them were tackles for loss. He accumulated 42 sacks and forced 19 fumbles along the way. He was an MVP all along.

Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Pairat Vanich

Another exciting season has ended these days, and it might have been the most exhilarating one this franchise has gone through to date. The HAMBURG SEA LIONS have been in the discussion for playing in the postseason until the very last week of the regular season, and it came down to a questionable game management decision on the second to last game day that denied us the first playoff appearance since we entered the Elite league.

Other than the first 3 seasons at the highest level of RZA football we started the season with a record that could not have been any worse: We lost the first 3 and were 3–5 after half of the games were played. At this point no one truly believed that we would return to the Elite after S56. But thanks to being in a close division and a stretch of 5 wins on the back-end of the schedule we had the chance to make a playoff push.

A bad decision in week 17, when we had our last home game against the mystics, made it fall apart, though. Due to a brainfart the manager was convinced that they only needed to win against the opponent from the NC East to secure first place in the division... and he used MOTY. That resulted in a spectacular match, which they won. But their position against their division opponent Chelt Nam Bobbers was not made better with that win, and on the last game day the mightiest Dragon won against a depleted SEA LIONS team, using MOTY himself, taking the #1 spot in the West and leaving them in tears on the outside looking in.

It was a tough lesson learned for the SEA LIONS about proper evaluation of the schedule and how to navigate through the games to get where they want to be. And it feels like the window in which the team was good enough to compete for a postseason spot has closed. Crucial members of the squad get up there in age or have already signaled that they will retire at the end of this season. And although there are a lot of promising young players to fill the open spots they still might be not good enough to pose problems for the teams they’ll be up against.

S57 will be an uphill battle for the SEA LIONS once again, no one should be all too surprised if they start 0–3 again. We have multiple retirees on crucial positions, as RB1 Jefferson Micombero will end his playing career after this season, as will longtime contributors Offensive Guard Zahit Rahuma and Strong Safety Lazar Ognyanov. All three of them will be sorely missed, as the last game of the season, a friendly visit at the FJB-Field of Dark Matter, showed convincingly.

Chances even aren’t that bad that they won’t be able to come around to play for another season in the Elite again this time. It’ll be all about developing a new core of players for the seasons to come… and enjoying the ride while it lasts.