Team: Gridiron Gang
Nomination: "The No Name Heroes" Highest scoring team in 2016 featuring a bunch of no names, comprising of 8 straight weeks of 90+ points to open the 2016 season
Gridiron Gang has long been a disciple of the consistent scoring teams (outside of the terrible years), as opposed to going for the high point getters. Rarely in the highest amount of points in a week or a season, this stoic approach has paid off with some reward, but also can end in spectacular failure. 2016 was no different, but is arguably the most underrated and arguably one of the best seasons of Coach Stubbs's career.
Coming off back to back 8-6 seasons, Coach Stubbs had a so so draft (as is often the case), yielding good returns from David Johnson, Mike Wallace, Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins and Marvin Jones, while flaming out on Doug Martin, Randall Cobb, Jeremy Maclin, Eric Decker, and Matt Jones (yeah, remember him? Me neither).
But the similarities between many Gridiron Gang seasons ended there, because in Week 1 they actually one. Yes, you read that right, Gridiron Gang actually won a week 1 game. It wasn't flashy, but a 93-85 point victory vs ADRZ was enough to secure an elusive week 1 win for Coach Stubbs. Even rarer, Gridiron Gang would spring out to a 3-0 start, dropping W' on Tom's Tyrants (103-88) and The Dream Team (123-85). Not only is a 3-0 start eye brow raising, but the scores are fairly eye popping by Gridiron Gang's standards also.
But...that's when it started to slide back into a classic Gridiron Gang season. Over the next 5 weeks, Gridiron Gang would only win 1 game, seeing their fast start quickly slide to .500, and eventually finish the season 6-8 without the playoffs.
At this point you might be asking "why did Naithan nominate a season where he went 3-8 in the last 11 weeks of the season"? Well dear fans of the LOC - it's because much of those losses were far from Coach Stubbs's fault.
Across those 5 weeks from weeks 4-8, Gridiron Gang's lowest score would be 92 points, followed by 135, 102, 103 and 103. Aside from the 135, those scores aren't necessarily eye popping, but fellow coaches of the LOC know all to well that on a week to week basis it's easy for mud to slide down hill fast, and stringing consecutive good performances together can be harder than it sounds. In those games, Coach Stubbs's side conceded 104, 106, 113, 127 and 105. All in all, Coach Stubbs Jr achieved 8 straight weeks of 90+ points, a rarity in the LOC.
The pain wouldn't end there - as the injuries for Gridiron Gang started to pile up the second half of the season saw a few blips, while the opposition scores did not let up. After Week 4, Gridiron Gang would only face one team that scored less than 100 points against them, finishing the season with a league high 1482 points conceded.
But the true crown of this nomination is not that Gridiron Gang went 8 straight weeks with 90+ points, nor was it that they were the highest scoring team that year (and would have made playoffs under the new league rules). It was more about who they did it with. Below is a list of players that featured in Gridiron Gang's highest scoring team that season:
- Derek Carr
- Dontrelle Inman
- Malcolm Mitchell
- C.J. Fiedorowicz
- Ryan Griffin
- Kirk Cousins
- Kapri Bibbs (who?)
- Antone Smith (who?)
- Christine Michael
- Late period Dennis Pitta
- Late period Randall Cobb
- Late period Jeremy Maclin
- Late period Doug Martin
- Late period Eric Decker
While that's the list of those who featured, it's not even counterbalanced by a particularly strong starting line up. David Johnson was the only non-QB player to top 202 points for Gridiron Gang, Jordan Howard was the second highest with 201. The next closest was Mike Wallace with 131. Yet despite that, Coach Stubbs Jr cobbled together a team and extracted the utmost consistency from them - and not only consistency but achieved the highest scoring team.
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