COROLLA, NC
With Jason Enright winning his third title in four years, it got me to thinking: who are the best Immersion owners? Certainly Enright must be right up there, right? His uncanny ability to somehow massage the cap when it seems he has no cap space and 8 holdouts, to harvest the crops from his farm teams in Oregon, and to have just the right amount of luck in the playoffs has certainly contributed to his success.
But then again you’ve got your Franssens of the world, always active on the trade front and proposing new rules. And what about guys like Jesse and Tim, who’ve taken over seriously dysfunctional franchises and started to build towards success?
Well, since nobody else was doing it, I created a highly unscientific and arbitrary rating system for the Immersion owners. I ranked the owners across different categories, which might best be grouped as team success, talent scouting, and owner participation. It might be easy to poke holes in my rating system – were you to create your own you might come up with something better – but until somebody writes an article that argues otherwise, one can safely assume that my rating system is the ultimate authority on the matter.
If you were drafting owners for your league, this would be your cheatsheet.
Tier 1
1. Jason Enright – 164 points – No surprises here, as Enright gets the top spot thanks to his three championships. No other owner in the league has more than one. Additionally, Enright ranked 2nd in division titles, overall winning percentage, and average scoring, thereby scoring highly in the team success category. In terms of talent scouting, Enright was less effective, but still finished in the top-5 in most areas. He generally produces well-rounded rosters with consistent scoring across the board. He doesn’t do a lot of drafting, so he doesn’t necessarily always have the can’t miss MVP types on his squad, but his approach has definitely been successful (see championships and 2nd highest points per game.) Enright is in the top-3 in all owner participation categories and can be counted on to return emails and respond to trade offers.
2. Josh Hammond – 161 points – Hammond has the most successful winning percentage, just edging out Enright. Hammond and Enright have battled to a 5-5 record against each other over the years. Hammond is solidly consistent across the board, winning three consecutive division titles, two thirds of his games, and scoring the most points per game over the years. He has rostered three MVPs and 18 All-Immersion players. He easily outpaces the rest of the league in terms of blog posts and comments, and has been known to wheel and deal in the past. Unlike Enright, Hammond has developed most of his own home-grown players through the draft, and may covet draft picks more than any other owner in the league.
Tier 2
3. Adam Franssen – 114 points – Franssen is often able to convince other owners to deal their best assets for a pile of bums stewing in their own bum juices – a phenomenon that happens so frequently it has been termed “getting Franssened.” He is one of the three non-Enright owners to have won a championship (the very first one.) Since then, his teams have been mercurial, scoring 200 points one day and falling off the face of the planet the next, thanks to many injuries and multiple suspensions. Franssen’s win percentage is solidly average, despite being the third highest scoring team per game. Franssen shines, though, in talent scouting, rostering 17 All-Immersion players. He also makes a big splash in owner participation, with the second most blog posts and an active commenting profile.
4. Matt Giorgianni – 100 points – Giorgianni began his career on fire, winning consecutive division titles, but has since fallen on harder times. Like Franssen, his 7th place win percentage ranking isn’t setting the world on fire. He also won the dreaded Most Futile Franchise moniker, costing him some points in this ranking. Nobody can argue with his genius picks of Von Miller and JJ Watt. Watt has given him 4 MVPs, though may have caused him to reach for rush linebackers in subsequent drafts. Giorgianni ranks third in All-Immersion players, and ranks fourth in blog comments. He can gain ground this year by contributing more blog posts, especially now that his kids are a little bit older.
5. Jon Marcot – 100 points – Marcot is on the opposite trajectory as Giorgianni – he started out weak (so weak) but has come on strong in recent years. Last year he led the league in scoring and was heavily favored to defeat Enright in the championship game, but was unable to overcome Enright’s deal with the devil. His teams have bested 200 points three times, a feat matched only by Franssen, and he’s moved up to fourth in points per game. Marcot has been somewhat victimized by his success at drafting, however, as he had to pay top-dollar to retain star restricted free agents this year and is bedeviled with four contract holdouts as of press time. Marcot’s style of acquiring as many dudes as possible for $1 and seeing which ones work out, along with brilliant drafting, seem to have found some success, as he’s coming off his best season ever.
Tier 3
6. Tom Rothfus – 67 points – Definitely not a first round pick, but a good plugin for certain game situations. Rothfus has matched the incredible Hammond by winning three division titles, but his laziness in the category of owner participation led to him not even changing the dumb division name of his predecessor. This is unfortunate, because he has a top-3 winning percentage and manages to put together winning, if not overwhelmingly talented, rosters. One has to question the heart of this clearly talented owner – you could take a risk on him in hopes that he puts it all together. But you wouldn’t want to waste a high draft pick on someone who hasn’t updated their owner profile page since 2011.
7. Jesse Garcia – 65 points – Garcia is the anti-Rothfus. He has no talent to speak of, but he’s a grinder – always willing to make trades (usually bad) and participate in the league conversation. Garcia has been just above .500 during his tenure in the league, which is pretty impressive considering the garbage team he inherited, and even more impressive when you consider all of the trades he got bested on. Garcia managed to win a division title during Peyton Manning’s drug fueled 55-TD season after making an ill-advised trade for the washed up bum with the high salary. Garcia makes the league better with his owner participation, however. Though his owner profile picture is quite disturbing, and his two blog posts are sort of racist, his enthusiasm is a breath of fresh air for those who are tired of only hearing from Hammond and Franssen. Also, I don’t know what “God walked on water, I will swim thru (sic) fucking land” means, but it makes me laugh.
Tier 4
8. Ryan Lindsay – 47 points – Lindsay is a study in contradictions. He has a championship and a most futile franchise honor. He somehow ranks 5th in winning percentage despite scoring less than 140 points a game. He broke the record for salary on Adrian Peterson only to see him get suspended for the season – and won the title that same year! This year he traded Peterson for McCoy, who is way worse but whose salary is almost as high. Somehow these things seem to work out for Lindsay. Lindsay is a meth-addled crazy person when it comes to roster management. Sometimes it works out; often it does not. With more than a year of parenthood under his belt, one can only assume that his owner participation will increase, and that Lindsay could be a decent value pick in the later rounds.
9. Josh Weldin – 43 points – Weldin is a cautionary tale. A gifted owner with the right attitude, Weldin’s fantasy career has been derailed by injuries. Like RGIII’s gruesome exploding knee, Weldin’s recovery cut into productivity. He is the only owner to go 0-13 in a season, but he somehow managed to not win the Most Futile Franchise award, saving his one win for the game that counted most. He has a division title to his name and drafted Cam Newton in the first round (with many people saying their nay,) and stuck with him until last year’s MVP season. Weldin is hopefully on the comeback trail and can build on some of his recent success.
Tier 5
10. Ben Pershey – 31 points – Pershey and his franchise perfectly embody the city of Cleveland. He made a bold move to trade his first round pick for Megatron, only to see Megatron instantly retire (and his pick became, of course, the 2nd pick overall.) Pershey is 16-26 since he took over a maligned Kensington Dragons team, but his recent move to restructure Andrew Luck is indicative of some forward thinking for the franchise. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Battery put together a string of victories and maybe even win a tiebreaker for division title, but there’s no reason to overdraft here. They’ll be available in the later rounds.
11. Tim Matuszak – 24 points – Matuszak took over a distressed franchise and has slowly been working towards relevance. Some Oregon fans might think the rebuild is taking too long, but a closer look shows that the franchise is 24-32, making Matuszak a sneaky late round sleeper pick. Tim has participated well in email (rightly calling out winners and losers in trades,) but could do a bit more with the blog and the owner profile. Lot of upside here.
Tier 6
12. Jeremy Jeppsen – (-28 points) – Jeppsen’s futility is a wonder. He’s been in the league two seasons and won the Most Futile Franchise award both times. At least with those poor finishes he would be given a top draft pick, right? Wrong. He traded away the 2nd pick overall last offseason and just recently traded away the first pick overall. In both cases, he got Franssened, proving he’s incapable of learning from his mistakes. So what gems did Franssen return to help build up this sorry squad? Marqise Lee and Kyle Rudolph for the 2nd pick, and Dorial Green-Beckham and Randall Cobb for the first pick. Jeppsen took over for a terrible Bounty Hunters team, so the sledding was rough. But going into his third year of existence he’s had picks 1.01, 1.02, and 1.01. A competent owner would have built a nice nucleus of star players. Jeppsen is not a competent owner. He chose to enrich the (r)EvoLUtion instead. Okay, so maybe his team’s performance has been a little underwhelming. But Jeppsen hasn’t stepped up in owner participation either, aside from a few emails here and there. Dude doesn’t have a Facebook account and hasn’t even filled out an initial owner profile. Don’t fall for the “upside” argument. Take him off your draft board.
Think the rankings are accurate? Complete garbage? Chime in below!
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