I don’t like Carlos. He’s kind of a douche. He’s arrogant as the Lord is holy. (This is a vulture calling another vulture ugly, but that doesn’t make what I’m saying any less right) Just because I don’t like Carlos doesn’t mean I don’t respect his ability to continuously build a competitive football team and make magic happen. Accomplishing the near impossible, he’s made the playoffs the last couple of years as the 6th seed and won the NFC.
He’s a great player, and could possibly be the best at this game in the league. His moves are calculated and unrushed. He has no weaknesses from any facet of the game and usually keeps a balanced approach when it comes to how he builds his team.
With all that being said, this doesn’t make him any less lucky. Yes, I said it. This fool is mad lucky. There’s a parallel universe where Carlos doesn’t make the playoffs last year after some poor soul on his team goes down in the 1st quarter. There’s some universe that saw me play Carlos the week he beat Nils and I whopped his ass in the playoffs. There a universe where Ty Montgomery doesn’t put up 40 points on an injury-ravaged Bears defense and Calias Campbell doesn’t have a football fall into his lap and run into the endzone. Talk about shower cry material there.
Luck is a part of the game, but that shows Carlos’ margin for error is extremely thin. There is a reasonable argument that can be made that Carlos doesn’t even deserve to be the NFC title holder because of the extreme luck he saw throughout the regular season as well, with other teams falling apart at the end of the year.
But the results matter, and while I’ve beaten Carlos multiple times, he owns me when it counts. I could have stopped him from making the playoffs last year, and I didn’t. I could have stopped him from making the playoffs in 2015 in Mordor and I didn’t. (He consequently kept me out of the playoffs that year too.)
This year the start of dominance begins. Carlos has a very good squad, and has a chance to win the South. But it’s not likely, especially after losing David Johnson. He knows this. With a complete lack of draft picks by going all-in for 2017, he left himself vulnerable for future years as well.
I won’t take away what Carlos has done. He deserves it 1000% and I’m jealous. But it doesn’t change he’s a lucky bitch and luck isn’t going to help him this year. It’s the Bucs’ turn, and he’s going to get a taste of that week 3.

To Chris:

To call this rivalry, in my opinion, is a stretch. The only two rivals I really have at this time are Nils and Carlos and both of them, for the most part, have historically gotten the better of me. However, here’s some history on why Chris and I have bad blood from my perspective, as there is definitely a tipping point from our past.
Chris and I have never played each other in the 4 or so years in playing the game. Starting back in Mordor, Chris was the punching bag and one of the GMs that was regarded as poor at the game. He didn’t participate in any of the ancillary activities of the league like the radio shows, articles, etc. When IFL formed, I didn’t believe Chris belonged in this league with his obvious lack of knowledge and more importantly lack of participation. When he joined IFL, and in the NFC mind you, I didn’t hide my disdain for this decision, which created friction from the get-go.
One drunken night a couple months into the season, I sent out multiple offers that involved Julio Jones. Many offers were asking for 4-5 assets in return for Jones. The following morning, Chris decided to come on IFL chat to degrade, shame and put me down for the offer I sent, which at the time included a package of Brandon Marshall, Justin Forsett and a 2016 late 1st round pick. Now it didn’t take the league long to figure out what happened, which was the Chris didn’t reject the offer, but rather accepted it. Now this was unprecedented territory for the league and there were many options on the table. Fortunately, all of them, for the most part, included me having the leverage. I could: 1. Keep the accepted trade as is. 2. Negate the trade like nothing happened. 3. Revise the trade so that both Chris and I were ‘happier’ with the result. I saw this as an opportunity. Not to make a friend, but rather straight up shit on this piece of crap that thought it was a good idea to come on chat and degrade an offer I sent him. I was fucking pissed. This joke of a GM, who hadn’t done anything for 3 years from a record or participation standpoint was shaming me on chat for sending what he thought was a bad trade offer? BUT HE FUCKING MISTAKENLY ACCEPTED THE OFFER NOT 10 MINUTES BEFORE? The only thing going through my mind was… It’s time to make this guy pay.
So I played nice. I wanted him to think that while I was not happy with how he acted on chat, I understood that mistakes happen to every human and we can find a solution that can quell both parties. But I could tell Chris was flustered. So instead of asking for Brandon Marshall and Justin Forsett, I asked for two different players on better contracts, Michael Crabtree and Demaryius Thomas. The original deal also had a 2016 1st round pick that he wanted to keep, so I asked for a 2016 2nd rounder (turned into Joey Bosa) and his 2017 1st round pick that ended up being the 2nd overall pick last year. (traded that for 6 picks)
While this was going on, I knew what I was doing. I was getting a much better deal than my original. Forsett was a plodder for most of his career, but in a situation, he could succeed and Marshall was on a bad 3-year $10 million deal. Both ended up being underachievers in 2016 and DT and Crabs were my #4 and #5 starters in my NFC championship run. Right after the 2nd deal was consummated in fact, I was DMing at least a half a dozen owners on how I just took advantage of Chris so badly in his vulnerable state, and how foolish he was for feeling so bad for all the shit he talked and looking like such a fool.
I’ve only seen one other GM more rattled from fantasy football than Chris that day. (Wayne) He had no idea what he was agreeing to, and his ass was hanging up in the air. Sadly for Chris, if he didn’t accept that trade, there is a pretty good chance he would have made the postseason in 2016. It was the epitome example of why he has his reputation.
Chris is generally a sweet person, but I don’t feel bad at all. He crossed me that day and I made him pay. He shouldn’t have made that mistake and he certainly shouldn’t have expected me to be fair to him after the shit he talked not an hour before we entered negotiations to revise the deal. He learned who the fucking shark was and the underdeveloped minnow. He’s my bitch IFL. He always has been and week 3 will be no different.