History of the LOD
2019: Sleeper Era Begins; Alex Replaces Weege; Keepers & Free Trade; Erik Championship
The Sleeper Era would officially commence April 23rd, 2019 with the completed transition of the League to the new platform. Shortly after, teams were given the option to keep up to 3 players from their 2018 roster for the upcoming season. All teams but Roberto would elect to do so.
After the transition, a draft date was tentatively set for August 2019, though rescheduled to late July to align schedules for an in-person draft.
Weege Retires, Alex is Introduced
On July 3, 2019, Weege, a member of the Original Six, unexpectedly announced that he would be retiring from the LOD and did not intend to return for the upcoming season due to financial troubles. His departure provided the first major test of the League’s new format, with Weege already having set his Keepers and the draft in a little under a month. Wings & Chuck knew they would need to act quickly to bring someone in who would be willing to take on the team as-is and commit to the format. Within a week, Wings was able to recruit his cousin Alex Chinchilla, whom he had moved in with in the 2018 offseason. Alex had a couple years of FF experience, was familiar with the League as Wings’ housemate, and was open to participating in the Keeper format. He was formally announced as Weege’s replacement on July 12, 9 days before the draft.
2019 Season Results
The first draft of the Sleeper Era took place July 27, 2019 at the Trap House, with eight of ten members in attendance and the defending Champion Wings arriving ten rounds late. With no trade limit and draft picks now available as capital, there was a frenzy of deals during and after the draft.
The regular season was one of the most closely-contested in League history. It was one of only three seasons in the Sleeper Era (along with 2022 and 2025) where no team reached the 10-win mark. It was also the first season in recorded LOD history (until 2025) to have a team with a winning record miss the playoffs.
The season had several notable storylines throughout. One of the most significant was the failed title defense of Wings. His 1-5 start is one of the worst in LOD history for a defending champion, and despite ending the season on a 6-1 run, he would end up missing the playoffs after being last in a three-way tie for the final 2 seeds. Ant, who would secure the sixth and final seed, would edge Wings out by 13 PF.
Wings would not be the only one to decline from their previous season. Joe, after a record 9-0 start and 12-1 finish the season before, would start the 2019 season 0-10, the worst start in the Sleeper Era, and end dead last at 2-11. Hurtado, after being eliminated in the previous season’s first round, continued his downward trend, finishing 3-10 and with the lowest PF.
Alex, in his debut year, started the season 4-4, doing the best he could with an inherited team before falling out of contention during the stretch run to end 5-8.
Despite a smaller playoff field, Gio, Ant, and Nauch would all return to the postseason after qualifying 6,7,8 the previous year. Chuck and Erik would also punch their playoff tickets with as the highest-scoring teams. Most notably, Roberto completed a worst-to-first turnaround to become the #1 seed in what was a tight competition.
The playoffs commenced week fourteen of the season. Gio and Chuck, who’s fledgling rivalry increased in intensity throughout the 2019 season, would meet in the first round. Gio was hoping to not repeat his first round exit, while Chuck sought to avoid missing another Championship game. On the other side of the bracket, Erik was keen to make it back to the final, lining up against Ant. Gio and Erik would both win these matchups by comfortable margins to advance to the semifinals.
With 9-4 records, Rob and Nauch earned first round byes in the League’s new playoff format. Both would end up getting blown out by Gio and Erik, whose teams were in top form, in the semifinals. This would be Erik’s second consecutive championship game, and Gio’s first appearance of four straight.
The LOD title game commenced week 16. Erik, supported by CMC, won in blowout fashion by over 50 points and was the first team to eclipse 200 points in the Final. This was Erik’s first League title, redeeming his loss the year before, and is the first title awarded in the Sleeper Era. He was also the first to have the Trophy formally handed over to them as the new Champion.
2019 Season Aftermath and Legacy
The 2019 season represented the successful launch of the modern LOD as well as a continuation towards increased parity. Erik would become the third member of the LOD to win a championship in as many years. His success was a bright spot for the Original Six, who saw one of their own depart and three others miss playoffs as the more recent expansion teams began to find their groove.
The introduction of Keepers and other new rules dramatically altered the landscape of the League’s trade market. Teams had access to a new form of capital with draft picks and could make decisions with the future of their team in mind, opening up new strategies such as buying-in and, more notably, tanking. The 4-week period between the draft and regular season alone saw record levels of trade activity, partly due to the very early date of the draft, but with many leveraging picks as teams tried to figure out how to value them.
One of the seminal trades of this time period, and representative of this era, was The AB Trade that occurred on September 7, 2019. Chuck traded a package including three 2020 fourth-round picks to acquire Antonio Brown, who had recently signed with the Patriots after forcing a release with the Raiders. Brown’s one game with the team, followed by a suspension for the remainder of the season, would cement this as one of the worst trades of the Sleeper Era.
While the League was still considered to be a Co-Commissionership, this season saw a continued transfer of power from Chuck to Wings, with both now being able to make Commissioner decisions as equals. Chuck, with multiple scandals having rocked him over the years, had no problem allowing Wings to take a more active role.
League Content in 2019
Wings would continue to write the blog and utilize Blogger as his hosting site. Increased commitments to his job as well as travel began to make it more difficult for Wings to post consistently, and would stop completely after week 8. Therefore, there is a gap in blog records until the earliest surviving Blogger Boys records in 2022.
Along with the blog, Wings also had a one-off podcast with Nauch called Fourth and Long, an idea of Nauch’s to add new content to the League. The podcast focused on free-form discussion and analysis around the League, and debuted early in the 2019 season via a Discord Channel launched by Nauch. The podcast would air one episode before its cancellation, but served as a foundation for future attempts at both a podcast and LOD Discord.