Ever sat there in your licensed Falcons easy chair, wearing your throwback Jamal Anderson jersey, pondering just how well the 1998 Falcons could do against an opponent on this year's schedule? Have you, like I'm sure reader orang3b has, sat there with your voluminous notes and play charts and stat sheets, dreaming of a chance to actually use the numbers you so lovingly analyze? Well, dream and ponder no longer. What If Sports has partnered with your favorite Falcons blog to bring you some awesome features.
What If Sports is, at its heart, a fully-functional fantasy simulator. You can build a "dream team" in any sport, drafting the players you choose from any year on any team or you can simply take, say the '76 Steelers, and pit them against the '07 Patriots. Or, if you're feeling particularly mean spirited, you can pit the '07 Patriots against the '07 Lions 10,001 times. If What If Sports can get away with simulating the Browns-Ravens MNF matchup 10,001 times, I'm sure you won't have any conflicts of conscience.
With all of this simulation, you're probably wondering where the "playing with the numbers" part comes in. You fantasy football nuts should zoom in right here -> What If Sports lets you build a fantasy sports team with your favorite players from any era, any team, any style of play and then puts your personal all-time pro bowl team in a league to play against up to 24 other stat mavens' perfect teams. The gurus at What If call this feature SimLeague.
Now, onto business. I plan to introduce a few new features on the site utilizing What If Sports' snazzy technology. First and foremost, I'll either be taking some classic teams of Falcons lore and pitting them against modern day foes, or taking our new look Falcons to battle against older foes that deserve a spanking or, in some cases, a re-spanking.
Also, What If was nice enough to provide us with a free 24 slot Falcoholic SimLeague. Yes, we now officially have a fantasy fantasy football league. Dave and I take up two slots, so that invariably means that 22 of you will be the lucky winners of some hot, free SimLeague action. You're welcome in advance. I'll run the raffle soon.
To kick off this day of forces joining, I decided to pit our 2008 surprise playoff team against our 2004 surprise playoff team. Both teams went 11-5, both went into the playoffs. Of course, the '04 Falcons made it all the way to the NFC Championship while our newer Falcons lost in the Wild Card. Apparently, that doesn't matter. Ryan and company completely demolished 'em 48 to 21. What a difference four years makes, eh? Check out the full boxscore