XTRA 20 - Issue 1 by XRFL

Published via electronic platform Issue. Issue is a Trademark if Issue Publishing. Do not reprint any photos or stories contained within this publication without the express permission of the periodical author. Follow the XRFL on our website: http://xrfl.wordpress.com and on our Facebook group page. 9 8 7 2 7 1 B

Hello guys and welcome to the inaugural issue of the XRFL’s premier magazine, Xtra. We are pleased to bring this new feature to our league to help inspire gameplay and dedication amongst our members. We will endeavor to bring out weekly issues, but please know that the production of this magazine is time consuming — please be patient with us and enjoy! We are always looking for article and feature ideas so please share with us if you have any! Enjoy! XRFL Commissioner

6 XRFL Readies to Kick off 9 Meet Your Opponent 10 The Rise in Competition 12 Power Rankings 14 XRFL Builds on its Legacy

18 Team of the Week 20 2nd annual Expy’s Awards 26 Division by Division Breakdown 30 Season 1 Predications 32 Where You At Bro?

Written by: Mark Sickle

Another year has passed, and another installment of Madden has dropped. The XRFL major leagues has specifically waited to start up so that we can start with the most accurate roster update, which should be forthcoming any day now hurricanes notwithstanding. While the XRFL does have two other leagues already started, the majors has always been the premier platform for the X brand. As we prepare to kick off the Madden 20 season in the majors, I thought it would be nice to take a quick jaunt through our past, followed by where weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going in the future. The Xtreme Reality Football League began as a small, 8 man connected franchise league in Madden 16. This league was all comprised of guys that worked at the same placeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Ruby Tuesday. Among those 8 competitors was none other than current league member Tim Harper and former XRFL veteran Addam Randolph, who continued on with the XRFL for the past few years. The league was just a fun place for friends and co-workers to hang out and play realistic football with each other, then talk smack while at work. We had a blast! At the same time, I was beginning to explore Head 2 Head competition online as well as joining various online leagues. I was disappointed by the lack of respect for each other on

those other online leagues, no one wanting to help each other out to get better, and in general no structure. People running the same plays, running up the score to an incredible degree, and I first learned about what I now know of as cheese. I had had so much fun running the league amongst my friends, where we all respected each other and played realistically, that I wanted to continue the following year with Madden 17. The league grew to 14 players when we added a few new co-workers and some family members. As Madden 18 approached, I knew I was hooked for more. In late August 2017, I posted the first recruitment ad for the Xtreme Reality Football League (XRFL). Many of you who are currently still in the league were among the first to join that year â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the first year we grew to 32 users. Those of you who were among our first users I refer to as the Founders, because you helped to make this league what it is today just as much as I was. Our rules and organization right off the bat was a huge draw for people, but we had to weed through a dozen or so poor fits â&#x20AC;&#x201D; players that didn't fit into the culture we were building. Before long we had formed our own little community, a core of guys that has stuck together now for 3 Maddens and 9 XRFL leagues in various iterations.

Evolution of the XRFL Logo. Top photo was the very first recruiting ad. Bottom right is the current logo.

The XRFL has also pioneered new ways to create excitement, encourage loyalty, and reward active users. I created features such as the league magazine, supplemental drafts, EXPN news service, tournaments, holiday bowls and so much more. We’ve also had league websites, team twitter accounts, and now podcasts. Last year we toyed with the idea of starting a league Youtube account with video features, although it never materialized. These features are now regularly copied by many leagues, but it all originated right here in Madden 16 and 17 with the XRFL. Since 2017, the XRFL has continued to grow and prosper. Each year we start anywhere between 3-4 leagues and this year will be no different. Instead of doing a majors and minors league, we’ve decided to do majors leagues (Majors and Remix). A Minors league may still come into play at some point during the year, but we wanted to get the main leagues up and running before we branched out further. This year we’ve also decided to try something we’ve been wanting to do for some time — XRFL’s very own legends league! The expansion of two majors leagues and the legends league has seen a considerable growth in unique users. We went from 32 users, with a solid core of 24, to 55 unique users and three full leagues. We are generally hoping to make this league great again with all the features that we offer, and help to build our community even more. Thanks for being a part of the XRFL legacy, and as always stay #XRFLstrong.

Casey Bushaw Lives in: Perry, Iowa Age: 25 Occupation: Runs an ATV business Engaged to be Married 2 kids, expecting 1 more

Been Playing Madden: 5 years Favorite Team: Steelers Favorite part about playing Madden: That no matter who I play… I always have to think about who I’m facing and how to slow them down… I think about strategies on how to stop them the next time I play them. Random Fact: I have a deep obsession with hats. I probably own about 60 hats! Sports hats, beanies, stockings… all kinds!

Written by: Mark Sickle

Having had the same core of guys for a few years now, we’ve definitely seen users come and go. We’ve seen hard hitters be contenders year in and year out, and we’ve seen users who lacked skill in the beginning turn things around quickly. One thing Is for sure, we’ve definitely seen a rise in the competition level in the XRFL. Here’s a look at some of the users who’ve stepped up their game recently, and how they factor into this coming years Madden. Let’s start with one of the more recent surges of success, our perennial Browns user, Daniel Blanton. One of our premier Founder members, Daniel has always been above average talent-wise, with a maddening user lurk and some hard hitting stick skills. He almost always ends up in some level of the playoffs, always scaling the bluffs of post-season play but never seeming to reach the peak. That all changed in the final season of Madden 19 when Daniel fought his way to the Super Bowl against his friend, Dalton Gregory (who, by the way, was also in his first Super Bowl). Although Daniel did not win this outing in the

Super Bowl, he did win a Super Bowl in the XRFL Minor Leagues last year. Daniel’s gameplay has come to be one of the best in the league, and you know he’ll always show up to play hard. I can’t wait to see if he reaches the Super Bowl this year. One user who struggled mightily at the beginning of his XRFL tenure was Dustin Thomas. Although he was always a dedicated and active member, he never really seemed to grasp the winning edge in his matchups. Towards the latter half of Madden 19 and continuing into Madden 20, Dustin appears to have improved greatly. While he may not be a consistent playoff contender, he has definitely gotten much better as a user. He’s developing rather nicely in his pass game and in his user lurk. Dustin made the playoffs in the final season of Madden 19, so hopefully his star is on the rise and we’ll be seeing more of him. Another user who has recently shown a gigantic leap in skill is Michael Hunter. Like Daniel, Michael has always been a consistently good user who finds his way into the postseason. While he did not make the Super Bowl in previous years, he looks poised to do so this year. His gameplay has been damn near unbeatable. We’ll see how far he goes in this years XRFL. There are a lot of other examples of users who’ve improved their game over the years, and the XRFL is definitely becoming a competitive place.

For the past few years since its inception, the XRFL has consisted of anywhere between 2 and 5 leagues per Madden year. Every year we seek to grow and expand our community with new league concepts like we’ve never before. As a league owner and innovator, I have been wanting to start our very own legends league for some time, but could never settle on the right format. That all changed this Madden offseason when we set in motion the groundworks for our newest league — XRFL Legacy. During the Madden 19 season, I ran an offline league where I created an entire starting roster of Redskins greats and legends. Everyone from Super Bowl winning quarterback Doug Williams to the Hall of Fame linebacker Chris Hanburger, even the great safety Sean Taylor who passed long before this time in a home invasion. Every starting position was filled with someone I had grown up watching, or was a part of the Redskins historical legacy. Needless to say I had a blast playing with MY Redskins, remembering the greatest moments of my teams history. The offensive line was stocked with members of the famed Hogs, the receiving corps was replete with members of the Fun Bunch, and the defense had all the big names—London Fletcher, Darrell Green, Charles Mann, Dexter Manley… I was loving this version of my team. It got me to thinking — would this concept translate well to a 32 man online connected franchise?

I quietly asked around to some of the XRFL veterans whether they thought a league full of legends and team greats would work. The overwhelming response was positive, so I began drawing up plans. To make this concept work, I searched hard for actual fans of the teams I need to fill… All too often in Madden, users will play with certain teams that aren't their favorites in real life because of a good roster, or high rated players, or whatever. They key for me was actual fans filling their favorite teams. The foundational idea behind the league was that every user would be able to select 22 players from their teams history. Five of them would be Hall of Fame legends, while the remaining 17 players would be team greats or personal favorites. I know that some of the XRFL veterans felt slighted by not receiving an invitation to this league, but I hope they will understand that it wasn’t a personal decision to slight them. The reality is that after four years of growth, the XRFL had a ton of people that had either played in one league iteration or another, or were on the waiting list. I was looking forward to expanding our user base and building our community even bigger than it had ever been before. The ONLY criteria I had for filling Legacy teams was whether or not they were true fans of their real life teams.

I began the league by gathering my commissioner, and by extension, editing team. Once I had 32 users, team owners submitted their Legacy rosters to the commissioner team for review and approval. Forming and vetting these 22 man rosters was a big task — it required hours of in depth research. We had to form strategies to deal with historical players who served time on multiple teams, especially Hall of Famers. The answer was to give dibs to the teams they were MOST well known for, or in the case of Legends, the team they were inducted into the Hall of Fame on. If that primary team didn't want to draft the player, then selection dibs fell to the next team they played on. For instance, as a Redskins owner I desperately wanted CB Champ Bailey — a personal favorite of mine; however since he was inducted into the HOF as a Bronco, Casey English had first dibs. I tried to convince him to let me have Champ, but in the end Casey exercised his right to draft the great cornerback.

The commissioner/edit team comprised of 7 men who spent countless hours over 9 days editing some 704 players in Madden. That’s an astounding amount of editing to do! I am ever so appreciative of them for their help and support. We wanted to take our time… dive deep into research and consult many forms of resources to make these players as hyper realistic as possible. For ratings and attributes we consulted the NFL Hall of Fame website, NFL official website, Official player websites, prior Madden player cards, Wikipedia, players personal websites, official combine and pro day stats, and so much more. Each player was edited with care for physical looks, to the best of our available options, and specific traits were added to mirror their real life attributes. For instance there is a HOF olineman (I honestly cant remember who now) that caught 7 TD passes during his career on olineman eligible passes — this player was endowed with great catch skills. If players were great kickoff/punt returners, that was also included. Many of these attributes probably wont ever be usable in Madden (such as the olineman catching a pass), but we wanted them to be as realistic as possible. As an editing team, we decided to make all HOF Legends somewhere in the vicinity of 82-85 Overall with Superstar development traits. The other 17 historical players would be from 72-75 normal dev. Many of them though, had very high ratings and attributes but lacked awareness or play recognition. These normal players would have to be the focus of development. I am happy to say that after all of the hard work of research and edit, the entire league was overly happy with the resulting editing players. Many guys even commented on how true they were to their real life counterparts. So far this league has been everything I could have dreamed it to be, and finally the XRFL has its very own legends league. The tagline for XRFL Legacy was: Build your own Legacy. Who wouldn't love to take a roster full of their favorite players and team greats to the Super Bowl? Everything we do in this league is designed to enhance the feeling of history, powerful as it may be. I’ve even taken the time to create football cards to match some of the edited players. So far it has been an amazing success, and I truly look forward to where it’s going next. Together, we are further building the Legacy of the XRFL.

Ever since joining the XRFL at its very first inception, Tim Harper has had his ups-and-downs. The first two years Tim was great competition, fighting his way to the playoffs every year and even competing for the big trophy once. It’s no secret that Tim has had his troubles since the XRFL became a larger 32 man league. Yet he remains active, dedicated and firmly committed to the XRFL’s philosophy. This year he commands the powerful Cowboys offense and many insiders believe his fortunes may be changing for the better. While it may take some time for him to reach the top, Tim’s skills rest in running the ball. And there is no doubt that with Zeke and the mighty Cowboys o-line, Tim has fared much better this year so far in running the rock. Year 1 predictions for Tim are somewhere in the middle at 8-8, barely missing playoffs, but his outlook may be brighter in future seasons.

Big shout out of thanks to Dalton Gregory for hosting our 2nd Annual Expyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Award show. Below are the Expy award winners and the prizes they can claim here at the beginning of Madden 20.

+10 Attribute Points

Casey English

+10 Attribute Points Daniel Blanton

Dev Trait Upgrade Dalton Gregory

Dev Trait Upgrade Alex Bisconti

+10 Attribute Points Dustin Thomas

+8 Attribute Points Luke Fiddner

Dev Trait Upgrade Tim Harper

+6 Attribute Points Kevin Thompson

+6 Attribute Points Wade Will

+8 Attribute Points Luke Fiddner

+3 Attribute Points Casey English

+3 Attribute Points Keishon Cox

+3 Attribute Points Daniel Blanton

Dev Trait Upgrade

Simon Hyland

+5 Attribute Points Daniel Blanton

+5 Attribute Points Kevin Thompson

+5 Attribute Points Luke Fiddner

+5 Attribute Points Keishon Cox

+10 Attribute Points Dalton Gregory

+5 Attribute Points Kyle Ousley

+5 Attribute Points Mark Sickle

+5 Attribute Points Kenny Copeland

+5 Attribute Points Casey Lewis Kaiser

+10 Attribute Points Tyler Hermida

As we dive into XRFL 20 starting tonight, I thought it would be nice to do a quick rundown of each division. We have a lot of returning veterans and a good amount of new faces… let’s take a quick look to see how each division is looking for our first season.

The NFC North is an entirely new landscape, with the exception of one face—Wade Will. The Packers will be strong again this year under his leadership, but we’ll have to be patient with Wade as he balances his family time with Madden. I believe for the first time ever the Bears rest in the hands of someone not named Kyle or Mike… Dagan Lightner has taken his talents from the Buccaneers of past Maddens to Chicago to bring life to the Windy City. David Buskirk spent some time with us last year and has rejoined the X community by taking control of the Lions. Welcome in XRFL rookie Cole Alvarado who will be guiding Kirk Cousins and the Minnesota club. Wade is a competitor for sure, as is Dagan. David and Cole may be the wildcards in this division.

The NFC South has a number of heavy hitters and may prove to be one of the most entertaining divisions in the league. Headlining the South is Kyle Ousley who will be missing his Bears group this year, but look for him to make deep runs into the postseason each year. Electric quarterback Cam Newton and the Panthers will be helmed by Brandon Boyte who is also a major player. Brandon will maneuver the Panthers into playoff contention every season. Normally the Texans owner, Tyler Hermida selflessly agreed to take the Buccaneers in a trade. He may be in for a hard struggle with a lackluster Bucs roster, but Tyler always finds a way to compete. And finally, a new face graces the South in Andrew Stills who will be taking over Who Dat? Nation. He’ll have an uphill battle surrounded by so many competitive guys, but hopefully he’ll get his feet under him quickly.

The NFC East is a new battleground with new faces… Mark Sickle is the only returning cast member, repping the Hail to the Redskins fight song in Landover. He’ll take control of a promising roster and hope to move them into some semblance of competitiveness. The real story in the East is defector Alex Bisconti who has usurped the Eagles ball club. Bisconti will be the real threat to the East, and all roads to the playoffs run through Philly this season. Tim Harper has run amok recently with the Cowboys offense, and that offensive line and run game will be his to rely on. New veteran Casey Bushaw will round out the East with the Giants. Can he get the best out of Eli’s final few seasons or does rookie Daniel Jones take over center?

Here is another division that promises to have great battles. Two men remain in this division from previous seasonsâ&#x20AC;Ś Dalton Gregory and Jonathan Drescher. Both of them are serious players and will reach the playoffs more often than not. The Rams will benefit from the leadership of Micheal Reilly who is a tough player to battle against. He may also give the Seahawks and Cardinals a run for their money. Showing off his recent growth in Madden skill, Dustin Thomas will bring life to the San Francisco bay area. This will be a tough division, and it will be one of the hardest to predict every year.

This may be a division in constant flux. As it stands there are three users in this division that bring constant heat and will be vying for the playoffs. Daniel Blanton returns as his favorite team, the Baker Mayfield-led Browns. He reached the Super Bowl for the first time ever in the majors last Madden, but came only oh-so-close to taking the trophy. Maybe he will have better luck this Madden season. The Ravens have been caught by a new owner, Matthew Young. Look for him to release the birds and take flight (either with Lamarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arm or his legs). Whether out on the beat or in on the couch, Jason Andrew will constantly be thinking of ways to steer the Steelers into contention. Rounding out the North will be new addition Kenny Copeland. Will he bring back the curse of the pharaoh? Oh wait, no relocation in the majors this year.

This division is a cut throat group of guys and will be very hard to determine down to the last game. Kevin Thompson will try to get the Luck-less Colts going in the right direction. He’ll have to contend with the talented roster of the Jaguars and Simon Hyland. Despite his overseas origin, Simon always finds a way to play to his strengths. Max will attempt to grow the Titans into a monstrous threat in the South. Newcomer, and heavy hitter, Anthony Hernandez will take the reigns of the Texans offense and fight for a playoff berth.

While the Buffalo Bills remain without an owner, leadership is searching hard to fill this team with the right candidate. That doesn't mean there is a ton of talent in the East. Luke Fiddner owns this division, as he has for several years now. But an invader from the West has set up camp in Miami — Casey Lewis Kaiser hopes to rebuild a devastated roster. The Jets will be taking flight under the management of Cody Richard Samways. He’ll have a steep learning curve going up against Casey and Luke.

And last but certainly not least — singularly the hardest division in XRFL football. Keishon Cox will return as the Raiders to steal a few more Super Bowl championships. Casey English will mount the Broncos and charge off to postseason berths like a wild man. Michael Hunter will rally the Chiefs and fight to scalp a few teams hopes at late year success. And finally, rookie newcomer Sam Rivard will look to add muscle to this already tight division.

Browns

Vikings

Patriots

Texans

Raiders

Raiders over Browns

Eagles Buccaneers Seahawks Falcons over Buccaneers

Browns

Patriots

Jaguars

Raiders

Bears

Cowboys

Falcons

Seahawks

Broncos over Browns

Seahawks over Falcons

Steelers

Patriots

Texans

Broncos

Vikings

Redskins

Falcons

Seahawks

Raiders over Browns

Falcons over Seahawks

The above map shows approximate locations for each team user. This map can be used to help schedule your games against a certain opponent by understanding what time zone they are in.