Where Do We Go From Here? Mafia Edition

Hello! Welcome to the "Where Do We Go From Here" Series!

Here to detail what happened to a team that was eliminated from the playoffs. Detailing what occurred the season prior up until now and also an outlook on what can be of their future when it comes to improving the roster from Season Eight onward.

Lets begin!

In Season Seven, the New York Mafia shocked the USFA nation as they made the postseason in their first campaign. Led by their trusty HB Doc Boone, he was surely going to be the centerpiece the offense will be leaning on for seasons to come. The future appeared to be very bright for the Big Apple but after their swift loss to the eventual S7 United Bowl champions St. Louis Archers, things slowly began to go downhill.

The draft class they brought in.. Let's just call it meh. Not the move you'd want to see for a team that was just in the playoffs. That being said, they still had Doc Boone!

..Until they traded him to the Charlotte Royals in Season Eight before Week Two began. On top of the multiple holes already present on the roster, you can see that this is a team that need weapons everywhere. Offense, Defense, Special Teams, Coaching Staff, it all can use a facelift. No bigger facelift than what they need at Quarter Back.

Cleetus Castle is what you call a fringe mediocre signal caller. He has some areas that he can improve on for sure. Lets put it all in context first. His best Wide Receiver (Kam Melo) doesn't even crack the top 20 list of WRs and he does have two TEs (Gakati Drakos & Giovanni Walker). Not to mention rookie HB Ron Jolon who, up to this point, hasn't lived up to his high draft placement. After Melo, they have a couple vets who don't break the meter in regards to helping Castle moving the ball down the field.

This is where I believe that a draft pick of one of the latest QBs coming into the league should be spent on Quarter Back. Luckily for NY, they have a great chance at securing the #1 draft pick thus will have their pick of the litter of who can start for New York.

Is Cleetus worth keeping? Some of the executives around the league say that holding onto Castle will severly stunt the growth of their franchise. Not being present during workouts, a lack of fire come gametime, doesn't really push the ante for what New York deserves at that position.

That's just the offense, the defense is in objectively worse shape than what we mentioned earlier.


Defensively, they could use help essentially everywhere you can think of. The staff can give DT Tyree Wells and DE Ivan Johnson some assistance (the latter could use improvement as well). LB Corps is a bit lackluster with aging veterans and the secondary doesn't have a lot of splash talent either. It's a lot to take in and there's a lot of possible things that can be done.

With the amount of draft picks available to them this season, they're not going to fix EVERY hole on this team, it'll take some time but I'd have to think that at least 4 of their picks have to go to this side of the ball. They need a second CB to pair up with Neal Mason badly. They do have an extra 2nd round pick so perhaps they can put it to use for the right gear in the system.

Free Agency wouldn't hurt to add some talent here to fix some of the leaks. If they're active enough, NY can very well find themselves back in playoff contention but it will not come overnight.

As of Week 13, they only have 3 wins. I'd say their floor for Season Nine will be around the same area as this current season with another three win season. In regards to their ceiling, they can make the playoffs again (if they do their due diligence) and I can see as high as eight wins. If they actually make the playoffs is another question but that depends on the teams around them in the Eastern Conference which will add one more hungry expansion squad.

Best of luck to them going forward! I'll be keeping a close eye on the progress.