The Coronation
- Commish
- Dec 30, 2025
- 5 min read
The SCL Championship Game is officially in the books, and after a season full of detours, embarrassments, recalculations, and quiet persistence, the Consolation Kings are champions. They defeated the Gotham Rogues, 97–89, in a game that managed to be both settled and nerve-racking — sometimes at the exact same moment. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t clean. But it was decisive enough to end a decade-long wait for hardware.
For most of Sunday, this looked over. Not “lean back and relax” over, but comfortably, responsibly over. The Kings built a commanding lead and late into the fourth quarter sat ahead 97–55, a 42-point margin that usually triggers trophy engraving protocols. At that point, the Rogues were down to hope, denial, and two remaining bullets: Luther Burden III (who?!?) and Puka Nacua. What followed was the kind of fantasy sequence that makes commissioners stare silently at live scoring pages and reconsider their hobbies.
Burden — a player nobody circled, highlighted, or even mentioned all week — detonated for 23 points, his highest total of the season, instantly turning a coronation into a courtroom drama. Suddenly, the math became uncomfortable. With Burden’s eruption complete, Gotham needed just 20 points from Puka Nacua to steal the title. A reasonable ask. Nacua had hit that number five times this season, including three straight games coming into the championship. The script was written. The panic was real. And then… it didn’t happen. Nacua finished with 11 points, solid but insufficient, and the comeback stalled just short of legend.
There will be second-guessing in Gotham, and not all of it is unfair. Claiming Parker Washington off waivers and leaving 15 points on the bench in a game decided by eight is the kind of detail that lives forever in screenshots, group chats, and late-night internal monologues. Championships don’t hinge on one move, but they absolutely remember them. Still, the Rogues fought, rallied, and made this far more uncomfortable than it had any right to be. That matters, even if the trophy doesn’t acknowledge it.
And now, the moment that actually counts. For the Consolation Kings, this wasn’t just a win — it was release. After joining the league in 2014, after years of false starts and near-misses, after being defined more by punchlines than podiums, they finally closed the loop. The drought is over. The banner is real. The path here wasn’t dominant, but it was earned, and when the pressure spiked late, the Kings didn’t fold. They absorbed it, survived it, and finished the job.
Congratulations to both teams on a championship worthy of the season that produced it. But most of all, congratulations to the Consolation Kings — champions at last. History won’t remember the panic, the bench points, or the near-miss comeback. It will remember one thing: 97–89.
Commish
SCL Pro Bowl Game
There's one thing left to settle this season: Which conference is better, Sagebrush or Cactus. The only way to settle this is on the field. The Consolation Kings and Gotham Rogues will assemble a lineup of players from the teams in their conference and try to win some extra cash for the lesser teams on their side of the league. Stay tuned...
Golden Ticket Challenge
The Golden Ticket Challenge has mercifully come to an end, and in the least surprising twist of the season, Who Is You finished on top. When you’re allowed to build whatever Frankenstein roster your imagination can justify, the margin between “smart” and “reckless” gets very thin — and You stayed on the correct side of it all year. They piled up points with ruthless efficiency, leaned into elite top-end talent, and never wandered too far into galaxy-brain nonsense. While others chased novelty or redundancy, Who Is You treated the Golden Ticket exactly how it should be treated: like a math problem, not a personality test. First place was earned, not stumbled into, and the final standings reflect that separation clearly.
Right behind them, Fat Cats did what they always do in side contests: lurk, accumulate, and make things uncomfortable for everyone else. They didn’t win, but they made it close enough that You couldn’t relax until the very end which, frankly, is the highest compliment this league offers. The rest of the field? A familiar mix of overconfidence, redundancy, and the timeless belief that simply adding more stars somehow guarantees coherence. It does not. The Golden Ticket is unforgiving: no schedule luck, no matchup excuses, no “but if this guy hadn’t been hurt” speeches. It rewards clarity and punishes excess. Congratulations to You for taking it down, and a respectful nod to Fat Cats for at least making it interesting while the rest of the league learned — once again — that unlimited freedom is usually where bad ideas go to thrive.
Pigskin Pick'Em Contest
With one week left in the Pigskin Pick’Em Contest, the leaderboard looks exactly like what happens when volume, stubbornness, and selective memory collide. Cerebral Ballsy still sits atop the heap at 171–84, clinging to a slim one-game edge over Baby Got Dak, who has been lurking all season like a pick-happy vulture at 170–85. Deez Nuts and Uncle Bucky remain tied in the next tier, close enough to matter but far enough back to require both perfection and divine intervention. After that, the math starts getting rude in a hurry — several teams are technically alive, but only in the way that a team down four touchdowns with two minutes left is “alive.” At the bottom, the usual suspects continue their commitment to consistency, bravely picking games the same wrong way every week. One week remains, which means confidence will spike, logic will disappear, and someone will inevitably claim they “meant to pick that upset all along.” As always, I’ll be watching quietly, judgmentally, and with a calculator.
Other Awards
League MVP: It was a close race, but Cerebral Ballsy's Jonathan Taylor scored 244 points more than a replacement player, beating out (in order) Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson, James Cook, and Jahmyr Gibbs.
Best Draft Pick: This season's best draft pick was Los Perros Loco's Rico Dowdle who finished with a Draft Score of 72.66, beating out (in order) Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, Travis Etienne Jr, and Wan'Dale Robinson.
Worst Injury: The worst injury of the season was Joe Mixon of the Consolation Kings. The Kings spent $32 on Mixon as a keeper and never saw him take the field this season. The runners-up (in order) include James Conner, Omarion Hampton, Garrett Wilson, and Tyreek Hill.
Most Improved Team: The most improved team this season was Cerebral Ballsy who increased their scoring from 1212 pts to 1504 pts this season resulting in 4 additional wins and a relative change factor of 52%. Below is the complete table so you don't need to bother emailing me:
RANK | TEAM | WINS | PTS | LY WINS | LY PTS | RCF |
1 | Cerebral Ballsy | 9 | 1504 | 5 | 1212 | 52.05% |
2 | Consolation Kings | 10 | 1423 | 6 | 1394 | 34.37% |
3 | Do Not Panic | 5 | 1185 | 3 | 1223 | 31.78% |
4 | Who Is You | 12 | 1583 | 9 | 1483 | 20.04% |
5 | Baby Got Dak | 5 | 1300 | 4 | 1148 | 19.12% |
6 | Badazz Bri | 11 | 1236 | 8 | 1360 | 14.19% |
7 | Uncle Bucky | 8 | 1544 | 8 | 1355 | 6.97% |
8 | Gotham Rogues | 8 | 1326 | 7 | 1454 | 2.74% |
9 | Los Perros Locos | 7 | 1508 | 8 | 1431 | -3.56% |
10 | Fat Cats | 7 | 1475 | 8 | 1557 | -8.88% |
11 | Tallahassee Tator Tots | 4 | 1199 | 5 | 1216 | -10.70% |
12 | Pork Chop Express | 7 | 1291 | 8 | 1453 | -11.82% |
13 | MaxxCasualties | 6 | 1457 | 9 | 1371 | -13.53% |
14 | Blue Ribbon | 6 | 1272 | 10 | 1433 | -25.62% |
15 | Deez Nuts | 3 | 1137 | 6 | 1212 | -28.09% |
16 | Golden Tate Warriors | 4 | 1149 | 8 | 1687 | -40.95% |
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