Fall From Grace
All the real Hans Gruber wanted was his detonators back. All The League!’s Hans Gruber wanted was bobbleheads. In the end, they both got a few of them, but League! Hans has wound up in a much longer freefall than Die Hard Hans.
Hans joined The League! in 2005. Besides the four founders that helped start The League! in 2004, Hans is one of the oldest managers around. He came onto the scene like a manager who knew what he was doing.
In his first year, he finished in 3rd place. Only one other manager in league history has finished in the money their first year out the gates. His second year in The League!, he one-upped himself by winning it all and taking home his first championship bobblehead. No one, other than the commissioner himself, has won a bobblehead that early in their career. Two years later, he was in the championship again hoisting another bobblehead. By age 25 and only four years into The League!, he had two bobbleheads on his mantle. At that pace, he was looking to have eight bobbleheads under his belt by now.
If you had to pinpoint the moment things really started slipping away from him, you could probably make a case for 2015. Prior to that year, Hans had finished the regular season in the top 3 for four straight years. Since then, he has made the playoffs twice and hit rock bottom in 2017 when he lost in the Relegation Bowl to Reichert and spent 2018 as a spectator.
Now with a lot less hair and a lot more knowledge about what a BTU is, Hans’ mantle still only has the same two dust covered bobbleheads he won over a decade ago. Hans hasn’t stopped being a threat, he just keeps running into his version of John McClane. He has made the playoffs 9 times and finished in the money 7 of those times. Getting the job done and winning the Ship is where he has found himself in a freefall.
Seasons Without a Bobblehead
“*” depicts teams that have never won a bobblehead
Still sitting at 2 bobbleheads, Hans has finished in the top three more than anyone and has made it to the championship a league leading 5 times. That’s more than a handful of teams have been to the playoffs in their entire history. The last three times he made it to the championship his opponents outplayed him by putting up over 180 points each in all three of those appearances. Yippee-ki-yay, you suck.
He has now seen B Scott and Billy catch up to and pass him with a League! leading 3 bobbleheads. Meanwhile, Carmen and Egon have closed the gap with 2 bobbleheads of their own. Grabs, Herriott, Reichert and Sweets are all right on his heels with one bobblehead each as well. What once looked like a lifetime of Hans telling us how awesome he is has turned into a steady decline into terribleness. Hans needs to stop him freefalling momentum and grab himself another bobblehead soon if he doesn’t want to fall into complete league irrelevancy.
