Former Clay-Chalkville Cougar, Nico Collins has been a beast for the Sloth Monsters this season

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The original "Iron Hand" was Henri de Tonti, an Italian-born French military officer and explorer

The BDFL's notorious Bullet Rule

TITLETOWN - Mr. Webster defines "iron hand" as a noun meaning stern, or rigorous, control such as "he ruled with an iron hand". From time to time, The Commissioner of the BDFL (Iron Hand) must live up to his name passed down from the original Iron Hand (Henri de Tonti). This one may need a quick history lesson, so here we go. Back in the early days of the BDFL, it was a "points only" league, but evolved in to a win-loss record/points combo league with not many rules and a little less direction than today's BDFL. So in 1997, when the Capital City Bullets finished the regular season in the top four in total points, they qualified for the league's "old school" post-season playoffs with a 6-9 record. Nobody thought too much about it at the time since this team wasn't very formidable during the regular season and didn't seem to be a threat to win one post-season game, much less the league's championship title. However, when the Bullets put together a miraculous two-game winning streak in the playoffs and won their first BDFL title with an 8-9 losing record, there was an outcry throughout the entire football world that had to be addressed. The Bullets 1998 title became commonly known as the league's "tainted title" and is still footnoted as such in all league records. We don't try to change history in the BDFL, but we do learn from it in the BDFL. Therefore, Iron Hand, The Commissioner of the BDFL instituted the patented "Bullet Rule" to keep such a travesty from ever happening again. In 1998 when it went into effect, the BDFL's "Bullet Rule" clearly stated that no team could qualify for the league's championship series with a losing record. The "Bullet Rule" served the league well for 25 years, but the rigid rule created a couple of post-season hardships over the years since the BDFL went to an eight-team post-season with the Big Daddy Championship Series (BDCS) in 2006 and the NFL went to an 17-game regular season in 2021. In 2022 for instance, the league only produced six eligible teams for the BDCS. Iron Hand has to think fast and added two teams to the BDCS mix, one with a new "Amnesty 2022" provision to override the long-standing "Bullet Rule" and added a replacement team (North River Neanderthals) just to give the league's elite BDCS post-season bracket some credibility. Enough was enough. So after off-season meetings with the league's Board of Regents in Destin, Florida, the BDFL amended the league's long-standing "Bullet Rule" with a slight amendment. To keep the league's integrity intact, insure eight teams make the BDCS and to assure there will never be another "tainted title", beginning with the 2023 BDFL season the league amended the "Bullet Rule" to allow teams with 7-8 regular season record to be eligible for the league's championship. This amendment decision was made for the betterment of the league overall and it will still assure that no team will ever win another "tainted" BDFL Championship Title with a losing record.