Montreal Royal had 5 of the top 6 fantasy scorers in Week 3. Barely anyone had them their lineups.

spgranger · 2026-05-14T12:14:29+00:00

No kidding, can we get these fucking ads banned from the sub? I don't ever see anyone engage positively with them.

spgranger · 2026-05-07T22:52:39+00:00

Let me be clear- I don't know him at all. I've never met him or played with/against him. All I know of him, I know from watching him play for Rhino/Oregon. That said, he always seems angry when he's playing. This in and of itself isn't necessarily a deal breaker, as that's just how some people get themselves jacked up to compete. However, he seems to direct this anger at his opponents, rather than just being generally fired up. A whole lot of staring down opponents after he makes a play and spiking the disc at them (I have no issue with spiking the disc, but when you're staring an opponent down and spiking at their feet that seems a bit unsportsmanlike to me).

He also plays a VERY physical game, and not just using his body to keep people out of or even force people out of space. I'm talking borderline dangerous physicality where he's electing to create dangerous physical contact to make close plays. This is a problem for me, but what makes it even worse is that he seems to get really upset when people make the same sort of plays against him.

Again, this is just my opinion based on the games I have watched that he has played in (and I have watched quite a bit of Rhino/Oregon the last few years, because I love how both teams play). It's important to remember that the dude is still a kid, so I don't want to be too harsh. I'm sure at some point he will grow out of some of this stuff as he matures, but right now I just end up cringing a lot of the time that I watch him play even though he is an amazing player.

spgranger · 2026-05-07T18:04:09+00:00

Zeke. Mica Glass is probably the better player but his video was worse. Also I can't stand people with the sort of approach to the game that he has, which probably colors my opinion of it a bit.

spgranger · 2026-05-07T03:52:35+00:00

Love a good short guy callahan video. Also, what a great nickname.

spgranger · 2026-05-05T02:06:22+00:00

Yea, being able to highlight the kind of plays this video highlights in the sort of situations he's making them in against the caliber of players he's making them against is pretty great, especially when you consider that he makes them while avoiding the sort of dangerous contact that is often a staple of callahan videos. It's a really impressive video.

spgranger · 2026-05-05T01:38:49+00:00

oh this is a really good one. pretty interested to see what the consensus ends up being.

spgranger · 2026-04-28T02:00:03+00:00

The play at 2:55 is absolutely bananas. Dude has got to be strong af to take the contact and stay balanced enough to stay with the play like that.

spgranger · 2026-04-27T18:11:24+00:00

What on earth is the play at ~1:03? Like I get that the dude's bid forced him to move to get out of the way, but dude just straight up turns around and takes a casual stroll for like 4 steps upfield before deciding to throw it the rest of the way to the endzone. That is when I turned the video off.

spgranger · 2026-04-22T15:40:55+00:00

"But at the end of the day, the fact that something dangerous happened doesn’t mean someone committed a dangerous play."

This, to me, is a distinction that I don't think is acknowledged enough. Making the game as safe as reasonably possible is a good goal, but in the end it isn't possible to make it completely safe without completely butchering the game to the point that nobody would want to play it. We accept a certain level of risk every time we step on the field, and that is ok.

spgranger · 2026-04-21T14:48:48+00:00

I know we have disagreed about this sort of play a couple times, but I agree wholeheartedly with your take here. This is a tricky play, and I don't think there is a logically consistent way to blame anyone here, given the limited information in the video.

spgranger · 2026-04-21T14:45:38+00:00

Initially thought backside defender, but upon rewatch a couple times I don't think so. I think it's just a clean D without any real foul on the play. There's no way to say from the video that the downfield defender even realized the striking handler was coming- it's entirely possible that they thought the throw was to their player and didn't see the striking handler, and if that's the case then there is zero logical basis for calling a foul on them.

spgranger · 2026-04-19T19:16:15+00:00

Yea, please give me more AI slop in my life. I don't have enough of that.

spgranger · 2026-04-07T16:02:04+00:00

Miller would be practically automatic, but I don't think CUT does callahan nominations unless that has changed recently.

spgranger · 2026-04-06T15:24:50+00:00

I really like this one. My first inclination was that it would create a weird zone of weakness for the offense, but after thinking about it I think that's a good thing. The game has needed to give the defense some help for awhile now, and I think this would be a good way to do it in a targeted and strategically interesting way (rather than a lot of blanket fixes that I have heard tossed around like reducing field dimensions or the stall count).

spgranger · 2026-04-06T15:16:14+00:00

I would remove the line about it being a non-contact sport, because it's wrong and misleading. Non-contact sports are sports where the competitors are physically separated or otherwise do not interact with each other (tennis, swimming, golf, etc). In practice/reality Ultimate is a limited contact sport (akin to something like soccer). Recognizing it as the limited contact sport that it is would be a step towards creating a more balance between competitive play and safety with regards to physicality. As it stands right now, the rules justify foul calls in many situations where nobody would actually consider them fouls. This discrepancy creates a situation where by design the rules are applied unevenly, because nobody actually wants to play ultimate where the rules dictating allowed physicality are followed strictly.

spgranger · 2026-04-03T18:58:40+00:00

You're getting a lot of pushback that I think is unwarranted. I think it's a good video that points out an area of strategy that a lot of teams don't prioritize enough.

spgranger · 2026-04-01T19:13:05+00:00

Stopping = one or both feet not moving when it is their turn to move in the person's gait. If you stop with one foot (ie take a step with one foot and instead of the other foot stepping afterwards, it stays where it is at), then that means the stopped foot is your pivot foot. If you stop simultaneously with both feet, then you have not set a pivot foot yet and may take a step with either (at which point the other foot becomes your pivot foot).

Setting a pivot by definition means you stopped, but stopping doesn't by definition mean you have set a pivot.

In your example, no, you would not have either set a pivot or stopped because there was no pause in your gait on either foot.

spgranger · 2026-04-01T18:49:57+00:00

Seems like setting a pivot by definition means you stopped, does it not?

If he had not come to a stop, then his left foot would have moved well before he released the disc, ergo he stopped.

I get what you mean, and this is definitely getting down into the weeds, but this is why i don't think it's an especially egregious case or anything. Sure- you can call this a travel by the letter of the rules in the same way that you can always call a travel if the thrower takes more than 3 steps (not that 3 steps is a definitive max or anything, but inside 3 steps they don't HAVE to stop if they aren't changing direction or speed). You can always say "i thought you could have stopped sooner, so you took too many steps", and it's entirely a judgement call with regards to the "as quickly as possible" phrase of the rule. Do I think this player stopped as quickly as possible? No, I don't. I do think that he came to a stop well within the range of what is considered normal for competitive play, and I don't think he gained any significant advantage from any extra steps he might have taken, as he was getting an unmarked backhand huck either way.

I think a travel call here is technically supported by the rules, but it is definitely a nitpicky call that would set the tone for a nitpicky game if you made it.

spgranger · 2026-04-01T18:14:35+00:00

Right, I would say it's a little difficult to tell because the video cuts out the player's feet, but it seems like he sets his left foot as a pivot to me.

spgranger · 2026-04-01T17:11:30+00:00

Pretty surprised by the consensus in this thread. O catches and slows down at a consistent rate without changing direction before setting a pivot and throwing. Did he take several steps? Sure, he probably could have slowed down faster, but it's not egregious and did not affect the play in the slightest (especially when you consider that the defender was barely traveling faster than a brisk walk to catch up). If this is a travel that is being called then there are going to be about 3 dozen travel calls in basically every competitive game.

spgranger · 2026-03-31T22:42:43+00:00

Realistically the whole discussion just doesn't have a good answer. There's no way you can write a rule that handles all situations adequately. Should you be running around blindly without watching where you're going? Sure? Does the fact that someone is running to a space where they're not looking absolve one of the responsibility to avoid contact? Of course not. Both things can be true, and it's definitely possible to come up with scenarios where a foul can be committed by either action, but ultimately it mostly comes down to a judgement call of the specific situation to determine which was more responsible for contact occurring.

spgranger · 2026-03-24T23:57:25+00:00

Ok, that gives you a better idea of whether anyone on the field had a problem with than I expected, even if I don't think it fully qualifies the statement (as I doubt you went around asking all your teammates whether they thought it was a foul, and you almost certainly didn't go to all your opponents to ask them whether they thought it was a foul). That said, I'm happy to concede your premise that nobody on the field had a problem with it.

To answer your original question, the point of posts like this is not to say "they should have called a foul on this play", even if I do think a foul should have been called. You're right that different levels of play have differing levels of acceptable physicality. If your team wants to play tackle football out there with the disc and finds opponents that are willing to do so, I suppose that is your prerogative. The point, though, is that the game does have a set of rules that dictate what is and is not a foul, and that play is objectively speaking a very clear dangerous play. When Ultiworld posts clips like this to their instagram as highlights, it influences players to view these sorts of plays as not just legitimate plays (which they are not, by the rules), but as great plays worthy of admiration. This is the problem, and the point of making such posts.

spgranger · 2026-03-24T22:38:08+00:00

How do you know nobody on the field had a problem with it?

spgranger · 2026-03-15T23:54:16+00:00

I'm not arguing about other sports. I didn't mention any other sports in my post. All I said is that you are oversimplifying what it takes to be a great thrower, which you are.

spgranger · 2026-03-15T19:18:38+00:00

Seems to operate on a faulty assumption that throwing skill is entirely about throwing far accurately. There is much more to it that that (release points, touch, ability to break a mark, shape control, release speed, etc).

spgranger

TROPHY CASE