Michael Witheblock
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| No. 84 – Retired | |||||||||||
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| Position: | Wide Receiver | ||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||
| Born: | November 16, 2014 (aged 46) Freistadt, Upper Austria, Austria | ||||||||||
| Height: | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) | ||||||||||
| Weight: | 200 lb (91 kg) | ||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||
| College: | University of Applied Science Hagenberg | ||||||||||
| ISFL Draft: | 2037 / Round: 3 / Pick: 36 | ||||||||||
| DSFL Draft: | 2036 / Round: 7 / Pick: 53 | ||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||
| Roster status: | Retired | ||||||||||
| Career ISFL statistics as of 2038 | |||||||||||
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| Career DSFL statistics | |||||||||||
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Michael Witheblock (born November 16, 2014) was an American football wide receiver for the Sarasota Sailfish of the National Simulation Football League (NSFL).
Contents
Early years
Michael Witheblock was born in Freistadt, Austria. He changed his name due to difficulties in understandings for English speaking guys in the league - in a partly proper translation - to Whiteblock. He grew up on a farm in Lichtenau, Upper Austria, Austria.
He soon gained some national attention in winning some athletics competition. After spending some years in training athletics, he changed with the age of 13 to his local hobby Football team, the Lichtenau Graders. There he learned the basics of American Football and gained experience in different positions. With his athletic background, he could play various positions (QB, WR) extraordinary good. He gained some experience in mostly friendly junior games, as there is no professional junior league in Austria. By joining the Graders, he could learn from some of the best Austrian Quarterbacks and wideouts on the hobby sports level, which can - by far - not be compared to some professional sports. But his interest in the NFL rose, so he made up the lack of experience with watching many games and especially film of some of his favorite players.
College career
He chose the University of Applied Science of Hagenberg as his college. He enrolled in the program of Mobile Computing.
His first year for the Hagenberg Hunters he played as Quarterback. In his freshman year, he racked up more rushing yards as receiving yards but impressed doing so. The Hagenberg Hunters won the Austrian College Bowl. After his first successful year in college, he switched position to Wide Receiver, as he saw far more potential for himself playing the position of Wide Receiver on the higher level. Looking at his stats in his sophomore year, the position change was a fine decision. He broke the Austrian College Football receiving yards record with 1565 yards and 19 Touchdowns. In his junior year he racked up even higher numbers with 1673 yards and 21 Touchdowns. After finishing his program with the Bachelor of Science in Engineering, he decided to go to the NSFL in the S22 draft class.
Professional career
DSFL career
Drafted by the Kansas City Coyotes, Witheblock came in as the second receiver after being picked as the second Wide Receiver for the Coyotes after Eddie Jeeta. Kansas City continued to draft a third receiver in Tan Johnson. After the first trainings, Johnson got the starting job over Witheblock due to better performance and agility. This circumstance let Witheblock see the field in his first games only sparsely, but not really regularly. He played in all DSFL games though. The first pass that went in his direction was also his first career touchdown. He caught the ball in Week 4 against the Dallas Birddogs in a stellar 46-14 victory of the Coyotes. In this game, he noted 2 catches for 51 yards and the already mentiond touchdown. In the next two games, he was again mainly used in special teams. After a remarkable increase in agility noticed in training, Witheblock leaped Johnson in the depth chart and was WR2 for the rest of the season. As the new starter, he had a top performance in week 7 against the Minnesota Grey Ducks. He caught 6 catches for 75 yards and a touchdown in a 23-16 victory on the road. The following week, a tough loss against Myrtle Beach, he had 2 catches for only 8 yards, but recorded another touchdown. Witheblock continued his touchdown streak in the following week against Norfolk. The rest of the regular season he continuously racked up yardage, but another score wasn't to be seen on his agenda. The Coyotes finished the regular season with a 9-5 record on top of the NFC North. In the Champoinship Game they hosted the Portland Pythons for the battle of the North. Kansas City went out as the winner in a stellar 31-7 victory. Witheblock was a big factor in this game again, finishing with 5 catches for 58 yards and scoring the first touchdown for his team. In the Ultimini, Witheblock was the main target with 6 receptions, racking up 49 yards, but stayed scoreless in the tough 10-27 loss against the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers.
NSFL career
| Ht | Wt | 40‑yd dash | 20‑ss | 3‑cone | Vert jump | Broad | BP | Wonderlic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) |
200 lb (91 kg) |
4.32 s | 4.03 s | 7.06 s | 27.6 in (0.70 m) |
11 ft 0.5 in (3.37 m) |
10 reps | 12 |
2037 Season (S22)
Prior to the S22 NSFL draft, expansion happened. The Honolulu Hahalua and Sarasota Sailfish were presented as the new franchises in the league. This changed the draft, as not 10 but 12 teams were to select the players. Michael Witheblock, one of the top WR prospects, fell to the end of the 3rd round, where he was picked up by the Sarasota Sailfish. He was the third WR taken, after Eddie Jeeta and William Lim were selected only a few picks before him. In the Sailfish organization, Witheblock found his new home. They just had a very good expansion draft, where they could pick up some pillars for future success. With GM Rayne Gordon and #1 expansion pick Dexter Banks II as clear WR2 and WR1, Witheblock started as WR3 into the season. Their inaugural game, an away game at Baltimore, Sarasota pulled out a 17-13 win. Witheblock recorded his first two catches for 10 yards. The next two games were away games at Yellowknife and Colorado, which they lost both. Their first home game vs the Philadelphia Liberty, they could win, and also against the Chicago Butchers they showed a solid performance. In this 4 matches, Witheblock showed his talent and was a reliable target, finishing 2 of them as second most targeted receiver. In a 3 game losing streak, Witheblock recorded his first touchdown in the NSFL against the Orange County Otters. After this 3 game stretch, the Sailfish traded for QB Rose Jenkins to make a push at playoffs. In week 9, Witheblock recorded his season high of 99 yards with only 4 receptions. The Sailfish made the playoffs with a solid finish to the season. In the WC game, the Sailfish lost 14-36 to the later winners Colorado Yeti. Witheblock recorded 3 catches for 29 yards to finish the season.
2038 Season (S23)
The second year in Sarasota was an exciting one for the team. What made it so exciting was the position switch of former WR Dexter Banks II to QB. Banks brought hope to a young Sarasota team, that was until then without a clear #1 QB. After S22, the Sailfish lost some players due to retirement, and started therefore into the season with a totally revamped defensive line, consisting of three rookies. The shift from Banks to QB opened up WR2 for Witheblock, but he had to split reps with called up TE James Angler, who was partly used at WR. The Sailfish started into the season with a record of 2-3 after the first stretch of conference games. Witheblock didn‘t have many receptions or yards, most of the time somewhere between 30-50 yards. His first score of the season he caught in week 6 in a win against Honolulu Hahalua, but he has only 14 yards in total in that game. This down phase continued, as in the next matchup he didn‘t even have a single reception. In week 8 he seemed to be a bit more involved in the game again, and had his first game with 60+ yards. In week 9 and 10 he also had good amount of yardage and a touchdown each. This was the best stretch of games for Witheblock in the season, as he declined again in yardage in the following games and wasn‘t able to score another touchdown in the last few games. Sarasota finished at a record of 8-8, which didn‘t get them into playoffs, so the season was over for Witheblock and the fish gang.
2039 Season (S24)
In his third year in Sarasota, Witheblock played his – by far – best season. He more than doubled his stats from a season ago and finished 6th in receiving yards league-wide with 1312 yards. He recorded the best yard per catch with 20.8, which is by far the best value in the league. Second in this category is Rayne Gordon, his WR partner with 19.0 yards per catch. Witheblock was second in receiving yards behind FB James Angler on the Sarasota Sailfish, who racked up 1381 yards. They both share most receiving touchdowns on the team with each catching 8 touchdowns, which is the tied third place in the league. Witheblock started rather slow into the season, not scoring more than 70 yards until week 4. He recorded three touchdowns though. In week 4 against the Wraiths he had his first game with over 100 yards. After cooling down a bit through mid season, he started racking up big yardage again. From week 10 to week 14 Witheblock had only games with over 100 receiving yards. In fact, he recorded 580 yards over those 5 games. The Sailfish had an amazing season finishing 12-4 and securing the #2 spot behind the Colorado Yeti. In the Wildcard Game, Sarasota hosted the Chicago Butchers, where they won 24-17. In the Championship Game they headed to Colorado. In a tough fight they finally lost 24-20. Witheblock recorded 121 yards that game, which is playoff receiving yardage record. Witheblock made the ballot for Wide Reciever of the year and finished 2nd in it behind William Lim. With his stellar season and doubling his yards and touchdowns, Witheblock won Outbreak Player of the Year. He also was an unanimous vote into the Pro Bowl this season.
2040 Season (S25)
In S25 Witheblock was already in contention of being one of the best wide receivers in the league. And he held up of proving the league right about that. He finished the season with recording 1399 yards, the most in his career so far. He did that on only 72 catches, which posts a league high of 19.4 yards per average. He also scored 11 touchdowns on his way to being the third wide receivers by yards in the league. The Sarasota Sailfish ended the season with an 11-5 record, only behind the Colorado Yeti. Sarasota had the best offense in the league that season with scoring 474 points. In this season Dexter Banks II won league MVP by passing for 4799 yards and 33 touchdowns with 10 interceptions. He had the league wide best QB rating. The Sailfish started rather slow into the season, with only having 2 wins after 7 games. But then they started rolling and won out the regular season. They couldn't continue their hot streak in the playoffs though, where they lost 20-27 to the Chicagor Butchers.
2041 Season (S26)
Season 26 had a lot of success for Witheblock, as he managed to lead the league in receiving yards that season. He racked up 1622 yards on only 79 receptions, which results in 20.5 yards on average per catch. He scored 9 touchdowns in the season. In the end this lead to not only a Wide Receiver of the Year nomination, he also won that award. Making him the first Sarasota Sailfish in history to win Wide Receiver of the Year. The Sarasota Sailfish were already known to be one of the best teams in the league by then, but they kind of struggled the whole year as a team. It was the first season of rookie quarterback Mike Boss Jr, who managed to finish as league leader in passing yards with almost 4,900 yards. He posted a 27-13 TD to Int ratio. Sarasota finished the season with 8-8 and didn't quite play up to what they hoped to be able of. In the playoffs, they got to take revenge of the Chicago Butchers, winnin a very close game 24-23. In the conference championship they faced the #1 seed Yellowknife, which they lost on a lost second field goal with 22-24.
2042 Season (S27)
Season 27 stood in the light of change of the whole league, but nothing changed in the success of the Sailfish. Michael Witheblock continued to lead the team in receiving yards, posting 1411 yards and 11 touchdowns. The Sarasota Sailfish managed to finish the season as number 1 seed for the first time ever, and things looked pretty great. They finished the season 12-4. In the playoffs they started in the conference championship, after having a first round bye. The opponent in that game were the Colorado Yeti, as they beat the #2 seed Chicago Butchers in the wildcard game. The Sailfish were on a roll that game and started off with a 28-0 lead in only the first quarter. They stalled the game a little, but after the Yeti came close with 34-27 before the end of the third quarter, the last one was again all Sailfish play. Extending and finishing the game 47-27 resulted in the first Ultimus appearance for the Sailfish. The opponent was the big underdog New Orleans Second Line. And it never seemed close that the underdog could be of any threat against the favorite. Sarasota was up 24-3 at halftime and finished the game with a 34-10 win for their first championship.
2043 Season (S28)
After celebrating their first championship, the Sailfish started sloppy into the next season. After a 2-2 start they got their stuff together and were at 10-3 with 3 games left. They managed to lose the season out though, so they were only the 3rd seed in the division. Michael Witheblock recorded 1117 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns, falling behind Tre'Darius J'Vathon in the team intern ranking who posted 1182 yards. Together with James Angler they were the 3 1000 yards receiver of the Sailfish. In the playoffs, the Sailfish faced off against the #2 seed Yellowknife Wraiths. In a low scoring game the Wraiths pulled away late in the last quarter to win 23-14 and end the Sarasota season. Sarasota managed to have the best offense that season, scoring 518 points. They also set their franchise record for highest win and most points scored, when they crushed the Philadelphia Liberty 69-14. Player of the game was Raphtalia Chan with 4 ruching touchdowns and 91 receiving yards on only 3 receptions. Jacob Small scored 9 extra points that game.
2044 Season (S29)
The S28 offseason was a very special one for Witheblock. With some key players leaving that offseason, the team decided that it was the best to move Michael Witheblock from wide receiver to linebacker. It seems a bit of unconventional to move a player from offense to defense, as tackling isn't especially what they are known for, but Witheblock showed pretty soon a lot of potential in that position. He played out of his mind thinking about the offseason transition, posting 16 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 6 tackles for loss, 10 passes defensed and 101 tackles. In fact, he finished the season second in sacks, only behind former teammate Derred de Ville. Sarasota finished the season third in the conference, with a 11-5 record behind Berlin and Colorado. In the playoffs Sarasota won against Colorado Yeti 33-13 in the wildcard round. In the conference championship they faced Berlin, where they lost a close game 20-23, Berlin made a late fourth quarter push to get away with the win.
2045 Season (S30)
Season 30 was the second season for Witheblock as linebacker. He slowed down his production a bit, but still was leading the team in sacks. He got to the quarterback 13 times, and also posted 1 forced fumble, 90 tackles, 4 tackles for loss and 11 passes defensed in 16 starts. The Sarasota sailfish continued their strive for greatness, being a powerhouse in the NSFC for ages while they saw competition come and go. This season, they ended with a 11-5 record and as the number 1 seed in the NSFC. The second time since S27, and they got on a roll in the playoffs again. In the conference championship they faced the Berlin Fire Salamanders, who fell short of the title the season before. This time, Sarasota got the better end and won the game 30-24 to advance to the Ultimus for the second time in their franchise history. In the finals they faced the number 1 team in the league, Arizona Outlaws. That didn't matter at that time that the Sailfish were the underdogs, as they went on to win the game 27-10 and celebrated their second championship in their short time in the league. Only 8 seasons in, and already 2 time champion.
2046 Season (S31)
The career of Witheblock has seen better times already, and Season 31 posted the last season in his successful career. In a bit of another role that season, he posted only 3 sacks, 72 tackles, 1 tackle for loss and 6 passes defensed. But he helped his successor at linebacker, Ernest Lover and free agent aquisition Heinrich Kackpoo rack up 15 and 12 sacks. The Sailfish played for the playoffs places in the NSFC once again, as they do every season. They finished in an upturning NSFC with 10-6, which is the 2nd seed in the conference and gives them the chance for more playoffs game. In a revival of a once big playoff rivalry against the Chicago Butchers, they were caught by surprise on home turf and lost the game 13-23. This at the same time recorded the last game of Michael Witheblock in the ISFL and for the Sarasota Sailfish. He posted 2 tackles in the loss to the Butchers. All in all, it was a pretty successful career with the Sarasota Sailfish, recording a WRotY award and 2 rings.
Professional career statistics
DSFL stats
| Receiving | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | GP | Rec | Yds | Avg | Long | TD |
| 2036 (S21) | Coyotes | 14 | 31 | 392 | 12.6 | 34 | 4 |
NSFL stats
| Receiving | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | GP | Rec | Yds | Avg | Long | TD |
| 2037 (S22) | Sailfish | 13 | 32 | 427 | 13.3 | 57 | 1 |
| 2038 (S23) | Sailfish | 16 | 50 | 614 | 12.3 | 44 | 3 |
| 2039 (S24) | Sailfish | 16 | 63 | 1312 | 20.8 | 58 | 8 |
| 2040 (S25) | Sailfish | 16 | 72 | 1399 | 19.4 | 79 | 11 |
| 2041 (S26) | Sailfish | 16 | 79 | 1622 | 20.5 | 62 | 9 |
| 2042 (S27) | Sailfish | 16 | 109 | 1411 | 12.9 | 75 | 11 |
| 2043 (S28) | Sailfish | 16 | 104 | 1117 | 10.7 | 57 | 8 |
| ISFL Career statistics | Defense | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | Games | Tck | TFL | FF/FR | Sck | Int | PD | Sfty | TD | Blk P/XP/FG |
| 2044 (S29) | Sailfish | 16 | 101 | 6 | 2/0 | 16 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0/0/0 |
| 2045 (S30) | Sailfish | 16 | 90 | 4 | 1/0 | 13 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0/0/0 |
| 2046 (S31) | Sailfish | 16 | 72 | 1 | 0/0 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0/0/0 |
Achievements and records
- Individual
- DSFL Pro Bowl Selection (1): 2036
- NSFL Pro Bowl Selection (1): 2039
