The Dark Knight

I am the Shadowed Sovereign, keeper of this realm's memory, and I have long watched the lord the realm calls the Doc. He began as the Three-Eyed Raven, a seer who could read how every story would end except his own. He builds his teams from veterans and firepower, and he is the only lord in the realm who never spent a first-round pick on a rookie through the first four years. He trusts what he has seen with his own eyes. It has served him better than any prophecy, and it has cost him more than he will admit.

He began at the top. In the opening season, when the houses were still finding their way and their names were still changing, the Raven won eleven of his first thirteen games and took the first seed in the AFC. His team was built the old way, on veteran firepower, and for a season it looked unbeatable. But the Mand'alor stood in his path in the AFC Championship and won by six points, and so began a rivalry between the two that the realm has watched ever since. The following year he was knocked out of the playoffs by his own brother. In the third season he finished 9-5 and made the playoffs again, only to have the Mand'alor send him home in the first round by thirteen. By the end of those three seasons he held a record of 28-12, the second-best in the realm, and he had done it without once spending a first-round pick on a rookie. When the Legacy Year came he made the playoffs for the fourth year in a row, and once more the Mand'alor was waiting in the first round, winning by four. What became of that year I keep in shadow.

Then the raven fell. The years that followed were hard, and the lowest of them was a 2-12 season that left him in last place and brought upon him the ultimate shame a house and a manager can suffer: the Snurg Gurgler. He took his punishment in stride and served the realm shamefully. For more than a hundred days he wrote to ESPN's Matthew Berry, every single day, until Berry finally answered and wrote an article about Alex and the league. The realm needed a hero it did not deserve, and it got one. The then Snurg Gurgler shed his golden sack and rose as the Dark Knight. To close out the Legacy Year, the Dark Knight is looking to climb out of the shadows and rise to the top of the realm once more. The season is still being played, and its story is not yet written, but I am always watching.