Portland Menaces

The Portland Menaces are an expansion football team affiliated with the United Football Association. Founded in 1981, the Menaces are one of the best expansion teams in the history of the league.

Origins and Early Years
The Menaces were created in the end of the wave of teams popping up in smaller big cities around America from the mid 1960's to the early 1980's. Created to be different with a unique logo and color scheme, Portland's early years were below average, but good for a young expansion teams.

The key for the first 5-10 years of the Menaces was their drafting. Selecting players who were UFA ready, but not superstars (except for their clear best player in team history, legendary quarterback Dennis Webster, who was picked third overall in the 1984 Draft), these young players managed to keep the Menaces above last place every year. For an expansion team, this was miraculous.

Powerhouse Teams of the 1990's
In 1993, the Menaces' slow acquiring of pieces finally finished. Experts predicted they would turn the corner in 1993 and they were right. The team went 12-4 and dominated the Northern Conference. In the playoffs, the Menaces bulldozed their way to the semifinals. But, their dreams turned to dust when they lost the semifinal game.

Over the next three years, the result was the same. The team won 11 games minimum each year, but fell in the semifinals or second round. Analysts pondered why the Menaces were never able to see the UFA Finals despite possessing a powerful team.

Thankfully, from 1997-1999, they did turn the corner. Each year, they went 13-3 and won the Northern Conference. In 1997, they won the UFA Finals with an easy win (the score was 42-10). The following year, they lost the UFA Finals on a last second field goal. To end the 20th century, they won the UFA Finals for the second time by a two-touchdown margin, proving that they were a dynasty in the 1990's.

Slow Descent
Beginning in the 2000 season, the Menaces slowly regressed. In that aforementioned 2000 season, they went 9-7 and failed to make the playoffs. The following year, they went 10-6 despite Dennis Webster retiring the previous season, but lost in the first round of the playoff tournament. After that, their key players of the 1990's were almost all gone and the Menaces began to realize they were forced to rebuild.

The night of the 2004 UFA Draft, the Menaces thought they had turned the team back around in a winning direction. They traded up to the #7 overall pick to select quarterback Lucas James from Penn State. With the 16th overall pick, they drafted the Heisman Trophy runner-up running back Isaiah Curtis from Fresno State. Unfortunately, Curtis broke his collarbone in Week 2 of his second season and was never a dominating runner. Meanwhile, James had a decent first three years in the league before losing his starting job before the 2008 UFA Season. This proves that despite the efforts of the team, they fell into the cellar of the league.

Reputation
The reputation of the Menaces is odd. To the uneducated common fan, the Menaces are a weak team that can easily be beaten. But, real football fans respect the efforts of the Menaces in the 2004 Draft and admire how they were managed to not be the worst team in football during their early years and respect their dynasty of the 1990's. People often sympathize with the fans of the Menaces due to the 2004 Draft fiasco and their downfall ever since their 1999 Championship Season.

Notable Players
These are the most notable players in Menaces' history...

Dennis Webster: Quarterback: Selected third overall in the 1984 UFA Draft out of Maryland, Dennis was an above average quarterback from 1984-1989, but became a legend in 1990. He would consistently be one of the best players in football as he led the team to three straight UFA Finals appearances from 1997 to 1999.