Lemme take this. The Smurfs and Monks are part of the Royal Family. It is not the Smurf family or the Monk family.
The Monks were the top team for several seasons basically b/c we were the only pro team, there were once 5 or so of them but all the others rebooted or folded.
The arrangement that we made w/ the Smurfs at about midseason was that the team that won Naga in
S16 would assume the top dog status in
S17 and as such, would receive the best players or the players they needed to compete at the next level.
No one would have been above the Smurfs last season b/c they were not officially in the Royal Family until the Monks season was ended by them. Had the Monks won, the Smurfs would have been the 2nd tier team and joined us. But they won. The Smurfs did join our network and start "mingling" w/ all of our agents b/f the season ended. But there was no transferal of players or anything, you can look that up.
As far as playing only 14 teams...they did kick the Monks ass in the last regular season game and we adjusted for the playoffs after not game planning all season basically.
So if you call the closest game the Smurfs had all season in Naga
http://goallineblitz.com/game/game.pl?game_id=1279147 in which they needed to score w/ 3:05 left to gain the win, not having to play the Monks, I don't know what to tell you.
Not that I really care if you or anyone thinks there was some kind of collaboration b/c if you do, you're simply wrong. If the Monks threw the Smurfs that playoff game, it was cut pretty close don't you think? Mebbe we put in the secret "let the Smurfs score at the end, just like the Wookie" code and mebbe we didn't.