In the South the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns, whose long-time Head Coach Siegfried Gehrke had announced his retirement after the end of the previous season started one of the most impressive winning streaks in German sports history under their new Head Coach Jordan Neuman who would post two consecutive perfect seasons and win all games in the 2019 German Football League before losing his 51st game as Head Coach in German Bowl XLI.
The only team that came even close to threatening Unicorns dominance in the South were the Frankfurt Universe whose only losses in the regular season came at the hands of Schwäbisch Hall.
As fate would have it, the neighboring town of Potsdam would be the city their opponents represented and thus the representation of the wider Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region in the new season would be secured, but the storied Adler, founded in 1979, and six time German Bowl winners would enter a period of "wilderness years" that would even have them fall to the third-tier "Regionalliga Nordost" after another relegation in 2018.
While Dresden avoided the fate of the previous three and the following two seasons of facing Schwäbisch Hall in the semi-finals and losing, they also lost home field advantage and without their loyal supporters in Heinz Steyer Stadion where they had never lost a play-off game, they would face the new southern powerhouse Frankfurt Universe on the road.
Meanwhile the defending champion from Braunschweig had little trouble beating Ingolstadt and Kiel used its home field advantage to advance to the next round - which would pit them against their opponents in the 2011 and 2012 finals, the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns.