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General Manager Notes: How about that, Three and Oh Yeah!
After an off-season that fed the pessimism, the first games of the regular season have turned the tide into cautious optimism. For the first time since the 2071 season, we've managed a 3-0 start to the season. The road victory at Bordeaux was somewhat lucky, the home victory over the Red Menace should have been a blowout and week 3 was an old fashioned near-choke against the Atlanta Vipers. So, three and oh, what's that worth? We've been here 12 times before, so it's far from unique. First time around, we finished the 2007 season with an 13-3 record, our first division title, first playoff victory and first trip to the AOC Championship game. In 2011 and 2012 we reached the playoffs. In 2023 we had that outstanding offense, yet were only fourth seeds with a 12-4 record and lost a nailbiter to the Tucker Tigers. In 2035, we won the division. In 2040 we wasted a bye in the playoffs with a humiliating 24-0 loss at home, In 2041 we were the top wild card and lost by a missed field goal. In 2049 we actually failed to make the playoffs, finishing 8-8 far behind the three division rivals that all did make the playoffs with 11-5 and better records. In 2058 we choked in the playoffs, in 2059 we had the super choke, despite being 15-1 juggernauts. In 2062 we missed the playoffs at 10-6 and in 2071 we choked once again in the playoffs. That's a lot of choking. So, where to go from here, with that 3-0 start? Well, for at least another week we'll be the division leaders, because our way too early bye week is here once again and the Paris Musketeers today lost 33-30 at the Tucker Tigers. Division standings: 1. Maassluis 3-0 2. Paris 2-1 3. Bordeaux 2-1 4. Gothenburg 0-3 The Giants defense with Antonio Battle and Amari Lavelli as regular starters is struggling, heavily. The Vineyards and Musketeers are playing well, very well even. We should not get carried away here, we might still be the worst team in the division. Well, "still", we were in my opinion one of the best last season, we were supposed to bounce back, no? Anyway, 3-0, apparently we can win close games again, but all in all, we're probably worse than we were last season. We'll continue to play ball, take effort, do our best. C'mon Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: Back with the living
The unbeaten streak ended after 4 victories. After an undeserved 24-23 win at the North Plainfield Plague in week 5, we wasted our chances to do well this season with a 34-30 home loss to the Rochester Razorbacks with an immensely underwhelming pass defense. In seasons like these, you simply can't afford to lose home game against teams that are close in record. Standings 1. Paris 4-1 2. Maassluis 4-1 3. Bordeaux 3-2 4. Gothenburg 1-4 Ellis McAlister is struggling heavier than before. He's completing only 53.5 percent of his passes for 241 yards per game, with 8 touchdowns and 7 interceptions in these first 5 games. Walt Blair is traditionally in the mix at the top of the rushing yards leaderboard. With 109 yards per game, 4.51 per carry and 5 touchdowns in as many games, he's doing quite well. Artie Blazewicz and Dennis Nadell are amongst the league's top 10 in yards per catch, but their gross numbers are far from impressive. Blazewicz is a bit of a surprise team leader with 25 catches for 404 yards, Monty Elliot is close behind with 24 catches for 343 yards, Nadell is just third with 22 catches for 343 yards. The rest of the team, well, "meh". We're 4-1 inspite of our inability to play well, especially on defense. Veterans Alonzo Hitchcock (3 picks), Maurice Harkleroad (3 picks) and Arnie May (4.0 sacks) are crucial, despite that they are arguably amongst the least talented starters. Craig McCorkle is on pace to top 150 tackles, but quite honestly, I still think having the tackles leader in the league means our defense is terrible. It is what it is. We've played 5 games and won 4 of them. We've got a tough schedule remaining, but really, are there any pushovers in a league like the IHOF? I really don't think so. We'll have to do what we've being doing well lately: get lucky. |
General Manager notes: Not this again...
Sigh. After week 14 we were 9-4, with all those losses closes games, on an impressive 3-game streak of blowout victories and wildly in the mix for a bye week. Two big losses later, we're completely out of the playoffs picture. Done, locked into the 7th "seed". 1. Bordeaux 11-4 2. Paris 11-4 3. Maassluis 9-6 4. Gothenburg 7-8 We'll finish the season in Gothenburg. I wouldn't even mind if McAlister and Blair blow out their knees. Wait, did I write that out loud? I mean, they'll be off the team after this game, I had hoped they'd be guiding and carrying us deep into the playoffs, one more time. But so be it. Our rookie cornerback duo has had its ups and downs, both are currently playing hurt. Kirk Hitchcock is going through his second knee injury, missed a game early on. Tre Poloski has missed 3 games with a broken clavicle. Third year linebacker Craig McCorkle is having a DPOY kind of season, leading the league in tackles, supporting the pass rush and leading the team with 5 interceptions. Merchantmen worthy material. All that said, it's been yet another weird, most mostly disappointing season. It's weird that we were 9-4, with all losses close games. Two blowout losses later, we're heavily outgained in yardage numbers. We're gaining a mediocre 358 yards per game and give up a horrible 386 yards. Our red zone defense is depressingly bad. And somehow the Solecismic power ratings puts us in 6th place. Say what? Is there any good news? Maybe our cap situation next season? 45 players signed, $32.5M under the cap. That will be without a quarterback and running back, but it is what it is. Our draft situation will be par. We'll be picking 20th in all rounds, except for the pickless 7th round and knowing we lost a mid-round 3rd round pick for cap violation. Or maybe it's our 6th round pick from last season, Artie Blazewicz. 72 catches for 1,035 yards makes him our WR2, but he's also grown into a top5 kickoff returner. Oh well, there's always next season, right? Right!? |
General Manager Notes: 2081, it's a wrap (sort of)
The playoffs are about to begin, but 2081 is over for us. We finished the season with a 9-7 record, playing above average football for 13 games, only to turn into complete incompetence for the last 3 games. I know, I should be more supportive about my team, but reality is that we lost the last three by a 29, 13 and 19 points. Our first for losses combined for 20 points. The molded, dry cherry on the fallen apart pie was the 97 yards passing in week 17 at the Gothenburg Giants. I think that's unprecedented for us to be held under 100. Mind you, this is in the era of the passing game. The Paris Musketeers quarterback Neil Poling smashed the records with 574 completions on 919 pass attempts for 7,004 yards. Our quarterback Ellis McAlister finished the season with career lows (as a starter) of 3,620 yards, 287 completed passes, 6.9 yards per attempt and 19 interceptions (technically a career high, but we'll throw that on the pile of worst ever numbers. Walt Blair finished the season with 1,779 yards (third in the league), leading the league by a landslide with 17 rushing touchdowns, gaining a pedestrian 4.38 yards per carry. McAlister and Blair. Free agents next off-season. I'm expecting both of them to get big contracts, hopefully far way in the North American Conference. McAlister is by my staff rated as the 21st best quarterback. 25th when you take into account the progress of four promising rookie or second-year quarterbacks. Blair is the 7th best running back according to our staff. He's irreplaceable, basically. *sigh* We're still weak at wide receiver as well, despite having a 1,000-yard duo on what apparently has been the third most run-oriented offenses. Dennis Nadell is over his peak, we'll have to look at all three of the key skill positions next off-season. The defense finished the season with a disappointing pass rush. We're still far above average, but no longer part of the elite. The pass defense has been pretty poor, despite all the talent. 385 yards per game allowed, slightly better than the league worst that we were in 2077, but still Merchantmen unworthy. Yes, unworthy, we'll have to improve on that in the next off-season. And we will. LB Craig McCorkle, LB Glenn Brewer, DT Glen Stiegler and CB Kirk Hitchcock have the skills to carry this defense. Tre Poloski looks promising, ready to step in for CB Alonzo Hitchcock. S Maurice Harkleroad is still decent, but we'll be looking for a new guy to play side by side with him. The sidekicks on the defensive line are all talented enough to run havoc on any offensive line. Cohesion is still one of our strengths, let's build on that with a young core. 2082, can't wait for the chance to rebuild. Actually, we don't really rebuild, we fix what's been broken. We'll never play bad to improve our draft situation. The last time we won less than 7 games was in 2033, 48 seasons ago, and only once did we win less than 5 games. You know it, that was 2004, the inaugural season. We'll find a suitor to McAlister, we'll find a way to use our young gazelles at wide receiver, make tight end Monty Elliott the centerpiece of the passing game and improve that defense. Keep faith, Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: 2082, a new beginning?
Let's take a deep breath because it's time to regroup. We're down two men already, safety Jonah Harden and defensive end Arnie May retired from the game. For the last eight seasons, May was a very reliable pass rusher, a force to reckon with. 82.0 sacks in 132 games is very good, he ranks 4th all time for the Merchantmen in sacks and 7th in hurries. Harden was around in relief duty, despite 11 seasons on roster, he was basically extensively involved in only 3 seasons. As a result of our best of the rest performance, we're picking 20th in every round, except the 7th. Well, and the third, where we also held the 19th overall pick, but which we've lost due to cap violations. Cap violations aren't an issue going into the off-season. We've got 43 players signed with about $45M of cap space, of which about $16M is reserved for the six draft picks. With an additional first round pick in the 2083 draft, we've got a bit of ammunition to wheel and deal. 43 signed and 2 retired means we've got 8 players out of contract. A handful were undrafted rookies, the core of the situation is with quarterback Ellis McAlister, running back Walt Blair and defensive tackle Chandler Posante. All should be in the top 50 free agents list. Blair could be the hottest commodity for other teams, McAlister is best suited in Maassluis due to his familiarity with our system, but I'm sensing he's determined to try to sign elsewhere, risking to end up riding the bench or even missing out entirely due to his salary demands. Posante will find a new home, no doubt. The league office is still tabulating which players have declared themselves eligible for the amateur draft. No doubt that quarterback, running back and perhaps wide receiver are our top needs. Although crazy enough, league scouting says we're in dire need of a safety and a defensive end. Who knows? The market at quarterback isn't all that bad, McAlister could be just the fourth of fifth best option. Kansas' Eric Keith might get a league mandated franchise tag. Paris' Neil Poling and his 7,004 yards passing is on the market as well, as the 35-year old might be asking for the moon and the stars. Williamsburg's Rickey Nelson was a pre-season target for us, attempting to trade hold out quarterbacks up straight, but the Chicago Norsemen decided to move him to Williamsburg. Nelson is only 30 years old. Former Bordeaux #1 overall pick Ike Woodhouse is coming off a season on the bench in Orlando, but this 34-year old might not fit our offensive game plan. Quite honestly, we have no alternatives: Karsten Muchnick is a kick holder, nothing else, while restricted free agent Frank Graul is highly touted by the league scouts, but he's so green... We'll certainly bring Graul to camp, if he's willing to sign with us. We'll have to go out there and find a true quarterback. A Bennett Morris scenario would be ideal, but it'll require some cap magic to find the required cap space... Cap magic, that's right up our alley. We can do that. |
General Manager Notes, 2082 off-season: Receiver in, running back out
The rollercoaster has started and so far we got through a looping and a free fall. First, we moved up in the draft from 20th overall to 8th overall. We swapped our 2083 first rounder for Chesapeake's 2083 second rounder for the compensation. We used it on the only player that really impressed our staff members: wide receiver Theodore Bondy. Yeah, it's been a while, but it was about time to grab a receiver. Then we lost the bidding war for Walt Blair. In retrospect, my stupidity to not make a better offer than the one Brooklyn already had thrown out there, cost us his service. Slap to face. It was so obvious, but I totally missed it. We've put an offer out there for Ellis McAlister to stay around as our quarterback. I'm working on a plan B, just in case, McAlister moves on elsewhere. Chandler Posante is also on our list of players with an offer on the table. Again, we're looking at a plan B, but keeping Posante would be nice. Safety and linebacker are still positions of concern, on top of the very obvious: running back. Unlike the other positions, I have no clearcut plan B yet, other than going with the tandem of Raul Curie and Ronald Graham. |
McAlister Saga continues in Maassluis
The unthinkable has happened. Nearly a year after quarterback Ellis McAlister told the Merchantmen he'd play out the 2081 season to be able to become a free agent, he has signed a three-year $100M contract to stay in Maassluis. Following an up and down 9-7 season, missing the playoffs after being in a bye week spot going into the last quarter of the season, McAlister received a lot of the blame for the lack of success. With no other suitors, sticking in Maassluis was by far the better option for him, especially now that the team that picked him in the sixth round of the 2074 draft is finally willing to pay him starter money. Along with McAlister, defensive tackle Chandler Posante signed a new contract in Maassluis, despite taking the same hold out in pre-season route. Of the three 2081 pre-season hold outs, only running back Walt Blair has packed up, taking a richer contract with the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums. |
General Manager notes: Who the fuck is Ellis? He's our quarterback!
Yes, he's back. Quite honestly, we had a plan B, offering Neil Poling (the 7,000-yard passer) a contract, but maintaining Ellis McAlister was plan A after all. The draft didn't deliver any quarterbacks that wowed me and my staff. in the first three rounds we've now picked wide receiver Theodore Bondy (as I mentioned earlier), safety Emmitt Miller and defensive tackle Wally Loop. Miller is a smart, fast safety, did very well in the position specific score. He may be considered undersized at 5'9", but we think his play diagnosis, endurance, intercepting skills and experience in a zone defense make him a starting quality defensive back. Loop will bring another tower to our defensive line, as the 6'6" rookie joins backups Cameron Erlitz (6'7") and Erik Shrader (6'6"). We have good faith Loop will bring along the speed that for years, decades perhaps, made us one of, if not the best pass rushing defense in the league. We've also signed veteran safety Peyton Hines, outbidding our division rivals from Paris. Hines is a ballhawker and will be asked to mentor Miller, while bringing depth to the unit. Last and probably least importantly, we've signed our restricted free agent quarterback Frank Graul, defensive end Ezekiel Wylie, punt returner Gabe Broady, cornerback Frankie Youngblood. Negotiations with tight end Gavin Stern are ongoing. He had an active role on our offense last season, has the potential to play a lot in our 2 and 3 tight end formations. It's likely we'll bring him back on a three-year deal close to what he's seeking. More worrisome are the contract negotiations with Craig McCorkle. Playing on his final rookie contract deal, he's got every right to demand a real contract following an All IHOF first team season. But we're apparently wide apart in what he wants and we want him to get. As per usual in this situation, the moronic player agent tells him to go for a hilariously low bonus and take much less guaranteed money than we've offering him. Will these player agents ever get their fix? * sigh * |
General Manager Notes: Sigh of relief
Craig McCorkle decided to not hold out. How about that!? That's great news, because it means we can postpone contract talks with the best MLB in the league to the late pre-season stages. In the draft, we've spent our fourth through sixth round picks on a couple of projects. Quarterback Kelly Blalock comes in as a guy who can avoid the sack and has a decent Solecismic score, despite his mediocre intelligence (I think we have our new backup project). Linebacker Andy Russell will be moved to defensive end, the kid is potentially the best pass rusher on our team, which is something given how deep we are already. Running back Leonard Belin brings the fine combination of hole recognition and breakaway speed, although likely comes short to Ronald Graham. In the meantime, we've signed pass rushing and special teams linebacker Skip Keith. We had to outbid the Paris Musketeers, which is good news of course, to claim his services. Thus, we've had our first peak at what our rookies look like. The word on Theodore Bondy is very promising, our staff thinks he's a top five wide receiver. "Yay"? I'm getting a little bit more optimistic about our chances, that's for sure, but I need to be cautious. I may be wearing my rose-colored glasses... |
FWIW, my pretty good scouting staff sees WR Bondy as a pretty god but not great WR1/2 type. I have him at 98 BPR which is good, and just over 50 in GD and Courage, so he's not a near-useless one-trick-pony type. On a loaded roster, he'd probably be a WR2 to use downfield and here-and-there, but he's got the endurance to be a go-to guy on a more ordinary roster. For pick 1.8, I'd say that's about what you'd be hoping for, typically.
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General Manager Notes: We got a running back!
The loss of Walt Blair has been solved, of sort. Today we've agreed terms with the Chesapeake Chitterlings to acquire Jimmie Feffer. We actually had a deal worked out for another top5 talent running back (by my staff that is), but it was pending the cap situation of the seller. In the end, Feffer cost us less in terms of draft picks. He spent last season on injured reserve, recovering from a nasty keen injury picked up in the 2080 season with the Williamsburg Colonials. The Colonials cut Feffer in the 2081 off-season, then got picked up by on a three-year deal with the Chitterlings. As a result, he never played a down for them. Anyway, we got a replacement for Blair, this should be good news for our running game. |
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14/44 avoid drops 53/62 getting downfield 26/82 route running 64/80 third down catching 98 big-play receiving 63/77 courage 24/82 adjust to ball 0/0 punt returns 0/0 kick returns 74/86 endurance 72/90 special teams 47/72 overall If it holds up, that's a WR1 type for the Merchantmen. In comparison, previous (HOF) legends in Maassluis and their peak overall numbers: 68/68 Terry Haskell 74/74 Gabe Springer 68/68 Riddick Stanley 61/61 J.R. Mills |
General Manager Notes: Sherman is back!
Nicky Sherman is back in Maassluis. One of the most talented centers, still at the top of the game at the age of 35, with two seasons in Maassluis on his resume, rejoins us after a season away at the Houston Mustangs. It'll be an interesting battle in pre-season for the starting five on the offensive line. Especially given that we also signed free agent guard Leon Wooden, a 34-year old pass protection expert. The arrival of Jimmie Feffer for training camp was also cheered by the fans. He's already more popular than the guy that left us this off-season. Far behind those key moves, we've also signed a threesome of rookie skill position players. Nicholas Douglas and Chad Togiai will battle for a depth spot in our backfield. Douglas has the better hole recognition, Togiai could hang on as a special teamer. The third signing is kickoff returning wide receiver Ross Willbrandt, also bringing the big-play ability to be a WR4 or WR5. He's no guarantee to make the team though, he became our seventh wide receiver. We're going into training camp with 64 players on roster, which means we'll have to cut 4 guys after camp and before pre-season action, then 7 more before the regular season: * we've got 4 quarterbacks, it's likely we'll trim it down to 3 * we've got 6 running backs and 2 fullbacks, that's 1 or 2 too many * we've got 4 tight ends and 7 wide receivers, that's also 1 or 2 too many * we've got 3 centers, 4 guard and 3 offensive tackles, that's 2 too many * we've got 1 punter and kicker * we've got 10 defensive linemen, that's 1, likely 2 over what I prefer * we've got 6 linebackers, we may drop to 5 for the regular season * we've got 7 cornerbacks and 5 safeties, we might cut 2 guys before pre-season |
General Manager Notes: Training Camp
A lot of young players, so there was quite some news surrounding training camp results. Below the progress according to my staff on the 1 to 100 scales: +4/-3 QB Kelly Blalock (rookie) +4/0 QB Frank Graul +3/0 QB/KH Karsten Muchnick +2/0 RB Leonard Belin (rookie) +2/0 RB Nicholas Douglas (rookie) +1/+1 RB Chad Togiai (rookie) +4/0 FB Tristan Cochrane +2/+2 TE Gavin Stern +1/+1 TE Kody Gowan +5/0 WR Theodore Bondy (rookie) +4/0 WR Riddick Bunting +1/0 WR Dwight Clements +1/0 WR/KR Ross Willbrandt (rookie) +8/0 C Butch Pearson +5/0 C Riddick Kasowski +2/0 G Raul Hughett +2/+1 RT Abel Bauer +5/0 DE Andy Russell (rookie) +4/0 DE Gino Kemp +4/-1 DE Ezekiel Wylie +4/-3 DT Wally Loup (rookie) +3/+1 DT Erik Shrader +2/+1 DT Cameron Erlitz +3/+1 LB Darien Stokes +7/0 CB Kirk Hitchcock +5/-1 CB Tre Poloski +3/0 CB Frank Youngblood +1/+2 CB/PR Gabe Broady +3/-3 S Emmitt Miller (rookie) +1/0 S Louie Ferguson So, good news on Bondy, the staff still likes him. Keep it up, Theodore! |
I hope you take no offense in my week-by-week full-throated rooting for your opposition. #SellingShort
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25/63 avoid drops 61/78 getting downfield 42/96 route running 71/87 third down catching 100 big-play receiving 76/94 courage 38/94 adjust to ball 0/0 punt returns 0/0 kick returns 80/100 endurance 80/96 special teams 56/82 overall It's all an uncertainty for now, given it's his rookie season, but right now he's rated (56/82 by my staff) as the best rookie (second best a x/78) and best WR (second best a 76/76). At the very least, that's promising. |
General Manager Notes: "Don't let the door?" Nah, we liked some of them...
Tough decision time was here again. Slightly earlier than most teams, we've trimmed our roster to 53 players, using our game day roster and depth chart for the last two pre-season games. It meant the departure of 7 players. DE Herb Crane was the guy with 8 seasons of service, having played in all our games in the 2075-2081 time span, participating in our rotation on the defensive line. 112 games, 32.0 sacks, not bad for an undrafted rookie acquisition. DT Wally Loup was our third round pick in the most recent draft. Yeah, he's not even all that horrible, but his training camp was unimpressive and his pre-season form was even worse. We're deep at the defensive line with guys like Loup. The staff had him as "hard to read", I think we know now... G Raul Hughett was our 7th round pick two drafts ago. His training camps were underwhelming, his promising strength hasn't resulted in becoming a better football player though. Maybe some team will pick him up for their chemistry class... C Riddick Kasowski was our 7th round pick last draft. Brining back Nicky Sherman sealed Kasowski's faith, despite a couple of promising training camps. By the time he's ready to play, he'll still be backing up Butch Pearson. We might as well spend the roster spot on a veteran backup. RB Nicholas Douglas joined us as a rookie free agent this off-season. His hole recognition is very promising, but we've got a threesome of similar to better running backs, we're really not going to carry five tail backs into the season. QB Frank Graul didn't do all that bad, but we've got that Blalock kid we drafted as our backup plan. Despite knowing our head coach will ignore the kid and throw our kick holder out there if Ellis McAlsiter needs to be replaced. Yeah, our head coach is a nutcase, just like the coaches all across the league. WR Dwight Clements spent three seasons on our roster, but the former 6th round pick has no special teams skills to compensate for the lack of anything else than his speed. Speed a plenty on our wide receivers group. We go into the new season with 6 wideouts, Clements won't be one of them. With the pre-season action in the books, we can safely say that we have no idea whether Theodore Bondy can be a world beater. For two games he was invisible, in the last two games, he caught a grand total of 3 passes from Ellis McAlister, gaining 26, 31 yards and finishing it with a 9-yard touchdown catch. Okay, he might be a bit better than good. Let's hope so! Our cohesion will be quite high in all aspects of the game. We've got talented skill position players, a good offensive line, a pass rushing defensive line, two of the best linebackers, perhaps the best cornerback in the league and a bunch of question marks on the secondary. That's basically our roster. The regular season kicks off with a road game in Paris and continues with 4 home games, then a series of road then home, a quartet of road games and eventually two more at home and a road game in Bordeaux. The goal? 19-0. But a bowl victory after a 10-6 regular season will do as well. Go Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: 2082, Great start, except for all the interceptions...
Two games in and we've already piled up with 9 turnovers. The enigmatic share has been Ellis McAlister's 6 interceptions. He never throw more than 4 in back-to-back games, but he started the 2082 season with a couple of threesomes... We lost 28-6 in Paris in week 1. Despite outgaining them in yardage, we never had a chance, losing the turnover battle 5-1. Jimmie Feffer ran for 106 yards, Ellis Who the Fuck Is McAlister threw for 225 yards with the 3 picks, rookie Theodore Bondy caught 8 passes for 98 yards. Week 2 we came back from 31-14 behind to win 35-31. We lost the turnover battle 4-1 this time, but our single one saved the day as Giovanni Morton turned it into a pick six. Monty Elliot caught 8 passes for 97 yards, Ellis McAlister threw for 269 yards and a score with 3 picks and a rushing touchdown, Jimmie Feffer ran for 124 yards and a score, Dennis Nadell caught a touchdown pass. So far we've kept center Nicky Sherman on the bench, we're banking on the 5 starters from last season, but keep Sherman waiting in the wings to step in if we need an injury replacement. I'm tempted to put him out there though, for one of the guys. Despite the sextet of picks thrown, McAlister still keeps two quarterbacks behind him in the passer rating rankings. Newly hired Feffer leads the league with 230 rushing yards, probably a result of the league wide trend throw a lot. Theodore Bondy hasn't scored a touchdown yet, even lost a fumble in week 1, but I'm sure he'll pick it up and contend for offensive rookie of the year, albeit having to battle with the starting rookie quarterback from the Frederick Red Menace, who gets to throw the ball like 50 times per game. Tough luck, Theo. Division standings: 1. Paris 2-0 2. Gothenburg 2-0 3. Maassluis 1-1 4. Bordeaux 0-2 Next up: Paris hosts the league champion Rochester Razorbacks, whom have a disappointing 0-2 start, while Gothenburg will visit the 1-1 Snapfinger Jazz, Bordeaux will visit the 1-1 Orlando Talons and we will host the 0-2 North Plainfield Plague. So in short, we won't go 19-0 this season, but we have the worst behind us already, so if that holds up, we might still be in the mix for the postseason and who knows what not afterwards. Keep faith, Merchantmen. |
General Manager Notes: More picks, more scoring, more winning
Our annual bye week came early as per usual. We didn't really need it yet, we're on a three game winning streak. Mind you, we've got a hilariously imbalanced schedule, we're playing 4 straight at home, continuing this in week 6. So yeah, we won three straight, thus two more since my previous writing. We beat the teams from North Plainfield and San Antonio. Ellis McAlister has gotten his picks throwing trend a bit under control, Jimmie Feffer continues to run for 100 yards (or come one short) and Theodore Bondy has established himself as our top receiver with 7 catches in each of the last two games. We've averaged 402 yards per game, not something to feel bad about. But then, playing at home three times, the numbers are inflated. The defense, well... Meh? Okay, that's a bit too harsh. We dismantled the Plague's running game and kept the Tidal Force's passing game in check. It's only 4 games, but apparently we're a top5 run defense. In contrast, we're allowing the fourth best passer rating, a very disappointing figure, given how much we invested in our pass rush, linebackers and secondary in recent drafts. More importantly, we're really struggling to force turnovers, we rank last in that statistic. The special teams unit is not to be proud about either. Rookie Ross Willbrandt has been underwhelming and makes me consider to give the kick return duties back to Artie Blazewicz. Chance Arnold has missed just 1 kick so far, that's not too bad, while Tito Hornsby is having a slightly below average standard. We've given up the most kick return yardage, per return that is, but with only 7 returns allowed, it doesn't amount for too much. The field position battle has been up and down: -6 yards, +8 yards, -9 yards and +6 yards. Obviously way below Merchantmen standards, especially with home field advantage, but at least it's just about par. By the way, Ellis McAlister is playing through a sprained lateral knee ligament. A risky injury, but quite simply, we have no alternatives. We've already given our kick holder (he's really nothing more than a kick holder, coach!) 12 pass attempts, how stupid is that? We're going to activate our project Kelly Blalock for week 6, but I highly doubt my staff will even remotely pick up on the idea of putting Blalock out there if - football gods forbid - McAlister gets hurt. We'll likely be stuck with the kick holder getting undesired snaps on the offense... Ugh. All the grumping aside, we're 3-1, sitting in a wild card spot and theoretically can still tie Paris at 15-1 each if we win the last 12 games. We could still fall behind a 15-0-1 Tucker Tigers team for the #1 seed, or even lose the tie-breakers to Paris, but that's a luxury issue. We haven't made the playoffs in the last two seasons, remember? A 4-0 start and 9-4 going into the last three games was insufficient, copying our trend to lose the last 3 games of the regular season from the season before. Are most recent 'normal' season was 2078. Oh, Bennett Morris, where have you gone... Ellis, who the fuck is Ellis? Well, Ellis McAlister, our current quarterback. The guy that threatened to hold out, then threatened to leave us in free agency and then came back after all, when he finally getting starter money in his 9th season in the league, playing once again for the only team that ever believed in him: the Maassluis Merchantmen. Bondy is making good progress, at this pace he'll get close to his potential and be a scouted as a top 5 receiver by the end of the season, perhaps even becoming the best receiver before the playoffs start. Wouldn't that be something? |
Posting because I want to subscribe to this thread, great stuff, keep it up!
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General Manager Notes: Up, Down, Left, Right, But we're still in the race
We've reached week 12 and the European Division has already been decided: the Paris Musketeers will win it with 5 rounds of games remaining. So... How the [bleep] did we get there from our encouraging 3-1 start? We've bounced around. We ran into a silly loss 38-24 at home to the Atlanta Vipers, responded with a smooth 31-16 win at the Fort Wayne Fury and then got into a three-game losing streak. We lost 38-35 at home against Paris, already basically ending the division title pursuit for us. We then lost 24-19 at the Houston Stallions and followed up with yet another annoyingly underperforming game: a 27-10 loss to the Bordeaux Vineyards. Since then we've regrouped a bit, working ourselves up from last place in the division to sitting in the #7 seed by a weaker common games record than the Orlando Talons. We snuck into beating the Gothenburg Giants 15-12 and Oakland Black Panthers 27-21, both on the road. European Division: 1. Paris 11-0 2. Maassluis 6-5 3. Bordeaux 5-5-1 4. Gothenburg 4-5-2 Yes, the Gothenburg Giants already tied 2 games. And no, there's nothing European about ties. We have 5 games remaining on our schedule and frankly, if we're really a playoffs caliber team, we should stand a chance against all five opponents, all have a worse record than ours is, although some just by half a game. Our quarterback Ellis McAlister has sort of resparkled his magic. He's thrown interceptions in each of the last 5 games, but still went from 7 in 4 games to 12 in 11 games. With 239 yards per game and 17 touchdowns thrown. Progress, huzzah! Running back Jimmie Feffer has launched himself to the top of the rushing leader board with 107 yards per game and 9 touchdowns in 11 games. At 4.83 yards per carry, he's more than just useful. Our rookie of the year candidate Theodore Bondy is losing terrain on the Frederick Red Menace lucky charm quarterback Orlando George. With 61 catches for 923 yards and 4 touchdowns, he's having a WR2 worthy season, except that we're already expecting WR1 play from him. Tight end Monty Elliott (647 yards, 5 touchdowns), Dennis Nadell (459 yards, 2 touchdowns) and Artie Blazewicz (418 yards, 2 touchdowns) are clearly not able to carry the offense. But then, Bondy is the real thing, so says my solid staff, we have a player to build our offense around. Or better yet, let him play the kind of role we had J.R. Mills play, but with even more talent than that future hall of famer had. Imagine that. Elsewhere, I can't by any means be even remotely proud of our defense. 386 yards per game allowed, 3rd worst in the league, with the least takeaways... Our so-called best cornerback in the league has allowed a league 'leading' 58 catches in the first 11 games. Good heavens. Imagine how incredibly bad we would be if we didn't have a very talented bunch of players. Nevertheless, we're still hanging on, tie-breakers away from the #6 seed. The Solecismic Software playoffs probabilities machine actually ranks us slightly ahead of the Orlando Talons as the 6th likeliest AOC team to make the post-season. And as an added bonus, if we have no draft pick to improve, we traded our first rounder to the Chesapeake Chitterlings and instead have routing interests against the Outer Banks Ospreys. So far so good, they're sitting at 3-8 in the cellars of the Atlantic Coast division. Today I opened my Fortune Cookie, it read: "All's going well. The phase of success is here!" So either we're on the brink of another improbable IHOF Bowl run, or it's something else entirely... I think I can live with either, both would be really swell, though. |
General Manager Notes: When it rains, it pours, but what if the sun starts shining?
Let's not get overexcited, let's not get overexcited. We've won back-to-back road games, yet again. We're on a shocking four game winning streak, all on the road. In week 13 we came home after a superior performance, failing to put it all on the scoreboard. We beat the Augusta Greenjackets 27-13, but with 470 yards total offense and winning the turnover battle 3-1, we should have scored at least another touchdown. But a win is a win, and it was a much deserved one. Week 14 was a barnburner, played far away at the Fairbanks Northstars, where we needed every last bit of luck to come back from behind with Ellis McAlister connecting with Monty Elliott for a 17-yard touchdown pass with 18 seconds to go. Despite trailing 28-14 at half time, we pulled off a 38-35 victory in regulation. 531 total yards of offense, but also giving up 492 total yards. Yeah, our defense apparently missed the flight to Alaska. European division 1. Paris 12-1 2. Maassluis 8-5 3. Bordeaux 6-6-1 4. Gothenburg 5-6-2 You guessed it: once again, we're playing in the league's strongest division. The Musketeers secured the division title as I wrote my previous report, I just failed to mention it. We're virtually in the #6 seed, but it's by no means a done deal. The Orlando Talons are a game behind, with 3 winnable opponents and with a chance to surpass us on tie-breakers. We'll have to beat Gothenburg (week 15) and Bordeaux (week 17) to guarantee a trip to the post-season. Losing either game, especially the one against Bordeaux gives Orlando a chance to get level in conference record and beat us on strength of victory tie-breaker, or by beating Augusta (in week 15) also have a shot at getting the common games tie-breaker (if we don't beat Bordeaux). Do we stand a chance though, if we make the post-season? The defense continues to be depressingly bad and has tumbled even deeper, now being the worst in giving up yardage. We've allowed 311 yards passing, while being on a Merchantmen unworthy pass rush figure of 26 sacks in 13 games. Just... Unheard of. But we got to keep faith, stay strong. Hold the heads up high, shoulders back, chest forward. Feelin' young, feelin' strong at the height of the fight, so nothing can go wrong we know we always wanna be fighting the sea. Full speed ahead, Merchantmen! |
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48/63 avoid drops 71/78 getting downfield 80/96 route running 82/87 third down catching 100 big-play receiving 89/94 courage 74/94 adjust to ball 0/0 punt returns 0/0 kick returns 94/100 endurance 94/96 special teams 74/82 overall Could this be for real? In week 11 the Gothenburg Giants kind of dismantled Bondy, keeping him to 2 catches for 20 yards on 11 targets. Bondy still scored a touchdown and we won that game 15-12. But yeah, Julio Riddols and his Giants might not be our best matchup, understatement much? And we're facing them next, oh goody... |
General Manager Notes: Playoffs? Are you kidding me?
No, I'm not kidding you, we're into the playoffs! It didn't come easy, as the last three games were a complete rollercoaster. In week 15 we did ourselves a disservice big time, getting humiliated by the Gothenburg Giants. 41-17 in our own Oranje Haven, completing the division sweep of us in our own home. Disgusting. Turnovers paved the way for the Giants to run away in the second half after things being level at half time. We bounced back with a smooth 27-13 victory in our last home game, against the Colorado Cutthroats. We allowed only 2 red zone visits, posting one of very few non-horrible showings by the defense. Granted, that unit is talented, with the best cornerback and an all-world defensive tackle and middle linebacker combo. But somehow, we're still struggling. Week 17 it was all or nothing, we had to visit the Bordeaux Vineyards in what due to the various tie-breaker situations was a winner take all game. A victory of tie would put us in the playoffs, a loss would bring Bordeaux to the post-season. Despite losing the turnover battle (what's new this season?), we bounced back in the second half. Ellis McAlister was phenomenal, throwing for 306 yards and touchdown passes to all four of our top four receivers (Bondy, Elliott, Nadell and Blazewicz). A late field goal made it 31-24 for us, enough to put us into the playoffs and bringing us back into a positive points margin (415 to 414). European Division: 1. Paris 13-3 2. Maassluis 10-6 3. Bordeaux 8-7-1 4. Gothenburg 7-7-2 Paris goes into the playoffs seeded #2, Maassluis #5. We're once again the best division in the league, making that four seasons in a row now. Elsewhere in the league, the Midwest division had a 7-9 champion, marking the best record of any team in that division in the 2080s. Imagine that. So, where do we go from here? We're going to Atlanta, visiting the only non-division rival that beat us in Oranje Have this season. An absurd night of football. People that watched the game still claim to have seen guys in orange-white-and-blue that weren't any of the defensive players we have under contract. Additionally, we won only 2 playoffs games in the last 14 seasons, despite getting there 8 times. But all we can do is score more than the opponent. We're 3-3 in games where we allowed 30 or more points, but also 7-1 in games where we scored 30 or more points. It can be done by this offense, so it's my job to have faith in them. Heck, at some point, our defense will actually play up to its potential, right? Right!? Now would be a good time to start showing up. You can do it, Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: 2082, also not our season
One and done. For the 21st time, putting us back on top of that hill once again. No words can describe how disappointed I am in our defense this season. We've got the talent to be a top12 defense, yet, this sorry ass bunch could do no better than 30th best in the regular season in total yards allowed. It's not just our inability to keep offenses from gaining yardage (32nd with 300 passing yards per game), but the completion percentage (25th with 60.8%), yards per attempt (27th with 7.23 ypa) and sack percentage (23rd with 4.9%) have been downright unacceptable. Back to the drawing board? No such thing either. We've actually reverted to an old game plan in recent games, to save face, but it was to no avail. We still gave up 38 points against the Atlanta Vipers, against a quarterback that we should have put under pressure all night long (he was pressured once and sacked twice in 36 pass plays. unbelievable). It didn't help that our turnover antics have carried over into the playoffs. With 3 lost fumbles, it was near impossible to fight back from behind. Ellis McAlister completed 21 of 28 passes for 321 yards and 2 touchdowns, being a mistake free solid team leader. He's getting the hang of finding Theodore Bondy, although he was kept to 6 catches for 124 yards and 1 touchdown. Well, on to 2083 then? The staff is convinced Bondy is now the best wide receiver in the league and they claim he's the best wide receiver to put on the orange-white-and-blue jersey ever. Better than Alfredo Bass, Gabe Springer, Terry Thomason, J.T. Pritt, Terry Haskell, Riddick Stanley, R.J. Mills and Brody Stevens. Ok, then. But that defense... Kirk Hitchcock, best cornerback in the league, second best in franchise history to Randall Allen and already scouted ahead of Peter Tucker. Craig McCorkle is mentioned amongst the likes of Cody Cluff, Oliver Drake, R.J. Knight, Fred McCorkle, Wesley Devine, Daniel "Double D" Duncan, Edward Ross and Antonio Battle. Or maybe it's time to admit that we still have some work to do. Maurice Harkleroad and Rex McIndoe have been fine safeties, Emmitt Miller is likely a bust, maybe, just maybe, we have to get over that hump at safety and get somebody really good at that position. Glen Stiegler and Chandler Posante have been good to very good, but are no Charles Gomez or Shaun Hartman. It's no secret that we tried to sign the amazing Morris Holliday last off-season. Defensive tackle and safety. Those are the points of attention in the off-season. One way to improve our roster is through the draft. Acquiring the Outer Banks Osprey's first round pick has resulted in us having the #9 overall pick in the 2083 draft. Additionally, we swapped our own first round pick (#23 overall) to the Chesapeake Chitterlings for their second round pick, which will be the #44 overall, while we still hold our own second round pick (#55 overall). Our third and fourth round picks are also in Pretty Yellow hands, but we have their fifth rounder to compensate. There's always next season? No, it will be next season. We can do this, Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: 2083 is here!
Not much to report at the moment. It's the day after the IHOF Bowl and you know what that means: various players will fill their retirement papers and a bunch of others will get their names called for induction into the hall of fame. Tom Anaya, our center from the 2065 through the 2078 seasons has been elected into that Hall Of Fame. We retired the #77 jersey at the beginning of the 2079 season and now Anaya gets the complete picture. He missed 11 games in those 14 seasons, playing a grand total of 213 regular season and 18 playoffs games. The IHOF Bowl LXIV victory being his most important game. He racked up 40+ key run blocks in 5 different seasons. His 1433 key run block opportunities ranks third all-time. No, not just for us, for the entire league history. Two other former Merchantmen players got their enshrinement today. Defensive end Zachary Tompkins spent the 2076 season with us. A far from spectacular season for him, but it kept him in the league and set him up for a move to the Toronto Lake Monsters the season after where he won his only championship ring in the 2077 season. Quarterback Bennett Morris inspired our offense in the 2078 season into new highs, but sadly he decided to retire after we lost the AOC championship game and just a single season in Maassluis. Four of our players from last season retired. Long snapper Chris Bertolone was the most surprising one, quitting at the age of 33 after just 5 seasons with us. Guard Leon Wooden quit the game after a single season on our bench. Tight end Randal Curtis spent 11 season on our roster, being active in the first 160 games of that timespan, but sitting out the entire 2082 season. He scored 22 touchdowns, which is pretty good for a goal line formation tight end. Cornerback Alonzo Hitchcock was the most established Merchantmen player to leave the game. 11 seasons on roster, the second through tenth as a starter. 34 interceptions and 96 defended passes put him in the top ten in both figures for our franchise. The draft order was also published. As announced earlier, we're holding the #9 overall pick, as well as the 12th and 23rd picks in the second round. Then a couple of fifth rounder picks and our own sixth and seventh round picks to complete the septet. Season number 80. Let's see what it has in store for us. |
General Manager Notes: The draft of the wide receiver?
The draft has started and it's been a crazy one so far. The top five picks have all been spent on wide receivers. Although I considered picking one, but with those guys gone, we looked elsewhere. The hope was to grab a safety, perhaps by a little trade down, but the class at that position is very disappointing. We interviewed a bunch of talented prospects, none looked worthy of a top ten pick. And thus, we did the Merchantmen thing: we grabbed the best defensive tackle we could get our hands on: Heath Oliver. With the size of Shaun Hartman, we got something to look forward too. He's coming from the small college of Shippenburg, but really, that just adds to it. "Shippenburg", that just rings Merchantmen all over. We've interviewed a couple of quarterbacks as well, but neither wowed us. We may consider one of them in the fifth round, but let's wait and see. For now, we got the best player in the draft, as far as we know. That's quite the achievement, if it holds up, given that we got cornerback Kirk Hitchcock in 2081 and Theodore Bondy in 2082, both are (by our staff) listed as the best player of their class, at key positions. But it ain't worth a thing, if they don't get a ring... |
General Manager Notes: The inevitable happened, yes, we traded
Would any IHOF draft be complete without a Merchantmen trade? Well, I don't think so either. So, we decided to wait no longer at the #45 overall spot and instead move up from the #55 to the #22 spot (swapping our 2084 first round pick for the Bordeaux Vineyards 2084 second round pick as compensation), to grab the best safety of this class: Bart Guthrie. Of the seven safeties interviewed by our defensive coordinator J.J. Wolfe, Gutrie was the only one that left good impression. A triplet of mid-high graded guys were underwhelming and a couple of late round prospects got tagged "as scouted". Guthrie though, was considered to be underrated and thus a worthy pick. Perhaps more of a high second round pick, but I think we had to make a move at this position at some point. I'm still considering to look for a veteran to play on his side... Besides that, we're in our usual waiting game stage of free agency. Not seeing any particular players that are a major upgrade, especially at any need positions. We're renegotiating with a bunch of players, already having moved from projected $40M over the cap after draft picks to being $40M under the cap, not accounting for draft picks. Our linebackers Craig McCorkle and Glenn Brewer signed the richest deals, but we've also talked Ellis McAlister into signing a contract that keeps him happy and still far from paying him top5 quarterback money. Because, face it, he's good, playoffs caliber, but not a game changer. Anyway, "success phase", remember? |
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2082 draft top5 current 78/82 WR Theodore Bondy (Maassluis) 1.8 77/77 P J.J. Sklenicka (North Plainfield) 5.17 75/75 RB Perry Blake (Augusta) 1.9 75/75 RB R.J. Wiggins (Frederick) 1.7 74/74 LT Walt King (Moontown) 1.30 top5 potential, not in current top5 59/78 LT Ian Brandon (Arizona) 1.3 60/78 CB Theodore Barker (Iowa) 1.4 38/76 LT Joe Herr (Oakland) 1.15 front7, should be top5 68/77 SLB Jonathan Arnold (North Plainfield) 1.16 2081 draft top5 current 80/80 CB Kirk Hitchcock (Maassluis) 1.11 76/76 RB Korey Rose (Outer Banks) 1.3 72/72 RB Moe Shannon (Oakland) 1.4 71/71 WR Rod Zink (Snapfinger) 1.6 70/70 FB Nicolas Manning (Outer Banks) 2.14 70/70 LT Riley Jenkins (Colorado) 1.15 top5 potential, not in current top5 63/82 G Jon Benson (San Antonio) 1.16 60/79 QB Jerald Harrison (Orlando) 1.1 59/73 G Todd Hobson (Fairbanks) 3.9 front7, should be top5 82/82 WLB Joshua Lynn (Oakland) 1.13 75/75 DE Tristan Bernstein (Houston) 2.23 74/74 DE Alfred Wright (Rochester) 1.17 2080 draft top5 current 72/72 C Butch Pearson (Maassluis) 1.28 70/70 C Amos Ethridge (Orlando) 1.29 69/73 QB Blaine Hawkins (Arizona) 1.1 69/69 P Cameron Layne (Arizona) 5.3 69/69 CB Nicky Collins (Outer Banks) 1.4 top5 potential, not in current top5 none front7, should be top5 79/79 DT Derek Wallace (Brooklyn) 2.5 73/73 DT Percy Pomato (Iowa) 1.11 |
General Manager Notes: more new players for our 2083 roster!
Tight end, guard, offensive tackle and long snapper. Those are the positions where we added bodies to our training camp roster. Tight end Nicholas Grundy signed a two-year deal with us, making this 30-year old a candidate to be our TE2 or TE3. Despite his resume as a backup, our staff is convinced he's amongst the 10 best run blocking tight ends. That's obviously great to have around, given that we play several 2TE and 3TE formations. He can play special teams too, that's our kind of backup tight end. Guard Trevor Godfrey probably doesn't realize it yet, but we signed him to a two-year deal, expecting him to be a backup to our long standing starters Harvey Hank and Carlos Webb. Godfrey has been a starter with the Harlem Apollos for 10 years, never missing a game. He's primarily a run blocker. Long snapper Santiago Sepanski signed a two-year deal with us. He's entering his tenth season, previously being the long snapper for the Moontown Darksiders (with whom he won 2 IHOF Bowls) and the last four seasons with their division rivals Texas Sharks. At the age of 31, we except him to be a solid guy for a handful of seasons. With our early second round pick, we selected left tackle Nathan Hadinger. Green and volatily, but we're impressed by his agility and expect him to be the pass protection guy that we like to have at that position. We'll have to think about how to develop him, since we have Louie Murray still very capable for that left side and the awesome Oscar Meadows has returned for his 13th season with us. We expect Meadows to mentor Hadinger. It does make the future of 2081 sixth round pick Abel Bauer one that might be outside of Maassluis. Contract negotiations with our running back Jimmie Feffer have been a bit of a struggle. We're not quite sure a 6th year back deserves a four-year $100M contract. We can afford his current cap figure of $22.74M, which is the fifth highest on roster, but it's a position where it's always an uncertainty what you'll get. Plus, we still have Ronald Graham and Leonard Belin waiting in the wings to step in if Feffer does something silly (like hold out or get hurt). We've decided to offer Ross Willbrandt a one-year contract. Despite his severe injury, we hope to see (no pun intended) him back in action at some point in his career. We might place him on injured reserve if his condition doesn't improve during the pre-season, but for now, we think his talent as a kick returner and as a hail mary receiver warrants an effort to keep him. Nicky Sherman has decided to continue his distinguished IHOF career with the reigning league champions, the Tucker Tigers. He'll likely be their starting center for the upcoming 2083 season. He was on a one-year deal with us last season and had already declared his desire to move on and play elsewhere, rightfully feeling unjust about being a backup, despite it being behind the equally talented and 10 years younger Butch Pearson. But nothing else to report for now, really. We're floating on, waiting for the draft to finish, training camp to be held and then pre-season to figure out which 53 players will become our 2083 collective to take on our 80th effort to win the IHOF Bowl. |
General Manager Notes: 2083 draft class joins the club house
The rookies are here! We've welcomed the seven rookies that we selected in the 2083 draft to Maassluis, signing them all to their league mandated four-year contracts. We also welcomed a new backup center in Angel Carter. Angel Carter has been a starter in the league for 13 seasons, missing significant time in 2074 and 2080 due to injuries. He's a strong lineman, being better in making gaps for the running game than a role on the pass protection. It'll be a challenge to keep him happy behind Butch Pearson, because he's still a starting caliber center. We signed him to a one-year deal. Okay, now our draft class: 1.9 DT Heath Oliver (graded 63/84) 1.22 S Bart Guthrie (37/65) 2.12 LT Nathan Hadinger (19/64) 5.14 QB Weston Witkop (7/26) 5.23 S Alexander Marty (22/44) 6.23 WR Corbin Tharp (28/37) 7.23 LB Billy Springer (23/39) Oliver is obviously the cream of the crop. My staff already sees him as a top20 defensive tackle as he is right now, expecting him to into becoming a top5 defensive tackle. The assessment of his pass rushing skills and play diagnosis are on the low end to my liking. But the kid is still a short but not to be underestimated play maker, in potential. Bart Guthrie is considered to potentially be amongst the top15 safeties. He'll need to develop for a bit, but I suspect we'll throw him out there into the starting lineup from the get go. We'll move him to strong safety, which seems to fit better with his run defending skills. Nathan Hadinger by my staff is ranked in the top10 pass protecting tackles. In potential that is, right now they see him as being as green as grass. That's very disappointing, we had hoped to find a player that can grow into a starting role early on, but this basically means he'll likely have to wait in the wings for a season or two behind Louie Murray and Oscar Meadows. Weston Witkop is currently looking like he won't even be good enough to make the team. But he's got good sense rush ability and scored very highly on the Solecismic Test. It might turn out to be a coin flip between him and previous draft's fourth round pick Kelly Blalock. Unless I see room for two projects. Alexander Marty gives us another safety with the ability to pick off the quarterback. The staff sees him as a bit of a similar player as Maurice Harkleroad, which means he could turn out to be a potential starter by his third season. For now, it's likely he'll make the team as one of the seven inactive players on that 53 men roster at best. Corbin Tharp skipped the combine, but we were willing to gamble on this kid. His route running and big-play ability skills are acceptable for a pro football player. But unless he makes good progress, he won't unseat one of the 2082 guys. Except that we're still talking with Ross Willbrandt for a return to us, knowing he might be forced to miss the entire season and we'll have to deal with Artie Blazewicz, currently holding out for the kind of contract we usually don't give to a WR3. Billy Springer has good odds to make the team. Good special teamer with hard hitting skills, that's the kind of guy you want to play on your unit to stop the opposing kick or punt returner. Overall, his potential is similar to the kind of player Darien Stokes is right now, which bodes well for Springer, as Stokes is our third linebacker in formations with 7 or 8 front seven players. On to late free agency to add a couple of undrafted rookies to increase our training camp roster to at least 60 players. |
General Manager Notes: On to training camp 2083
And then there were 60. We signed a couple of undrafted rookies in safety Darnell Brim and wide receiver Travis Gellings. Brim is by my staff already in the top16 of safeties capable of picking off the quarterback. Gellings is a kickoff returner, potentially better than what we have now. Well, not exactly. Artie Blazewicz is a better returnman, but he's holding out and it's questionable he'll make it to training camp and the pre-season roster. We're offering him a contract close to his demands and we'll see where it goes from there. Ross Willbrandt is the other kickoff returner and he's still struggling with impaired vision, it's unlikely it will be over by pre-season, but we'll hold on to him until the regular season list of 53 names have to be finalized, deciding then whether to keep him active or put him on injured reserve. By these last statements, you've correctly concluded Willbrandt has signed a new contract with us for two seasons. In other news, we're going to completely revamp our play book. Surely, it isn't the offense that needs to be fixed, because our defense has played unforgivably terrible in the 2082 season. But we think we can do better than what we've done with our play book. That's all for now, more later on our preparation for the 2083 regular season... |
General Manager Notes: training camp was good, but...
But pre-season can be a mood killer... Improving players by our staff on 1 to 100 scale: +8 S Guthrie (rookie, R1) +7 DT Oliver (rookie, R1) +6 LT Hadinger (rookie, R2) +6 DE Russell (2nd year, R5) +5 WR Bondy (2nd year, R1) +4 FB Cochrane (3rd year, R5) +4 LB Springer (rookie, R7) +4 S Marty (rookie, R5) +4 S Miller (2nd year, R2) +3 QB Blalock (2nd year, R4) +3 QB Muchnick (5th year, undrafted) +3 T Bauer (3rd year, R6) +2 QB Witkop (rookie, R5) +2 RB Belin (2nd year, R6) +2 WR Bunting (3rd year, R7) +2 WR Tharp (rookie, R6) +2 CB Broady (3rd year, undrafted) +2 S Brim (rookie, undrafted) +1 WR Willbrandt (2nd year, undrafted) +1 WR Gellings (rookie, undrafted) Bondy is considered to be fully developed now. So yeah, our three investments in the first and second round of this draft all made very good progress. One by one, Guthrie the biggest surprise, maybe. Oliver looks great, but still looks like we might have to think twice about putting him on pass defense formations, with all those pass rushers on the bench, especially in his rookie season. Hadinger is so green, no way he's going to start this season, unless disaster strikes and either Louie Murray or Oscar Meadows has fallen apart during the off-season. Bondy is now considered to be the best wide receiver in the league. Our defensive end project Andy Russell is coming along well as well. Safety Emmitt Miller might be recovering, but we'll have to see how he looks at mid-pre-season. Overall, we'll have some sort of position battles at safety (7 players on roster, none return specialists), linebacker (7 players on roster) and wide receiver (8 players on roster). In this last group, we've decided to end it here for Ross Willbrandt. He might recover at some point, but with 61 men on roster, he's our odd man out, in a sense that he's not leaving us, but will go to injured reserve. But for now, a bit of a waiting game. In a day or two, we'll know a bit more about where all the guys stand... |
Merchantmen lose 2083 pre-season opener to Walt Blair in overtime
Walt Blair's return to Maassluis was emotional. With mixed feelings, but mostly in a positive atmosphere, the Merchantmen fans recognized their star running back from two years ago that carried the offense for four seasons. The Brooklyn Fightin' Bums were visiting Oranje Haven in both teams' 2083 pre-season opener. The Merchantmen scored first, stalling the Fightin' Bums' first drive and replying with a field goal. Chance Arnold took advantage of Kelly Blalock's passes to Riddick Bunting and Monty Elliott to move up field. Brooklyn went up 7-3 on a typical 80-yard drive and got the ball on the next drive after a fourth and short run by Leonard Belin fell short. Brooklyn quarterback Ross Grinell ran for 4 yards early in the second quarter, Maassluis was kept to a field goal again, despite Kelly Blalock's effective passing. Oranje Haven erupted when Walt Blair was stuffed by first round rookie Heath Oliver on a third and one to force three and out. Chance Arnold scored on the responding drive and after a defensive stand then kicked the deficit to 14-12 on the final drive of the first half. In the second half, both teams at first continued with the same players that were active in the first half. A couple of sacks pushed the Merchantmen back from the red zone and settled for their fifth field goal of the day, at last reclaiming the lead: 15-14. Defenses stood strong, including another failed fourth and two for the Merchantmen, this time when third down back Raul Curie was tackled for no gain. Merchantmen kick holder Karsten Muchnick then took over for backup quarterback Kelly Blalock and obviously failed to get his team to score. Both teams stumbled on, until the Fightin' Bums backups finally broke out, scoring a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter. After a successful two-point conversion, Brooklyn was up 22-15. Muchnick continued to be nothing but a kick holder and the Merchantmen fans rightfully started to wonder how this offense would even get any more first downs. Gabe Broady saved the day, returning a punt for 58 yards and a touchdown, tying the score just before the two-minute warning. The Merchantmen defense stood tall, the Merchantmen kick holder continued to collect boos. Overtime was the result. Muchnick surprised the world by completing a 9-yard pass to Dennis Nadell, but a sack and bad throw later, Brooklyn had the ball back. On their second play of the drive, Walt Blair broke out for a fabulous 65-yard run and scored his first touchdown in Oranje Haven not wearing orange-white-and-blue. Brooklyn 28, Maassluis 22. Kelly Blalock completed 17 of 24 passes for 167 yards and probably solidified his job as the backup quarterback. Karsten Muchnick completed 5 of 10 passes for 41 yards to secure his role as nothing but a kick holder, providing the Merchantmen staff won't be a bunch of blokes by putting him over Blalock in competitive games when Ellis McAlister (inactive today) for whatever reasons isn't on the field. (Which is very likely given the moronity staff members usually display in this game, sigh.) Leonard Belin impressed, getting just 5 carries for -2 yards, making it one of the most underwhelming running performances by a starting running back, even for a pre-season game. Raul Curie lead the Merchantmen with 50 yards rushing on 14 carries. Jimmie Feffer was inactive. Riddick Bunting caught 5 passes for 67 yards. Theodore Bondy was inactive. Rookie left tackle Nathan Hadinger was benched midway through the game, much to the chagrin of the Merchantmen general manager, as the Merchantmen spent a second round pick on him and ordered the staff to give him as much action as possible. First round picks Heath Oliver and Bart Guthrie were also disappointingly left off the field way too much. Oliver made 2 tackles and 1 assist, with no pass rush stats in as little as 25 plays. Bart Guthrie played on 2 more plays, making even a tackle less than Oliver. Yes, stupidity rules during pre-season games. The Merchantmen defense allowed 362 total yards, including that 65-yarder in overtime. The Merchantmen offense gained 255 total yards. A tie-game would have done more justice here. If it wasn't for that former Merchantmen star running back. Walt Blair, this is why the Merchantmen fans loved you for four years. you're always welcome back in Oranje Haven, as long as you're not wearing the opponents' uniform. |
Merchantmen bounce back, win second pre-season game
In a defensive struggle, the Merchantmen captured the Capital City's stadium by winning 16-10 in regulation. Neither offense made a strong impression, likewise the defenses received kudos for holding the opponent under 300 total yards. Kelly Blalock completed 13 of 20 passes for a whopping 81 yards. The Maassluis kickholder completed 3 of 5 passes for 24 yards. Raul Curie ran 17 times for 105 yards, outperforming Leonard Belin's 40 yards on 7 carries. Rico Techen caught 5 balls for 33 yards, making him the shockingly unproductive leading receiver for the Merchantmen. Key rookie investments Heath Oliver, Bart Guthrie and Nathan Hadinger were much less active than ordered by team management. The Merchantmen defense disrupted 15 of 44 passing plays, a Merchantmen worthy figure. The Merchantmen continue their pre-season activity at the Chesapeake Chitterlings and finish in Oranje Haven against the Outer Banks Ospreys. Key offensive starters Ellis McAlister, Jimmie Feffer, Theodore Bondy and Louie Murray will finally be in action in those two games. |
General Manager Notes: the pressure is on us... huh?
League pundits have sky rockets the Merchantmen fans' expectations, some consider the Maassluis Merchantmen to be the #1 team in the league. Say what now? Our pre-season results don't make me particularly optimistic. We lost at the Chesapeake Chitterlings after allowing their first two drives to go for touchdowns, which doesn't bode well for our starters on defense. McAlister struggled with his interception proneness, Bondy failed to top 100 yards, despite making 8 catches. We followed up by losing in a field goal fest against the Outer Banks Ospreys. It shows that our game plan on offense isn't good enough to move the chains in the opponents' territory. Feffer was underwhelming in both games. At the same time, there's no denying that we've established what seems to be a very talented collective of players. McAlister, Bondy, Elliott, the OL, Hitchcock and Poloski, McCorkle and Brewer, the rookies Oliver and Guthrie, the depth on the DL, this team ought to do well! Let me breakdown what our roster currently looks like, right before the final 4 cuts down to 53 men: Quarterbacks
Backfield
Tight Ends
Wide Receivers
Offensive Line
Special Teamers
Defensive Line
Linebackers
Secondary
|
General Manager Notes: Feffer stays, Graham out. Right?
I had such good hopes about Ronald Graham. Undrafted pickup from the 2078 draft class. Very good hole recognition, good break away speed. We gave him 14 games to fill in for an injured Walt Blair. 3.6 yards per carry, just one 100-yard performance. The latter came in the playoffs though, we had a nice run with Graham filling in for Blair. But the wait is just about over, we've selected Leonard Belin in the sixth round of last season's draft and also acquired the veteran Jimmie Feffer, like Blair and Graham from the class of 2078. It's Feffer at RB1 for another season, for now. Or..? Contract renegotiations with Jimmie Feffer have been difficult. He's scheduled to make $22.7M this season, of which $15.99M is the base salary. If we cut or trade him, that money becomes available to extend contracts of players like Butch Pearson (the center of our offensive line), Chance Arnold (our kicker, a third round pick in 2079), aforementioned Graham himself, backup safety Peyton Hines and a trio of defensive linemen that are seeing a lot of time in our rotation: Gino Kemp, Max Lyons and Erik Shrader. We've improved our cap situation a little bit by renegotiating ten veterans, while also locking them up for the 2084 season. Most notable were Oscar Meadows (our all-time best right tackle), safety Maurice Harkleroad (back for yet another season as a starter) and our punter Tito Hornsby. Locking up Butch Pearson is the most crucial part and can be done without Feffer's help. Getting Feffer to take a cut of like $5M this season would help to at least extend contracts of Lyons and Shrader. Kemp and Arnold appear to be lost cases, their demands are too rich for our current cap situation. Unless we cut Feffer and open up another $15M, which would free up the required cap space to extend them all... As I mentioned in earlier notes, Leonard Belin might be the smarter play than Feffer. Belin's hole recognition is superior, while Belin's (lack of) elusiveness makes him less erratic. We'll have to face that Feffer no longer is the top5 running back that we thought we had acquired. The only person on the planet that still thinks he is, well, that's his agent. And to be fair, he was top5 in gross yardage and touchdowns in the ground game. It's pointless to feature him on passing plays, he's a modest receiver and a horrible pass blocker. As you can see, it's quite the pickle we're in. With opening day still a week away, that's plenty of time to second and triple guess what to do here. Decisions, decisions... |
Merchantmen cut Jimmie Feffer opening day 2083
Jimmie Feffer's stint with the Maassluis Merchantmen lasted just one season. Despite coming off his most productive season to date with 1,549 yards rushing, the Merchantmen decided to part ways with Feffer when contract negotiations failed to lead to an extension the Merchantmen management could agree upon. The move helped second-year pro Leonard Belin into the leading role, with Ronald Graham and Raul Curie also in the mix due to Belin's suspect endurance. Feffer, no doubt, will find a new home soon. Due to the release, the Merchantmen opened up enough cap space to extend contracts of five potential free agents: center Butch Pearson and defensive linemen Gino Kemp, Max Lyons, Erik Shrader and Ezekiel Wylie. |
General Manager Notes: 2083 and the staff that can't game plan
Game planning in football isn't cut and dry, it appears to be quite the art to create a plan that works. For this season, we've thrown overboard the plan that we had used for roughly 2 decades. The new plan was supposed to be an improvement. The staff has been given the go ahead in all 7 games this regular season. The end result is downright unbelievably pathetic. Our team ranks 30th in scoring, having scored 23, 20, 17, 16, 10, 16 and 7 points. That includes 4 home games. Uncharacteristically we've beaten the current division leader (Gothenburg) and the defending league champions (Tucker), the third victory came again Kansas. All three times, the defense had to carry the team by allowing 13 or less points. Being completely lost about where to begin to fix things, I've decided to give the staff an ultimatum: go back to what worked before this season and if we fail again, it's going to be a complete overhaul, because at 3-5, the season is pretty much wasted already. Mind you, we were one of the favorites for the league title this season, our roster isn't just a good one, it's up there with the very best. We have something to prove here. Has the defense really carried us though? Not quite either. We've shockingly allowed the 3rd worst yards rushing per game and yards per carry. Unacceptable on a team with all what we have invested in our defense. Our pass defense is quite the disaster as well, allowing the 6th most yards per attempt, having the 5th worst pass defense rating and being light years away from what should be an elite pass rush. The offense apparently is the better part of these two. Our running game is mediocre, the passing game in the bottom third of the league. We used to be good in yards per catch and per attempt, those days are over if I leave it all up to our staff. At least our special teams unit is saving the day again and again. Which is old school, but not quite enough to make us jump into the 13-3 juggernaut that we were expecting to see this season. So far, we're as bad as the new advertising heavy Operation Sports forums: annoyingly slow in processing what used to be a reliable thing. The good news? Well, let's not go there for now. It's up to the team to regroup, fast, and start playing like the most talented Merchantmen roster ever, which they are scouted to be. Bondy, McAlister and that whole defensive unit, get your acts together, play some football and make us proud! |
His name is Ellis, Ellis McAlister
For a quarterback there are some mountains to climb to make a name in the International House Of Football. Helped by what some claim to be one of the best wide receivers to play the game, today it was Ellis McAlister's turn to join the ranks of Hall of Famers Jared Brimberry, Shaun Duncan, Ted Wolf, Bob Jourden, Jackie Collier and Ryan Norris, as well as the active legend Clayton Andrews (perhaps the best quarterback since Collier). A humble sixth round pick from the 2074 draft, the Merchantmen saw something in the Oklahoma quarterback, born and raised in Mount Vernon, Washington. Five long years, McAlister was forced to ride the bench. He saw little action, handing off three times to Lance Blackwell in a 40-14 blowout of the Bordeaux Vineyards as a rookie. Back then it was Robbie Howe, the next two Erick Loera, followed by Sammy Erickson and Bennett Morris, all for a single season. By then, people still saw an emergency quarterback at best that had grown into a replacement level ball thrower. But after the unexpected retirement of Bennett Morris, combined with the sudden decline of Sammy Erickson, McAlister all of a sudden went from fourth quarterback on roster to opening day starter in the 2079 season. Supported by the charming Walt Blair at running back and future Hall of Famer wide receiver J.R. Mills, McAlister guided the Merchantmen past the Paris Musketeers in his first real action. The 12-4 bye week campaign came to a crushing halt in the divisional round against the Clayton Andrews lead Toronto Lake Monsters, with 5 interceptions on McAlister's stat line. But a star was born, Maassluis had finally found their new franchise quarterback, the gut wrenching blow was forgiven after the unlikely breakout season. Even at the age of 28, there was still room to improve for McAlister. Albeit a triplet of up and down seasons, league scouts kept reporting about McAlister getting better and better. Going into the 2083 season, the Merchantmen staff claims he's amongst the better half of starting quarterbacks, which was by no means written in the stars back when he was taken in that sixth round. The 2083 campaign hasn't been all that particularly impressive either. The first four games saw the Merchantmen beat the Gothenburg Giants, Kansas Creationists and Tucker Tigers, sitting at 3-1. McAlister's play was far from stellar. No better than 227 yards passing, just 3 touchdowns versus 2 interceptions. The next three games, things went downhill at lightning speed. The fans were screaming for the head of Ellis after a couple of horrendous defeats at home. The 4 interceptions against the Snapfinger Jazz became the center of critism, McAlister's worst showing in a regular season game ever, second worst only to that day he got picked off 5 times after a cinderella story season. Then came today's road game at the Bordeaux Vineyards. Merchantmen ownership basically called ultimatum on the staff: get this team's act together, or things will go another way. First drive, first play: a dropped pass by Theodore Bondy. Second play, McAlister gets drilled by a Bordeaux defensive end. Third play, McAlister goes with the safest option, dumping to his running back to come short of a first down. Down 7-0, things didn't get any better on the second drive. A hand off to Leonard Belin for 13 yards got followed up with a run for a loss from Belin. Third play of the drive, McAlister misjudges, misses his targeted fullback and a Bordeaux cornerback picks it off to move into Merchantmen territory. Down 10-0, things continued to be downright disappointing. McAlister goes for a scramble on the first play, then sees Belin get the first down on the next play. Third play, McAlister gets sacked again. Fourth play, a screen pass to Theodore Bondy, obviously resulting in not much of a gain. Third and twelve, McAlister goes for the safe option of Artie Blazewicz for barely a gain. The Merchantmen special teams unit then interferes as Craig McCorkle forces a fumble on the punt return and after left tackle Louie Murray miraculously comes away with it, Maassluis is in the red zone for the first time. McAlister throws another screen pass on second down, but on third and six, finally some success. McAlister finds Theodore Bondy open for a walk in touchdown. The second quarter, things get a little bit better, but only just barely. McAlister finds All-IHOF tight end Monty Elliott for the first time today, sees Theodore Bondy drop another pass and gets sacked on the second drive of the quarter. A 28-yard catch and run from Bondy gets the engines running and the second touchdown pass (to fullback Tristan Cochrane) follows immediately after. The remainder of the second quarter is far from impressive, Maassluis plays a ball control game, which they fail in and they're trailing 20-12 at half time. First drive of the second half, the Merchantmen defense forces three and out, putting all eyes on McAlister and his crew. An unlikely third and pretty long conversation to third stringer Rico Techen gets the chains moving. McAlister finally starts connecting with Bondy, ending the drive in a 15-yard catch and run from inside the red zone for the touchdown, leaving Maassluis trailing by just 1 point now. The Merchantmen defense forces another three and out, now the offense gets finally in a swing. Another catch and run by Theodore Bondy puts the Merchantmen 26-20 up. Rookie Heath Oliver co-sacks Brad Nestor for the third time, the other first round rookie Bart Guthrie makes the tackle to force Bordeaux to punt. Third down: McAlister to Bondy, first down. Third down: McAlister to Bondy, first down. Third down: McAlister to Gavin Stern, first down. Raul Curie makes the big run to start the fourth quarter and McAlister then finds Artie Blazewicz in the end zone for the 33-20 lead. By then, already the fifth touchdown pass from McAlister, with almost a full quarter of football still to go. By then, the Bordeaux offense appeared to be broken, with the Merchantmen defense forcing another three and out. McAlister's sixth touchdown pass was a tremendous run after a short pass to Monty Elliott, hauling it in from 45 yards out. At that point, he ties a franchise record, in forgone times set by the pick machine Louie Flannery in the 2009 season. Harry Osborne joined the club of six in 2040 and as a backup saw Perry Coleman join in 2043. In 2078, McAlister was a witness when Bennett Morris became the fourth member in a tremendous showing against the Paris Musketeers. Today, McAlister had joined the last guy he had to backup. But it wasn't all over just yet. After yet another three and out, McAlister connected with Artie Blazewicz on another short pass turned into a long touchdown. 47-20 up, but for McAlister, a record-breaking and -tying moment. The remaining 8 minutes of the game turned into garbage time, but forever, the Bordeaux Vineyards fans will have to remember they saw an opposing former sixth round quarterback throw 7 touchdown passes in a single game, something no European IHOF fanbase had seen before, neither on the supporting or opposing side. After the game, the player of the game, Ellis McAlister smiled, but at the same time understood very well how this game goes. It was just another game, the Merchantmen had been less than underwhelming in the last three games, it was just a way to get back to .500. Next up, a road game at the Orlando Talons, a 6-2 team with the top scoring offense so far this season. But if the Merchantmen can bring this kind of A-game with them to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, anything can happen... Tonight, the former sixth round pick, former fourth stringer, can go to sleep, knowing he joined the ranks of seven Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Also knowing back home, the Kansas Creationists saw their quarterback Hugh Gaines miss the opportunity to do the same thing on the exact same day, throwing for 504 yards and 6 touchdowns. Time was a plenty, but the Moontown Darksiders defense decided enough was enough down 45-17. Hugh Gaines got the Player of the Week honors. But Ellis McAlister knows those come by 17 times per season, Gaines won the 1352nd iteration of it, excluding 316 rounds of playoffs games. Gaines had a 6 in his stat line, McAlister a 7. Something only 7 other quarterbacks had done before, combining for now 10 occurances. If he doesn't make it into the Hall Of Fame, which after sitting out the first five seasons of his career will be a longshot, he'll always have today. Ellis? Who the fuck is Ellis? He's Ellis McAlister, a record-tying quarterback from Mount Vernon, Washington. |
The rising star Theodore Bondy
In and around Maassluis, football fans are unanimous: Theodore Bondy might be the best offensive player to put on the orange-white-and-blue. Merchantmen management and staff are outspoken about Bondy being the best skill position player in the IHOF, but it's easier said than done. For a while, they just thought the potential was there, but in recent weeks, Bondy has started to deliver. With five consecutive games at 100+ yards receiving, Bondy has become that productive leader of the offense. "It's been a struggle," says offensive coordinator Neal Murack, "last season Theodore [Bondy] was still learning the game." In game situation practice sessions, Bondy was often paired up with Kirk Hitchcock, the best cornerback in football. Reports out of Merchantmen training facilities are they've been a competitive duo, they make each other better players. With 1,469 yards in his rookie season, Bondy did well, ranked tenth in the league. But this season, the greenness is wearing off. Additionally, the team is adjusting the game plan every week, even went as far as completely redoing their playbook in the last off-season after nearly 2 decades of 'good is good enough'. All in an attempt to make the best use of this generational top talent. In recent games, Bondy has started to excel. Quarterback Ellis McAlister's strong arm is suddenly getting the job done, but mostly, he's just making sure the ball goes into the right hands, Bondy's. 10 games in, Bondy is leading the IHOF with 1,308 yards receiving, with his 102 catches being only second to Hanalei's Taylor Clayton. The road game at the Orlando Talons in particular was an eye opener to the neutral football fans. Bondy caught 8 passes for 249 yards and 2 scores. He was no longer a potential superstar, he arrived in his 26th game in the IHOF. Glimpses of his ability were noticed time and time again before, but now that the Merchantmen are starting to find the right balance between being unpredictable, throwing short and throwing deep, Bondy is becoming the player everybody hoped and thought he could be. It's too early to throw him out there with the all-time greats, but with 6 games to go, in good health, it's not unheard of to project Bondy to become the second Merchantmen receiver to reach 2,000 yards in a season. In fact, he needs 76 yards per game to place himself in the second best Merchantmen season in between J.R. Mills' great 2078 and spectacular 2077 campaigns. Be not mistaken about the Merchantmen being just about Bondy. Their receivers unit includes three proven 1,000-yard receivers, with All-IHOF first team tight end Monty Elliott currently being the second most frequent target. Speedster Artie Blazewicz and Dennis Nadell, the guy that always gets open, give the opponents plenty of reason to think twice about double or triple teaming Bondy. Meanwhilst, second year sixth round running back Leonard Belin is giving opposing defenses another reason to not overdo on covering Bondy. Belin has ran for 85 yards per game and 5.2 yards per carry, despite getting about 70 percent of backfield carries. Team effort and all, it's undeniable that Theodore Bondy's star is rising. In Ellis McAlister's seven-touchdown game, Bondy was on the receiving end 3 times. The quarterback had his day in the spotlights (only to miss out on offensive player of the week honors to Kansas' Hugh Gaines' 504 yards and 6 touchdowns passing), but Bondy was there to make it happen. Today, Bondy (11 catches for 144 yards and a score) had a leading role in the crucial 27-14 victory over the Gothenburg Giants, completing the head-to-head sweep and trimming the gap to 1 game behind the 6-4 division leaders. The Paris Musketeers are also still in the mix, whom the Merchantmen will face in week 17 in what could be an all or nothing game. |
General Manager Notes: Camping in .500 land
A crucial victory over the Gothenburg Giants brought us back to .500 land. With 5 victories in 10 games, we're still one of the disappointments of the season. I hope it's a short stay here, seeing us go North from here on and hopefully make the playoffs with double digits wins after all. European Division 1. Gothenburg 6-4 2. Paris 5-5 3. Maassluis 5-5 4. Bordeaux 1-9 It's been a disappointing season for the most part. The start was nice (beating Gothenburg and Kansas), followed by a mixed bag (bad showing in Houston, then us shocking Tucker), then followed by a threesome of games that are up there in being one of our worst sets ever. Although, the last time we lost three straight by 11 or more points was only 2 seasons ago, when we pulled one of the biggest choke jobs in league history by going from division leaders with no losses by less than a score to losing the last three by 13 or more each and completely missing the playoffs. The latest three games saw us trounce the Bordeaux Vineyards, blundering to not kick a game tying field goal in Orlando and today beating Gothenburg fair and square. Our running game is doing pretty well, Leonard Belin is averaging 5.2 yards per carry. We need it to play our balanced game plan. Our receivers are, well, Theodore Bondy and a bunch of guys that barely get any looks. Bondy is elite and delivers. Ellis McAlister is going with the flow of our games, either because we used horrible game plans, or because McAlister himself is so erratic. I hope it's all on the game planning inability from my staff and not on our ball thrower. The defense was doing well in recent games, but over the course of the season (10 games so far), it's still the unit that's failing us. 5th most rushing yards allowed, 3rd worst yards per carry figure, 8th worst yards per pass attempt, 9th worst pass defense rating... Only the pass rush percentage is slowly recovering and ranking 5th best at the moment. Heath Oliver and Bart Guthrie are making good progress though. Let's hope their progress will go hand in hand with the entire defense's improvement... |
General Manager Notes: Another opportune season down the drain?
The pre-season favorites to win it all are once again south of .500 land. For the fourth time this season, we lost by 11 or more points. That's already on par with last season (then we still snuck into the playoffs at 10-6, only to get crushed in the wild card round). One more and we'll have our worst season since 2022. Let that work into you: worst season since 2022. It was a horrific 5-11 campaign, despite having Rusty Harrison throwing long bombs to Gabe Springer. Sounds familiar? That season we had losses of 29-45, 14-31, 21-34, 26-37, 7-24, 24-38 and 14-35. (2061 would be next closest, as our fifth worst loss was by 10 points). What does it tell us? Quite simply that it's been one of the most disappointing seasons in quite some time. The bright side of things? Back then, we bounced back big time in 2023, which was one of my personal favorite teams. We scored 507 points in the regular season, had an amazing offense and a shaky defense, an almost un-Merchantmen like team. Today, we have the best wide receiver, a capable quarterback, a better than average running game and purely based on talent an awesome defense. In potential only, it seems. But maybe, just like that 2022 team, we're very close to breaking the trend and about to move forward into better times. Heck, why not this season? Shockingly enough, at 5-6 and a -17 points differential, we're still mathematically alive for the playoffs, knowing that the division title is closer than a wild card. We're recovering from a less than stellar defeat by the hands of the Chicaco Norsemen. The defense achieved the unthinkable, allowing two running backs to run for 100 yards in the same game. Even though this was a team known for being run heavy, a team with Heath Oliver, Craig McCorkle and Bart Guthrie should never allow that to happen. Ever. Period. Yet we did. And in the same game, we overdid the 'throw it to Bondy' thing big time. 20 target, 7 catches, 58 yards, 7 yards after catch. Bravo, Chicago defense. Monty Elliott and Artie Blazewicz sucked as well, so it wasn't as simple as covering Bondy, the support team was dreadful as well. That's how you stop our offense. Five more games, the season isn't completely lost yet. We have no first round pick to suck for. Seriously, we've never sucked for luck and we'll never will, we'll always keep on playing to try to end the season on a positive note, even when we're out of contention. Our thing is choking it when we're doing well, and suddenly winning late in the season after we've sucked for the first 11 or so games. Well, how about that? Maybe we can righten the ship again, set sail for the promised land, make a short stop at .500 land and go north from there on. One game at a time, though. One at a time. |
Merchantmen return to .500 land
For the fourth time this (2083) season, the Maassluis Merchantmen moved to .500. A solid 20-3 victory over the Harlem Apollos in a not quite sold out Oranje Haven improved them to a 6-6 record. Theodore Bondy caught 11 passes for 171 yards and a score, leading the way on offense, while the defense had a good day, allowing only 174 total yards. A rollercoaster of a season continues for the Merchantmen. Grueling deficits are followed up with upset victories, or at one time failing to kick a field goal to force overtime. For now, 6-6 feels about right given what the Merchantmen have displayed on the field. Ellis McAlister completed 21 of 36 passes for 251 yards and a couple of scores, seeing him bounce back from the off-day in Chicago last week. He's thrown for multiple scores in 4 of the last 5 games, while being picked off once per game on average. Most importantly, he's been using the top receiver in the league, finding Theodore Bondy on 9 touchdown passes in those 5 games and getting the ball in his hands 48 times for 782 yards. At 120 catches for 1,537 yards, Bondy himself continues to be on pace for a two-mile season, an achievement reached only 15 times in IHOF history. Toronto Lake Monsters' Jameson Sawyer managed it 4 times in the last 5 seasons. Before that, in 2077 Maassluis' very own J.R. Mills was the eighth player to get in the two-mile club, amassing 2,228 yards receiving. That franchise record might be too steep for Bondy, although his recent form of 156 yards per game would get him close to the required 173 yards per game he'll need. He's already ahead of Riddick Stanley's best season (1,536 yards) and has Terry Haskell (1,575 yards) and Gabe Springer (1,669 yards) within reach. The receptions record looks like up for grabs, bar injuries, Gabe Springer's franchise record of 128 should be doable, perhaps as early as the next game at the Arizona Miners. Bondy's actually on pace to barely miss the league record, set by Jameson Sawyer at 162 receptions in 2078 and repeated in 2081. But despite Bondy's amazing season, the overall performance of the Merchantmen isn't up to franchise standards. The defense's topnotch showing against the Apollos hasn't kept the team from still sitting within the worst four rushing defenses, while the pass defense has improved to league average, roughly. That 6-6 record is still 2 wins behind the division leading 8-4 Gothenburg Giants and behind the AOC Deep South's three 8-4 teams, where Atlanta will still have to host both Fort Wayne and Houston, meaning third place will be 11-5 at best. Even then, if somehow third place falls to 10-6, the Merchantmen will likely have inferior tie-breakers, not to mention they're also still behind the Augusta Greenjackets on tie-breakers. Only the Tucker Tigers (6-6 as well) are no real treat to the Merchantmen in the tie-breakers race. But one game at a time. The Merchantmen will be visiting the Arizona Miners, a team that might be even more loaded than Maassluis' roster. The Miners have been underachievers for several seasons and at 6-6 are struggling to get W's as well. The winner will stumble on, the losing owner will probably continue to complain about the bunch of overpaid chokers on the payroll. |
General Manager Notes: Rant, rant, rant!
The 2083 season is shaping up to be a major disappointment. Not just a season where we're barely missing out, losing in overtime of on a last minute touchdown after being up by 4 points. No, we're getting crushed left and right, all over the old and new continent. Yes, Ellis McAlister has a problem with throwing interceptions. Yes, we're trying too hard to throw it to Theodore Bondy. But that doesn't explain how discouraging the defense's performances have been. We can't stop the run, we can't stop the pass. Despite the likes of Heath Oliver, Craig McCorkle, Glen Stiegler, Gino Kemp, Andy Russell, Kirk Hitchcock, Bart Guthrie, Tre Poloski and Glenn Bower all on this unit. Indeed, in theory perhaps the best defense in the entire league. Is there light at the end of this tunnel? Theoretically we're still in the hunt, At 9-7 we could, potentially, possibly, perhaps, maybe, somehow sneak into the playoffs. We'll have to keep winning as well, if only to keep the Bordeaux Vineyards from getting a top10 pick from us. At the same time, they've close to clinched the top pick in the second round for us with their sensationally bad performance. I'm trying to change the negative flow towards staying positive, but with the current lack of results, it's been quite hard. Heath Oliver has apparently made so much progress, our staff scouts him as fully developed and as such in the realm of guys like Theodore Bondy, Kirk Hitchcock and Craig McCorkle. Bart Guthrie is coming along well too, but his progress is slower, mostly because he had more ground to gain. It'll be tough to keep a deep roster like this together, cap space will be an issue 2 seasons from now. 2084 should be fine, I suppose that will be our season to get things done. 2083 though... I fear it's all over. Despite being mathematically still in the race. Let's work on our game plan and get the results of it next season at the very least. |
General Manager Notes: Stayin' Alive
Week 15, 7 losses on our track record, a negative points differential, but we're somehow still alive. We've congratulated the Gothenburg Giants on their division title, that franchise's first since 2076. We beat the IHOF's worst team, by record at least, the Bordeaux Vineyards, 40-24. It didn't come easy, even. A punt return touchdown by Gabe Broady and a pick six from Craig McCorkle were required to separate ourselves from the Vineyards. Ellis MCAlister completed 28 of 37 passes for 312 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Leonard Belin ran for 66 yards and a score, averaging 4.7 per carry, while Raul Curie scored on a one-yard run. Theodore Bondy was unsurprisingly our leading receiver, with 11 catches for 144 yards and the sole score. At 1,829 yards receiving, Bondy is 59 yards ahead of Hanalei's Taylor Clayton, the number two in the league. At 139 receptions Bondy's actually 5 behind Clayton. But let's not talk about records anymore, it'll require a couple of sensational once in a lifetime kind of games to go there. More importantly, we're somehow still alive in the race for the last wild card. It won't come easy though, we'll have to beat the AOC Midwest leading Iowa Cobbers and then follow up by avenging the Paris Musketeers on the road. We'll also require some other teams across the league to fall apart. The 8-6 Houston Mustangs beat us in week 3, we'll need them to extend their losing streak by 2, or at least see them fall behind the San Antonio Tidal Force, currently 7-7 and behind Houston. We'll also need the 8-6 Tucker Tigers to stumble on at least one of their last two opponents. Are my hopes up? Not quite yet. We've been very hot and cold this season. Our running game is average, our passing game is average, our pass defense is average, our run defense is hair pulling bad underachieving. I'm saying this week in week out, but it continues to be true, our run defense is enigmatically bad. I'm given my staff a chance to fix it every week, but they haven't found the solution yet. Except for the home games against the Tucker Tigers, Gothenburg Giants and Harlem Apollos. For now, it's an old tune getting another turn, we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive. |
General Manager Notes: keep on believing
One round of games to go, we're still in the race, although just barely. Today, we've managed to roll up the Iowa Cobbers 41-10. Wait, let's rephrase that. We managed to roll a Yathzee! of sort. Today, the big plays came on defense and on special teams. Giovanni Morton had a pair of long interceptions return touchdowns, Travis Gellings had his first career kickoff return touchdown and Gabe Broady achieved back-to-back games with a punt return touchdown. We lost out punter Tito Hornsby. He had to go to the hospital, turned out he needed an appendectomy, he's ruled out for the last game and whatever number of games we'll get to play in the post-season. We've also lost our number two tight end Gavin Stern, which means Kody Gowan will return to the active roster for the first time this season. Gowan was active in every game of the last two seasons. Stern had been a prominent, yet unproductive piece in our passing game. Ellis McAlister and our kick holder have already targeted Stern 60 times, resulting in just 36 catches for 344 yards. Our star tight end Monty Elliott hasn't done that much better this season, with just 56 catches for 528 yards and 3 scores in 15 games. Elliott does appear to be the leagues best run blocker from his position this season, for whatever that's worth. His receiving numbers are still a lot more than our proven 1,000-yard wide receivers Artie Blazewicz (24 catches for 203 yards and 2 scores) and Dennis Nadell (5 catches for 128 yards). But enough about our receivers, we'll need a couple of things to happen to be able to reach the playoffs. We'll have to beat the Paris Musketeers. On the road, that will be challenging enough, because albeit being eliminated after today's results, the Musketeers will never stop trying to beat us. We'll also need the Houston Mustangs to lose at the Atlanta Vipers and the Tucker Tigers to loss at the Orlando Talons. Our conference record will be barely good enough to edge the Tigers and Mustangs. This will all be for the last wild card, because there's no way for us to get ahead of the aforementioned Atlanta Vipers and their division leading Fort Wayne Fury, despite that both are just 1 win ahead of us. The Solecismic playoff probabilities machine gives us roughly a 1 in 6 shot, which is actually slightly better than the 1 in 8 odds if you're counting all three games as 50-50 to win or lose. 1 in 6, those are better odds than rolling a Yahtzee!, but given that we rolled one today, it seems unlikely the dice will favor us again tomorrow. For now, a win is a win. There's still hope. Stay strong, Merchantmen! |
Merchantmen sneak into 2083 playoffs
The season continues, the Maassluis Merchantmen beat the Paris Musketeers 24-20 on the road and saw their two rivals for the last wild card both lose: the also fighting for their chances Atlanta Vipers beat the Houston Mustangs and the Tucker Tigers lost at the top seeded Orlando Talons. It turned out to be a fumble infested day, not just for the Merchantmen, but for four of five teams competing for the playoffs tickets. Only the Fort Wayne Fury kept their nerves under control and posted a smooth victory. The Merchantmen didn't have their best start to a game. After giving up a solid kick return, the Paris Musketeers started close to midfield and with two strong catch and run plays marched into the red zone. The Merchantmen defense held ground and being 3-0 down was considered an acceptable outcome. A defensive battled followed, with Maassluis getting three-and-out-ed, but getting the ball back quickly after a 4-play drive. The short punt was returned well by the IHOF's best punt returner of this season, Gabe Broady, only to see him fumble, but the recently activated Kody Gowan saved the day. The Merchantmen line struggled to protect their quarterback and after a couple of hurried throws, Paris got the ball back already. A three-and-out by the Merchantmen defense came next, only to see their offensive line struggle again, quarterback Ellis McAlister got strip sacked and Paris found themselves inside field goal range. An unsportsmanlike penalty on quarterback Neil Poling drove the Musketeers back and made them settle for a 37-yard field goal for a 6-0 lead. Just before the switch of ends, the Merchantmen offense finally got their engines going. Leonard Belin had a couple of 9-yard runs, while Theodore Bondy made the third down catch to start the second quarter on the Paris 27-yard line. Ellis McAlister wasted no time, his first throw of the quarter went into Bondy's hands and the IHOF's leading receiver extended the play from a short gain to a touchdown and a 7-6 lead. The Musketeers' running game got going as well, but the Merchantmen defense once again didn't break and Paris settled for a third field goal and a 9-7 lead. A quartet of strong runs from Raul Curie made the Merchantmen march into Paris' red zone, settling for a field goal and a 10-9 lead. The Musketeers started to struggle with the Merchantmen pass rush and saw their kicker miss a 49-yarder on the next drive. Anchored by a strong catch and run from tight end Monty Elliott, the Merchantmen marched into the red zone and saw Raul Curie bulldoze it into the end zone for a 17-9 lead. Neither team took much risks in their last drive before half time, setting the mid-game score at Maassluis 17, Paris 9. Both teams offenses looked stronger in their first drives after the big break, but somehow failed to get points on the board, despite being close to field goal range. The clock was ticking away at high speed, with the Merchantmen finally breaking into field position where scoring looked inevitable. Until Ellis McAlister got sacked again, fumbled again, this time with Paris' Brady Heniger running it back for 71 yards and a game tying touchdown. The tied score got there as Neil Poling connected with Darrin Sheldon for the two-pointer: Maassluis 17, Paris 17. In the fourth quarter, a field position battle ensued. The Merchantmen were slowly losing it, saw Raul Curie stuffed at their own 1-yard line. Newly signed punter Carlos Emmons pinned Paris back to their 36-yard line, but Neil Poling was unimpressed. Poling found Warren Teal for a 17-yard gain and on third and 4 threw it to a wide open Eugene Hamilton for a touchdown. The explosion of joy was cut short, as a holding penalty took the points back off the board. Perhaps distracted from the previous play, the next try for Poling ended up intercepted by rookie safety Bart Guthrie. The Merchantmen had taken momentum, now was the time to get things moving and take the lead. No such luck, the Paris Musketeers forced three-and-out, but so did the Merchantmen defense on the next drive. With just over 3 minutes to go, Ellis McAlister returned the interception throwing favor. Paris' Lee Lane picked off a pass intended for Theodore Bondy. Maassluis' Glen Stiegler sacked Neil Poling on the next play, but Poling replied with a long third down conversion to get into field goal range. Erik Sharder sacked Poling on third down, but with 89 second to go, Paris took a 20-17 lead. With time running out, the word spread amongst the Merchantmen players of the scores elsewhere in the league, both teams that Maassluis needed to lose (Houston and Tucker) were losing, there was still a chance. Ellis McAlister found Nicholas Gundy for a 7-yard gain, throwing away from the double covered deep going Theodore Bondy. On the next play, the other tight end Monty Elliott turned a 6-yard catch into a 29-yard gain, field goal range was reached. That is to say, if the Merchantmen actually remember there's such a thing as a field goal, they threw away the game at the Orlando Talons by forgetting all about it. The pressure was on, McAlister had to throw the ball away on first down. On second down, rinse and repeat: a defensive end was closing in on McAlister and the quarterback threw the ball away, avoiding another sack. Third and ten, 39 yards from the end zone, two time outs remaining. Maassluis lined up in a running formation, but both wide receivers on each side of the field went off for a deep run. Theodore Bondy got double coverage on the right side, but Artie Blazewicz was out running his cornerback on the left side. The line was holding, McAlister buys some time, launches the ball... Touchdown, Merchantmen! Blazewicz. The kick was good, Maassluis goes up 24-20, with only 10 seconds remaining. Chance Arnold's kickoff then is deep enough to get the touchback. Paris goes for a hail mary formation, but the Merchantmen defense is unimpressed. Defensive tackle Glen Stiegler finds his way through the offensive line and forces Neil Poling to throw the ball away, not realizing the clock has reached all zeroes. Maaasluis has won, the narrow escape is still possible. Word from Atlanta comes in, the Vipers have beaten the Houston Mustangs 34-26, that's one opponent down. The Tucker Tigers are down 30-10 in Orlando, with 3 minutes left to play. Orlando wastes time and goes for the punt. The Tigers then get aggressive, trying to get back, but with a minute to go, Randy Winters' pass gets picked off and run back for a touchdown. The nail in the coffin. Tucker doesn't even call time out anymore. Games over, the Maassluis Merchantmen sneak into the playoffs! It means an up-and-down season for the Merchantmen continues past week 17. Next up, a trip to the Fort Wayne Fury, the fourth seeded Deep South winners. A team not to be underestimated, despite their 10-6 record. The Fury's quarterback Josue Olivares has the league's highest passer rating, leaning heavily on his league leading completion percentage and a 31:7 touchdown-vs-interception ratio. With the team they have, reaching the playoffs wasn't the goal for this season at all, but having come from a 6-7 record and 2 wins behind the wild card spots, being amongst the twelve teams left standing is proof this team has found a way to come back from behind and achieve the seemingly impossible. The one game at a time approach might be key, and given this stage of the season, is the only way to approach it. |
Merchantmen back at it, one and done again
New faces, old habits. The Maassluis Merchantmen have crashed out the post-season in their first game. The Fort Wayne Fury came back from two scores down the fourth quarter with a 24-19 victory. It makred the nineth one-and-done for the Merchantmen in the last 10 post-season appearances, meaning the franchise has won only 2 playoffs games in the last 26 seasons. The first quarter was defense dominated, supported with both punters nailing the opponents deep in their own territories. And just as the Merchantmen seemed to be winning the field position battle, Fury cornerback Eugene Paup intercepted a pass from Ellis McAlister to Theodore Bondy and ran it back for 64 yards and 6 points. It marked a rare highlights worthy play in the first quarter, which the Fury ended 7-0 up. A defensive stand on the first Fort Wayne drive of the second quarter resulted in a 21-yard field goal and a 10-0 lead for the Fury. THe Merchantmen continued to struggle offensively as McAlister got picked off for the second time, this time not far outside his own red zone. Cornerback Giovanni Morton saved the game for the Merchantmen, returning the favor with a pick in the end zone to maintain the 10-0 deficit. Heavily leaning on Leonard Belin's legs, the Merchantmen marched down field and shortly before the big break, McAlister found Theodore Bondy for a walk-in touchdown. Chance Arnold missed the extra point to make it Fort Wayne 10, Maassluis 6 at half time. Things shifted in the third quarter. The Merchantmen defense held ground, while their offense marched downfield enough to kick a 23-yard field goal to trim the deficit to 10-9. After stopping the Fury around midfield, the Merchantmen marched downfield again, this time resulting in a 44-yard field goal for a 12-10 lead. A quick three and out ended the quarter. Second play of the fourth quarter, Ellis McAlister dumps a short pass to Theodore Bondy, who then turns into the magic player the Merchantmen fans all go wild about. 68 yards later, a 75-yard touchdown pass goes into the books and puts Maassluis 19-10 up. The big lead was short lived, the Fury had no trouble marching downfield, leaning heavily on a 49-yard deep throw from Josue Olivares to Shaquille Grimes. Three plays later, the Fury are back in it, trailing only 19-17. Lack of ability to move the chains then haunted the Merchantmen offense, while the Fury responded with another Olivares to Grimes 49-yard pass, this time seeing Grimes run a short pass upfield. On the next play, he hauls it in from 8 yards out to out the Fury up 24-19. The Merchantmen failed on the next drive, but got the ball back with just over 2 minutes to go. The chicken play calling then took over, seeing them punt to pin the Fury back at their 6-yard line. A time outs wasting drive gave Maassluis the ball back at their own 43-yard line. But rather than throwing, McAlister saw no other options than scrambling with the ball, getting tackled for barely a gain and coming time short to spike the ball. Game over, without even trying. And just like that, it's on to another off-season of moaning and wondering why a talented bunch of players is struggling to get consistent results. A season of silly ups and downs comes to a crashing end, but there's hope. The core of the Merchantmen remains to be young. But history has learned the fans that it rarely lasts, cap problems are unavoidable, resulting in the inevitable departure of players. But management is confident the cap troubles can be mitigated in the next off-season and hopefully the next (2085's), when Theodore Bondy's contract will be up for renewal and all odds are he'll demand to be the highest paid wide receiver in league history. For now, it's time to dry the teary eyes and learn from all the mistakes made on both ends of the ball. The offense was too predictable, the defense downright underachieving. Time for change, not so much in the 53-men roster, but changes have to come to go from underachievers to living up to the high expectations. This team has the players to make a run for a title. Shoulders back, chest forward, sail on to brighter places. This team has what it takes, make it happen, Merchantmen. |
General Manager Notes: when the football gods summon cap hell...
Here we go again, another off-season! We're getting ready for the 80th amateur draft in IHOF history, and subsequently for us as well. Although technically, we kind of skipped the 2067 draft, as we traded away all our draft picks. We're going into this off-season with a truck load of cap space. Negative cap space. We're $68.81M over the $463.8M salary cap, before the signing of rookies, which by league office number crunchers should account for $15.2M. It's faulty number, given that we've already got 49 players signed and only the two most expensive draft picks will count towards the salary cap, but such is the life with people who can't do math correctly. It doesn't change the fact that we're in deep cap trouble. Even before the contract talks with the likes of Ellis McAlister, Kirk Hitchcock and three of our five starting offensive linemen, all asking for a better contract. Especially McAlister and Hitchcock won't come cheap. But after some of my own number crunching, I'm optimistic that we should be able to make some contract renegotiations, which fit within the players' request, combined with a couple of hard, but unavoidable cuts, to free up about $110M of cap space, which should put us about $40M under the cap, $25M if we take into account the horrible way the league's number crunchers apply rookie contracts to the cap figure projections. Roster cuts? Yes. I've made up my mind and plan on releasing 5 players to open up about $50M of cap space. One of them has been informed about his release today. Four others aren't safe either, but I'm waiting for the other renegotiations to see how much room there is to keep those four guys around. In essence, releasing them still means we'll have to fill those roster spots with new players, of close to similar skills. Our draft day trade from last season worked out in out favor, we ended up trading down from the 1.22 pick for the 2.1 pick in the 2084 draft, while in the previous draft trading up from the 2.23 pick to the 1.22 pick. Yes, we robbed the Bordeaux Vineyards there. We didn't rob the Gothenburg Giants. Despite sweeping them last season, their total number of losses in other games was 2 in 17 games. They ended up winning IHOF Bowl LXXX, to claim the first league title for the franchise. Good for them. We plan no continuing that streak though, and this season, we'll plan on being the best in the division and hopefully live up to the hype that went around our team at the end of the previous pre-season... |
Merchantmen release Nadell
Dennis Nadell has been released by the Maassluis Merchantman. The 11th season former undrafted wide receiver was cut after his least productive season to date. Nadell is a three-time 1,000-yard receiver, twice being the leading receiver for the Merchantmen. "A tough decision," said Merchantmen general manager M.IJ.B., "but the cap situation forced our hand to release a couple of players and Dennis Nadell today became the victim." Nadell was due a $7,29M salary this season, while the Merchantmen were just barely under the cap after a spree of renegotiations. After a season with just 6 receptions for 140 yards, it was a tough, but fair decision. Nadell joined the Merchantmen shortly before training camp 2074 as a 20-year old undrafted rookie free agent. He won a roster spot in a crowded receivers group including 4 former 1,000-yard receivers. Mid-season, he was promoted from an inactive roster filler to the WR3 role, playing next to eventual Hall of Famer J.R. Mills. From there on, Nadell was a starter on the Merchantmen, improving to WR2 duties in 2079 ahead of former first round pick Brody Stevens. In 2080, after Mills retired, Nadell became the WR1 ahead of Stevens. In 2082, Theodore Bondy entered the scene, jumping in as the WR1 from his first day in the league. Nadell quickly started losing targets, despite on paper still being the WR2. Last season, Nadell's role was back to WR3 duties, on an offense featuring much less Three-receiver formations, while mentoring the amazingly talented Bondy. Unless Nadell returns at some point, he'll walk away with 414 receptions for 6,401 yards and 38 touchdowns. His 15,46 yards per reception is second best amongst long-term starting receivers, only trailing to his longtime teammate J.R. Mills. Nadell is only the sixth undrafted rookie signing by the Merchantmen to start 100 or more games for them and only the fourth of those to be on roster for 10 or more seasons. Nadell's ability to get open is widely recognized as one of the best in the league, even after 10 seasons. Opposite J.R. Mills, Nadell drew a lot of double coverage with his skills, helping Mills to have that Hall of Fame worthy career. His skills may have been underutilized the last couple of seasons opposite Bondy, but Nadell never complained about lack of playing time. Given his unique skill set, he should have no trouble finding a new home for the 2084 season. |
General Manager Notes: 2084, off-season of head crunching
Sometimes a football team can be so loaded with talent, that some of those guys start thinking they aloe deserve ten percent of the available cap figure. It gets trickier when there's a hand full of those guys. Such is the life in the Merchantmen general manager office this season. We've got a quarterback on the last year of contract, while the best cornerback in the game in the last year of contract has decided to hold out. I'm in negotiations with the agents of our All-IHOF guard Carlos Webb and have a situation at our offensive tackle position with two veterans and a second year guy eager to step in at left tackle. We may have a decision to make about our old left tackle Louie Murray... Our draft actually created a similar situation at the guard position, with two proven veterans and young promising second round pick. Luxury problems, I know... Oh yeah, draft. We were sitting without a first round pick, as naturally, we still managed to grab one of the top 5 non-kickers of this draft, a slightly undersized guard named Michael Szott from Clemson. He's all around a very good player, in potential top10 in the league, we're expecting him to enter training camp very green. Our second second round pick we used on a new kicker: Thomas Robertson from Kansas State. Our staff thinks he's already close to on par with the guy we had, with a lot of potential to become the best kicker in the game, sweet. What else did we get? A green but promising pass rusher or two in defensive end Jorge Marone and defensive tackle A.J. Ritt. Both will probably come in at a very unpolished state. We got a new third down back in Monty Digler, a new sixth linebacker in Daquan Forbes and potential dimeback in Courtney Blackwell, who turns out to be a very good punt returner as well, a bonus that we actually didn't really grab him for, given that we've already extended the contracts of our restricted free agent return specialists Gabe Broady and Travis Gellings. The latter probably has to expect to lose the premier role to back from injured reserve Ross Willbrandt, his eye condition is reportedly fully healed. We've been very quiet on the free agency market. So far, zero players signed. Lack of cap space is a very logical reason. Trading? Why, yes. We traded our third linebacker Darien Stokes to the Williamsburg Colonials for a future third round pick. The plan is to have Jermaine Page or Billy Springer move into the role. Aforementioned rookie Daquan Forbes might have a slight shot at it as well, as does our special teamer Skip Keith. The bad news about our cap situation is that I've made a decision on four long time roster members. Third down back Raul Curie (104 games), defensive tackle Chandler Posante (95 games), defensive end Max Lyons (109 games) and safety Maurice Harkleroad (151 games) won't make our training camp roster. All four were no full time starters, but had a prominent role anyway in rotation duties. They join Dennis Nadell (159 games) into the unsigned player pool. These moves should give us the cap space required to extend the contracts of Kirk Hitchcock and Ellis McAlister. Always a sad day to release players, but, y'know, cap space. Things will get uglier next off-season, when Theodore Bondy's contract needs an extension. The only one to blame is the people that keep drafting these top-notch players. Let's just hope we actually go place this upcoming season, to make it all worth all those hundreds of millions of dollars. If Hitchcock and McAlister sign a new contract with us... |
Hitchcock extends for 260M
Maassluis Merchantmen fans can go back to sleep at night, worrying is no longer necessary. Today, the Merchantmen called a press conference in which Kirk Hitchcock's new five-year contract worth $260 million with a $67 million signing bonus. Hitchcock had been holding out since the end of the draft, but signed the new deal just in time for training camp. Hitchcock was happy, although signed for a $23 million cap figure this season, it will make him the highest paid cornerback in each of the next four seasons. Merchantmen management was relieved. The release of no less than five veteran players was required to find the cap room for this new contract. "Tough decisions, but Hitchcock is the future of this defense," said general manager M.IJ.B.. After this deal, the Merchantmen have roughly $4 million left in cap space, which they will likely need to extend quarterback Ellis McAlister's contract, who once again is in the final year of contract. |
General Manager Notes: Training Camp 2084 Results
Hitchcock re-signed, and we've got a bit of cap space remaining. We'll wait until after our first pre-season game and then start talking with Ellis McAlister and other players in the final year of contract. Oh yeah, training camp. Here are the results, roughly. Quarterbacks 60/60 QB Ellis McAlister 30/30 QB Karsten Muchnick 25+/30+ QB Kelly Blalock Backfield 45+/50 RB Leonard Belin 30+/35 RB Monty Digler (R) 25/25 RB Ronald Graham 50/50 FB Tristan Cochrane 20/20 FB Darien Latschaw Receivers 60/60 TE Monty Elliott 40/40 TE Gavin Stern 35/35 TE Nicholas Grundy 25/25 TE Kody Gowan 20+/35 TE Miles Barker (R) 20+/35- TE Artie Walton (R) 80/80 WR Theodore Bondy 45/45 WR Artie Blazewicz 40/40 WR Rico Techen 30/30 WR Riddick Bunting 30/30 WR/KR Ross Willbrandt 25+/30 WR Grant Herndon (R) 20+/20 WR/KR Travis Gellings Offensive Line 75/75 C Butch Pearson 65/65 G Harvey Hank 60/60 G Carlos Webb 40++/75 G Michael Szott (R) 50/50 LT Louie Murray 50/50 RT Oscar Meadows 35++/60 LT Nathan Hadinger 25+/35 C Mario Bromley (R) 15+/35+ C Anthony Probin (R) Special Teamers 60++/85 K Thomas Robertson (R) 70/70 P Tito Hornsby 40++/50 K Dominic Patton (R) 20/20 LS Santiago Sepanski Defensive Line 80/80 DT Heath Oliver 55/55 DT Glen Stiegler 45+/45 DE Andy Russell 45/45 DE Gino Kemp 40/40 DT Erik Shrader 25+/45- DE Jorge Marone (R) 25+/40+ DT A.J. Ritt (R) 30/30 DE Ezekiel Wylie Linebackers 75/75 MLB Craig McCorkle 65/65 OLB Glenn Brewer 30+/40 OLB Billy Springer 20++/35 OLB Daquan Forbes 30/30 OLB Skip Keith 25/25 MLB Jermaine Page Secondary 80/80 CB Kirk Hitchcock 70/70 S Bart Guthrie 50/50 CB Tre Poloski 30+/45 S Alexander Marty 35++/40 S Emmitt Miller 35/35 CB Gino Morton 35/35 S Rex McIndoe 20+/25- CB/PR Courtney Blackwell (R) 20+/20 CB/PR Gabe Broady Yes, this is rounded up or down to 5s and 10s. We shouldn't share the complete scouting reports. Plus (+) or minus (-) denotes increase or decrease of what our staff thinks of these players. A double plus (++) denotes great progress. Rookies are marked with an "R" in brackets. Also, two rookie kickers? Yes, It's early, but we might even keep them both. Robertson is potentially the best field goal kicker in the league. Patton is a kickoff guy. He's no Al Bettis, but he's pretty good. We'll see how that goes in pre-season. We're going into pre-season with 57 players signed, which means only four players won't make the cut down to 53. Half of it will likely come from the six tight ends on roster. There's a modest chance we'll release one of the two rookie centers and then it comes down to whether we feel like keeping two kickers or whether some player turns out to be completely out of shape and unworthy of a roster spot. The latter will come first, only 2 days from now. Anticipation... |
General Manager Notes: Your 2084 Merchantmen
The verdict is out, we have trimmed their roster down to 53 players. Merchantmen fans, here is your team for the 2084 season. Starting with the latest additions, going all the way down to the longest standing team members. 81 WR Grant Herndon ≈ 25/30 acquired: 2084 undrafted rookie role: 5th wide receiver 49 TE Miles Barker ≈ 25/30 acquired: 2084 undrafted rookie role: 3rd tight end, special teamer 73 C Mario Bromley ≈ 25/35 acquired: 2084 undrafted rookie role: 8th lineman 57 LB Daquan Forbes ≈ 20/35 acquired: 2084 draft 7th round role: 6th linebacker 99 DT A.J. Ritt ≈ 25/40 acquired: 2084 draft 6th round role: 8th defensive lineman 31 CB Courtney Blackwell ≈ 20/30 acquired: 2084 draft 5th round role: 1st punt returner, 7th defensive back 21 RB Monty Digler ≈ 30/35 acquired: 2084 draft 4th round role: third down back 97 DE Jorge Marone ≈ 25/40 acquired: 2084 draft 3rd round role: 7th defensive lineman 11 K Thomas Robertson ≈ 65/75 acquired: 2084 draft 2nd round role: kicker 72 G Michael Szott ≈ 45/70 acquired: 2084 draft 2nd round role: 6th offensive lineman 13 WR Travis Gellings ≈ 20/25 acquired: 2083 undrafted rookie role: alternate kickoff returner, 7th wide receiver 54 LB Billy Springer ≈ 25/35 acquired: 2083 draft 7th round role: 3rd linebacker, special teamer 45 S Alexander Marty ≈ 35/45 acquired: 2083 draft 5th round role: 8th defensive back 66 LT Nathan Hadinger ≈ 35/60 acquired: 2083 draft 2nd round role: starting left tackle 40 S Bart Guthrie ≈ 70/70 acquired: 2083 draft 1st round role: starting strong safety 91 DT Heath Oliver ≈ 80/80 acquired: 2083 draft 1st round role: all downs defensive tackle 76 LS Santiago Sepanski ≈ 20/20 acquired: 2083 veteran free agent role: long snapper 10 TE Nicholas Grundy ≈ 35/35 acquired: 2083 veteran free agent role: 4th tight end 83 WR Ross Willbrandt ≈ 25/25 acquired: 2082 undrafted rookie role: kickoff returner, 6th wide receiver 29 RB Leonard Belin ≈ 50/50 acquired: 2082 draft 6th round role: starting running back 52 DE Andy Russell ≈ 45/45 acquired: 2082 draft 5th round role: starting left defensive end 4 QB Kelly Blalock ≈ 25/30 acquired: 2082 draft 4th round role: stuck on the depth chart behind our stupid kick holder 46 S Emmitt Miller ≈ 40/45 acquired: 2082 draft 2nd round role: starting free safety 80 WR Theodore Bondy ≈ 75/75 acquired: 2082 draft 1st round role: best wide receiver in the league 56 LB Skip Keith ≈ 20/20 acquired: 2082 veteran free agent role: special teamer, 5th linebacker 37 CB Gabe Broady ≈ 20/20 acquired: 2081 undrafted rookie role: punt returner, hopefully stays off the field the rest of the time 18 TE Gavin Stern ≈ 40/40 acquired: 2081 undrafted rookie role: run blocking tight end 79 DE Ezekiel Wylie ≈ 30/30 acquired: 2081 undrafted rookie role: 3rd defensive end, special teamer 88 WR Riddick Bunting ≈ 25/25 acquired: 2081 draft 7th round role: 4th wide receiver, special teamer 22 FB Tristan Cochrane ≈ 50/50 acquired: 2081 draft 5th round role: starting fullback 39 CB Tre Poloski ≈ 50/50 acquired: 2081 draft 1st round role: sidekick of Hitchcock 32 CB Kirk Hitchcock ≈ 80/80 acquired: 2081 draft 1st round role: best cornerback in the league 87 WR Artie Blazewicz ≈ 45/45 acquired: 2080 draft 6th round role: wide receiver #2, alternate kickoff returner 92 DE Gino Kemp ≈ 45/45 acquired: 2080 draft 5th round role: pass rushing defensive end 93 DT Erik Shrader ≈ 40/40 acquired: 2080 draft 4th round role: rotation backup on defensive line 75 C Butch Pearson ≈ 75/75 acquired: 2080 draft 1st round role: starting center 7 QB Karsten Muchnink ≈ 30/30 acquired: 2079 undrafted rookie role: kick holder, stealing snaps from our QB2 59 LB Jermaine Page ≈ 15/15 acquired: 2079 draft 6th round role: 4th linebacker, special teamer 53 LB Craig McCorkle ≈ 75/75 acquired: 2079 draft 1st round role: starting middle linebacker 23 RB Ronald Graham ≈ 25/25 acquired: 2078 undrafted rookie role: change of pace back 85 WR Rico Techen ≈ 35/35 acquired: 2078 draft 6th round role: third wide receiver 27 FB Darien Latschaw ≈ 20/20 acquired: 2077 post-season free agent role: backup fullback 50 LB Glenn Brewer ≈ 65/65 acquired: 2077 draft 1st round role: starting outside linebacker 36 CB Giovanni Morton ≈ 35/35 acquired: 2076 undrafted rookie role: nickelback 15 TE Monty Elliott ≈ 50/50 acquired: 2076 draft 6th round role: starting tight end 70 G Harvey Hank ≈ 60/60 acquired: 2076 draft 1st round role: left guard 42 S Rex McIndoe ≈ 35/35 acquired: 2075 post-season free agent role: backup safety, dimeback 74 G Carlos Webb ≈ 55/55 acquired: 2075 draft 3rd round role: right guard 96 DT Glen Stiegler ≈ 55/55 acquired: 2075 draft 1st round role: starting defensive tackle 69 LT Louie Murray ≈ 40/40 acquired: 2074 draft 6th round role: backup left tackle 9 QB Ellis McAlister ≈ 60/60 acquired: 2074 draft 6th round role: franchise quarterback 17 P Tito Hornsby ≈ 70/70 acquired: 2071 undrafted rookie role: punter 65 OT Oscar Meadows ≈ 40/40 acquired: 2071 draft 1st round role: starting right tackle (for now...) |
General Manager notes: 25% regular season check (and we thought 2083 was bad...)
It's official: the pre-season favorites to win it all are a disgrace to football. The 2084 Maassluis Merchantmen are incapable of putting a passing game on the pitch. It's a major letdown, given that we're counting heavily on the best wide receiver in football, and a quarterback that just recently signed yet another cap heavy contract. We're completely baffled about how the staff and I are so incompetent of making this fine collection of players on offense play well. So, four games in, we're 2-2, with two 3-point victories and a couple of defeats that were completely uncalled for with a team like we have. The defense will probably claim they're doing a better job that last season. Obviously, those guys were in the bottom 2 teams (or thereabouts) of the entire league. These guys are still giving up the most yards per pass attempt, by nearly a yard more than the second worst. So yeah, improved? Not quite... How did we get to 2-2? We beat the Bordeaux Vineyards at home, in a game where we got outplayed, then the defense made just enough stops to win 20-17 at the Outer Banks Ospreys. We then travelled to Atlanta, to come away with a 23-17 deficit that could have gotten a lot worse. We had 3.1 yards per passing play (rounded up), and followed up with 3.9 yards per pass play at the North Plainfield Plague. These four opponents combine for a league easiest schedule after four games. How incompetent does that sound? Four games in, our average is a league most horrendous 5.3 yards per attempt, with the fourth worst sack percentage. There are no words to describe how puzzling that is. Our red zone offense is dreadful, the only thing really missing is a truck load of turnovers, albeit we did see Ellis McAlister throw an all-time regular season game worst of 4 in a single game. What to do now? I guess we'll have to go to the film room, not just for a bit, but quite a long time to try to figure out why we've got the worst passing game and worst pass defense. Because quite frankly, getting together a team with the best of the best in football at key positions, apparently that isn't enough to play well, let alone win games. And to be honest, I don't think we've seen the worst of it quite yet... |
Editor's note: overall lack of understanding how the [bleep] game planning works, has skyrocketed my disinterest in the game to unprecedented levels. I'm not going to throw 80 seasons of history away, but my puzzled attitude about how what is supposed to be best for my team doesn't make the team win at all, makes it a lot harder to get myself interested, let alone motivated, to write about what is turning out to be or worst season in 50 seasons. Very unsatisfying, given how well I have drafted and thought I had built the best roster in those 80 seasons of history.
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General Manager Notes: Disappointing season comes to an end
2084... A season to forget, quickly. We finished the season 7-9, with a positive points differential, at the last moment surpassing the Gothenburg Giants to avoid a fourth place finish inside the division by sweeping the division in Oranje Haven for the first time in the '80s. The French teams both made the playoffs. A ghost owned Paris Musketeers team won the division, the Bordeaux Vineyards ended a long streak of seasons without post-season play. Paris beat Bordeaux in the wild card round. Paris then deservingly crushed out the next round, ghost owned teams get no cheers from the Merchantmen management. Winning the last two games avoided our first double-digit loss figure since the 2033 season. Imagine that, having a team touted as pre-season favorites to win it all (for the second season straight), stumbling into a 5-11 or 6-10 record! How mindboggling would that have been. Now, we're just the best 53 players in the league that managed to go 16-17 in the last two seasons. Still dreadful, just not indescribably horrific. We've entered the 2085 off-season, losing two staff members. Our defensive coordinator J.J. Wolfe shockingly got hired by the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums as their new head coach. Our strength coordinator Martin Devine for 15 seasons decided to move to the reigning league champion Williamsburg Colonials, despite still having a long-term contract with us. Losing Devine hurt, Wolfe though, he failed to make our loaded defense play well. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise... Tight end Monty Elliott retired after 9 seasons of service. We grabbed him in the sixth round of the 2076 draft, lived up to his then scouted potential. In 2082 peaked with 1,101 receiving yards and All IHOF (first team) honors. Like everybody else on the offense, he struggled the last two seasons. Despite that, he's retiring with 572 receptions for 6,517 yards and 47 touchdowns. His catches and yardage are new franchise records for tight ends. His touchdown figure is third to the late '50s tandem Jorge Jurevicius and Emmanuel Forbes. With 43 key run blocks, he's second to Jurevicius in that figure amongst tight ends. Wide receivers Dennis Nadell and Brody Stevens were also amongst the retiring players. Neither was on roster last season, we've let them both go in recent seasons. They rank 13th and 10th all-time in receiving yards for the Merchantmen. Both played a WR2 role for us for several years, with many 1,000-yard seasons on their resume, even both reaching that 1,000-yard mark in 2080, the season after J.R. Mills retirement and two ahead of the arrival of Theodore Bondy. Defensive tackle Chandler Posante was a bit of a surprise retirement. Granted, we released him in the 2084 off-season and somehow didn't find a roster spot elsewhere. Apparently other teams in the league don't think a pass rusher like Posante was worth signing. He played 95 games for us (including the playoffs), usually splitting time with other defensive linemen, but being prominent on passing downs, next to Glen Stiegler. We're entering the off-season nearly $25M over the cap, $47.72M after taking draft picks into account. That's modest, but we'll have to find another $40M or so to be able to extend Theodore Bondy's contract. Elsewhere, I'm expecting us to find the cap space to not need any major cuts, like we had to go through in recent off-seasons. We're picking nineth overall in the first round of the 2085 draft. Shockingly high for a team with our record, points differential and status. Had we lost either of our last two games when we were out of contention, we would have moved up to 8th in the draft order, a testament of why tanking rarely helps. Which is something we'll never ever do anyway, making it a moot point to begin with. And given that three of the three most notable retirements this off-season were a 6th round pick, an undrafted wide receiver. Brody Stevens indeed was a first round pick, but only 24th overall, so basically lived up to expectations. So yeah, 2085. A new opportunity. We'll have to see what we can make of this. The talent is there, but we've been such an underwhelming underachieving team for two straight seasons, my expectations have been dampened into thinking we've found a way to waste the best of talent in football. No, we're not going to shop around Theodore Bondy and Kirk Hitchcock, or even Craig McCorkle and Butch Pearson. The crème de la crème of football players on our roster should resparkle their talent and carry the team to where we belong: a deep playoffs run. |
Editor's note: IHOF is on a rare week without any sims.
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Merchantmen select top graded OT Humphrey
Top prospect Howard Humphrey has a new home. The big right tackle was taken 9th overall in the 2085 draft by the Maassluis Merchantmen. The Iowa State graduate received a 7.0 grade by the league scouting staff after the 24 year old shined in the rookie combine with a stellar 4.86 40-yard dash. The Merchantmen see Humphrey as the future replacement of veteran Oscar Meadows, currently out of contract. The Merchantmen will probably try to resign Meadows for a 15th season, to compete for the starting job, or at the very least to mentor Humphrey. This continues the Merchantmen's rebuild of the offensive line, as Humphrey joins second-year guard Michael Scott and third-year left tackle Nathan Hadinger, both high second round picks. Merchantmen grab Andrews as their quarterback of the future With their second round pick of the 2085 draft, the Maassluis Merchantmen have acquired the rights to the fourth highest rated quarterback of the class: Virginia Tech's Ernest Andrews. The 21-year old impressed the Merchantmen coaching staff after he had already impressed all league scouts with solid Solecismic Test and agility test scores. With Ellis McAlister entering his 12th season, it was a good opportunity to look at the future. McAlister looks likely to start for another season or two, but as he knows from first hand experience, the Merchantmen sometimes are willing to be patient and give a promising prospect plenty of time to grow into a starting caliber quarterback. Twice before did the Merchantmen select a quarterback in the second round, Josh Webb hung around for just two seasons, Everett "Going" South hung around for 11 seasons as the second stringer and briefly returned for a 12th season during an injuries plagued season. But Andrews looks eager to jump into the opportunity to become an IHOF quarterback. Merchantmen grab punter Guynes in third round The name of Doug Guynes was called earlier than league pundits expected, but the Maassluis Merchantmen haven't been strangers to drafting kickers or punters on the first or second day of the selection procedure. Previously highly drafted punters spent more than 10 seasons with the Merchantmen, which bodes well for the 22-year old from Michigan. It probably means the exit of Tito Hornsby, a former undrafted rookie signing by the Merchantmen, who turned into a stellar punter after all, entering his 15th season in the IHOF as a top10 caliber punter. Hornsby is currently unsigned. |
General Manager Notes: favorites to win it all once again...
Yes, you read that correctly, for the third season in succession, we're tagged top team in the league by the power rankings. Sometimes you wonder what league pundits were smoking when they cooked up their formula, but I bet the numbers don't lie and we are, in fact, a team with the ingredients to have a wonderful season. Sure, we do, but these last two season have been frustrating, underwhelming, mindboggling and confidence destroying. This team consistently struggles with barely outscoring opponents, unsurprisingly resulting in a Merchantmen unworthy streak of seasons with 6 or more losses. Should we let our heads down and let the flow keep going? Of course not, we will regroup, do what we can do to keep the hype alive as long as we can for this upcoming season. And we've got our roster of 53 players pretty much ready to get that job done. Let's break the roster down. Quarterbacks 55/55 QB Ellis McAlister 30/30 KH Karsten Muchnick 15/30 QB Ernest Andrews (rookie) left team: 25/30 QB Kelly Blalock (cut) For the seventh season in a row we've counting on Ellis McAlister to get the job done. For the first time, we've seen him decline in the off-season in terms of ability. By now, he should know he's no longer a must-start. But realistically, we don't have a replacement sitting ready. Blalock looked promising, but nothing more than a typical QB2. Our second round pick this draft Ernest Andrews has underwhelmed in training sessions, but looked pretty solid in pre-season action. Odds are, we'll go the McAlister route with Andrews, giving him a reasonable amount of time to learn from the current starter (McAlister) and if he outdoes his current image, we'll give him the same kind of chance that McAlister got. Have I mentioned that Muchnick is our kick holder and nothing but our kick holder? I suspect my staff still hasn't gotten the message and continue to disobey. Although this time around, the kick holder actually looks like the lesser of liabilities. Backfield 50/50 RB Leonard Belin 50/50 FB Tristan Cochrane 30/35 RB Monty Digler 25/35 RB Reggie Thongchanh (rookie) 30/45 FB Ken Warren (rookie) left team: 25/25 RB Ronald Graham (cut), 15/15 FB Darien Latischaw (cut) Ah yes, the ball carriers. Our quarterback actually desires to carry the peanut himself, but Belin, Digler and Thong' are the designated ball carriers. Belin obviously the RB1, but lacking the endurance to be a fulltime workhorse, we're going to need power back Digler and Thong's speed in the change of pace roles. Cochrane continues to be a key blocker on all downs, as such, we'll try to work him into our game plan. Warren looks promising as a run blocker, perhaps even better than Cochrane, but his chances to see action are limited. Receivers 75/75 WR Theodore Bondy 45/45 WR/KR Artie Blazewicz 30/50 WR Tucker Gaylor (rookie) 30/35 TE Miles Barker 40/40 WR Rico Techen 30/35 TE Jessie Taylor (signed from Fort Wayne) 25/25 WR Riddick Bunting 25/25 TE Nicholas Grundy 25/25 KR Ross Willbrandt 15/25 TE Tyler Kotz (rookie) out: 50/50 TE Monty Elliott (retired), 40/40 TE Gavin Stern (signed with Iowa), 30/30 WR Grant Herndon (cut), 20/25 KR Travis Gellings (unwilling to re-sign) Oh, Theo... In 2083 he lived up to the hype of best wide receiver in football, best in franchise history. In 2084, he looked bleak, struggled to get open, catch the ball, get downfield and gain yardage after catch. Mind you, we know he picked up something in the 2084 off-season that hurt him, but he went from best receiver by a landslide to the very best by the slimmest of margins. We want to build this offense around him, but so far, we failed, despite his 4,912 yards receiving in his first three seasons. Big-play receivers Blazewicz, Techen and Willbrandt stuck to be the guys to keep opponents from stacking it all on Bondy. Losing Elliott at the tight end position was tough, also losing Stern was really tough. We've downgraded to run blocking tight ends, it'll be hard to expect anything else from these guys, of whom Barker looks like the best blocker, with acquisition Taylor as the backup. The most interesting player is rookie Gaylor, who might be our steal of the draft. He's got the speed, intelligence and stamina to become a true WR2, but this season he'll be the WR3 and given the state of our tight ends group, might get quite some targets anyway. Offensive Line 55/65 LT Nathan Hadinger 55/55 G Harvey Hank 70/70 C Butch Pearson 60/70 G Michael Szott 55/70 RT Howard Humphrey (rookie) 45/45 G Carlos Webb 40/40 LT Louie Murray 40/40 RT OScar Meadows 25/35 C Mario Bromley out: none Yet another rebuilding of the line is about to be completed. Pearson is already an established starter by now, but Hadinger, Szott and Humphrey are young. Hank will have to bring in the experience on the line. Webb and Murray have turned into one trick lineman, still good enough to be backups. Meadows was kept around with a simple task: mentor Hadinger and Humphrey to become as good as Meadows and Murray were roughly a decade ago. Bromley continues to be an emergency roster filler. Defensive Line 80/80 DT Heath Oliver 45/45 DT Glen Stiegler 45/45 DE Andy Russell 45/45 DE Gino Kemp 40/40 DT Erik Shrader 30/30 DE Ezekiel Wylie 35/45 DE Manuel Scott (rookie) 30/35 DT A.J. Ritt out: 30/40 DE Jorge Marone (cut) Okay, from a distance this looks like Oliver and his side kicks. To a degree, that's true, but Oliver isn't Shaun 'The Behemoth' Hartman or Charles Gomez, he's a tackle machine. In the pass rush, he's almost an afterthought, but it's quite possible we'll put him next to Shrader on passing downs. Stiegler has lost some of his speed, but he's still a nice change of pace guy to have. Russell and Kemp are our speedster on he outside. Wylie and Scott the stamina driven backups. Ritt has he speed and skills to fill in whenever and wherever we need him. A slight disclaimer is that it's no secret we're still trying to sign free agent Wendell Marshall, we think he'll be a pleasant addition to our pass rush, which would free up Russell for the running oriented formations. Linebackers 75/75 MLB Craig McCorkle 55/55 OLB Glenn Brewer 35/35 OLB Billy Springer 10/10 ST Jermaine Page 20/20 OLB/ST Skip Keith 25/30 OLB Daquan Forbes The same bunch as last season, nice! Brewer is somewhat on the decline, but with McCorkle as the playmaker in the middle, these guys should be the core of the defense. Springer continues to be our third linebacker. Page is unhappy, but he'll have to do with special teams duties, as does Keith. Forbes is our emergency sixth man, again. Secondary 80/80 CB Kirk Hitchcock 70/70 S Bart Guthrie 40/40 S Emmitt Miller 50/50 CB Tre Poloski 25/25 CB Giovanni Morton 40/45 S Alexander Marty 15/15 PR Gabe Broady 30/30 S Rex McIndoe 25/30 CB/PR Courtney Blackwell Another unit with no change in names. Hitchcock and Guthrie are another year older and wiser, hopefully. Both are considered the best in the league at their positions. With guys like Poloski and Miller on their side, this should be an above average secondary. Morton, Marty, McIndoe and Blackwell have the skills to play the nickel and dime roles. Broady has been an elite punt returner in the league. Special Teamers 55/60 P Doug Guynes (rookie) 80/80 K Thomas Robertson 21/21 LS Santiago Sepanski out: 70/70 P Tito Hornsby (un-signed) Last but not least? Robertson has the league to kick long field goals and the accuracy to actually convert them as well. Guynes was our recent third round pick, we hope he can do what Hornsby used to do. The first signs are so-so, but we'll have to do, as we let Hornsby walk away. Sepanski returns for a second season, he should be reliable enough. So yeah, we've got a lot of stars, especially on defense. This teams should be good. No, better than good. Four of our starters on defense are all-world talent. And the offense? A promising offensive line, a useful quarterback, fast and smart runners. And then there's that one guy, that really special one on our roster. Theo. C'mon, Theo, 2083 was great, 2084 uncharacteristic. Let's make 2085 sensational. You can do it! |
Merchantmen sign Marshall, cut Scott
On opening weekend, the Maassluis Merchantmen announced the signing of defensive end Wendell Marshall. The lightning fast defensive end signed a $32M contract earlier in the off season with the Chesapeake Chitterlings, but failed to make their training camp roster. Marshall has hopped around in the IHOF, his first five seasons with the Outer Banks Ospreys, who selected him in the fourth round of the 2079 draft. After his best season there, he held out and was cut on opening day of the 2084 season. In week 3, the Moontown Darksiders added him to their deep defensive line unit. This off-season the Chitterlings changed their minds on him, the Merchantmen saw their opportunity, negotiated for a long time, but eventually found Marshall willing to come to terms on a one-year contract. To facilitate the signing, undrafted rookie Manuel Scott was released, making Marshall the only defensive player new compared to last season's roster. To find the required cap space, veteran left tackle Louie Murray signed a contract extension, adding a season to his contract, while turning some of his salary into bonus money. |
General Manager Notes: defensive woes continues, however...
It's not all bad, I suppose? It's week 8 of the 2085. We just got home from a visit to Paris, France. The Musketeers were our seventh opponent of the regular season, technically the sixth, as we already faced them on opening weekend. Boy, were we in for a disappointing start of the season then. Some no name rookie quarterback had the best day of his life, tore our secondary apart late in a game that we should have won easily, but instead let our asses get kicked. Theodore Bondy lead the way to a strong offensive performance, but Austin Rodham's 474 yards passing, including a 53-yard hail mary pass, resulted in a 41-34 loss for us, where we could and should have made it to overtime. Alas, Paris was luckier. The same Musketeers have nowhere been close to that performance in their next five games and today, in week 8, they weren't either. Austin Rodham threw 2 interceptions less, but we kept the Musketeers enough in check to smoothly post a 41-20 victory. Wendell Marshall sacked kiddo Rodham 2.5 times, he had to share one of those sacks with Glen Stiegler. It's been an up and down season in between these two games. We steamrolled the Frederick Red Menace, at their house, 59-31, despite letting them throw for 447 yards on us. We put quarterback Wesley Elliot on his back 8 times, which was more or less what we expected to do against him. Week 3 was a smooth 30-20 win at the Toronto Lake Monsters, giving us another chance to beat the future hall of fame quarterback Clayton 'Champ' Andrews one more time. Theodore Bondy was back to his pre 2084 form with 13 catches for 236 yards. Welcome back, Theo. Week 4 was a disappointing 30-26 loss. The San Antonio Tidal Force dominated early, taking a 13-0 lead, but we came back from behind in the second half. The game went all over the place, but despite that we were clearly the superior team, we failed to put the points on the board on the final drive where we needed a touchdown due to an early game missed extra point. The bye week didn't resparkle things at all. Despite that we were dominating the Atlanta Vipers, there was this Deon Collier kid, a gifted cornerback with a nose and the hands for a pick or three that day. We choked into a 28-19 deficit, making us 0-3 at home. But despite our misfortunes, the lack of ability to win games haunted the entire European division. In week 7, we found ourselves playing at the Fort Worth Fury, facing a very familiar face at quarterback: Kelly Blalock, the fourth year pro that we cut in pre-season. Blalock threw for 358 yards, but also into the hands of Craig McCorkle and Kirk Hitchcock (twice). Those picks were just enough to solidify the 23-15 victory. So, despite the triplet of frustrating losses in Oranje Haven, we also posted a foursome of road victories to find ourselves smoothly in the division lead: 1. Maassluis 4-3 2. Bordeaux 2-5 3. Gothenburg 2-5 4. Paris 2-5 It's way way way too earlier to draw conclusions, but we've somehow got the second most scoring offense (or team if you like). The bad news? We're giving up a lot of passing yards, the most of all teams. Not just per game, but also on per attempt and per catch basis. Our run defense has been rock solid, forcing teams to pass. Somehow, those quarterbacks overcome all the sacks they're facing. Still, the season is young, we haven't even reached the mid-way point yet. Next up yet another road game, this time at the 6-1 Houston Mustangs. They've been solid since week 2, including a recent drubbing of the Bordeaux Vineyards. We actually have a lot to gain here though, Houston is currently in the second seed spot in the AOC. Their strength this season? Their running game. That could be a neat game of the week against our league leading run defense. In return, their inferior defense has played way above their heads so far, which if they can keep it up, could be a tough task for McAlister, Theo and Leo. That's where we're at for now. By the next time I'm reporting, we might be just that game against Houston further down the road, may have lost 9 straight, but hopefully, we've by then fixed the home losing bug and are giving the top seed positions holding teams a run for their slowly fading lead... We have to keep faith in this team, it's still one of the best Merchantmen rosters ever assembled. Make good use of it, staff. |
General Manager notes: division up for grabs...
It's early, but we've somehow maneuvered, or gotten lucky, into having a 3-win lead on the rest of the division. We don't have tie-breakers over any of them, so it's basically 2 1/2 games, but it's a wide margin. How did we get there from the 2-win lead that we had after week 8? Our visit to Houston in week 9 wasn't all that pretty. We managed to come away from there with a 26-24 loss, but in all honestly, we needed a late game drive to get back from 9 points down. The good news? In the end, our offense accumulated more points than theirs did, but a pick six saved their day shortly before half time. Week 10 started the back-to-back last two divisional home games with a visit of the Bordeaux Vineyards. We gave them opportunities to stay in the game, with fumbles and a pick, but in the end, we were the superior team, leaning heavily on a revived Theo Bondy with 11 catches for 155 yards. Rookie Reggie Thongchanh responded well to a full game on the sidelines, bursting out for 116 yards and a score. The Gothenburg Giants came to Oranje Haven in week 11. To be blunt, it was no contest. Both the offense and defense clicked on all fronts. As if the Giants have recently became our favorite opponent to play against, after years of fearing them most. Ellis McAlister took full advantage of his on fire wide receivers Theo Bondy (13 catches for 178 yards) and Artie Blazewicz (3 catches for 126 yards and 2 scores). A 75-yard long bomb from McAlister to Blazewicz was our first play on offense, Oranje Haven got an explosion of sound. Standings week 11: 1. Maassluis 6-4 2. Bordeaux 3-7 3. Gothenburg 3-7 4. Paris 3-7 The wild card cut is currently at 6-4, which means all three of our division foes are 3-wins (minus tie-breakers) behind the playoffs spots. Our hopes for a bye week are pretty much non-existent, Orlando (9-1) and Houston (8-2 plus head-to-head win) are way in front of us, while the current #3 seed is North Plainfield (6-4) with a favorable common games record. So, 6-4 now. I'm probably repeating myself, but this team looks and feels like it's better than our record, basically an 8-2 team. The remaining schedule is far from a cup cake trail. We've got three games remaining against the 6-4 or better NAC Mid Atlantic teams, a home game against the 5-5 Snapfinger Jazz and visits to Gothenburg and Bordeaux, two teams very eager to play spoiler, providing their playoff chances have vaporized by week 15 and 17 respectively. Are we living up to the hype of favorites to win it all? Sadly, no. But we've been unable to the previous two seasons as well. The promising news is that usually we're capable of scoring at least 3 touchdowns. The defense seems to be slowly recovering, despite injury woes in our secondary. The run defense continues to be elite, while the pass rush is strong enough to really put the opponents in risky passing situations. Helped by the drubbing of the Giants, we've finally reached the point where our offense outgains the defense in yardage, for as long as that will last... I am moderately optimistic though, perhaps we have righted the ship and set sail towards quieter waters. |
General Manager Notes: Finally, division champions, but we have bigger goals...
5 seasons went by without it. Yes, we reached the playoffs twice, but a division title wasn't our route to the post-season. Until today, week 15 of the 2085 season. We've finally claimed our 31st division crown! We're still wobbly, we forgot to take a big lead against the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums (yup, we lost yet another close home game), cruised past the Snapfinger Jazz, failed to stop the Chesapeake Chitterlings' passing game and today completed the sweep of the Gothenburg Giants, mathematically they were the last standing rival for the division title. European Division standings: 1. Maassluis 8-6 2. Bordeaux 5-9 3. Gothenburg 5-9 4. Paris 3-11 Yeah, the division is incredibly bad this season. It won't be the worst ever: in 2021 the European division won 22 games, this season the minimum will be 23. But it will most likely be the worst since that campaign, in which we finished 5-11 far behind the Gothenburg Giants, who won the last four straight en route to their division title with an 8-8 overall record. With the division locked up and a bye week out of reach (we're 3 wins behind the top two teams in the AOC), we have very little to play for in the last two games. Well, third seed looks more appealing than sixth seed, that's for sure... Does it matter? Not really, we have bigger goals, despite having lost our left tackle Nathan Hadinger and safeties Alexander Marty and Rex McIndoe. We want to live up to the hype of being pre-season favorites. We severely choked that opportunity twice already, so far we're struggling to live up to it this season as well, but there are some positive signals that we're better than our record. Yeah, I've said that before, but aside from believing it, we really are! Yes, I still believe in this team. Go Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: Theo! Theo! Theo!
Sometimes things happen in football that you don't see coming and sometimes things you hoped to see happen, well, happen. With Ellis McAlister limping (a sore knee) and the division title locked up, it was the golden opportunity for us to give Ernest Andrews his first regular season action in a sold out Oranje Haven against the reigning IHOF champions. And boy, was he nervous? Maybe he was, but nobody noticed. First drive of the game, Andrews scrambles for 8 yards, find Theo Bondy for 20 yards and on the third play executes the Blazewicz special: 47 yards for the a touchdown. The Williamsburg Colonials responded with a quick touchdown drive on their own. Little could the teams on the field and people in the stands presume that they had seen the only two offensive touchdowns of the entire game already. Amidst the defensive supremacy, Gabe Broady got has revenge with an 86-yard punt return for a touchdown, silencing all the critics of him being past his peak. Clearly the fumbles were just a streak of bad luck, Broady was back. Not quite back, but continuing his strong season, Theodore Bondy made 14 catches for 182 yards, making the crowd consistently chant 'Theo! Theo! Theo!" It must be a pleasure for a young quarterback to come into the league and have the opportunity to have your main target be a guy like Theo. He's already secured his second 2,000 yard season. He'll still need 138 receiving yards to tie J.R. Mills' franchise record, needs 1 receiving touchdown to tie Terry Haskell's. The receptions record is secure already though, he's already 4 catches past his own previous franchise record of 153. Andrews obviously wasn't the only rookie with a prominent role on the offense today. Reggie Thongchanh had 18 carries for 76 yards, but also pulled his groin and as we'll likely rest him in week 17, will come 11 yards shy of the 1,000-yard mark. Right tackle Howard Humphrey continues to be rock solid, 41 key run blocks puts him only 3 behind the league leaders. Tucker Gaylor continues to be our third wide receiver, he's just unlucky that we've decided to throw him in a lot of formations and plays where he's going to be a run blocker or third or fourth receiving option. Obviously we believe strongly in him, he's a fifth round pick after all! So, week 17 up next and we'll still have something to play for, kind of. Third seed is on the line, a win secures it for us. It's no major issue, but it could be slightly better to be third if we somehow manage to end our one-and-done curse of the past two decades or so. We actually lost in Bordeaux last season, after eight straight wins there. They won't let us cake walk to victory at all. Still, we just beat the last two IHOF champions in back to back games, that's pretty rare and a huge confidence boost. And 10-6 looks just so much better than 9-7 for a record to go into the post-season. Although, it won't mater at all anymore if we drop out right away, nor does it matter if we manage to win four straight playoffs games en route to a second IHOF Bowl victory. I think we've got the guys to make it happen. That defense with Hitchcock, McCorkle, Brewer, Guthrie, the loaded defensive line, and then the offense with Thong and Belin from behind a strong line anchored by rookie Humphrey, a better than ever before Ellis McAlister and then the guy he loves to throw to. Theo, go get us that ring. Theo! Theo! Theo! |
General Manager notes: Wild wild Wild Card round
Theo! Boys and girls, the season got extended by another week. In a heavily contested game against the Augusta Greenjackets, we managed to defend Oranje Haven well, with a 34-27 victory. We stuffed the Greenjackets potent running game often enough to turn their offense into a one dimensional one. From there on, it was a matter of staying put with our own balanced game plan. Leonard Belin ran for 110 yards, with rookie Thong' still unable to carry the load, but once again, the key player of the night was our MVP worthy wide receiver Theodore Bondy. With 16 catches for 241 yards, he was nearly unstoppable all game long. Next stop, the top seeded Orlando Knights. A tough cookie to bite, but we're confident we can beat anybody in this league. Despite our 7 regular season losses. We're in for the upset... |
General Manager Notes: And then there were four... including us!
We're still going strong! Boy, oh boy. The Orlando Tallons were quite the test. In fact, we were down on our backs, but somehow recovered late in the fourth quarter to overcome an 11-point deficit, to force overtime and, lo and behold, pull of the upset! In the first quarter, we had no defense to Orlando's first drive, but responded with the Blazewicz special for a 60-yard gain and saw Leo Belin run it in for a 2-play touchdown drive, only to see our kicker shank the tying kick. Orlando scored another touchdown on their second possession, which were the last points put on the board for the first 15 minutes. We started the second quarter inside Tallons turf and settled for a field goal to make it 14-9 for Orlando. A goal line stand forced them to go for 3 points, which started another period of defensive supremacy. With the two-minute warning called, we drove downfield, but not efficiently enough to get in the end zone. Still, with a time expiring field goal, we trimmed it to 17-12 at the big break. Our first possession in the second half didn't go so well. A screen pass from McAlister got picked off near midfield and after the return, we would have been happy to hold them to three, which we failed to do. Down by 12, Theo Bondy had one of his awesome plays where he turned a short pass into a 27 yard gain, shortly after followed by tight end Jessie Taylor going into the endzone from 32 yards out. We stopped Orlando, but found ourselves at our own 8-yard line and after three and out were just happy to pin them back to their own 32-yard line. Jerald Harrison found his receivers Giles and Fields for big gains and once again we were happy to hold them to a field goal, meaning we were trailing 27-19 at the end of the third quarter. After another short drive, we were struggling against the Tallons' time draining drive that ended up in a 44-yard field goal, meaning an 11-point deficit. On a time draining drive of our own, we had to settle for a 43-yard field goal, with less than 4 minutes remaining. A quick three and out and with one time out used, we were back at our own 25 yard-line with 2:22 remaining. Theo Bondy got the first two big catches for first downs and then with still 84 seconds to go, McAlister completed another Blazewicz special into the endzone. Still down 2 points, we went for the obvious and McAlister somehow found Theo Bondy to tie it up 30-30. Orlando tried, as did we, to thrown to get into field goal range, but both teams got three-and-outed, summoning over time. We got the ball first and despite that we didn't get all that far, McAlister's scramble was just enough to give Doug Gynes a chances to pin Orlando deep, and we did, all the way to their 1-yard line. After two short runs, our pass rush broke their pass play and a short punt later, we were inside Orlando territory. McAlister found Bondy on back-to-back plays to get into field goal range with a fresh set of downs. Monty Digler shortened the distance, Leo Belin (to my surprise) got the third and short carry and got stuffed deep, but 46 yards proved to be no problem for Thomas Robertson: Merchantmen win! 33-30 in overtime, what a heartbreaker for the Orlando fans, thinking their team was ready to avenge the AOC Championship game loss last season, only to see them trip over one hurdle earlier. Their last bowl appearance and victory remains to be from the 2018 season. Merchantmen fans were ecstatic across the pond. Ellis McAlister finally got the monkey off his back for not being able to win in the playoffs and now he's finally a true Merchantmen franchise quarterback as he guided his team to the AOC Championship game. Obviously, like the fans, McAlister now wants to prove he can win the conference and get his team to the IHOF Bowl. And the fans have one simple message to McAlister, throw it to Theo, often and well enough for him to be able to catch it. The game plan will be balanced enough to keep the opponent from focusing everything on Bondy. The running game has been solid and Artie Blazewicz has proven to be a dangerous player when he gets room to get downfield. Flannery, Harrison, McGee, Chow, Lowe, Hickman, Morris and now McAlister. Of all these names, just McGee, Lowe (twice) and Hickman got the Merchantmen into the bowl game, freakishly enough the hall of famers failed at that. For Ellis McAlister, a hall of fame career was pretty much a non issue after sitting out the first five seasons of his career. Getting that championship ring will be that much sweeter after having already seen from the bench how to lose at this stage. So yes, fans and readers, we're closing in on living up to the hype. We're in the playoffs, deep into it now, where regular season losses no longer count. The AOC Championship game will be contested between the number three and four seeds. All that matters for us, we're one step closer. One game at a time, the North Plainfield Plague are no pushovers, we'll have to bring our A game once again to win our 5th AOC Championship. Let's go Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: And then... nothing
Indeed, the lack of fanfare was a sign of things gone wrong. The Atlantic Ocean Conference Championship game turned out to be a game where we ran into the inferiorly talented, yet more effective North Plainfield Plague. Their defense dominated the game and the subsequent IHOF Bowl game en route to a surprise league championship. Well, surprise, they did play like the #1 defense in the regular season. Defense wins championship? It certainly did in the IHOF's 2085 season. Where does it leave us? Well, fourth best team of the past season, apparently. About on par what I would have considered reasonable towards the kind of team we have, but taking into account how disappointing the previous two seasons and how up and down the regular season was, I'm not particularly happy and convinced that we played below our ability for these past 3 regular seasons. Apparently we're just not as good as we're supposed to be on paper. The off-season has kicked off and we're down three players due to retirement. Oscar Meadows hung it up. The best right tackle to ever play for the Maassluis Merchantmen, surely he's Hall of Fame bound. For 13 seasons starting with his rookie campaign he was our right tackle. In 2084 we demoted him to a backup role, last season he was just here to mentor the rookie Howard Humphrey, who clearly fit Meadows' shoes and earned All-IHOF honors. Meadows played in 224 games, starting 213 of those, excluding the 9 playoffs games he started and played in. 380 key run blocks make him 3rd all-time for the Merchantmen, first offensive tackle by a landslide. God speed, Oscar. Meadows' sidekick Carlos Webb also retired. For 10 seasons he was our starting right guard, just like Meadows, from his rookie season and onwards. Last season he had to ride the bench behind Harvey Hank and Michael Szott. Together, with Meadows and the awesome centers and fullbacks, Webb was part of a tremendous run blocking unit. Webb's last activity was in the two playoffs games that we won last season. In 2083 he had his finest season, with 50 key run blocks, only 2 short of tying the franchise record. Webb ranks fourth all-time in key run blocks for the Merchantmen. Less spectacular has been the career of Santiago Sepanski. The long snapper was only 3 seasons with us. It means we'll have to look out for a new long snapper. Our staff has considered him as one of the finest to play the game and position in the last decade and a half. Imagine how much more extra points and field goals Thomas Robertson would have missed had we had some other snapper... In our staff, we were forced to sign a new assistant coach in the 64-year old Willie Sommers. He had been the offensive coordinator for the Chicago Norsemen, a good fit there with his smashmouth preference. It's likely a short-term solution. We re-signed offensive coordinator Neal Murack and kept the rest of the staff as is. Our cap situation is healthy. Yes, we're $42 million over the cap, but I fully expect us to find a lot of space with renegotiations with several of our superstars. With draft picks taken into consideration, we're projected at $61 million over the cap, holding the #29 pick in each round and having an late extra third round pick. That $61M figure is inaccurate given that we already have 45 players signed. Also, four players are restricted free agents that we'll likely try to re-sign. Biggest puzzle will be to find enough cap space to extend contracts of the fourth-year players DT Heath Oliver, S Bart Guthrie and LT Nathan Hadinger. All three are elite at their respective positions. Also in last year of contract are veterans like QB Ellis MCAlister, G Harvey Hank, DT Glen Stiegler and many, many more, but all of them already have contracts in line with their market value. Guthrie, Hadinger and Oliver are in the last year of their rookie contracts. The situation with Nathan Hadinger is the toughest. He's still recovering from a hernia and is expected to miss training camp, miss pre-season and is questionable to be recovered in time for opening weekend. Anticipating that, we'll be talking with Louie Murray about a contact extension. That's what's going on in and around Oranje Haven, in a nutshell. Things are looking good in my opinion. |
Merchantmen bolster defense in 2086 draft
The trading has returned in Maassluis. The first round of the 2086 draft ended with a delay caused by negotiating representations of the Hanalei Dragons and the Maassluis Merchantmen, resulting in the later moving up from the late second to the last pick of the first round, with cornerback Lee Hancock joining linebacker Daquan Espino as the 2086 first round picks for the Merchantmen. The first round started with the Toronto Lake Monsters grabbing excentric Arizona quarterback Shane Shelton. Offensive players kept flying off the board, but the Merchantmen had different plans and enjoyed the show. Despite their openly advertised desire to draft a wide receiver, instead they added highest graded linebacker Espino through the 29 overall pick. A fast, agile, presumably top-notch pass defender. The blockbusterish trade followed shortly after. The Merchantmen sent their 2087 first round pick together with their second, third and fifth through seventh round picks in this draft to the Hanalei Dragons for their second and fifth round picks in 2087 and the #32 overall pick in this draft. Second highest graded cornerback Lee Hancock was the player of choice. The Merchantmen staff fully expects him to work well alongside Kirk Hitchcock and puts pressure on Tre Poloski to stop thinking he's irreplaceable as the CB2. |
Marshall leaves Merchantmen for Greenjackets
Wendell Marshall's stint in Maassluis has ended after one season. The 31-year old defensive end signed a two-year deal worth just over $18M with the Augusta Greenjackets. Marshall came off a breakout season with 12.0 sacks as the Merchantmen leading pass rusher. The Merchantmen beat the Greenjackets in the wild card round of the recent playoffs. The Merchantmen tried to match the Greenjackets' offer, but Marshall took the offer from the East Coast based team, bringing his family back to the States. To fill the gap, the Merchantmen selected rookie Gene Kondovski from Arizona. The Merchantmen staff assessed him as a top 10 pass rusher of this class. He should bring along some additional defensive abilities to support the run defense, if needed and is expected to jump in as a special teamer as well. The Merchantmen recently decided to keep veteran Ezekiel Wylie, expecting him to mentor Kondovski. |
Theo Bondy and Merchantmen agree terms
After lengthy negotiations, the Maassluis Merchantmen and wide receiver Theodore Bondy agreed terms of a new four-year deal, worth $180 million, including another $61 million signing bonus. Bondy was in the second year of a four year contract signed last off-season, which already included a $55 million signing bonus. The new deal opened up cap space to be able to offer contract extensions to several players in their last year of contract, most notably defensive tackle Heath Oliver and safety Bart Guthrie. Both are regarded elite at their respective positions and the Merchantmen want to maintain their star player heavy roster. This new deal makes it virtually impossible for the Merchantmen to trade or release Bondy without causing a dead cap space hit even larger than the salary figures he's signed for. Sidekick Artie Blazewicz signed a new two-year deal, as the Merchantmen offered him the so-called cap out contract, which means Blazewicz received a bit of his 2086 salary in the form of a signing bonus. As a result, Blazewicz has basically guaranteed his roster spot with the Merchantmen. Coming off a bit of a comeback season, emerging as one of the biggest deep-threat receivers in the league, Blazewicz solidified his spot as the WR2 ahead of second-year receiver Tucker Gaylor, whom the Merchantmen think has a bright future, and veteran Rico Techen. |
Merchantmen select guard Andre Watson
With their fourth round pick of the 2086 draft, the Maassluis Merchantmen selected guard Andre Watson from Nebraska. Albeit considered a raw talent, Watson showed his speed and agility at the rookie combine, while the Merchantmen staff assessed him as one of few players in the class capable of being a reliable run blocker and pass protector. The retirement of Carlos Webb left the Merchantmen behind with only two guards on roster. It does seem unlikely he'll see much if any playing time behind returning starters Harvey Hank and Michael Szott. |
General Manager Notes: 2086, here we come... Almost
The draft has finished, the off-season is soon to be finished, with a crucial training camp upcoming. The goal for this training camp is simple: figure out what plays are missing and what plays are a waste of paper or bits in the play book. What have we've been doing this off-season so far? Well, we lost a handful of players and acquired 4 rookies through the draft. In the next day or so, I hope we can add a bunch of the 17 free agents that we offered a spot on our training camp roster. Sure, they have a shot at a pre-season roster spot, at least 7 of them could make that, but they'll have to do exceptionally well to earn a spot on our 53-men opening day roster. How about them rookies? Fourth round pick Andre Watson looks green, very green. I hope he can live up to his potential, but we've seen many offensive linemen fail before. That said, the kid should realize he's in a good place, we've got a long history of mid-round picks becoming reliable starters on our offensive line. Third round pick Gene Kondovski looks greener than I hoped. As of now, it'll be tough to put him on our rotation, yet, with Wendell Marshall gone, we've got little other options... He'll get his playing time on the special teams unit and we'll put Ezekiel Wylie on him to learn the tricks. We've still got a deep line, providing father time won't be nasty on the veteran defensive tackles... Pick #32 overall Lee Hancock looks green as well. Boy, have we misjudged in this draft or what? It didn't even occur to me until now, but him teaming up with Kirk Hitchcock means we've got a cocky couple of corners here. Hancock has enough skill to put him on bump and run kind of duties, so he'll surely see playing time amidst Hitchcock and the stamina lacking Tre Poloski. For nickel and dimeroles, Hancock will have to watch and learn from the others though, especially Giovanni Morton. Pick #29 overall Daquan Espino looks like he's the most developed of these four draft picks. His arrival is bad news for Billy Springer, our third linebacker in the last two seasons. We'll have to see how we fit Espino into the front seven with Craig McCorkle and Glenn Brewer as the obvious starters, but in all formation with seven or eight on the field, Espino should be good enough to be one of them. For now it might be likely he'll ride the bench on obvious passing downs. Aside from those four draft picks, we signed as little as zero free agents from other teams. We managed to lock up the restricted free agents Jessie Taylor and Miles Barker, our two most active tight ends last season. We'll want to get them more involved in the running game and a bit less in the passing game, but it's been tricky to make that work last season. What's on our to do list? A couple of things. We missed out on signing the best long snapper in the free agent market and didn't spent a draft pick on getting a replacement. So yes, we'll be looking for signing a long snapper in time for training camp. We have contract extensions to work out with a bunch of key players. Heath Oliver (the best defensive tackle in the league), Bart Guthrie (the best safety in the league), quarterback Ellis McAlister and left tackle Nathan Hadinger are on their last year of contract. We need to agree terms with them before opening weekend. The only relief here is that none of them decided to hold out and make it harder on us. Ten other players are on their last year of contract. Yes, I understand not mentioning them may seem like disrespecting them, but the four guys I did mention are exceptionally talented players at crucial positions. We'll definitely try to get to terms with the other guys, providing they survive the pre-season cuts... All in all, we've lost two players that saw a lot of action last season. Replacing Wendell Marshall looks tougher than I had hoped, after all, he exceeded expectations, despite that I did believe in him being capable of what he did for us, which was a breakout year for him. It was a real bummer for him to shove the confidence we gave him aside and move to Augusta. But so be it, we'll find a way to replace him, no worries. Andy Russell and Gino Kemp are long overdue for a 10-sack season, now might be the time to throw them more exclusively on the pass rush and let others do the run stopping. Cohesion will once again be one of our stand out skills. The special teams unit has thrived last season, we hope to maintain that. Despite a somewhat disappointing month last season, Gabe Broady rebounded and earned a new contract. Heck, his agent is a clearly terrible at this, because Broady is a steal for his cap figure. This guy has been the best punt returner in the league for the past three seasons. It does help when even guys like Theo Bondy, Kirk Hitchcock, Craig McCorkle and Leonard Belin want to play on that unit. Those are key players at other positions, willing to butt heads with opponents to help Broady make his plays. That's another part of the cohesive team we've established here. It's been one of our strengths for decades, it's really thriving in this particular part of the game. Looking at the schedule for that upcoming 2086 season, the confidence in the team will be severely tested early on. In the first seven weeks, we'll play exactly one home game, against the IHOF's highest decorated franchise, the Tucker Tigers. Around that game, we'll host three playoff-teams from last season: the IHOF champion North Plainfield Plague, the NAC runner up Hanalei Dragons and the Augusta Greenjackets, the team we beat in the wild card round in a very close game. The other two road games are in Gothenburg and Paris. We'll really have to focus on sticking with our plan, try to win as many as possible of these games where we'll usually be underdogs based on homefield advantage. Down the road, the schedule won't ease up, we'll still have to face the Orlando Talons and Fairbanks Northstars (both on the road) and get to host the team to watch in 2086: the Oakland Black Panthers. We'll also have to face the Houston Mustangs, Colorado Cutthroats and Snapfinger Jazz. That's even excluding the double header with the re-emerging Bordeaux Vineyards and the home games against Gothenburg and Paris. But hey, if we're as good as we think we are, we should be able to play our A game, beat most of them, get in the playoffs and then see how deep we can get. Theo Bondy was back to his 2K form last season, the defense continues to be amazingly talented and the running game and our sidekicks to Theo are good enough to keep every opponent honest about (not) focusing too much on Theo. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves now, we still have to undergo the waves of training camp, finding out in pre-season whether our guys are still in shape and then figure out which 53 players will be deemed good enough to represent the Merchantmen in 2086. Go Merchantmen! |
Oscar Meadows sixth on all-time Merchantmen money ranking
Recently retired offensive tackle Oscar Meadows ranks sixth on the all-time Merchantmen money list. In 15 seasons in Maassluis, Meadows cumulated nearly $248 million in cap figures. He had moved into sixth place at the end of the 2083 season, surpassing 2057-2065 quarterback Lester Lowe. The money list is lead by five hall of famers, with the top four all members of the Merchantmen's only IHOF Bowl winning squad in the 2066 season. The absolute top 10 1. DT Shaun Hartman $337.42M 2. CB Peter Tucker $334.89M 3. LB Edward Ross $299.56M 4. C Tom Anaya $299.18M 5. QB Bryson Chow $279.12M 6. T Oscar Meadows $247.93M 7. QB Lester Lowe $215.17M 8. WR Riddick Stanley $206.08M 9. LB Antonio Battle $202.07M 10. LB Gabe Hamilton $201.99M The top 10 will likely see some changes once the 2086 season roster has been determined. Quarterback Ellis McAlister has accumulated $189M and is due $42M the upcoming season. It seems likely his actual cap figure for the upcoming season will be different, depending on where McAlister and Merchantmen management end up in negotiations. Moving up to seventh place right behind Meadows looks very likely. No other player currently on roster is within a reasonable shot of the $200M figure. Due to increasing cap figures over the decades, recently active players are dominating the all-time money list. On the relative figures towards the overall cap space spent on players, a different top 10 becomes visible. Quarterback Russell Harrison, in 2030 traded over failed contract negotiations, has managed to accumulate the highest relative cap figure. In his twelve seasons on roster he averaged roughly 10.7 percent of the team's total cap spent, adding up to 128.47 percent. The relative top 10 1. QB Russell Harrison 128.47 2. QB Bryson Chow 98.9 3. DT Andy Cottle 96.81 4. DT Charles Gomez 95.15 5. DT Shaun Hartman 93.41 6. CB Peter Tucker 90.72 7. QB Louie Flannery 88.82 8. WR Gabe Springer 84.1 9. LB Edward Ross 80.54 10. C Tom Anaya 79.95 It seems unlikely anyone of players currently on roster will soon threaten this top10. Quarterback Ellis McAlister has a relative figure of 43.98, defensive tackle Glen Stiegler 42.53 and guard Harvey Hank 38.89. Oscar Meadows recently retired with a 61.88 figure. Most notable on the relative cap figure list are defensive tackles Andy Cottle and Charles Gomez. Of the top 10, they are the only two not to get elected into the IHOF's Hall of Fame. Gomez' career was deemed too short by the HOF Committee, while Cottle's cap figure has possibly been influenced by the Merchantmen overpaying for his services playing at the then considered most important position. Three Merchantmen Hall of Famers are considered to have been slightly underpaid. Running back Stanley Givens played 4 seasons in orange-white-and-blue, earning roughly $41M and just 7.05 percent of the cap figures. Fellow running back Norbert Talley accumulated just under $132M in 8 seasons, with roughly 5.95 percent of the cap figure in each of those seasons. Defensive end Daquan Strugielski and his two Defensive Player of the Year awards got rewarded with just over $125M and roughly just 2.77 percent of each season's cap figure in those 12 seasons. |
Merchantmen release Glen Stiegler
The Maassluis Merchantmen today announced the release of Glen Stiegler. The 34-year old defensive tackle and former first round pick leaves the Merchantmen after 11 seasons of service, in which he missed only 2 games. A reliable and fearsome pass rusher, while also a quality run stuffer, made Stiegler a two-time All IHOF selection and earned second team honors once. Last season his role already went from full time starter to a by committee role, primarily focusing on rushing the passer on obvious passing downs. He was a key figure for the team that lost in the 2078 AOC Championship game and was also active in the more recently 2085 AOC Championship game, also a lost effort. Stiegler hopes to find a roster spot elsewhere in the league, but those odds appear slim. Merchantmen management decided to go into the 2086 season with three defensive tackles and five defensive ends, giving preference to the two rookies Gene Kondovski and Tony Whiting over Stiegler. The Merchantmen also cut cornerback Shaquille Dixon, whom they do think has a bright future ahead of him, but 2086 came too early for him to win a roster spot in Maassluis. Dixon and Stiegler were the final two cuts to trim the roster down to 53 players. Earlier this off-season, the Merchantmen released 12 other players, most prominently being three experienced special teamers Riddick Bunting and Jermaine Page. Bunting played 85 games for the Merchantmen, while Page joined the century club with his 106th appearance in the 2085 playoffs. The Merchantmen go into opening weekend with 9 new players on roster, with 8 rookies and one second-year pro. Four rookies were drafted: linebacker Daquan Espino, cornerback Lee Hancock, defensive end Gene Konodvski and guard Andre Watson. Four rookies were undrafted free agents: fullback Clay Brosseau, center Jared Labbe, defensive end Tony Whiting and long snapper Timothy Biegen. Wide receiver Chris DeWoody is the second-year pro, last season an undrafted rookie with the Fort Wayne Fury. |
Heath Oliver extends with Merchantmen
Three days before opening weekend, the Maassluis Merchantmen and defensive tackle Keith Oliver agreed terms of a new four-year contract. Oliver was due to become a free agent after the 2086 season and according to league rules, they had to renew the contract before week 1 games. Oliver signed a $208 million contract with a $69 million signing bonus. Oliver is regarded as a key member of an elite run defense. The news comes a day after the Merchantmen re-sign left tackle Nathan Hadinger to a 5-year deal worth over $146 million. Still recovering from an unguinal hernia, Hadinger is expected to miss opening weekend, but ready for action in week 2. The Merchantmen hope to agree terms with safety Bart Guthrie in the next two days, to lock up all their key players that are in the last year of contract. The team also expects to re-sign some of the seven other veterans in the last year of contract, of whom none are expected to be a starter in the 2086 season. |
General Manager Notes: 2086 fourth time the charm?
Favorites to win it all, we're a top the DogBytes power rating to start the season for the fourth season in succession. What does it mean? It means we've done something right to build a team that can potentially win games. In our case, it's a combination of awesome players (Theodore Bondy, Kirk Hitchcock, Keith Oliver, Bart Guthrie, Craig McCorkle, the entire offensive line, perhaps even our quarterback Ellis McAlister), being loyal to our players to build sky high cohesion and good economy to be able to pick a good coaching staff. But aside from those on paper factors, we're going to be tested with how our game plan will work out. In pre-season, Artie Blazewicz showed glimpses of being more than just the Blazewicz special play, he's shown he can complement Theo in being a top-notch receiving duo. Our running backs tandem/trio and their blockers are strong enough to punish opponents that focus on stopping the pass, which is near impossible with Theo involved anyway. We picked up four new players for our defense for the upcoming season, all rookies. Last season that number was limited to just one new player: the awesome veteran defensive end Wendell Marshall. It remains to be seen, but losing Marshall might be a bigger loss than the fresh blood can do to improve our defense. Gene Kondovski and Tony Whiting are promising pass rushers, but they're not there yet. We'll throw Kondovski out there anyway, we need him to become our primary pass rusher as quickly as possible. Releasing Glen Stiegler was a very tough decision. Our defensive captain and a core member of our defense for over a decade. But sadly, we've noticed he lost a lot of his speed, has durability, his agility. With all the talent on the line, he wasn't going to be on the active roster and as a result, I decided we should give that eighth roster spot on the defensive line to the undrafted rookie Tony Whiting. Oliver is our work horse up the middle, A.J. Ritt and Erik Shrader will split time as the second defensive tackle. On the end, we'll be using four guys in an energy saving rotation, with Andy Russell, Geno Kemp, Ezekiel Wylie and Kondovski. We might switch from Wylie to Whiting at some point during the season. Rookie linebacker Daquan Espino will be our third guy this season. McCorkle and Glenn Brewer look sharp and as such we have no need to replace them as of yet. We'll be in plenty situations with three linebackers on the field anyway, Espino will get his playing time. In the secondary, we've got rookie Lee Hancock as the new face, but he'll be fighting for playing time with Tre Poloski and Courtney Blackwell, our new nickelback. Giovanni Morton will be less active upcoming season, but we'll need his mentoring skills. At safety, Riddick Newsome is a new starter. We picked him up during the 2085 season to fill in for the season ending injuries of Alexander Marty and Rex McIndoe. He's lacking the stamina to be a full time starter, so it's likely he'll have to time-share with Marty. Strong safety Guthrie and cornerback Hitchcock are the undisputed starters. They are elite players at their positions. The offense is mostly unchanged. Despite 5 new faces on roster, the guys seeing action will be very similar. Ellis McAlister remains our starting quarterback, heck, we've even signed him to a new expensive three-year deal to make sure he won't be a free agent next off-season. Is Ernest Andrews the future? Too early to tell, he's got that victory in his sole start last season to boost his confidence, but he still needs to improve and prove he's got top25 potential, which is our bottom line. We were patient with McAlister, he rode the bench for 5 long seasons. But I can't promise Andrews we'll be that patient again... Our offensive line is unchanged, from left to right Nathan Hadinger, Harvey Hank, Butch Pearson, Michael Szott and Howard Humphrey. Hank is the veteran of the bunch, Hadinger the elite pass blocker, Pearson and Humphrey the elite run blockers. Szott is a complete player. Nestor of the line Louie Murray will be our opening day left tackle, as Hadinger needs another week or so to shake off the last effects of the hernia that sidelined him last season. Rookies guard Andre Watson and center Jared Labbe will (hopefully) see little action this season, as that would mean injuries forced them into action. Labbe looks interesting, a stellar run blocker. Watson is so green, it's hard to tell where his peak will be. We hope he can step in at Hank's spot in a year or two. Our running game will once again see us split Leonard Belin and Reggie Thongchanh the carries. Monty Digler remains to be our third down back, providing the staff doesn't forget to use him, goshdangit! Tristan Cochrane will be the fullback, but it remains to be seen whether we'll use him as a run blocker or a pass blocker. The same might apply to tight ends Jessie Turner and Matt Barker, although it's pretty obvious at least one of those three will be on the field on running plays, at times even two of them. But our centerpiece of the offense is quite clearly Theo. We loved all our previous all-worldly wide receivers (Gabe Springer, Terry Haskell and J.R. Mills in particular), but Theo is something special. This guy has everything needed to be considered the best at his position, not just in the league currently, but also the best in franchise history. Alongside Theo, we'll be trying to trim down on targeting our tight ends and backfield players, trying to get even more deep threat with Blazewicz and our third receiver Tucker Gaylor. Expect to see more of the second half of the season Blazewicz. Gaylor remains to be a mystery as McAlister has had little opportunity to target him last season, but he does appear to have the skills to punish opposing secondaries. We've got newly signed lightning fast Chris DeWoody as a backup plan for Gaylor. Rico Techen remains on roster to mentor Gaylor. Ross Willbrandt sadly lost some of his speed, but he'll stick around as our fifth active receiver for the Hail Mary plays and as our second kickoff returner. Speaking of special teams roles, our unit is considered cream of the crop in the league and rightfully so. Willbrandt and Blazewicz have proven to be quality kickoff returners, but Gabe Broady is a world beater, the undisputed best punt returner in the IHOF for the last three seasons. Blackwell gives us the luxury to sideline Broady if he's struggling. We'll keep our eyes open for a new kickoff returner though, as Willbrandt has looked slow and sluggish in pre-season and Blazewicz needs to save his energy for the passing game. We trust our punter Doug Guynes and believe in the talent of kicker Thomas Robertson, despite his struggles. Kick holder Karsten Muchnick stuck around for another season, he won that roster spot battle over a rookie. Our long snapper retired, but rookie Timothy Biegen looks good enough to step in. As you may have noticed, we've said goodbye to several of our other special teamers, but we've got plenty of guys capable of stepping in and even stepping it up: Belin, Thongchanh, Bondy, De Woody, Barker, McCorkle, Wylie, Skip Keith, Billy Springer, Guthrie, McIndoe, Poloski... So yeah, I think we should feel confident that in Maassluis we've got a team that can play with and beat every other team in this league. We've got play makers in every position group and elements on our team that can make a difference with something special other teams don't have. It's pointless to think we've had our share of bad luck over the past three seasons, we can still blame ourselves for lack of effort to fix what we were doing wrong. Is the season a failure if we don't win the IHOF Bowl? In a way it is, this might be the last season with all these guys together. Cap space will be a real issue next season, if not the one after, because all these all world caliber players do want to get paid for their services. McAlister's is the oldest player on the team, at some point he's going to fall apart, but you never know with football players once they hit the 30's, they may retire when you least expect it. But those are worries for the far future, 2086 is the season we're kicking off in 2 days. I'm confident we can improve on last season, which suggests anything can happen. Go Merchantmen! |
2086 roster breakdown
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cohesion is off the charts for the Merchantmen, part of them being tipped among the league favorites this season
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General Manager Notes: Two for three on the road...
The season has barely started and we've already had our bye week, without having played a single game in our own Oranje Haven. Such is the life in football, at time. So, three road games to start the season. We knew this was coming, but it's still nasty when you're in that series. And lo and behold, we've come out of it with 2 wins, including a drubbing of the reigning IHOF champions. How about that? Week 1 against the Gothenburg Giants was a near choke victory. The first half 31-7 lead was barely enough to win 34-31 on a last second field goal. Theo carried the team like we want him to do: 11 catches for 163 yards and 2 touchdowns. We followed up with a horrible showing at the Hanalei Dragons. The other conference championship losers played tremendous red zone defense, forcing us to kick it way too much. The defense actually returned the favor, resulting in a 26-12 loss, with just 2 touchdowns all day. Theo caught 11 passes for 163 yards. Week 3 was a different story. Playing at the North Plainfield Plague, the reigning IHOF champions, the top-notch defense for a change actually managed to play top-notch pass defense. How awesome is that? We somehow kept their star receiver to 6 catches on 22 targets, letting their quarterback throw for only 91 yards on 37 pass plays. Theo had 10 catches for 113 yards and a score. Week 4 was our bye week. Week 5 is up next, with yet another heavy matchup. We'll be hosting the undefeated revived Tucker Tigers. Granted, they played the easiest schedule so far, which doesn't say a lot at this stage of the season about either the team itself or those opponents. Their running game is traditionally efficient, their passing game dangerous with a rookie tight end averaging just over 10 yards per target. Their pass defense might be the weak spot, we'd better take advantage of it, but the only way to do that is keep them from controlling the ball and clock. Missing Howard Humphrey due to an achilles tendon injury will be a major blow. This kid has been phenomenal for our running game. We'll have to see what we can do here, I hope for the best, but we've shot ourselves in the foot way too often in the previous three seasons. Being favored by a point or two means very little. If anything, that this game could go either way. Hopefully our way. Go Merchantmen! |
General Manager Notes: Leading Europe, but the lead is small...
After a mishmash of stellar road victories and a couple of mindboggling losses at home, we've placed ourselves at the top of the division with a 4-3 record. With 5 road games already in the books and most of the tough opponents behind us, we thought we were in go mode for a 12-4 kind of season. Not so much, we stumbled over the previously winless Snapfinger Jazz, in Oranje Haven no less, meaning the next home game against the Bordeaux Vineyards will put the division lead at mid-season on the line after all. Theo had a bit of an off-day against the Jazz, which didn't help, while the defensive line has been Merchantmen unworthy in generating pass rush pressure. It's tempting to throw the game plan overboard and act like we had a bad plan. We're probably about 66% to 75% effective, but I have no clue what works and what doesn't. Does it mean I'm holding us back? Probably, this team feels like it could have been 6-1 and had no business choking our only two home games. But sometimes, football can see that oddly shaped ball bounce into the wrong direction and make your team lose a game it should have won and a game it should have won by two scores. European Division: 1. Maassluis 4-3 2. Paris 3-4 3. Bordeaux 3-4 4. Gothenburg 1-5-1 Ok, the lead is just a game, but on paper, we're really a game or two ahead of the division. We steamrolled the Musketeers in Paris and should have never let the Giants come back to within 3 points at Gothenburg. We lost two winnable home games by a score and had smooth victories at our 2085 playoffs opponents from Augusta and North Plainfield. The loss at Hanalei was only logical. Sure, the rest of the season won't be a cup cake schedule, we're no Asstoria Heroes, but we've got every reason to be optimistic, bar injuries to key players. We'll curse the player agent of Bart Guthrie after the last game of the season, aside from this one right now: what a lunatic for telling his player to not take a better offer than he requested. *rant* We'll have to keep faith in our pass rush, keep throwing it to Theo, but not overdoing it. And with a little bit of luck on the right side, we're still in the running for doing better than last season. We can do this, Merchantmen! We can do this. |
General Manager notes: rising, rising, and then dropping hard...
Two games back, we thought we had finally arrived where we thought we could be, but two home choke jobs later, we're back on earth after falling flat on our face. With our first home victory of the season (20-13 vs Bordeaux) and a much deserved, yet surprisingly easy win (30-25 at Orlando), we had improved into the race for the top 2 seeds. But a couple of choke jobs later, both at home, we'll have to look over our shoulder again for the amazingly revived Gothenburg Giants, currently the conference's hottest team with 4 straight victories. Europe 1. Maassluis 6-5 2. Gothenburg 5-5-1 3. Bordeaux 4-7 4. Paris 4-7 I honestly have no clue what we (I) have done wrong to see another pair of choke jobs in our own Oranje Haven. Against Gothenburg, we were driving for a hard-fought victory, but instead saw a pick six in the final minute turn our 454 yards of offense turn into a 9-17 disgrace. The home game against the pretty much playoffs eliminated Oakland Black Panthers saw the defense allow 454 yards, with 15 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, to lose 28-27 on a touchdown pass with 36 seconds to go. Yes, this too is football, but we were on the other side of the coin against Bordeaux (goal line stand to salvage victory) and overcame late game turnovers that almost destroyed the solid performance at Orlando. As if we just don't want to show the rest of the world we're a 13-3/12-4 caliber team. No, we need to make things difficult on us, choke game after game, needing coin flips to get the W's. Sadly, I'm out of ideas how to pinpoint what we're doing wrong. All the time spent in the video room feels like a waste of time, as we're playing like a .500 land team for the fourth straight season, despite that loaded roster. Our window of opportunity is quickly shutting, Ellis McAlister is getting up there in age, the cap situation is getting very tight, including the $14M of cap space gone to waste this season because some stupid player agent feels like undervaluing the past safety in the league: "Nah, we don't want more money, we want less money, or else he'll sign elsewhere next off-season." Sigh. So, 5 more games to get things right, with some luck get a slightly more favorable playoffs route as the #2 seeds and then hope to get lucky ones we're there. But really, does a team much better than .500, yet performing no better than that .500 deserve to dream? One game at a time, one game at a time. That's where we stand. Glen Brewer is out for the rest of the regular season, defensive end Tony Whiting, inactive for the first 11 games, will be moved back to outside linebacker and subsequently activated to fulfill the silliness called roster requirements. I'm still hopeful we'll regroup and do well in the next 9 weeks of the season, but it's getting way ahead of things once again. Week 13, hosting Houston. Yes, a team we've rarely beaten when we were favorites, like we are this season. In fact, Vegas gives us only the home field advantage points this time around, which in our current form actually feels like a disadvantage, we've already secured having a worse record at home than on the road this season (1-4 vs 5-1). So, guys, what will it be? Let another season go to waste, or will we step it up and after this long time of underperforming right the ship and start a long winning streak of 8 or 9 games? Y'all have the talent for it, now prove that y'all can do it. Go Merchantmen! |
Writer's rant: This fourth consecutive season of .500 ball is seriously hurting my interest to write about what could (should?) have been a powerhouse team during that tenure. Seemingly I've become one of the worst playbook makers both on offense and defense, despite that this is still the same game as the one we finally got our first and (so far?) only bowl victory in. It keeps getting tougher to think this ship can be righted, especially knowing that next season the decline of the roster strength will be unavoidable due to the snowballing of overpriced contracts.
The latter a direct result of a bug (I have no other word for this annoyingness) in the way contract renegotiations in the MP environment work differently from SP and make it a somewhat random roll of dice whether a particular player will or will not accept an offer that has much more or even much more guaranteed money that what he asked for. In SP it's cut and dry: the player will always accept the upgrade, in MP, you need to find the magic number for every single player, which is a serious pain in the you-know-where when there are only 3 stages after the random volatility rolls to offer those contracts. I don't fancy the 'needs more testing in SP' approach, yet - much to my chagrin - I have spent plenty of time redoing the playbook (in that one stage per season when it's technically possible to change it) and analyzing what plays do and do not work on both offense and defense. But when that quite simply feels like it's been a waste of time, it's making playing this game more frustrating than it had already began when this became a necessity to remain competitive with teams with inferior rosters that did figure out the magic numbers that somehow work. It's becoming a vicious circling catch-22, it dwindles down my interest to initiate trades, prepare for the draft, hence aggravating my roster building skills and as a result take away the little advantages I somehow seemed to have over teams yo-yoing from 9-7 to 5-11, rinse repeat. A design change and a bug fix don't appear to be on the horizon, so it becomes a question whether I'm willing to throw nearly 16 years of playing this game away. Well, most certainly I am not! The white flag will not be raised, especially not thrown into the ring like a towel either. [end rant] 2086 isn't entirely lost, we're going into week 17 (tomorrow) with the season still salvageable. So more on that later... |
General Manager Notes: Regular season ends in a dramatic fashion...
We're repeat division champions. Yay. It ended in a dramatic change of events. While we thought we were clobbering the Paris Musketeers and hearing the Gothenburg Giants were steamrolling the Bordeaux Vineyards, we thought we were going to finish second in the division, in the last wild card spot and started fueling the team plane for a trip to Gothenburg. Then we all woke up after a night's sleep and found out it was all a dream. We did wind up beating Paris, although just barely, leaning enormously on Theo Bondy and a franchise record 285 yards receiving, but more importantly, Gothenburg choked the division title with an unheard of 39-16 home deficit to Bordeaux. European division: 1. Maassluis 9-7 2. Gothenburg 8-7-1 3. Bordeaux 6-10 4. Paris 5-11 Despite our shockingly bad record for a division champion and for the kind of player collective we have, the AOC Northeast division has been so tight, that entire division finishes the season with 8 losses, except for the 9-7 Harlem Apollos and their inferior conference record compared to our 9-3 record inside the AOC (yeah, we got swept by a division with 3 losing teams and a 10-6 champion), meaning we ended up as the #3 seeds and hosting the #6 seeds: the Gothenburg Giants! Theo Bondy's big day also meant he sky rocketed to the receiving yards title with 2,449 yards, coincidentally yet another franchise record, as were the 19 receiving touchdowns. So, after a very wobbly regular season campaign, the on paper title candidates sneak into the playoffs once again. We've been 9-7 or 7-9 in all four of these season. It's annoyingly disappointing. And yet, we're one of 12 teams still in the running, as undeservingly as that may seem. We'd better make the best of it, because with our inexcusable ability to piss away games against opponents that we should steamroll, we have no reason to be cocky. Confidence is a good thing, but only if it helps us get the best out of ourselves. The 'on paper favorites' rarely win, we've proven that for the last 3 seasons already. Fourth time the charm? Who knows, time will tell. Next up Gothenburg, at home. We made horrible decisions in a winnable home game earlier this season, while we already had nearly choked a 24-point lead in the road game there. We'll have to play our A game to win here. We can do this, team: go Merchantmen! |
Writer's note: I haven't had a writers' block, but I did get caught between a bit of a roller coaster of events and aforementioned disappointment about the game. The former is sometimes a boost for writing, but it hasn't been this time around. The later, well, I'm trying to cope with it, but it continues to be an increasing annoyance.
No worries though. Naturally, I haven't given up, why would I after 83 seasons? 2086 wasn't the kind of season it could and should have been, while 2087 is starting with cap hell. Draft class board is up and running, just in case we can't get rid of all the expensive draft picks. But more on that later, maybe. |
General Manager Notes: 2086, what a weird season...
Last I reported, we were happy to have salvaged our playoffs ticket, even shocked to sneak into the European division crown. We managed to follow up with a convincing 36-18 defeat of the Gothenburg Giants in our own Oranje Haven. Theo was nigh unstoppable, catching 14 passes for 237 yards. The joy was short-lived, we found our season end at the inferior talented Fort Wayne Fury, playing incredibly bad after our first possession a 98 yard drive for a quick 7-0 lead. The entire game, we gained just 263 yards and saw the defense once again play way below the standards that we're used to, especially given the talent on roster. 24-13, we can't even claim it was close to the end. Out in the elite eight round. We're not worthy. So, onwards to the new season we went, with a humongous cap puzzle. |
General Manager notes: 2087, fifth time the charm?
Football fans, we're far from giving up! The off-season started with the departure of a couple of players that have been bounced around from starter to more recently a key backup role. Left tackle Louie Murray retired after 218 games in orange-white-and-blue, a home-grown sixth round pick, mostly on duty to cover the seventh round quarterback Ellis McAlister from the same 2074 draft. A unique duo. Murray started in both the 2078 and 2085 AOC Championship games. Cornerback Giovanni Morton spent 11 seasons in Maassluis after being picked up as an undrafted rookie in the 2076 off-season. In his third season he emerged as the nickelback of the team and played that role for 8 seasons. He played in both lost AOC Championship games in 2078 and 2085. The most notable of his 172 games was in 2083 when he scored two interception return touchdowns against the Iowa Cobbers in week 16 of the regular season. Free safety Rex McIndoe was initially a Gothenburg Giant, but late in his second season he got released and picked up by the Merchantmen during the playoffs. From the 2076 season an onwards, he bounced from dimeback to free safety and back and forth. His final two seasons of the 11-season stint were in a reserve role. 171 games in orange-white-and blue are on his resume. After the wave of retirements, we've decided to release cornerback Tre Poloski after 6 seasons, a former first round pick in the same draft as Kirk Hitchcock, safety Emmitt Miller, our second round pick in 2082 and inactive all of last season, wide receiver Rico Techen, 9 seasons of service as a sixth round pick, and running back Monty Digler, after three season o not delivering as the third down back. A majority, if not all our key players signed a renegotiated deal, some a so-called cap out and others a restructured deal. The list is too long to mention them all. Guard Michael Szott is the biggest name yet to get a new deal. I hope we can offer him an improved contract before late free agency, but the first wave was to get our of a cap hole far beyond the $100 million over the cap, nearly touching a projected -$145 million after draft pick signings. We're currently at about +$30 million, with 11 contracts to add to the cap. Safety Bart Guthrie is our main free agency target. As per usual, contract talks are frustrating. His agent declared a clear desired day to sign, but they let that deadline pass and now we're in a battle with 3 other teams for Guthrie's services. We have no frickin' clue whether he wants to stay with us anyway, by lack of any useful feedback, but let's assume it's about 50-50. We've re-signed restricted free agent defensive end Tony Whiting and long snapper Timothy Biegen. As of today, we're at 40 players signed, with openings in the backfield (a third RB, a second FB - perhaps restricted free agent Clay Brosseau - or both), a fourth tight end (veteran/mentor Nicholas Gundy looks ready to move to the Outer Banks Ospreys), a wide receiver (or two, we hope to retain kickoff returner Ross Wilbrandt), a backup center (restired free agent Jared Labbe looks promising), a third offensive tackle, a linebacker (or two) to fill in for Chesapeake Chitterlings bound Billy Springer, and then a bunch of defensive backs as we have only 6 left on roster, not including Guthrie. Meanwhilst, I'm trying to trade away all our draft picks, at the very least the expensive ones. Any incoming rookies will likely ride the bench, possibly even inactive all season. I'm even willing to trade picks for lower round picks in the future for this, that desperate. We'll manage, though, we'll manage. |
General Manager Notes: Ready for pre-season 2087!
The off-season has ended, pre-season starts today. With 60 players on roster, we've got our exhibition season player collection worked out. All-IHOF second team safety Bart Guthrie's agent decided that it was time for Guthrie to leave Maassluis. He's moved on to the Oakland Black Panthers for a $116M signing bonus. Yeah, we didn't have that cash flow available. Rex McIndoe retired, Emmitt Miller was released after a season of inactivity will earning starter money. Miller has moved to the Paris Musketeers, hoping to make their 53-men roster. To fill the gap, we signed 29-year old Bart Farrell, a former undrafted safety, who worked his way up in the IHOF from an afterthought to full time starter at the Brooklyn' Fightin' Bums, then an off year at the Chicago Norsemen and the last two seasons starting for the Atlanta Vipers. He's more of a free safety type, but we'll be happy with him alongside the only two safeties that hung around: Riddick Newsome and run stopper Alexander Marty. Behind them, we've got two rookies eager to make the roster in second round pick Renaldo Upshaw and undrafted Salvador Harper. We released fellow undrafted rookie Eddie Adams yesterday to cut down from 61 to 60 players. Elsewhere in the secondary, we'll have quite the roster spots battle at cornerback. Seven players are hoping to cling on one of the four or five roster spots we'll reserve there. The release of veteran Tre Poloski might have come as a surprise, but he never lived up to the first round pick hype and we felt he no longer deserved that kind of salary. Kirk Hitchcock and Lee Hancock are obviously our returning starters. Two rookies made it as pure cornerbacks, fifth round pick Jessie McNeill and undrafted Kristopher Reid will likely battle for one spot. Gabe Broady is our cherished punt returner, and nothing but that. Courtney Blackwell might improve to nickel back this season and has been waiting in the wings to take over the punt returning duties if Broady loses some speed. Undrafted rookie Mason Wilson might potentially make the team is one of two kickoff return specialists. At linebacker, three of seven roster spots are locked up for All-IHOF Craig McCorkle, still going strong Glenn Brewer and rising star Daquan Espino. The latter looks ready to jump in as the new MLB ahead of McCorkle. Veteran Skip Keith hopes to get a sixth season in Maassluis as a special teamer. Undrafted rookie Harvey Cassidy is his main rival for the roster spot. Second-year pro Walt Offerman hasn't had a contract in the IHOF yet, but this off-season we decided to give him the chance after he kept working out for himself in hopes to get into the IHOF after all. Third round pick Clayton Jackson is a passing downs linebacker. The kid might fall anywhere from unseating Brewer as the third linebacker to missing the 53-men cut. Moving him to defensive end was an option, but the staff felt he's too short and small to make that move well. The defensive line is pretty much unchanged from last season's collective. All-IHOF selection Heath Oliver will once again anchor the line from the middle. A truck load of fast pass rushers will be his rotating sidekicks. Gino Kemp, Gene Kondovski, A.J. Ritt, Andy Russell, Erik Shrader, Tony Whiting and Ezekiel Wylie are back for another season. Undrafted rookie Archie Exner looks very promising though, could be the most suitable pass rusher of this 2087 class and he might take out one of those other guys this pre-season... Doug Guynes returns for another season as our punter, Thomas Robertson should stay as our kicker. He's in the final year of his rookie contract and (somewhat rightfully) thinks he deserves to be the highest paid kicker in the league. Sure, but we don't have the cap space to make you an offer. Most likely, we'll see the last of him this season and either have to pay him big next off-season or look for a replacement in the 2088 off-season. Timothy Biegen returns for a second season as our long snapper. Karsten Muchnick should hang around for a ninth season as our kick holder (I know it's to no avail, but at some point I hope my staff starts to understand that kick holder means kick holding and surely not second string quarterback!). Speaking of second string quarterbacks, we picked up undrafted rookie Francisco Farley to challenge third year Ernest Andrews for the slight possibility to ever becoming the replacement for when Ellis McAlister calls it quits. It seems very unlikely either will emerge though, we gambled too much in the draft on two players that I felt were worth taking in the fifth and sixth round, but both got taken shortly before our turn. In the backfield we've replaced veteran Monty Digler, his third down skills never came to fruition. Seventh round pick Francisco Patter isn't quite that kind of player either, but he's emerging as our strongest most promising rookie. His hole recognition makes him a threat to Leonard Belin and Reggie Thongchanh as a viable ball carrier. Patter might lack the breakaway speed to fit in our playing style. Tristan Cochrane remains as our fullback. I'm still struggling to have our staff find a way to sue him to his strengths, we've underused his run blocking skills for four straight season. Consequently, it makes it tough to defend my decision to bring back the promising run blocking fullback Clay Brosseau for a second season. At tight end, we've replaced veteran Nicholas Gundy with fifth round rookie Randy Holliday. We'll likely go into the 2087 season with 4 tight ends, which should pretty much guarantee a roster spot for Holliday. Tyler Kotz might emergence as our new third tight end this season after two seasons of inactivity. Miles Barker and Jessie Taylor stick around for another season. I hope we find better use of both guys' run blocking skills in the upcoming season. At wide receiver, it's still Theo sky high above the rest. With another bunch of franchise records, Theodore Bondy was IHOF's leading receiver in 2086. I do hope we can make him more effective as his yards per target number has dipped again to under 8.0. Artie Blazewicz should remains as his main sidekick, although sixth round pick Branden Sandlin looks like a younger, greener, version of Blazewicz, lacking the return skills to make him a true copy. Tucker Gaylor is going into his third season, will he finally emerge as the player I believe he can be? Chris DeWoody is the alternative and is demanding the WR2 role, but his lack of route running skills has kept him in a WR4 role last season. Ross Willbrandt re-emerged as our kickoff returner last season, but he'll be challenged once again and could lose the roster spot to aforementioned rookie cornerback Mason Wilson. Or to undrafted rookie A.J. Warnock, who might make the roster as a kickoff and punt return specialist, while also good enough to be in a support role on special teams. Lastly, the offensive line. The five starters remain to be the same, most likely: left tackle Nathan Hadinger, left guard Harvey Hank, center Butch Pearson, right guard Michael Szott and right tackle Howard Humphrey. Hank has to look over his shoulder as second-year Andre Watson made decent progress in training camp. As did center Jared Labbe. The retirement of Louie Murray made us decide to acquire two new left tackles in second-year pro Miles Hanspard and fourth round rookie Myron Hamilton. We'll have to see in pre-season which of these two deserves a roster spot in 2087, it's unlikely we have room for both. And that's it, the 60 names of players that will be on the Maassluis Merchantmen roster this pre-season. As per usual, 7 names (at least) will not make it to our opening day roster. QB, WR, LT, DE, LB, CB and S are the positions where there's most likely a casualty, but nobody is safe. Okay, that's not entirely true. 4 players are safe, because releasing them will give us an increased dead cap space hit: Butch Pearson, Nathan Hadinger, Daquan Espino and Lee Hancock. Their bonus money cap figures in future years are bigger than their base salary for 2088. Another general manager in the IHOF informed me about the availability of Espino, but I had to tell him this exact thing why he's untradeable. We're projected to be roughly $197 million over the cap next off-season. But so be it, that's how we do things here in Maassluis. So yeah, pre-season action. 4 games to figure out which players are worth keeping. I hope we have some tough decision to make, not because good players have lost their ability to play ball, but because the youngsters are emerging and too many good players are 53-men worthy. Well, then make it so, guys. Give me tough decisions to make. |
Editor's note: After re-reading the first 10 or so posts of this thread, I'm convinced I'll write another era summary when Ellis McAlister retires. By the end of the 2077 I had no idea he would become our new franchise quarterback. The 75th season stuff with the best 50 legends was a lot of fun to write as well.
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Roster Cut Day 2087 Comes Early: Merchantmen Release Seven
Without any additional roster moves, the Maassluis merchantmen 53 players for the 2087 season are known. Today, the Merchantmen announced the release of seven players following the 19-19 tie with the Outer Banks Ospreys. Earlier this off-season, the Merchantmen lost 33-27 at the Chesapeake Chitterlings in their first exhibition game. Quarterback Ernest Andrews jumps out amongst the seven released. The third year former second round pick (#40 overall) was making some progress in training camps and pre-season activity, but apparently it was too little to maintain his roster spot as the future quarterback. Undrafted rookie Fernando Farley made more progress in training camp and was slightly less disastrous in pre-season action than Andrews. Neither looked particularly at place with a second-string heavy support cast. The release of Andrews consequently opens up some cap space to extend contracts of several starters on the secondary in their last year of contract and possibly for kicker Thomas Robertson. Merchantmen general manager M.IJ.B. assured that the cap situation wasn't at work here: "Farley looks more ready than Andrews to potentially step in after McAlister. Andrews was slightly further in his development overall and finally looked ready to be our QB2, but Farley has the arm, legs and awareness to suit our game plan better. Plus, in Farley we see the upside that McAlister showed back in the day. Honestly, Andrews would have made the opening day roster had Farley not impressed us. But that too is the life in the IHOF." Sixth-year wide receiver and kickoff return specialist Ross Willbrandt was the second familiar name to not survive the cut wave. For the past three season, Willbrandt had surpassed Artie Blazewicz as the premier kickoff returner. His career average of 27.4 yards per return made him a top ten kickoff returner. He looked slightly out of shape in training camp and the Merchantmen decided to go with rookie Mason Wilson as the new kickoff returner. Undrafted rookie A.J. Warnock also missed the cut. The wide receiver but mostly return specialist didn't impress enough either to unseat aforementioned Willbrandt and Blazewicz, outdo aforementioned Wilson, nor did he impress enough to get into the mix as a punt returner as the Merchantmen stick with Gabe Broady and Courtney Blackwell there. Although, the league's best guy in that area for the last three season, Broady looks like he'll have to hand it over once again to Blackwell. Another special teamer, linebacker Skip Keith was told his tenure in Maassluis came to an end after 5 seasons and 70 games. He lost the roster spot battle to undrafted rookie Harvey Cassidy. The same applies to linebacker Walt Offerman. The Merchantmen certainly think he has potential, but on the crowded front seven in Maassluis and his lacking experience, it was tough going in. He wasn't that bad either, in limited action he defended a pass in both pre-season games. Another second-year pro on his first stint in the IHOF, left tackle Miles Hanspard lost the roster spot battle to rookie Myron Hamilton. The Merchantmen see more upside in Hamilton between two different players. The seventh player released was cornerback Kristopher Reid. An undrafted rookie, Reid didn't even get a real chance to prove himself. He was active on 1 passing play and on 10 special teams plays in the 2 pre-season games. Fifth round pick Jessie McNeil got preference over Reid as the 11th defensive back on roster. With these seven players not surviving these cuts, it does mean a couple of players that seemed unlikely to make the roster are still hanging on. Undrafted quarterback Fernando Farley was already mentioned above, but he's one of 12 rookies and 1 veteran player new to the Merchantmen. Defensive end Archie Exner didn't see much action in two pre-season games, but the undrafted rookie does look like he's going to jump ahead of Ezekiel Wylie and Tony Whiting as the fourth defensive end in the rotation. It means the Merchantmen are likely going into the 2087 season with 9 defensive linemen on roster, one more than usual. Cornerback Mason Wilson makes the team as the new kickoff returner specialist. The Merchantmen have Blazewicz ready to take over if needed, but for now, the undrafted rookie looks like he'll get that role. Seventh round pick running back Francisco Patter is another surprise. As it looks like now, Patter will jump ahead of Leonard Belin, on the depth chart. Belin was the main ball carrier last season with 1,351 yards and 9 touchdowns. A the very least, Patter looks like he'll get the third down back role, for whatever that's still worth as the coaching staff refused to use the previous third down back Monty Digler in the last two seasons. It would also mean Reggie Thongchanh jumps ahead as the top ball carrier. Safety Salvador Harper was probably the last player to make the 53-men group and it looks like he'll be in an active role due to his special teams skills. The undrafted rookie might even be used on run heavy formations. |
General Manager Notes: Spoiled brats!
Yeah, I said it. The highest paid roster in the league ended pre-season without a single victory, looking like a cellar dweller during the games. We have scored a grand total of 1 touchdown on offense. Unheard of, shame on yourselves! We extended contracts of four starters (guard Harvey Hank and defensive backs Courtney Blackwell, Alexander Marty and Riddick Newsome), which means we're going into the season with just $290K in cap space. In fact, I think that's how it should be every season. The last bunch we failed to use all our cap space, which will eventually snowball into a heavier cap situation the following season. As it looks now, we'll be $217M over the cap at the start of next off-season. We have $293M locked up in bonus money and $11.8M in dead cap space. This leaves us with $179M room for the base salaries, while we've currently promised them to pay $395M. That's all before taking into account the cost of 8 draft picks. Technically, with 45 signed and 8 draft picks, we could get sneaky and go into the season over the cap. But I'm not sure the league will allow us, regardless of whether we feel that's sportsmanlike. The cap situation is the least of my concerns for now. Apparently this supposedly talented defense continues to play like a below average bunch of players, while the offense continues to struggle heavily when Theo Bondy isn't on the field. Sure, it's okay to rely on Bondy, but it's not okay to stop trying when he isn't on the field or is double covered. I suppose we have 3 or so days to go into the film room, extensively take a look at what does and doesn't work and figure out what needs to be done to make this talented roster feel more comfortable with the game plan given. (Yeah, good luck with that, M.IJ.B....) The good news? We're no longer cursed with being the pre-season favorites, we've dropped to third place in that area. Or was that a bad thing as well? Keep hope, Merchantmen, stay strong. Work hard, it won't come easy, but it'll come. |
General Manager notes: 2087, not our year... Yet?
We're sitting 1-2 after 4 weeks of action. What positive notes can anyone take from there? For starters, our most recent game was a victory at the defending IHOF champions: the Tucker Tigers. We came back from behind to win 41-34 at their place, despite giving up 448 yards passing and 6.4 yards per carry. Ellis McAlister completed 22 of 28 passes for 316 yards, while the running backs Leo Belin and Reggie Thongchanh combined for 156 yards on 25 carries. It was a welcome result after we lost a winnable game against the two-time reigning AOC champions Kansas Creationists. We came back from behind in the fourth quarter, turning a 17-10 deficit into a 24-17 lead, gave up the tying touchdown and then saw our kicker miss a 58-yard field goal attempt. In overtime, we let the Creationists convert two expensive third downs and as they reached field goal range, we gave up the losing 29-yard touchdown pass. The season began by choking at the Bordeaux Vineyards, as an 84-yard pick six turned the game around for them and a late game 55-yard field goal completed their 17-15 late game heroics. One thing is for sure, the game plan that we thought was okay enough has gone out of the window during our bye week. We've been working on something completely different and hope to see the results of it in week 5 against the North Plainfield Plague, the 2085 IHOF champions. Yes, our schedule is pretty heavy early on. We may still need work on our offensive game plan as well. Ellis McAlister is once again struggling with completing passes, sitting at 54 percent on 113 attempts. His yards per attempt is a full yard lower than the last two seasons. Unsurprisingly, Theo Bondy is carrying this team with 43 receptions for league leading 536 yards and 4 touchdowns. Our second receiver is tight end Jessie Taylor with 6 catches. Artie Blazewicz has been benched after just 1 catch on 16 targets in he first two games. Tucker Gaylor responded with 4 catches for 58 yards against the Tucker Tigers of all teams. We're still struggling to figure out who should be the main ball carrier. Leo Belin's 5.9 yards per carry make him the most efficient runner, but Thong's 4.8 yards per carry aren't too shabby. The staff is completely ignoring the instructions to use our rookie Francisco Patter, so far he's gotten 1 lousy carry while being on the field on 2 running plays. Say what now? Okay, stay positive. We've played 3 close games, won the hardest of them and were kind of a coin flip away in the losses. So it goes. New game plan on defense. Maybe this will make this loaded defense finally start playing up to potential. No pressure, guys, just wanting you to do your jobs! |
General Manager notes: Ellis' reign coming to an end?
Four interceptions and a lost fumble. That too is Ellis McAlister. Every now or then, when things go wrong, they go horribly wrong. In our home game against the North Plainfield Plague very little went wrong, actually. Sure, when our stupid cornerbacks decided to blitz, we got punished all four times, but basically today was all about an inefficient running game and a mostly a quarterback that couldn't keep the ball on the team. Three times before in his career did Ellis McAlister get picked off more than 3 times in a single game. All of those off days happened in Oranje Haven and today was the fourth time. Granted, he was playing through the pains of a broken thumb, but he coped with it at the Tucker Tigers. But elas, Ellis, it happens. What makes it so interesting though? Some guy we signed off the street as an undrafted rookie free agent banged on the door of our head coach and asked for playing time. It was quarterback Francisco Farley. Granted, he got good grades in the pre-season, a guy that made unexpected good progress. But this guy is asking us to let him take over from a winning quarterback, from his own mentor. What gives? It's not like this went by behind the scenes, for whatever reason this somehow went out to the rest of the world and now we have a disgruntled second string quarterback, whom the staff will likely ignore entirely if McAlister gets hurt and will probably place our frickin' kick holder under center. What about that rejuvenated game plan? It was okay, we held a pretty solid team to 281 total yards. It wasn't impressive, but it was a huge improvement over the first three games, where we looked lost on defense. The offense probably needs some tweaking as well though. Like Artie Blazewicz, today it was Tucker Gaylor struggling with just 2 catches on 8 targets. The catches he made counted hard though (53 and 44 yards), but we can't have that when Theo Bondy is held to 10 catches for 115 yards, like today. European division: 1. Paris 3-1 2. Bordeaux 2-2 3. Maassluis 1-3 4. Gothenburg 1-4 So, we're sitting 1-3 at our 1/4th of the season point, with a couple of home losses and every game could have coin flipped the other way. Well, I'd rather see us throw a six sided die with 3 or higher being in our favor. That's where we want to be. Or really, I want to see this loaded highest paid roster play up to their potential and post 8 solid wins and then see where the 8 coin flip games will go. Thinking about 12-4 is a very optimistic after a 1-3 start, I give you that. Back to that Francisco Farley guy though, history learns that when young players start complaining about playing time, they seem to think they have the potential to be better than the current starter, or think they are at least starting material in this league. I'll applaud that thought if Farley really is that good. In fact, we'll have to somehow please this kid sooner or later as he's on a one-year minimum contract and if he's really that good, we don't want to lose him in free agency next off-season. We'll look at things later on, for now, we have a proven winner, a quarterback that on average has gotten us to 9-7 wild card round losers. Yeah, the last two seasons he actually posted post-season victories, in his 12th and 13th season in the league. Still, the keys are firmly in the hands of Ellis McAlister and we have no intention to let him hand them in. For now... |
General Manager notes: the 2087 Roster!
I see you thinking: the season has started, but I missed the list of names that made the cut! Well, you're right, I didn't. Yet! Here's the breakdown of the 53 men that made the roster and why they made it.
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General Manager Notes: And that's two!
Alright, win number two is finally in the bags. Ten more in eleven games to go to get that desired 12-4 record. Was it pretty? Well, to a degree it was. We were visiting the 1-4 Rochester Razorbacks and realized this was the kind of games we should win. And so we did. The defense played decently, holding the Razorbacks to 202 yards passing on 52 passing plays. They may have done better running the ball all day long. We didn't force any turnovers, but with only 2 drives allowed longer than 31 yards, we didn't really need them. About half their points came in garbage time in this solid 25-13 victory. European division: 1. Paris 4-1 2. Bordeaux 2-3 3. Maassluis 2-3 4. Gothenburg 1-5 Wait what? Gothenburg dropped to 1-5? Yeah, the almost division champions from last season are having an even worse campaign than we are. Their first three losses were in similar fashion: winnable, but silliness cost them a victory or two. Their last two games were much less impressive though. The Giants aren't the kind of team they were last season. Yet? Over on the French side of the division, the Paris Musketeers have finally played their first road game, avoiding a late game touchdown with a tremendous goal line stand and grabbing victory over the Toronto Lake Monsters in overtime. Despite their progress, they've just announced trade for Arizona Miners former #1 overall pick quarterback Blaine Hawkins. Ironically, really, as the Musketeers intercepted Hawkins 3 times in their week 2 clash against the Miners. Hawkins is considered a gifted passer, our staff says he's the third best in IHOF. Our next stop? We'll be back in Oranje Haven to face the Toronto Lake Monsters. We've got a superior collective of players, but we all know that's not how football works. They've been playing tremendous football, running efficiently and keeping opponents from scoring a lot of points. Well, we're up to the challenge! Last time we faced them, Theo Bondy had 13 catches for 236 yards. We hope he can copy that and lead the way back to .500 land. |
General Manager notes: Playoff bound, seriously?
Not so long ago, I reported that we were trying to crawl out of a deep hole dug by our lack of ability to win close games. Now, I'm telling you we'll need a some serious bad luck to avoid the playoffs. Let's rephrase, we've done well enough lately that we're in a very good position to be able to reach the playoffs. What's up with that? First of all, the defense finally woke up. Sample size is small to get overly enthusiastic, but a revived game plan might be at least somewhat of a cause here. We've gone on a serious stretch of good showings to improve from worst defense in the league after 5 games to slightly above average after 11 games. Which means we must have played quite a bit above average in the last 6 games to get there. We've had one horrible quarter against the Gothenburg Giants (3 long drives all for touchdowns), but for the most part it's been between good, pretty good and at the very least Merchantmen worthy. Offensively, Reggie Thongchanh has stepped it up quite a bit. After two games of riding the bench, we've given him the ball quite a lot and he's responded our confidence with 4 more 100-yard games and 9 touchdowns in the last 6 games. Theodore Bondy saw his streak of 100-yard games end in a home game against Bordeaux, where he left the field injured with just 52 yards on 7 catches, then missing the follow up road game at Gothenburg, which we lost by lack of having an alternative game plan ready to roll out. European Divison: 1. Maassluis 7-4 2. Paris 7-4 3. Gothenburg 4-7 4. Bordeaux 3-8 Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we've crawled all the way back to the top, posting a firm 33-24 road victory at the Paris Musketeers and pulling an unexpected shutout victory over the Bordeaux Vineyards. In the process, we've also managed a road victory at the stout Chicago Norsemen defense and overcame a peculiarly horrible showing from Ellis McAlister (5 interceptions!) with a 21-20 win at the Harlem Apollos. Yes, despite the victories, McAlister has really struggled. His passer rating in these last six games only once topped 72.3, he hasn't even sniffed at 300 yards. Our running game isn't just a welcome surprise, I think it a necessity to keep defenses honest. Have we pulled McAlister in that series? Oh yes, our staff once again decided to throw our kick holder miserably excuse for a quarterback out there, despite that we have a promising rookie active. For a change, Francisco Farley can be reasonably displeased about not getting some playing time. Of course, we should never accept that our staff pulls a proven winning quarterback at half time in a favor of whatever we have on the bench, never ever. I'm still trying to figure out who's been responsible for this inexcusable decision. When Theodore Bondy is inactive due to injury, the worst thing we can do is take away our second most important player of the offense. Yes, I'm still non-amused. But enough about our loss against the Giants, we've re-established ourselves with 6 wins in the last 7 games. With head-to-head victories over basically all the AOC teams in pursuit of the wild card places, we're in a favorable situation to at least reach the playoffs. Our week 15 clash with the Musketeers, in Oranje Haven, will be crucial for the division title tie-breakers. Mathematically, the Giants can still pass us in a week 17 head-to-head clash at their place. I mean, it wouldn't be the last time we pulled that kind of stunt of a choke job. I hope we can figure out where we can make some improvements to McAlister's ability to find other players through the air than Theodore Bondy. And if he does, how we can make Bondy improve on his unsatisfying 6.9 yards per target. A player of his caliber should be able to sniff at 10 yards per target, but at least get way north of 8.5 to 9.0 per target. Wouldn't that be something, finding a way to have Bondy play up to his potential? Sure, 2,449 yards in a single season (last season) isn't shabby at all, but with his skills, he should be able to get 450 yards more, or open up the field for our other wide receivers to combine for that yardage. For now, we'll cherish this somewhat unexpected, yet very logical revival. For a day or two and then get on with it: the next 8 or 9 games of this season. That should be our goal. We can do this, Merchantmen. |
General Manager Notes: Europe reclaimed
Wait, what now? Isn't it only week 15? Sometimes, things can be less complicated than all the various tie-breakers there can be required to seperate teams. Week 15 of the 2087 IHOF season feature us, the Maassluis Merchantmen, hosting the Paris Musketeers. We were the division leaders, with 1 win lead, practically set by the earlier head-to-head road victory in Paris. In essence, win and the division would be ours. Well, the team delivered, and quite convincingly. First drive of the game, Maassluis possession. The Blazewicz special, ran by Chris DeWoody, fails, followed by a hurried pass, but on third and 10, Ellis McAlister connects with Theo Bondy for a 49 yard gain. Welcome to Oranje Haven, Paris. DeWoody delivered in the next play with a 19-yard catch and McAlister to Bondy from deep inside the red zone put us up 7-0 after less than 2 minutes. It wasn't like the Musketeers didn't respond with their offense marching downfield, but our free safety Bart Farrell ended their first possession at our 30-yard line, which was eventually followed up with a 44-yard field goal and on the next Paris possession, again Farrell turned things over with a pick in the endzone. Free agent signing of the year? At least for a day he was. Defenses started to take over in the second quarter, until we got another productive drive ending in Teggie Thongchanh's run from 6 yards out for the 17-0 lead. Several defensive stands followed and Paris finally got on the score board with a 33-yard kick with less than 3 minutes to go until the big break. We responded with a 41-yard kick of our own and maintained the 20-3 lead through the half time break. Second half, Paris ball. The Musketeers put their best drive of the game so far on the field. Things get really interesting when they reach field goal range and rather than salvaging it on 3rd and 5, they go all out as Blaine Hawkins connects for a 26-yard throw into the end zone to tight end Rusty Fernandez to trim the deficit to 20-10. We punt, but on the next play force a fumble at our 41-yard line and eventually kick again: 23-10. Things got uglier for Paris three plays into their next possession as Lee Hancock picked off Hawkins at the Paris 30-yard line and 14 seconds into the fourth quarter we've kicked ourselves to a 26-10 lead. We force three and out, follow up with a drive that results in a 28-yard field goal, but then Paris' Darrin Sheldon catches fire and returns the kickoff for 94 yards and a successful two-point conversion later it's 29-18 for us with just under 10 minutes to go. No worries, McAlister finds Theo for 54 yards on third and long to set up field goal for the 32-18 lead. We stop Paris on fourth down near midfield with just over 3 minutes to go and the crowd starts thinking this division title is pretty much secured. We eat some time, but Thong fumbles the ball in Paris territory and albeit without timeouts, they have 2 minutes remaining and the ball to keep their dreams for a comeback victory going. Blaine Hawkins marches his team downfield, but we stop them short of a touchdown with 54 seconds to go and on the next play, our rookie Archie Exner makes the sack for a 12-yard loss and virtually the game ender. Two failed plays later, it's over. Maassluis wins 32-18 and defends the European division title with success! 1. Maassluis 10-4 2. Paris 8-6 3. Gothenburg 7-7 4. Bordeaux 3-11 It was a good day overall. Granted, we were forced to kick quite a lot (6 times), but 454 yards of total offense isn't something we showcase week in, week out. 379 yards allowed isn't up to par with recent weeks, but against this loaded offense, it's a very good showing. Especially the 4 turnovers really changed the story of the game for us. Thong's late fumble ended up too little too late for Paris. Theo was seriously back in business with 159 yards receiving after two games under 100 yards. Thongchanh ran for 91 yards, DeWoody gained 91 yards on 3 catches. Yes, the offense played well. McAlister threw for 327 yards and was happy to remain turnover free for a change. He's still leading the league in interceptions, but we don't worry too much as long as we rack up the victories and keep on doing that for 5 more games. 5 more? Aren't we just 10-4? Sure, but with all that's happening around the conference, we've moved into the second seed spot, which means two more wins will give us a bye and means five wins will give us the IHOF Bowl. Okay, let's not get way too ahead of ourselves though, next up is a home game against the 8-6 Iowa Cobbers (last season they went 14-2) and the regular season ends with the most feared game of the season: at the Gothenburg Giants. We'll certainly go all out and aim for that 12-4 finish. Heck, if the Houston Mustangs lose one of their two remaining road games at wild card hopeful teams, we'll have a shot at the #1 seed. But again, that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now, we're one of six teams with a ticket to the playoffs secured, it's a contrast with the miracle comeback last season. Sure, we've gone from 1-3 and behind a 5-1 division leader to claiming the division 2 week ahead of schedule, but this is the first step to success this season. Yes, Iowa up next. C'mon Merchantmen, we can do this. |
General Manager Notes: And then there was nothing...
Our season is over, cap hell forthcoming, window of opportunity closing? Last time I wrote, we had just clinched the division title with 2 regular season games remaining. We're far ahead of that already, tomorrow the IHOF Bowl LXXXIV is on schedule. Nope, we're not in it. We didn't even make it to the Atlantic Ocean Conference championship game. How we didn't get there? We finished the regular season with a heavily contested 26-23 overtime loss to the Iowa Cobbers, in a game where we allowed just one touchdown: a 90-yard pick six. We followed up with a smooth, yet tight 30-23 victory at the Gothenburg Giants, which wasn't enough to grab a bye week. As a result, we got to host in the wild card round and once again got to face a division rival. The Paris Musketeers had their best showing against us this season (after we beat them twice by a firm margin in the regular season), but we failed to choke against them, coming up with a crucial fumble return touchdown in the fourth quarter to flip the score into a 24-20 victory. Our late game defense was crucial as Paris ran of time while driving for a possible game winning touchdown, they surely would have converted the field goal had it been 3 or less points. So onwards we went, to play the second seeded Orlando Talons in their place. In spite of being underdogs, we had every right to be optimistic with victories against them in the last two seasons. We struck first and at half time were trailing just 14-13. In the third quarter we turned the scoreboard around, taking a 20-17 lead after Reggie Thongchanh scored his second short touchdown of the day. But in the fourth quarter our luck ran out, Theodore Bondy eventually had just 7 catches on 26 carries and we didn't get enough out of the 3 interceptions that we got out of Orlando's quarterback. End result a 34-20 loss. As of now, I'm sensing that our cap dept for next season is too large to get out of without sacrificing some talent. As such, I've already called this the potential closing of our window of opportunity. It's too bad we didn't fix our defensive game plan a couple of seasons earlier, as it now ends up in a "would have, could have, should have" "what if?" situation. So be it. But we'll never give up, keep on trying. Feelin' young, feelin' strong... Go Merchantmen! |
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