Merchantmen complete 2094 draft with RB Cote, CB Cosby
The Maassluis Merchantmen have finished their 2094 draft with seventh round picks Philip Cote and Keegan Cosby. Cote is a 22 years old running back out of Kentucky. The Merchantmen see him as a do it all, with special teams experience, potentially a backup kickoff returner, a back that can protect the quarterback against blitzes and with decent speed and hole recognition. Cosby is 21 years old cornerback from Wake Forest. He's primarily a top prospect in a kickoff return role, but is said to have enough experience in a zone defense role to jump in as a nickel or dime back, if need be.

Merchantmen sign kicker McMullen
Accoladed kicker Dylan McMullen continues his IHOF career with the Maassluis Merchantmen. The 34-year old three time All IHOF first team selection agreed to a 3-year contract worth $52 million. Widely considered the most talented kicker in the league, McMullen is mostly known for missing two field goals and an extra point in the 2084 IHOF Bowl, which the Williamsburg Colonials still won 20-17. After his rookie contract expired, with two All-IHOF first team selections on his resume, McMullen moved to the Paris Musketeers in 2087 on a 3-year $46M contract. In 2089 McMullen and the Musketeers agreed a new 5-year deal, but in that final season of that deal he was released in pre-season. The Fairbanks Northstars offered McMullen a one-year contract for the 2093 season. And now in 2094, McMullen returns to the European division, with the Merchantmen.

General Manager Notes: undrafted rookies day!
We got 10 new players out of the post draft free agents pool.

Linebacker Les Flowers was the only non-rookie. We signed the 29-year old to a two-year deal. Flowers is a pass rush specialist, should fit well on the D-Line, if he actually had the framework to play there. Which he doesn't have. We'll evaluate the situation after training camp.

Quarterback Herb Benson could be our new kick holder, quarterback Marshall Ellard could be lightning in a bottle and a potential backup passer, fullback Owen Johnston can play special teams, as can tight ends James Finley and Norman Blades, wide receiver Sergio Bishop, linebackers Andrew Cochrane and Kirk Barber, and last but not least defensive end Reggie Bundy.

Will these undrafted rookies make the final 53-men roster? Most of them won't even make the pre-season roster, but that's something the decide on after training camp.

General Manager Notes: Training Camp 2094!
Some good news, some dreadful news.

Okay, let's start with a roster breakdown, post camp, as I haven't made a list of our team yet. We're out of camp with 68 signed, 8 players won't make the pre-season roster, obviously. As per usual, I'll round the scouted 0-100 scale grades to the nearest 5's. Training camp 'results' are the actual numbers.

Quarterbacks
35/35 (no ch.) Moe Sheldon
20/50 (+5/+1) Earnest Ashley (R)
15/35 (+2/-1) Marshall Ellard (R)
15/30 (+2/nc) Jon Giles (KH)
15/25 (+2/nc) Lorenzo Emerson
05/25 (+1/-2) Herb Bensen (R) (KH)
Ashley's progress is very promising. Lack of progress for the other youngsters reason to be underwhelmed about them.
cut: Ellard, Emerson
bubble: Giles or Bensen

Running backs
45/45 (+2/nc) Trey Beyer
45/45 (no ch.) Francisco Patter
40/40 (no ch.) Reggie Thongchanh
35/35 (no ch.) FB Clay Brosseau
25/35 (+3/-1) FB Owen Johnston (R)
25/25 (no ch.) Darien Bettencourt
20/25 (+1/-2) Philip Cote (R)
Beyer is comin' Patter and Thong' have to look over their shoulders. Johnston is promising, but special teams skills only can give him a chance.
cut: Cote
bubble: Johnston or Bettencourt

Tight Ends
55/55 (no ch.) Clay Gaynor
50/50 (no ch.) Clarence Gore
25/30 (+3/nc) Ike Nixon
20/30 (+2/nc) James Finley (R)
20/25 (+2/-2) Norman Blades (R)
20/20 (no ch.) Renaldo Crawford
Not much going on here. Gaynor and Gore are the guys, Crawford our run blocker.
cut: Finley
bubble: Nixon or Blades

Wide Receivers
55/70 (no ch.) Ed Schulz
60/60 (no ch.) Theodore Bondy
45/50 (+4/nc) Rickey Lyle (KR)
45/45 (no ch.) George Stuckey
40/40 (no ch.) Branden Sandlin
30/30 (no ch.) Santiago Messenger (KR)
20/35 (+2/-1) Sergio Bishop (R)
25/25 (+2/nc) Mark Perkins (PR)
Wait, what? Indeed, Schulz saw no progress at all. That's one of the most worrying things I've seen in years. This kid is supposed to be the next WR1.
cut: Bishop
bubble: maybe Sandlin, maybe Perkins

Offensive Linemen
65/75 (+7/nc) C Robbie Zinn
60/60 (no ch.) RT Howard Humphrey
60/60 (no ch.) G Michael Szott
40/70 (+7/-1) LT Isaac Delgado (R)
30/55 (+6/-2) LT Johnnie Houston (R)
45/45 (+2/+1) G Hayden Gaylor
40/40 (no ch.) G Andre Watson
30/35 (+4/nc) C Lewis Azzolini
25/30 (no ch.) LT Byron Irvin
Rookies Delgado and Houston both look good. One of them will be our LT, Houston appears to have made the swap with no problem, the other might be our OL6 or might push Watson out of the lineup.
cut: Irvin
bubble: nobody

Defensive Linemen
65/65 (no ch.) DT Darien Fletcher
55/55 (no ch.) DT Jumbo Mojica
50/50 (no ch.) DE Gene Kondovski
45/45 (no ch.) DE Archie Exner
35/45 (+5/nc) DT Caleb Domis
35/45 (+5/-11) DT Harold Gough (R)
35/35 (no ch.) DE Trent Donovan
30/30 (no ch.) DT Kurt Ackerman
30/30 (no ch.) DE Tony Whiting
15/25 (+4/-2) DE Reggie Bundy (R)
Gough is enigmatic. Progress is a good sign, regression a horrible sign. More after pre-season. The rest of the unit is the same as last season.
cut: Bundy
bubble: Gough, Domis or Donovan

Linebackers
70/70 (no ch.) Brandon Brady
50/50 (no ch.) Daquan Espino
45/45 (no ch.) Clayton Jackson
30/35 (+6/-3) Andrew Cochrane (R)
30/30 (no ch.) Jose Meadows
20/40 (+2/-4) Kirk Barber (R)
30/30 (no ch.) Les Flowers (new)
30/30 (no ch.) Brant Rayburn
10/10 (no ch.) Alec Palmer
The Brady bunch? Flowers is a pass rusher, but I doubt he'll stick around as a LB playing at DE. A lot of guys are purely special teamers, they will play there ahead of Brady or Espino.
cut: Barber
bubble: Cochrane, Meadows and Flowers

Secondary
65/65 (no ch.) S Devon Farrell
50/50 (no ch.) CB Jackie Richardson
40/45 (+2/-1) CB Zachery Weisz (R)
40/40 (no ch.) CB Adam Harmon
40/40 (no ch.) S Chuck Murray
35/35 (no ch.) S Jon Bozeman
30/35 (+3/nc) CB Britt Hudson
25/35 (+2/-3) CB Bryson Swafford (R)
25/35 (+4/nc) S Gabriel Cromer
20/35 (+1/-4) CB Keegan Cosby (R) (KR)
Swafford is very disappointing, but he'll hang around for at least 2 seasons and 3 training camps, promise. Ditto on Weisz, who does ready to jump in as a nickel or dime already.
bubble: Cosby, Cromer

Punter
85/85 (+4/-2) Doug James
Best in business

Kicker
80/80 (no ch.) Dylan McMullen
Second best in business

Long snapper
20/20 (no ch.) Bryce Karney
Third best in business

So yeah, Ashley is good news, Schulz was disturbing, Gough puzzling, Swafford disappointing. The tackles Delgado and Houston are both considered to be underrated (my staff had them both as 'as scouted').

More on this in two days, when everything we saw now, might be completely different.

General Manager Notes: some player profiles, 2094 pre-pre-season

Our quarterback of the past and of the future. Ashley looks promising, but not a world beater. One of those things nearly impossible to see is that he seems to have a keen eye for avoiding interceptions, just like Sheldon used to have.

Our tight end duo. Gore is the route runner with the big play ability, Gaynor the third down guy with courage and speed. Both can pass block, neither is exceptional in run blocking. Nothing new here, but just to reiterate why they could be, but necessarily will be a key factor in our passing game.

And then our top three wide receivers. Bondy the future Hall of Famer, Schulz the future WR1 to be and then there's Stuckey who can distract the opposing secondary with ability to get open and draw double coverage with it. Pass happy football teams should love a trio like this, no?

General Manager Notes: the day everything can change...
It came, 2094 brought little noteworthiness.

Okay, we're two games into the four game pre-season. We crushed the Hanalei Dragons 42-7, then get crushed 34-7 at the Kansas Creationists. But that's not what the general managers in the IHOF are worried about. We don't mind if we see our kick holder get player of the game honors after he tossed 1 touchdown pass on 16 attempts. We don't feel pride when a top-notch receiver is held to 6 catches for 45 yards. We're not worried when our future face of the franchise completes 7 of 11 passes when the plan was to have him throw the ball 30 times, or see that kid run for 15 and 10 yards. No, as soon as these games are played, we rush to our staff members and ask them one simple question: give me a new scouting report!

The crucial part is to have made notes on what the 60 or so players on roster were evaluated at right after training camp. And that we did in Maassluis as well. So, what's the verdict? We'll once again go by the 0-100 scale of the staff members, round down to the nearest 5's to keep some guesswork for the other teams alive and make no secret about the changes.

Quarterbacks
20/50 (+1/+1) Earnest Ashley (R)
30/30 (-4/-4) Moe Sheldon
15/30 (nc/+1) Jon Giles (KH)
05/25 (nc/-1) Herb Bensen (R) (KH)
Whew, Ashley held ground. That's good news. Sheldon will be the mentor. Giles the kick holder.
cut: Bensen

Running backs
45/45 (+1/-2) Trey Beyer
45/45 (-1/-1) Francisco Patter
35/35 (-5/-5) Reggie Thongchanh
35/35 (-4/-4) FB Clay Brosseau
25/35 (-2/-1) FB Owen Johnston (R)
20/20 (-1/-1) Darien Bettencourt
Okay, is this the year we'll promote Beyer into Thong' role? If so, Thong' will still stick as a special teamer, together with Johnston.
cut: Bettencourt

Tight Ends
55/55 (no ch.) Clay Gaynor
50/50 (no ch.) Clarence Gore
20/30 (-1/-1) Ike Nixon
20/25 (nc/-2) Norman Blades (R)
20/20 (-4/-4) Renaldo Crawford
Nothing new here, it's all about finding ways to get the ball thrown to the guys with the initials C.G.. I'm undecided about Nixon and Blades, knowing the last two pre-season games will do exactly nothing to the decision making process.
cut: Blades

Wide Receivers
55/70 (nc/-2) Ed Schulz
55/55 (-4/-4) Theodore Bondy
45/45 (+1/+1) George Stuckey
40/40 (-6/-7) Rickey Lyle (KR)
40/40 (+1/+1) Branden Sandlin
20/20 (-8/-8) Santiago Messenger (KR)
25/25 (-3/-3) Mark Perkins (PR)
Not one but two guys regressed. And I'm not talking about Theo here, he's still WR2 material behind Schulz. And in pre-season Bondy already showed a connection with Ashley, so: yay? Lyle's regression makes him expendable, well, close to. Messenger's drop is more problematic, he went from a great kickoff returner to a very good one. Perkins continues to grow, is he top3 in the league now? Sandlin will make the team, way to go! So, after pre-season it's a decision about 5, 6 or 7 wide outs, with Lyle and Messenger at risk.
bubble: Lyle or Messenger

Offensive Linemen
70/75 (+2/+1) C Robbie Zinn
60/60 (-4/-4) RT Howard Humphrey
40/75 (-1/+1) LT Isaac Delgado (R)
50/50 (-11/-11) G Michael Szott
30/60 (+1/+2) LT Johnnie Houston (R)
45/45 (-2/-2) G Hayden Gaylor
40/40 (no ch.) G Andre Watson
20/25 (-10/-12) C Lewis Azzolini
Azzolini dropped hard. It's time to shop for a new backup center. The rest? Szott is getting older, but is still useful. The real questions are: Houston or Delgado at left tackle? The 'loser' plays at guard or Watson will?
bubble: Azzolini (if we find a replacement)

Defensive Linemen
60/60 (-7/-7) DT Darien Fletcher
55/55 (-3/-3) DT Jumbo Mojica
50/50 (no ch.) DE Gene Kondovski
45/45 (-4/-4) DE Archie Exner
35/45 (-3/+4) DT Harold Gough (R)
30/40 (-2/-4) DT Caleb Domis
30/30 (-1/-1) DE Trent Donovan
30/30 (-3/-3) DT Kurt Ackerman
25/25 (-4/-4) DE Tony Whiting
These guys all continue to look good and now that enigmatic Gough guy becomes even more puzzling. I really have no idea where we go here, will we keep 9 guys for the second straight season?
bubble: Gough, Domis or Donovan

Linebackers
75/75 (+2/+2) Brandon Brady
45/45 (-6/-6) Daquan Espino
45/45 (-3/-3) Clayton Jackson
35/35 (+6/+6) Jose Meadows
30/35 (nc/+1) Andrew Cochrane (R)
25/25 (-5/-5) Brant Rayburn
20/20 (-12/-12) Les Flowers (new)
10/10 (-2/-2) Alec Palmer
The verdict on Flowers is out: out. He looked nice, but is worse than all the nine d-linemen. That still leaves us with too many linebackers than we could use. It's a decision for the top3 (Brady, Jackson, Espino) and behind them 2 or 3 special teamers. Meadows looks safe, the staff says he's so good, he can't even be ranked amongst his peers in the league.
bubble: Palmer
cut: Cochrane and Flowers

Secondary
65/65 (no ch.) S Devon Farrell
45/45 (-7/-7) CB Jackie Richardson
40/45 (no ch.) CB Zachery Weisz (R)
40/40 (-1/-1) CB Adam Harmon
35/35 (-3/-3) S Chuck Murray
30/30 (-4/-4) S Jon Bozeman
35/35 (+1/-1) CB Britt Hudson
35/55 (+9/+19) CB Bryson Swafford (R)
25/35 (-1/-1) S Gabriel Cromer
20/25 (nc/-7) CB Keegan Cosby (R) (KR)
It's tricky yo judge rookies so early, but Cosby looks like he's on the way out. Cromer can become a useful backup, one that can jump into action if injuries force us to activate him. Swafford may look like a hidden gem that wasn't to be discovered, but he was very underrated by my staff's assesments. Richardson is declining, but should still be the starter ahead of the rest. Farrell is still Farrell.
bubble: Cosby, Cromer

Punter
90/90 (+2/+2) Doug James
Best in business

Kicker
75/75 (-2/-2) Dylan McMullen
Second best in business

Long snapper
20/20 (no ch.) Bryce Karney
Third best in business


That's where we stand now. We'll be 5 players lighter in the last two pre-season games. And after those, 2 more to let go. And not to forget: renegotiate with upcoming free agents. We've got about $26M of cap space to work with and at least one key player to talk with: Devon Farrell. (Actually, I should have talked with him now, but sometimes you make all the instructions that need to be made and afterwards remind yourself you forgot something. New chance tomorrow.)

General Manager Notes: the rare times you can reverse things...
If only in real life...

The nice thing about cumulating orders and sending them in a way that it can be reversed and re-done, it can do wonders every now or then. Such is the case here, as I decided to revert two decision that I made earlier. Let's take a look at them.


Andrew Cochrane, buddy, I've changed my mind. At least for another day or two, you'll be part of the team and we'll actually throw you out there to see some action! Why? Well, I looked at the training camp results and Cochrane was the 3rd most improved player. In my experience, that's a sign for good things to come, which makes it a waste to throw him away just already. We'll determine at a later moment whether Cochrane, Palmer or Rayburn won't make the final 53 men roster, but for the last two pre-season games, we'll stick at 56.


And here's an even bigger no-brainer, this is a time to lock up potential free agents, so do it! This season we're getting one attempt less to extend contracts after pre-season 2, so we have to make them count. So, aside from Devon Farrell, everybody with an expiring contract will get a contract offered that will make them more expensive this season, but should keep them from running off as a free agent.

General Manager Notes: Speaking of updating...
What about those player profiles?

True. Let's do that quickly.

The quarterbacks
Sheldon declined a bit, Ashley held ground. This kid will play a lot this season and Sheldon will tell him what to do. We're going to commit to this kid, it seems unlikely that I'll change my mind in favor of the sack magnet that Sheldon has become.

The tight ends
Very little has changed here. Both have been slightly gone up and done here or there, but nothing noteworthy. Factoring them into the passing game, I've said it quite a bit now, that'll be a challenge, but probably worth our while. At least I've upped our multiple TE formation in our play book last training camp.

The main wide receivers
The guys that have to make the big catches, providing the tight ends won't do it already. Theo returns and although losing a bit more of his route running and endurance, he's still an above average WR2. Schulz should continue to improve into the top 10 WR we hope he is. And Stuckey would be a WR2 on most other teams, aside maybe a handful that also have good looking threesome like we do.

So, yeah, I hope we have a passing game this upcoming season. Ashley over Sheldon will hurt our cohesion, as will the move from Hadinger to a rookie at LT (Delgado or Houston), but I think we'll manage. Ashley being a rookie might steer us into starting just one rookie LT and not both guys, but that's something to save for opening day. Just like the decision on who to give the ball to. We have three RB2 guys and Thong' and Patter have been both hot and cold over the years. Beyer is in his 4th season on team, that can't hurt, can it?

General Manager Notes: Bring on the regular season!
Yes, it's time.

We finished the pre-season with a 2-2 record, winning the final home game 40-3 over the Fairbanks Northstars and losing 34-9 at the Arizona Miners. Ernest Ashley finished it with a 9/12 for 86 yards and a 13/23 for 161 yards with 1 interception. Yes, these last two games the young guns played as much as my staff thought they should play (they're always, always, always pulling the rookies that need that time to play and keep the veterans that need the time off to not get tired on the field; why would we want our backup guard and center to play at offensive tackle when they are much better suited to play their own position!?).

Our running game was dramatic, IHOF unworthy in Arizona, while it was pedestrian against Fairbanks. So much for letting our staff handle the game planning, I suppose? Moe Sheldon took the cake for cheesiest performance, completing 2 of 3 passes for 1 yard.

More important was the contract extension for no less than 16 players. The most important one, Devon Farrell, had to be rejected due to lack of cap room. Say what now? Apparently I miscalculated by about $5M and now we don't have the cap room to make him even a half decent offer. So, one of those 16 will walk away with a new signing bonus and not see the 3 additional seasons on contract come true: defensive end Trenton Donovan will be sacrificed to salvage Farrell. A stupid mistake, completely unnecessary. At the same time, one D-Lineman had to be cut anyway, 8 is plenty enough and Donovan was the worst pass rusher last season anyway. It does mean the enigmatic rookie Harold Gough will make the team.

The other two cuts have also been finalized. Kickoff returner Santiago Messenger won't make the team. For whatever reason, he showed up out of shape after pre-season game 2 and went from an elite kickoff returner to a very good one. We have Rickey Lyle to step into that role now, with rookie Keegan Cosby getting a chance to prove he's the right guy for the backup role. Veteran special teams linebacker Alec Palmer was also released. Second-year Jose Meadows will be moved to WLB to keep the number of OLB players on roster at 3. It might come back to bite us in our special teams' cohesion...

Speaking of cohesion, apparently we're once again sky high at the top of the league in that area. Players on roster are roughly 1 1/2 years longer on team than the median in the league, or somewhere along that line. With Palmer cut, 19 players have been us since the '80s. Only Chesapeake and Oakland are in the same realm, while Kansas is nearby, the rest of the league has a much fresher roster. It does show that we're in good company, they were the top3 in the NAC last season, with Chesapeake winning the bowl game, eventually.

Now, what to expect of the upcoming 2094 season? My guess is just as good as yours, we're switching to a rookie quarterback, with a second-year wide receiver and a rookie left tackle. That reeks of beginner mistakes, with lots of ups and downs. The defense has lost Kirk Hitchcock, it's all up to an over the hill Jackie Richardson, Devon Farrell and the emerging zone defenders Harmon, Brotzman and rookie Weisz to save the day. Brandon Brady is clearly the leader of this gang, despite that Farrell might think he's main figure.

Is the 53 men list final? Never say never...

Merchantmen cut Messenger, Donovan, Palmer
Today the Maassluis Merchantmen released wide receiver Santiago Messenger, defensive end Trent Donovan and linebacker Alec Palmer. Contrary to earlier releases in pre-season, all three had been with the time much longer and last season each had their specific roles on the team. The moves opened the door for the Merchantmen to agree terms with All IHOF safety Devon Farrell on a contract extension through the 2098 season.

30-year old Santiago Messenger is listed as a wide receiver, but his last reception was in 2091. Instead, Messenger was the Merchantmen's kickoff returner for six straight seasons. He was discovered as an undrafted rookie in 2088 and until he showed up from practice out of shape in the middle of pre-season, the team decided to move on and hand the duties to fourth year former second round pick Rickey Lyle and rookie Keegan Cosby.

30-year old Alec Palmer is listed as an outside linebacker, but in reality wasn't used on defense. Palmer was the Merchantmen's gunner for the past 5 seasons. He was picked up in 2088 as an undrafted rookie and saw some action that rookie season due to injuries of other linebackers. In his second season he was promoted to the gunner role.

26-year old Trent Donovan leaves the Merchantmen for the second time in his career. In 2091 the linebacker was signed as an undrafted rookie and moved to defensive end, but failed to make the opening day 53-men roster. Late in the season, he was signed again, making him a restricted free agent for the 2092 off-season. The Merchantmen signed him to a two-year deal, but Donovan spent the entire 2092 season inactive behind the 4 returning defensive ends. In 2093 his contract was extended with another year and that season was was put into the rotation after retirement of Andy Russell. This off-season Donovan got his payday, getting a contract fitting with his rol: $30M over 4 years. But a cap mishap turned things around, bringing back Devon Farrell was more important and with the talented D-Line group, Donovan was the was logical sacrifice. Donovan walks away with a $4M signing bonus, but misses out on the $6.38M base salary for those four seasons.

General Manager Notes: welcome to the Ashley Era
Let's hope this will turn out to be an era, not jus a year...

Let's start with the bad news. And there's more bad news than just one little snippet. Let's go in this order: division standings, injuries report, quick recap of the first two games and then some further musing about the Merchantmen.

European Division
1. Bordeaux 2-0
2. Paris 1-1
3. Gothenburg 1-1
4. Maassluis 0-2

Yeah, we're not off to a great start, more on that later.

Our punter Doug James came out of the first game at the Paris Musketeers with a very serious knee injury. The verdict was horrible: out for a year, not just a season, but we should expect him to possibly not even be ready for action in week 3 of the 2095 season. We're now looking ahead to week3 of the 2094 season. To cover the gap, an old face returned home: Doug Guynes. The 32-year old, our 3rd round pick in 2085, was sitting in the free agent pool after a stint in Arizona last season.

Short term injuries might also have their effect. Reggie Thongchanh missed the week 2 game at home against the Hanalei Dragons. He'll be kept inactive in a new instalment of Futility Bowl, in Oranje Haven (where else), between two 0-2 teams. Thong' will be joined by Jackie Richardson. The veteran cornerback is out with a shoulder injury.

Center Lewis Azzolini was released just before opening day and replaced with veteran Aidan Doyle. Azzolini was a pain to watch in pre-season, he's just not that good anymore. Usually one would say that about an over the hill veteran, but this was an over the hill third-year pro. Doyle is 33 years old and most likely wals away as a disgruntled free agent next off-season, but we need some insurance on the line in case of injuries and he can mentor Robbie Zinn while doing that.

Okay, that's a lot of blabla, but what you're all really interested to hear and read about is how the rookie Earnest Ashley has done in his first two games as our starting quarterback? Let's start with the bad news first, again: 5 interceptions in 75 attempts. Yeah... In return, he did throw for 200+ yards in both games, twice found Theodore Bondy for a touchdown, so the chemistry with the all-time great is there. With Ed Schulz the connection is still developing (what would you expect with two green players?), 9 catches in 18 targets for 133 yards.

Is going back to Moe Sheldon an option at some point during the season? Well, quite simply, only injury could force us into that direction. Seriously, Sheldon has become too slow to be able to see the rush coming, he'd get sacked 4 times per game, in spite of, no, especially behind this young developing line. Which at the same time as a reason to give Ashley more credits and time to get used to playing in this game. Well kid, get ready for a sold out Oranje Haven that will be much less forgivable after a loss. The Dragons aren't a team to lose to, but the Lake Monsters are a team you're not allowed to lose to.

So yes, we lost the first two games: 14-10 in Paris and 23-13 at home against Hanalei. In both games we gained over 300 yards and in both games we allowed roughly 320 yards.

One thing that hasn't worked out as planed yet: throwing the ball more often. I constructed a new game plan, tried to throw plays in there that will be more favorable to our Smashmouth approach and find plays that won't play into the weaknesses of our skill position players. Well, we rank 14th in most rushing attempts and 16th in pass attempts. Sounds like our old school 50-50 approach no? Well, we ran the ball 51 times and threw it 76 times.

Our defense? Once again the bad news: the pass rush is unacceptably bad. These guys are scouted to be an elite unit in pass rushing, not just above average our some such, these guys should run havoc. Well, they're not doing that: they made 1 sack in 71 pass plays. Sample size or lack of something else?

Sample size should be at hand for almost everything, of course. Two games is so little. But we have only 16 games in a season (thankfully), one eighth already in the books and we've got to understand that since our 4-0 start last season we've been not just below .500.

Earnest Ashley has the keys, he's got the receivers, and we'll give him the time to grow. All three of the next games will be at home, all with a reasonable chance to win. But I'm willing to be patient with this kid. Not too much, I still want him to see 10 wins at the end of the season, or whatever number is required to make the post-season. Because we don't tank, we reload and keep on trying until we're officially eliminated, and then still keep on trying to win. Because that's how we roll, or sail, whichever makes more sense. Go Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: Ashley joins the win column
Futility Bowl is ours!

This game went well, no doubt. The Toronto Lake Monsters visited Oranje Haven and after shortly into the second quarter they already knew today wasn't going to be for them. In contrast with our rookie quarterback Earnest Ashley, he guided the Merchantmen to a 34-14 victory. Ashley completed 23 of 36 passes for 245 yards and 4 touchdowns, without turnovers. He spread the ball around well, Theo Bondy and Clay Gaynor each lead the team with just 6 catches, while speedy Ed Schulz gained the most ground with 86 yards on 3 catches. The tight ends Gaynor (twice) and Gore (once) made the catches in the end zone on the first three drives to get to the smooth 32-7 lead.

Division standings
1. Bordeaux 3-0
2. Gothenburg 2-1
3. Paris 1-2
4. Maassluis 1-2

Yeah, despite today's win, this was one of two games that will be meaningless for the tie-breakers inside the division. It will be much more important if we somehow get into the wild card race, but that's too much to ask for at the moment, this was just the first win of the season after three attempts.

After all, we've played well, but this is just 1 win for now. It's far too early to get overly enthusiastic.

Next up a home game against the San Antonio Tidal Force. A matchup between two rookie quarterbacks, as San Antonio picked Johnathan Freeman #1 overall this past draft. Freeman is already tagged a bust, despite being so young and with plenty of potential still. They are the only two rookie quarterbacks with a starting role, Brooklyn's #8 overall Ramon Patterson is backing up Brooklyn's own Jekyll and Hyde, Ross Grinnell, while second round picks Evan Drake (Arizona) and Grayson Devine (Outer Banks) underwhelmed in pre-season and might already be written off by their respective team owners. With no emerging rookie running backs and wide receivers, they're currently the front runners in the offensive rookie of the year race, by lack of better other candidates.

Again, we're only in week 3. 13 regular season games still to come and hopefully 3 or 4 in the post-season. But the latter is nothing to start thinking about, we'll have to focus on the next home game first.

Beating my Lake Monsters is a minor accomplishment at the moment. We are terrible. I think I've severely mucked up our cohesion.

General Manager Notes: Deja vu?
Haven't we been here before?

My memory wandered off, back to week 2 of the 2089 season. The Maassluis Merchantmen were visiting the Frederick Red Menace. The home team was proudly showing their rookie quarterback, Angel Henson, the #1 overall pick of that 2089 draft, coming off victory in his debut. In the (orange-white-and) blue corner, Brandon Bell was the rookie quarterback in charge, coming off a marvelous first career victory. The player of the game that day was the quarterback of the home team, despite throwing a pick six, but it was the Merchantmen that won, despite that the home team gained of 500 yards of offense.

Week 4 of the 2094 season, the Maassluis Merchantmen playing at home, hosting the San Antonio Tidal Force. In the yellow and black corner, the recent #1 overall pick Johnathan Freeman, confident after his first career victory last week. In the orange-white-and-blue corner, a fellow rookie quarterback, Earnest Ashley, coming of his first career victory as well. Today, the home team's quarterback earned the player of the game honors, despite throwing a pick six, as the Merchantmen won, gaining over 500 yards in the process.

Angel Henson is still in the league, quarterbacking the Frederick Red Menace and currently in the race for the offensive player of the game honors. Brandon Bell, the Merchantmen starter that day, he's already retired from football. Merchantmen fans will hope that Earnest Ashley will prove he isn't the next Bell. Today, he made a statement, overcoming an early long pick six, throwing for 276 yards and running for 67 yards. The latter to everybody's surprise, wasn't this kid supposed to be a pocket passer?

Johnathan Freeman had high hopes to be the rookie of the year candidate that every 1.1 pick believes he can be, but after a 1-3 start to his career, people will overlook the tough competition he had to face so far (we're the only opponent that isn't leading a division) and already wonder when this kid will ever deliver. But really, a couple of weeks before his 22nd birthday, can you expect much more from him?

Ashley is two and a half years older than Freeman and showed his maturity. On pace for 4,000 yards (wait, hold on, sample size, remember?) and hinting at that he might be for real. But Brandon Bell looked good in 13 games in his rookie season, 86.8 passer rating, 18 touchdowns vs 9 interceptions, 204 yards per game. Ashley has already thrown 6 interceptions in 4 games, a passer rating of 74.4 is mediocre in the IHOF of 2094.

Division Standings
1. Bordeaux 3-0
2. Gothenburg 3-1
3. Maassluis 2-2
4. Paris 1-3

It's still so early to draw any conclusions. I'm repeating this every time, but it holds up almost every other season. Even the reigning champions thought they were starting with 4 straight losses. Speaking of whom, it's almost impossible to deny that we've made notes from their game plan in recent seasons, kept our ears open and have tried to adopt throwing the ball to the tight end more often. Clay Gaynor is fourth amongst tight ends in most targets per game. Additionally, Ashley could be be described as a a bit of a younger version of Corwin Blanchett. Although I'm going to say that's much more coincidental than the ball tossing to the tight ends.

And now, after three straight home games, the teams stays home even longer, as we'll be having our way too early bye week once again and in week 6 will host the Atlanta Vipers. A team currently on pace to get the #1 overall draft pick, but not by their own record, by landing it through trade from the team they will face in week 13. We'll take a look at how things fare in the rest of the league next round of games and hope to see LT Houston and CB Richardson back in our starting lineups.

General Manager Notes: Bye bye bye


Yup, it's our bye week. And tomorrow we'll pick it back up with our 5th regular season game of the season. We're all but one player back to healthy. We're still without Doug James, as will be the case throughout the season.

General Manager Notes: Fee Fi Fo, Four in a Row
No, not losses, four victories.

Growing pains? Earnest Ashley had to endure two losses in the first two games, but our rookie quarterback as taking the IHOF by storm now. Today was a 37-23 victory at the Fort Wayne Fury, an not to be underestimated opponent starring the infamous quarterback Blaine "Broomcorn" Hawkins. Sure, Ashley struggled for a bit, but for him that's 243 passing yards and a running touchdown to open the score. From behind him, our duo Francisco Patter (106 yards, 2 scores) and Trey Beyer (98 yards, he's firmly ahead of Reggie Thong' now) shined. Although, for Patter the lion share came on a 85-yard run early in the fourth quarter, he was floating at 2 yards per carry the rest of the game. Thong' might return soon, but ahead of Patter...

The previous 37-21 victory at home was probably the league wide revelation as Ashley as he threw for 432 yards and 3 touchdowns and he got seriously snubbed for player of the week. No less than 4 missed kicks kept this from being a true blowout.

Division standings:
1. Bordeaux 5-1
2. Gothenburg 4-2
3. Maassluis 4-2
4. Paris 2-4

Indeed, Bordeaux - it's still early, mind you - is at the top with a very promising 5-1 record. We're currently projected to miss the playoffs even, as above Gothenburg there's the Orlando Talons and their 6-1 record that is only second to the Tucker Tigers' 6-0-1.

Still, we're in week 7, most teams have played just 6 games. I said it before, it's way too early to draw conclusions about where we are and can be. Let's make a screenshot that shows us at gaining over 400 yards on offense and giving up less than 300 yards, on a per game average. We had 4 seasons before of over 400 yards and 4 seasons below 300 yards allowed, none of those combined in the same season (we did gain 424 per game in 2059 and allowed 289 in 2060, but that doesn't count as a single season). So really, we might not see such a performance ever again, it might all be over after the next game already. Have I said sample size yet? No? There, you have it.

Next game? At home against the Paris Musketeers. Tight end Clay Gaynor is still out with a concussion, as still is our young punter Doug James, but otherwise we're very healthy. Which actually creates a dilemma on the offensive line, as rookie left tackle Johnnie Houston has sat out two of the last three games and veteran guard Andre Watson looked good while playing. Granted, with Watson back, all the other guys player their normal position, which may have helped, but Houston was on the line (no pun intended) in the second 500-yard game (yeah, we had back to back 500-yard games on offense, I'm not sure we done that before, actually). First world problems, no?

First world though? We're still only third in the division, on pace for being the seventh seeds (which means missing the playoffs). Paris has been struggling lately, but they're not a team we can beat easily. After all, we've lost in their place in week one. But I should feel confidence in that we can win this game, we're in good shape. Ashley is doing better than I could have hoped for. Yeah, sure, the jinx is on now, but he's doing basically all we can ask for from a rookie quarterback.

General Manager Notes: Way to jinx it..
You invest so much and then this happens...

"1-10-PAR31 (4Q: 00:08) Dylan McMullen attempted a 48 yard field goal and missed wide to the left. A bad snap from center appeared to cause the miscue."

It was a little bit of a shootout, this game against the Paris Musketeers, at home, in our own Oranje Haven. But at the same time, it wasn't. We took the lead on the Ashley to Schulz special (similar to the Blazewicz special), went down 10-7, saw Rickey Lyle immediately turn the tide with a kickoff return touchdown and long before the first quarter was over, we had a firm 21-10 lead. By half time it was 31-19. Indeed, half time.

Early in the fourth we improved to a 38-26 lead, this game was in the pocket, right? Not quite, a short pick six (rookie mistakes, Earnest Ashley?) brought Paris back in striking distance, but it wasn't until Paris ran out of time outs, forcing us to punt with a minute to go. The special night wasn't over yet, Marshall Aleman returned it for Paris the full 84 yards into our end zone, the extra point made it 39-38 for Paris. A phenomenal third and 15 pass from Ashley to Theodore Bondy kept the chains moving, while Ashley himself ran for 16 yards on the next play to get within field goal range. We declined a holding penalty on that same play and with 8 seconds left, our expensive kicker, with top notch long snapper and holder just had to convert it. Aforementioned happened: wide left and the 39-38 score held up in Paris favor.

Quite the bummer, as you can imagine. Sure, Paris was in ball control in time and won the turnover battle, but we nearly over came those with efficient run and pass offenses. Ashley completed 17 of 34 passes for 274 yards, 3 touchdowns, 2 interceptions, ran 3 times for 52 yards and fumbled once. This kid doesn't like to scramble, but when he does, he makes things happen.

But, how much can we really expect here? Yes, I want, demand, our team to win 10 games, at minimum, every season. But the other day I glanced over our roster and then to the draft class we had. It's a good group of rookies, and almost everyone of them is on the field quite often. QB Earnest Ashley goes without saying by now, but the offense also features our duo LT Johnnie Houston and LT Isaac Delgado playing quite a bit at left tackle and left guard respectively. DT Harold Gough sees quite the action on our pass defense unit in a end rusher role, while CB Zachary Weisz and CB Bryson Swafford kind off split time. Kickoff returner CB Keegan Cosby hasn't played yet. Undrafted rookies FB Owen Johnston and LB Andrew Cochrane have joined the core of our special teams unit.

Division
1. Bordeaux 6-1
2. Gothenburg 5-2
3. Maassluis 4-3
4. Paris 3-4

Yes, it's still tight. If, big if, we regroup and start a 9-game winning spree, we'll be division champions anyway. Point being, we still play Bordeaux and Gothenburg twice each. It's really still all in our own hands and feet.

One week at a time, that's today's reminder. Next up is a visit to Houston, a place where we've played quite a lot in recent seasons. Our last win there in 2091 snapped a 7-game losing streak in their place, with the previous last win before that in 2076.

Clay Gaynor will be back in action, that will give a boost to our passing game, reuniting our fabulous five of Theodore Bondy, Clay Gaynor, Clarence Gore, Ed Schulz and George Stuckey. Okay, let's not get overexcited here, it's a nice group, but "fabulous" is kind of a stretch for now. But giving all of them 5+ targets every game, that's part of the plan now: keep them guessing, not just whether we'll run or pass, but also where the ball will been thrown. There are no guarantees in football, but if we try and work hard, we can accomplish things. We lost two close games, then posted four strong victories, so bouncing back after today's unneeded loss will show how resilient we really are.

General Manager Notes: Not one of those season...
Up, down, left, right, back to .500 land?

Frustration isn't the right word, because I'm trying to not get too worked up about this young and promising team. But the way things are going, I've seen this before: when we win, we win big, but when we lose, it was a choke job.

So, how about that Houston game? We went up 17-0 in the first half, saw Houston make it 17-7 just before the break, went into the 4th quarter leading 20-14, saw them kick the 20-17 shortly after the side switch and with a minute to go they kicked a game tying field goal. That after both kickers had already missed a kick in the fourth quarter. Then in overtime we crumbled and saw Mark Giles (yes, that Mark Giles, the guy we didn't want to give 10M per year and now sees us pay 17M per year to a much older and much less accurate kicker) kick the game winner: Houston 23, Maassluis 20. Better team lost, but that too is football. "Better" can be relative, of course. So it goes, it happens.

It brought us back to .500 land, but only for a short time. The home game against the Bordeaux Vineyards would be an even bigger test. And boy did they fail this test. Not the Merchantmen, we steamrolled to a 31-0 lead and went into halftime leading 34-3. Then, a couple minutes into the third quarter, the brain fart of the Bordeaux' offensive coordinator was there, pulling their star quarterback Walt Czech in the middle of their best drive of the game. We responded with an equally puzzling quarterback replacement about 7 minutes of game time later, also in the middle of a drive: kick holder Jon Giles was allowed to play out the snooze fest of a second half. Filed goals and a pick six yanked up the score: Maassluis 41, Bordeaux 9.

Division:
1. Gothenburg 7-2
2. Bordeaux 6-3
3. Maassluis 5-4
4. Paris 3-6

So, the first big test for us was a good result, but we haven't even reached midterm yet, that comes in our next game in Gothenburg. If you think we're playing well, well, so are the Giants. The one chance we might have is their run defense that will be basically the only "stat group" in this matchup that isn't top10 in the league right now.

It's also a matchup between the #5 ("Merc" Pierce) and #6 (Earnest Ashley) quarterbacks in the virtual offensive player of the year race. A race that's pretty much already settled: Tucker's QB Donovan Muth could get hurt now, miss the last 7 games of the season and could still win it. He's that much ahead of the field. But that's something we're really not going to worry about, we're going to want to go to Gothenburg, play a good game and hopefully pull the upset: Solecismic has us as 7-point underdogs, DogBytes as 9.5-point underdogs.

Temper expectations and work hard to beat the spread and then see where we can get.

General Manager Notes: Earth to Merchantmen
Welcome back.

Flat on our collective faces. Goodness, were the Gothenburg Giants to impressive or did we play so terribly bad? For 2 and 1/3rd quarters, we got steamrolled, at which point we waived the white flag and the 42-10 score at that point rolled on into a 56-13 clobbering. A franchise record number of points allowed, while giving up 570 yards. So much for ending the season below 300 per game, huh?

Division:
1. Gothenburg 8-2
2. Bordeaux 7-3
3. Maassluis 5-5
4. Paris 3-7

Yeah, division title, better luck next season? Mathematically we're still in the race, with games against Gothenburg in week 15 and at Bordeaux in week 17, but can we really expect the Giants to lose lose 2 (3 if Bordeaux completely falls apart) more games than we do and Bordeaux at least one more. Even a wild card is far away, the field ahead of us is a triplet of 7-3 hopefuls. Anything to cheer us up after a beatdown like that?

Theodore Bondy had 2 catches on 7 target for 22 yards. I hadn't even tracked it, y'all know that individual accolades are a by product of overall success in Oranje Have, but apparently he became the 7th member of the 20K club in receiving yards. Yay, good for you, Theo! Moving up to 6th or even 5th in all-time receiving yards is still within reach for him this season, if he steps it up after his recent tenure of 4 straight below 50 yards. I'm fully expecting him to not be our leading receiver of this season when week 17 is in the books, Ed Schulz has basically a full game of yardage ahead of him, despite making 2 catches per game less. Still, let's not poop on Theo's impressive numbers, but that's for season's end to look back on.

Trey Beyer is perhaps the discovery of the season (ignoring that QB of ours for a second). Fourth year on team, first with a premier role. 640 yards on 104 carries for a 6.15 average. He was one of few showing good numbers in Gothenburg today. Which presumably means the O-Line held well as well.

So, kudos to the Gothenburg Giants management, players and staff for pulling of their sensational victory. We had our overwhelming fun against the Vineyards in the previous game, but that feeling that we were actually coming along well, well, we still are, but we're not quite the team that can do it week in, week out. One game at a time, back to that attitude. We'll be visiting the Oakland Black Panthers next game. They're leading the AOC West with an 8-2 record, ranking 3rd in least points allowed.

Player to watch there? Right tackle Douglas Grosz. Once the #9 overall pick, selected by the Maassluis Merchantmen and traded after the fact to Oakland. He's turning into a one-man offensive line. Last season he had 75 key run blocks, a sensational league record in the era of all passing offenses. The Panthers could be a mismatch for us, as they sports very similar cohesion, which makes it more about raw talent and, well, they trump us in a couple of positions, but I think we could hold up well. On paper that is. But this game isn't played on paper. Oakland runs the ball. A lot. I mean, a grand lot. Something to think about in our game plan...

General Manager Notes: Rock bottom had not been reached yet
Not quite, at least.

The staff is, against me orders and desire, already giving up on Earnest Ashley. For the third game in a row he was pulled, for the second time in a game where we played so dreadful that aside from the most optimistic people, a comeback was impossible. But my staff clearly wasn't around when the Merchantmen once choking a 21-point lead at the Gothenburg Giants in the final 9 minutes of a game, old timers like me know better: "never say never". Or at least not before there's roughly 1 minute per 8 points remaining.

I was hoping to sit here today, pretending to grab my cigar (I don't smoke), smirk, proud of my team and tell them "I love it when a plan comes together". As you can imagine, "hoping to" means there's no reason to do so. offensively, our game plan was ready for the trash can three plays into the game as Ed Schulz walked off, team doctors immediately ruled him out for the rest of the game and he's very likely to sit out the remainder of the regular season. Which with how things are going now, would mean the entire season.

Wait, what about that plan not coming together part?

Oh yeah, I was going to construct a specific game plan to try to stop the Oakland running game. Well, we slowed them down, a little bit. They ran the ball 50 times (yes, I kid you not, 50 times) for 205 yards (slightly above their season average), which means a 4.1 average, which is below their 11-game average of 4.78. So, we made them slightly less effective. Yay for that?

Well, as to be expected, we were more vulnerable to their passing game, but as they run specific formations that they run out of, it shouldn't have mattered. Well, we saw their former 1.1 quarterback Marty Forland tear our pass defense apart: 21 of 25 passes completed for 273 yards. Goodness, are we that bad when we're down one starter on defense (free safety Jon Brotzman)? Forland is exceptionally talented, clearly, but this was his most productive game of the season. Last time he threw for more than that was in week 4 of the 2093 regular season.

Okay, looking back, I made a bit of a blunder, I forgot to think about a couple of specific situations that I considered to not focus on run stopping, but I did and we got punished several times on 3rd and long with a medium pass that turned into a big gain. I mean, when you stuff their running back on 1st and 2nd down, be prepared to see a pass on 3rd and 12 and don't have your defenders exposed into running a coverage they are dreadful in. It would have stopped them early on their 14-10 lead taking drive. It would also have stopped them early in the third quarter from gaining 43 yards on 3rd and 10 as we exposed ourselves. Albeit, with their talented quarterback and the receiver on that 43-yard play being the exceptionally talented wide receiver Winston Alexander, they might have made that play anyway. All that said, our run defense was actually sort of effective on first and second down, we lost this game on third downs, letting them convert to extend the drive and eventually they had the ball 2/3rd of the time in this game.

That ball control imbalance was also a result of our own abysmal play on offense, obviously, as we couldn't keep them from getting the ball back. Their defense pummeled our main ball carrier Trey Beyer into 14 yards on 9 carries and in total we ran the ball just 15 times, while Ashley threw the ball 23 times and Moe Sheldon (we activated him for today's game) threw the ball 10 times. yes, Ashley was bad, but Sheldon was horrible, downright no longer IHOF worthy, it's a serious mistake from our staff to pull our promising superior quarterback and throw either his mentor or our kick holder out there. Please, staff, stop doing that! (If only I knew how to make them come to their senses...)

Division standings:
1. Gothenburg 8-3
2. Bordeaux 8-3
3. Maassluis 5-6
4. Paris 4-7

Yeah, the Giants lost, that makes it even more of a missed opportunity on our end. But in reality, today's game was going to be a loss anyway, the way this game played out. Our season has been shanked in the home game against Paris and the road game in Houston, both games were obnoxious choke jobs. We should have been 7-4 and still in the mix with games remaining against both teams ahead of us.

With Ed Schulz out, we'll have to rely on the return of (very rusty due to lack of action) Brian Sandlin as our WR3, with George Stuckey stepping into Schulz' role and Theo Bondy remaining in the WR2 role that he's had all season, despite that he's making more catches than Schulz.

We might still bounce back, in our last five games we'll meat two 3-8 teams (not to be underestimated, one of them beat Gothenburg today) and our three rivals for the playoffs spots: Gothenburg, Bordeaux and Augusta. Beginning with that last team. They're coming off their own unexpected drubbing after a sensational big victory over fellow wild card hopeful Orlando. Augusta and Orlando are 7-4 now, so we'll still need quite the help to catch and pass them. Beating Augusta will be crucial though, losing at their place will be their next to last nail in the coffin. Mathematically we can't get eliminated yet, but practically we would be.

So, Merchantmen, regroup, bounce back. Losing at Gothenburg and Oakland was all within expectations at season's start. Forget about how big the losses were, think back of the overwhelmingly positive vibes that we got and showed in the wins against Bordeaux, Fort Wayne, Atlanta, San Antonio and Toronto. Heck, all of our wins were impressive. We can do this. Go Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: It's not for this season
Did we really win 4 straight?

Division:
1. Gothenburg 10-3
2. Bordeaux 10-3
3. Paris 6-7
4. Maassluis 5-8

Yup, let's start with that, why not? Our season continued with a couple of 9-point losses: 19-10 at Augusta and 30-21 at Fairbanks. Both were bizarre games. In Augusta our rookie of the year candidate threw 6 interceptions. For a change he wasn't taken off the field. As a result, he threw the 6th pick when we were still within a single score, which implies our defense held the Greenjackets in check. The game in Fairbanks was enriched with 2 missed field goals and 2 missed extra points. Seriously, Dylan McMullen, did you really want to prove the Northstars right for letting you walk? Do you really not belong on what was supposed to become the best special teams unit in the league (which actually allowed another punt return touchdown)?

So, from 4-2 to 5-8. It feels better than going from 1-7 to 5-8, but it's still a depressing idea that we went from being top 10 in all team stats, to now have the second most turnovers and, well, season over, even mathematically. What's left is playing spoiler for Gothenburg and Bordeaux, starting in Oranje Haven against the Giants. Which is actually the good news of playing division rivals late in the season, it's easier to motivate ourselves. The tanking crowd would applaud losing those games, as it would actually be bad for their rivals' draft position.

But not in Maassluis. We'll keep on trying. We can still finish the season with a positive points differential (we're at a tied 314-314 score now) and with an 8-8 record. It's a long shot, but we have to try. No, not try. We have to go for it. Go for it!

General Manager Notes: Cruising along
Bouncing back is more accurate though.

Wait, what, are you saying we beat the Giants? Yes, we did, we did beat the Giants.

First quarter, the tone was set. Three and out by our defense, Earnest Ashley to George Stuckey for 32 yards to start our first drive to set up a 48-yard field goal. back to back sacks stalled Gothenburg's second drive, Ashley responded with a typical chains moving drive, eventually ending with Trey Beyer's 23-yard touchdown run. Early in the second quarter, up 10-0, Chuck Murray made a momentum flipping interception just outside our end zone. Penalty on a punt play extended our drive but we had to punt later on anyway. Another sack on third down stopped the Giants, while our offense quickly went into their half with Ashley's 29-yard dart to Stuckey. Eventually Francisco Patter ran the ball in from 4 yards out. Darien Fletcher made Oranje Haven explode three plays later, after the defensive tackle signed for the second pick of the game deep inside Giants' turf. Ashley returned the favor with a pick of his own. Neither side gained much ground on their last drive of the first half, we went into the break leading 17-0.

Second half had barely started and we pulled of a bit of a hail mary with four receivers going deep, Stuckey made the 44-yard catch and two plays later Beyer ran it in for a 24-0 lead. Gothenburg's first drive of the second half was hijacked by a holding penalty. We responded with a silly 28-yard run on 3rd and 20 (say what now?) by Patter, eventually the key play to set up Patter's 8-yard touchdown run. At that point Gothenburg checked out, replaced Mercury Pierce and free agency signing Kai Silvanic took over. Three and out followed and our offense responded with another short gains drive to eventually kick a 24-yard field goal. Gothenburg was once again stuffed into punting and our lead was now 34-0 going into the fourth quarter.

Our offense was stalled, but as Gothenburg continued their last chance efforts to safe face, pick number three came on the box score as Devon Farrell jumped in. The Gothenburg defense stopped us quickly, but we returned the favor and on our next drive (with the offensive line in a bull-shit lineup; this ain't pre-season, staff!) we kept winning the field position battle. Then Gothenburg finally caught some fire, starting with a 16-yard run, then a 31-yard pass on third and long, a 14-yarder on 3rd and very long and a face saving touchdown right after the two-minute warning. We ran out the clock, punted one more time and that was that.

So, victory, strong running game, a so-so Ashley (completed 18 of 44 for 239 yards), good Stuckey, solid defense. And too little too late.

1. Bordeaux 11-3
2. Gothenburg 10-4
3. Paris 6-8
4. Maassluis 6-8

Bordeaux has qualified for the playoffs. How about that, congratulations! Gothenburg is pretty close as well. They can still miss out if Augusta catches up from 8-6 to 10-6 each. Solecismic playoff probabilities give Augusta a 2% chance to catch up with either Gothenburg or fellow 10-4 Orlando.

Our season will continue with our final home game of the season, we will host the 5-9 Colorado Cutthroats. Which will be our preparation for playing spoilers in Bordeaux in week 17. Ed Schulz has been cleared to play, he may or may not be back into the lineup...

One player will be missing in our lineup: linebacker Daquan Espino. Already upset over not being a starter, despite being a starter (he's just unlucky to face a lot of teams that field more than two wide receivers on their first play, if only these players understood these things), Espino apparently took some trips to Amsterdam despite team policy being strictly against it and, well, he's been admitted into a clinic to work on his addiction. His player agent has urged us to call it "tobacco withdrawal", so... He's going to be inactive for an undisclosed period of time. Maybe he'll be back in time to welcome back Doug James, recovered from his ACL knee surgery, somewhere in pre-season 2095?

Adam Harmon and Clayton Jackson won't sit those games out, despite that we have no idea when their hamstring issues will be resolved.

Yeah, it's really time for new turf, the players have been dropping like flies this season. Good to know that will arrive in time for pre-season 2097.

General Manager Notes: Tic-tac-toe
We finish 2094 with three wins in a row!

So, what happened? Well, we played out the regular season with a 17-10 victory at home over the Colorado Cutthroats and a convincing 31-17 win in Bordeaux. A painful loss for the Vineyards: they fell from #2 to #6 seeds, even a tie would have saved that bye for them. Let's skip the game by game dissecting for a little bit.

Division standings:
1. Gothenburg 12-4
2. Bordeaux 12-4
3. Maassluis 8-8
4. Paris 6-10

AOC
1. Tucker 13-1-2 (yeah, imagine that, not 14-2, but 13-1-2, will we ever see this record again?)
2. Fort Wayne 12-4
3. Gothenburg 12-4
4. North Plainfield 6-10
5. Orlando 12-4
6. Bordeaux 12-4
7. Augusta 9-7
8. Maassluis 8-8
9. Houston 7-9
10. Atlanta 6-10
11. Paris 6-10
12. Rochester 5-10-1
13. Harlem 5-11
14. Snapfinger 3-13
15. Toronto 3-13
16. San Antonio 2-14

(And for those wondering, the NAC:
1. Texas 15-1
2. Oakland 12-4
3. Kansas 12-4
4. Chesapeake 12-4
5. Capital City 10-6
6. Williamsburg 9-7
7. Frederick 8-7-1
8. Brooklyn 8-8
9. Outer Banks 8-8
10. Moontown 7-9
11. Hanalei 7-9
12. Arizona 6-10
13. Iowa 5-9-2
14. Colorado 5-11
15. Fairbanks 4-12
16. Chicago 4-12

So, with that, our season has ended.

Earnest Ashley finished the season with 4,009 yards passing, 25 touchdowns and 27 interceptions. Was that good, was that bad? A little bit of both, actually. Last time we had a quarterback throwing for 4K was in 2086 Ellis McAlister, a season after his 30-touchdown figure. Last time we had our quarterback throw 27 or more interceptions? That was all the way back in 2068, Alfred Hickman then had 28 touchdowns and 27 interceptions, two seasons after he quarterbacked us to a bowl victory with 27 touchdowns and 28 interceptions. Let's call it a good sign of things yet to come. I've got to end on a positive note here.

Trey Beyer ended up as our leading rusher with 903 yards (5.47 per carry), despite getting 35 carries less than Francisco Patter, who ran for 682 yards (3.41 per carry). They ran for 8 and 6 touchdowns respectively. Reggie Thongchanh's stint as our RB1 ended this season, he was promoted from rotation guy to a full time special teamer. Our quarterback Ashley ran for 317 yards and 2 touchdowns with a 8.13 per carry averages. Yeah, our quarterback knows how to tote the ball.

The receiving end of things saw the season end without a 1,000-yard receiver for the first time since, well, let's look it up... 2073. Theodore Bondy had a career low 76 catches for 883 yards and 7 touchdowns. Bondy was targeted 24% of the time, a career low as well. But that was all by design, it was the plan to spread it around. Ed Schulz had 42 catches for 834 yards and 4 touchdowns, George Stuckey had 53 catches for 750 yards and 6 touchdowns, Clarence Gore 61 catches for 617 yards and 3 touchdowns, Clay Gaynor 46 catches for 498 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Other individual stuff to let the guys know they did better than so-so?

Mark Perkins lead the league with 912 punt return yards. This should be considered to be a team effort thing, as getting a chance to return a punt means the defense forced the opponent to punt and means the offense was deep enough in the opposing territory before that defensive stop to actually make the punt returnable. Which is basically general football statistical explanation, which might be more obvious than I made it seem. He returned that ball for 6th best 16.0 per return, scoring 1 touchdown and finishing the season with just 1 fumble on 59 touches (2 receptions on top of the 57 punt returns). Now that's reliable and responsible punt returning!

Our kicker Dylan McMullen was a disaster. Okay, that's a bit harsh, but this fresh guy had 9 missed field goals and 3 missed extra points. Not quite numbers to be proud about, but we gave him a fat contract, there's reason to be not so happy here. Too much pressure? Counting his money at night?
Our emergency signing punter Doug Guynes, returning back home because Doug James will be out for another week or 37.

The team pass rush was unacceptably bad. 4.4% of pass plays ended in a sack, 24% in a pass rush based negative play. The latter is kind of okay, being tied 8th in the league. Our pass defense percentage was 6th best, the run defense about average. I'm not going to single out any defensive players. Well, except for the monster linebacker Brandon Brady and the All-IHOF bound safety Devon Farrell. And maybe nickelback Adam Harmon and defensive tackle Darien Fletcher, also All-IHOF bound.

Let's move on to the offensive line, where the two rookies Isaac Delgado and Johnnie Houston didn't contribute much to the running game, but were kind of reliable in the pass protection. Center Robbie Zinn lead the team in key run blocks, while Howard Humphrey wasn't back to his all-star leven after missing half of last season. Guard Michael Szott was rock solid.

So, what's next? After the playoffs, we'll have the 2095 off-season. We'll go into that about $26M under the cap, providing no retirements make the situation better or worse. We'll have an additional 4th round pick that will be the 9th pick in that round.

First those playoffs. Bordeaux and Gothenburg will face off in the wild card round. Two 12-4 teams, separated by the tie-breaker of which one of them actually beat us. Gothenburg it was and as such this game will be played up North in Sweden.

So... Let's end it here for today's rambling.

We improved by half a win compared to last season and actually outscored our opponents by 48 points. We deserved a bit more, I think, but with how strong the elite in both conferences have been this season, even with 3 wins out of the chokes, we would have still missed the playoffs at 11-5.

Next season, we'll improve and be back in the mix. I think that's where we could be then: in full sail.

I think that was what I wrote about 2090 already. ;)

General Manager Notes: Start of 2095, The returns!
But Thong', Szott and Whiting retire.

Usually the retirement of a football player is news worthy, but in some rare cases, sticking along can be seen as such a big surprise that it's worth mentioning. Well, we've been on the retirement watch on many occasions before, but the retirement watch with Theodore Bondy has been on for serval off-seasons. And this off-season isn't the one he turns in the #80 jersey either. A huge opportunity for Ed Schulz to learn even more from his mentor and our promising quarterback Earnest Ashley.

RB Reggie Thongchanh called it a career after 10 seasons, 155 regular season and 11 playoffs games. Thong' was a 4th round pick in the 2085 draft and as a rookie already got a lot of carriers, ending up with 989 yards and 9 touchdowns. From there on it was a wild ride, usually stuck in a timeshare with Francisco Patter, still managing to get to 3 1,000-yard seasons, finishing his career with 8,353 yards and 50 touchdowns in regular season play. With those numbers he ranks 4th and 3rd in franchise history. He was also a tremendous punt returner and on the field on most special teams plays.

LG Michael Szott retired after 11 seasons with us, being active in 169 regular season and 11 playoffs games. As a second round pick in 2084, expectations were for him to become a starter. He saw some action in his rookie season and became a full time starter at the start of his second season on the team. A complete lineman, being a good pass protector and run blocker, he made 30+ key run blocks in 4 different seasons. He jumped into the top10 in franchise history in key run blocks last season, retiring at the #10 spot.

DE Tony Whiting retired after 9 seasons on team. An undrafted rookie that barely made the 53-men roster in 2086, he spent two seasons on the side lines and inactive, learning the tricks from the veterans. In 2088 he was added to the rotation of defensive ends and broke out with 10.0 sacks. It turned out to be his most productive season, while his role maintained to be in rotation, he finished his career with 36.5 sacks in 112 regular season games. Whiting also played in 4 playoffs games.

Down these three guys, we're going into the off-season with 47 players on board, with 8 draft picks, situated in the middle of the round (17th in the first round) with an additional medium high 4th round pick. Two players are unrestricted free agents: punter Doug Guynes and center Aidan Doyle. Both were late signings last season, with Doyle jumping in as our new backup interior lineman and with Guynes taking over for Doug James after his devastating knee injury. James will miss the pre-season and as of now the expactations are he'll be out for 2/3rd of the regular season as well, roughly. Fullback Owen Johnston and linebacker Andrew Cochrane are restricted free agents, but both look worth re-signing for a second season on team.

Our cap situation? We're $45.7M under the cap. Yes, not over, but under the cap. Solecismic's cap calculations estimate us at $22.8M of cap space to work with after signing draft picks, but we all know it will be slightly higher due to the double counting of the 52nd through 55th players.

How to react on these retirements? Well, quite simply, we picked those two rookie offensive tackles last season and at meant that guard Andre Watson was demoted to a backup role. If he doesn't regress, he's a perfectly fine player to put back into the lineup, whilst we'll also look for a new backup. Hayden Gaylor is a fine guard as well, but we can use the luxury of three starting caliber tackles and position on of them on the inside, next to the outstanding center Robbie Zinn.

The loss of Whiting means that we'll open our eyes for young pass rushing defensive linemen once again. I would have liked to bring back Trent Donovan, we released him late in the 2094 pre-season for cap reasons, but he decided to retire and not wait for a new team this off-season. Too bad, we could have used him now.

Last but not least, a couple of other players that have retired this off-season (or may have already last off-season and I failed to notice):
* Wide receiver Artie Blazewicz, we actually named a play after him and run a play inspired by him in our current game plan. Played 127 regular season games and 9 playoffs games with us, had one 1,000-yard season, scored 24 touchdowns, including 2 kickoff returns.
* Safety Riddick Newsome. Played eaxctly 100 regular season games with us, 9 more games in the playoffs. Made 10 interceptions, defended 44 passes.
* Running back Asher Ford. Mostly a special teamer, but we did let him carry the ball 24 times in the 65 regular season games he was active in. Was also active in 4 playoffs games.
* Defensive end Trent Donovan. We picked him up as an undrafted rookie linebacker, moved him to defensive end, released him on opening day 2091, brought him back in the playoffs, kept him inactive in 2092 after signing a 2-year contract, then gave him a lot of playing time in 2093, offered him rotation starter money in the 2094 pre-season and subsequently released him again on opening day to make cap space to lock up safety Devon Farrell. A pity that he retired after just 16 games in the league.

Speaking of Devon Farrell, he received All-IHOF honors for his performance in 2094. Defensive tackle Darien Fletcher was honored as an All-IHOF second teamer. Quarterback Earnest Ashely missed out on offensive rookie honors to Bordeaux' guard Floyd Kennedy, who was an All-IHOF second teamer. We can and will respect that, that kid played well and may turn out to be an all-time great at his position.

So, on to the staff reshuffling and then it's time to prepare for the draft. And free agency, we have cap space now and might be able to not spend it all on contract extentions. But we'll have to wait and see for a bit...

Oh, and Douglas Grosz won his first IHOF Bowl ring. Kudos, kid, well played.

General Manager Notes: Changes are coming in 2095
But that wasn't planned...

Every off-season in the IHOF starts with the day where the teams decide on how to shape their coaching staff. The plan and hope was to find a different kind of defensive coordinator, but the actual change came unexpectedly. The Harlem Apollos were looking for a new head coach after theirs retired and they decided to sign our offensive coordinator Willie Behrendt. Quite a pity, it would have been nice to keep building on his smashmouth approach to football. Alas, it wasn't to be.

To fill the void at offensive coordinator, we hired Alexander Petty, a West Coast fan. Quite the disaster is his complete inability to scout players, his strengths are player development (especially with running backs), interviewing and play calling. Okay, so there's that. More over, we didn't hire a new defensive coordinator, which means we're going to be one of the worst teams in terms of scouting players. This lack of scouting skills is unprecedented in Merchantmen team history. Safe to say: we're in for a challenge this off-season.

Part of it how we got here is that we fell to 10th place in the Blackadar Cup, and subsequently in the draft order. Yes, we're still financially a playoff caliber team. Main cause for the drop is our stadium renovation. We'll have to live with that for another off-season or two.

First order of business from this new offensive coordinator: he's telling us Earnest Ashley is a 30/30ish quarterback. That's right, Behrendt had him as a 35/50ish quarterback at the end of last season, but our new OC thinks he's backup material, not starting material. It's going to be quite the challenge to actually ignore our OC on his evaluation of the ability of our players. He's also much less optimistic about our three young offensive linemen C Robbie Zinn (-10ish), LT Isaac Delgado (-15ish) and LT Johnnie Houston (-15ish). Ouch. Not on the players, but on landing this guy that has no clue about how good young players actually are.

So yeah, I'll have to recover a bit from that, I just didn't see that kind of mess coming at all. It's going to drastically change my staff draft preferences in the future, a coordinator like this should have never ever been the best possible candidate for us. That's all besides the point of this OC preferring a different style of football, because that's something we can work around.

Bottom line: the MalcPow challenge, let's call it that. We'll have to go into the draft leaning heavily on combine scores and trends of a player's skills compared to one another, we can by no means rely on our OC, except his excellent interviewing ability...

General Manager Notes: Yo, where are the updates?
Well, here's one.

The draft has started and it's been an interesting first couple of rounds. With the lack of scouting ability, I'm leaning heavily on the combine scores and such to determine where to go here.

At the 1.17 pick, an attempt to trade up failed due to timing, but we ended up landing the player we would have traded up for. That player? The top graded safety Ernie Grant. A top10 player by grade in this class. Ran a fast 40-yard dash, had a tremendous position drill score, strength is a plus, agility a plus, size is good. Any red flags? Why yes, he's considered a red flag. We will consider moving him to cornerback? Yes we will, it might not be worth starting him next to Devon Farrell in the inside of the secondary.

At pick 2.16, the last player of our first round list apparently lasted. Top graded outside linebacker Richie Piotte. Ran a fast 40-yard dash, with a good broad jump score and Solecismic Test score. We'll move him to defensive end, no question about it. He has the weight (269 lbs) for it and could get the job done at 6'3".

Otherwise it's been a silent off-season, obviously.

Or not!

We signed running back Jack Crane from the Gothenburg Giants and traded for running back Benjamin Kapp from the Paris Musketeers. Yeah, there's competition coming for Trey Beyer and his 5.47 yards per carry and Francisco Patter. Crane was signed for $10M/year to a 3-year deal. He's already 30 years old, in his 8th season and coming off a down season (first one below 1,000 yards, lowest yard per carry), is he over the hill? In Gothenburg known as Sticky Fingaz, Crane has 8 fumbles in his career in 2,163 touches. Kapp was acquired for our 6th round pick, we know he's good though, he was our 7th round pick only 2 draft ago.

In the bidding wars elsewhere, we're quite active. Defensive end Caiden Croyle is our main target, but after drafting Piotte, there's much less need to sign him as our third defensive end. We're also in the market to bring back backup center Aiden Doyle and are the only team bidding on former Bordeaux left tackle Marc Wilkerson. Do we need a new tackle? Not quite, but we do need 8 linemen and Wilkerson is more promising than all the guard prospects. Although signing a guard is a better decision to keep a legal roster [ugh, these game technicalities are such a spoil sport for the immersionists amongst us...]. Anyway, we're busy on the open market.

Enough for now, more tomorrow, or so.

General Manager Notes: Old Doug returns
But we lose out on a promising wide receiver.

Oh and we traded draft picks.

First things first. With Doug James still recovering from ACL knee surgery, we needed to sign a punter to cover for him for the first half to two third of the season. Old Doug Guynes returns for another season, we'll figure out the roster space technicalities later on.

We lost out on wide receiver Malachi Pierson. It turns out Malachi has become a very popular first name with football players, back in the day we had Malachi Pennell, the best punter ever to wear the orange-white-and-blue, until we selected Doug James, but we have no idea whether James will reach the heights Pennell. Did.
Pierson is a 32-year old wide receiver, promising kickoff returner. And he is one of several players that we found in the recycle bin of the IHOF. Several teams have been cutting off old but still good to consume meat, probably because they've got salary cap troubles. Yes, my staff members can't scout properly, so we can't rely on their player assessments, but with players this age, it's much less of an issue, it seems. Anyway, he took Colorado's 22.35M over our $15.5M offer, both over 2 years, rightfully so.

And then the trading part. We shipped our third round pick to the Gothenburg Giants and the pair of fourth round picks to the Atlanta Vipers. My list of suitable players ran out at the 2.16 pick. I do have an ace or two up my sleeve, I hope, but we'll gamble on landing them in the middle of the 5th and 7th rounds. There are currently 5 names on my list of players that we might like to see join us from training camp and could have a reasonable shot at making the 60 men pre-season roster. One of them specifically a player that my coordinator graded very lowly, while said player had a very strong combine showing. But let's stick to: we still have a consolation prizes list.

Returning to that recycle bin, we've found out that another team is also in the market for defensive end Caiden Croyle, quite possibly the top dog in the current free agent pool. We'll certainly try to outbid those Toronto Lake Monsters, albeit not at all cost. We do need a mentor for rookie Piotte, so that would be an added bonus.

We're also in the market for guard Desmond Pritchett, but he hasn't taken the bait yet. Neither has our backup center from last season, Aidan Doyle.

So much for now, more later. As always.

General Manager Notes: The challenges of a terrible scouting staff
Warning: this might get unimmersive.

Alright fans and readers, we go back to this ongoing off-season in memory, as we were forced to pick a new offensive coordinator and ended up with Alexander Petty. I've been on and off about his (in)ability to scout players, most prominently resulting in the downgrading of three key members of the offense, all of them entering just their second season in the league.

With the draft going on, we're slowly, but steadily finding out what this actually means for a team, specifically to the general manager - you know, the one in charge with actually signing players. Below are two player profiles, fora change I haven't rounded up or down to the nearest 5's or 10's, but will share the actual numbers provided by the OC (after all, if he sucks, what does it hurt to share, right?)

WR Desmond Houston (no interview), pick 1.13 by Houston (ha!)
Okay, overall, this seems to be a WR that a lot of OC's liked as a WR1 prospect. Route running is up in the air (44 would be bad, 74 would be great), endurance could be an issue (27 would be a problem, 57 acceptable for a WR1).
Well, my OC has surely helped tone down the average numbers, in particular in some key skills. My OC thinks that Houston doesn't have the route running to be a WR1 type, but does have the endurance and is convinced that adjust to ball is a strength rather than a weakness (let's ignore the punt returning for a second).
What this tells me is that my scout is very much in the same uncertainty as other OC's, however, given his terribleness, it seems likely that he's misjudging route running and endurance. As it looks now, he might not be off by just 30 points in route running, he could be off by close to 60. Yikes! He could also be 43 points off in endurance, both are monumental shifts in a player being effective or not.
Yet at the same time, my OC doesn't sit far away from the rest of the field at all. Could it be that he's completely misjudging on just a handful of skills and is spot on with the rest, possibly being as clueless as every coordinator can be on a player's ability and potential.


RB Howard Durrough (w/ interview = overrated), pick 1.32 by Oakland
Durrough was one of 3 RBs that I interviewed, obviously before knowing we would sign Crane and trade for Kapp. I anticipated on drafting a RB at 1.17 or maybe at 2.16. Still, he was interviewed and my OC arrowed the uncertainty to 16 or 17 points for each skill, compared to the league's average that's at roughly 30 points.
The overall picture in both situations is kind of similar: a RB with breakaway speed, hole recognition, very low elusiveness, some receiving skills and endurance to be able to carry all day long. Yes, the differences are there, but it's basically just in two skills: third down running and avoiding drops. That's almost neglectable if you already have a short yardage back and don't throw to the RB a lot.
My OC interviews well, it's a main reason why I actually trusted that "overrated" and decided to let Durrough fly at 1.17. Well, not entirely, he was still #2 on my list, but it was just enough to give S Ernie Grant the edge. A decision made before we even offered a contract to veteran RB Jack Crane.

Okay, so, what have we learned so far? I think it tells me that there are two things at hand in the scouting of players: players will be masked, underrated if you wish, not just in one skill but all around. But, they will also be misjudged on single skills, where a terrible OC might potentially be off as much as 50 out of 100 points, that's huge if you're a GM like me who focusses on one- or two-bar players a lot.

Conclusions? Nothing particular, other than: scouting can seriously push you into a different direction on a player. I'm most certainly not going to give up on our should have been rookie of the year quarterback. I'll just have to find a way to figure out which kind of changes we'll see in pre-season: randomness or unmasking.

It has become a challenge and I'm already convinced it will be a one-year solution at OC. It also makes me more aware that having a good staff isn't just an advantage, but keeping the finances healthy is key to draft well (in our case kind of by lucky to start with a top-notch situation all the way back in 2004, but later on being very quick in building a maxed out stadium, which is a must-have). And this season we made a horrible pick, at least concerning scouting. This staff member might be good elsewhere and just have trouble with young players and maybe just a random skill or two, or three.

General Manager Notes: FA signings and late round picks
A handful of new faces to report on!

We completed the draft with the selection of a green wide receiver and even greener quarterback. Nicolas Coady is a wide receiver who had a stellar combine and purely based on that won a pre-season roster spot on our team. Okay, maybe just a training camp roster spot, but pre-season isn't out of the question yet. Yes, it was a precious 5th round pick that we spent on him, but that late in the draft you just try to claim guys that you otherwise might end up overpaying for in the undrafted rookie bidding wars. Same applied to quarterback Colton Cote, our 7th round pick. I think I'm going to call him Coco from here on. His sense rush ability and Solecismic Test score were good enough to make me think: why not? We've thrown out contract offers to 6 undrafted rookies, we'll see which of them will report for training camp.

Other rookie news has been the position change for both Ernie Grant and Richie Piotte. A little bit premature, as we're still going to have to see if they can do something about their weight, but Grant should feel comfortable playing cornerback and Piotte playing defensive end. Grant should lose a bit of weight, Piotte will need to gain a bit.

Our roster was boosted by three veteran free agent signings. Center Aidan Doyle was our backup already last season, we're going to pay him more than minsal to do that one more season, before he finds out sitting on the bench isn't his kind of football. Guard Desmond Pritchett was signed to a heavy 1-year $15M contract, certainly not to rot on the bench. This 34-year old has been All-IHOF material early in his career playing in Houston, we hope he still has a lot of gas left in the tank.

That gas left in the tank is something we'll really have to hope for with 31-year old Caiden Croyle. We didn't hire him to a 2-year $39M contract just to mentor rookie Piotte, we do want to see him play a lot in our rotation. With his endurance, that is the best we can ask for anyway though. Still, with Croyle and Piotte added, we're back up to four suitable defensive ends. But you never know what will happen in pre-season...

So, that means all in all that we're currently at 59 players signed, with 8 of them new faces: 4 rookies (2 starters, 2 longshot projects), 3 starting caliber veteran free agents and 1 promising young trade acquisition. Some roster spot battles will be intense and hard to justify with our crappy scouting OC, but that's what we'll have to work with. Yes, I had to mention my OC's inability to judge player potential one more time. Get used to it, it will come up more often in the lead up to the regular season.

The cap situation has drained us down to just under $10M in cap space. No less than 18 players will be out of contract after 2095, one of them being the newly signed Pritchett, which means 17 of them are potential extensions. You know our drill: we'll get on to it after pre-season week 3. Most prominent names: backup QB Moe Sheldon, breakout RB Trey Beyer, FB Clay Brosseau, TE Clay Gaynor, WR Theodore Bondy, RT Howard Humphrey, OLB Clayton Jackson, CB Jackie Richardson and S Jon Brotzman.

It's getting repetitive perhaps, but this will be yet another update to end with: more to come later. The off-season is far from over, training camp and especially pre-season will give us a whole new look on our roster anyway.

General Manager Notes: Training Camp 2095 is coming

Okay, usually the post-draft pre-training camp free agency is the phase where we pick up a couple of undrafted rookie free agents that eventually make the 53-men roster. We picked up 5 training camp bodies, but I'm very cautious, I suspect some won't even make our pre-season roster and none make the regular season roster. QB Shaquille Trenery might have the best odds as a potential new kick holder. RB Edwin Harlow is a breakaway speed guy, with some [apparently hidden] special teams ability. RB Derek Finch has hole recognition. G Vince Henselman was on our shortlist in the draft for the late rond picks, he's a strong run blocker. K Tracy O'Neal was signed to challenge McMullen, he'll make the pre-season roster just in case McMullen is indeed over the hill.

Other news? The defensive coordinator is optimistic about our top two rookies. CB Ernie Grant is considered top5 in the league in potential. He'll be asked to trim down in weight a bit to fit with the new position. DE Richie Piotte will be asked to gain weight. Both players are on our staff's green page, that list of the top20 most promising youngsters. How about that for a mid-round first and second round pick.

I was very worried about our playbook, but after looking at it, there's little reason to make changes. Apparently we were unintentionally prepared to a switch to a West Coast offense. We'll see how that goes in pre-season.

That all said, training camp will see us go in there with 64 players signed, including injured Doug James. We have 5 QB, 6 RB, 2 FB, 4 TE, 7 WR, 9 OL, 2 P, 2 K, 9 DL, 6 LB, 7 CB, 4 S and 1 LS. I think it's safe to say we'll be trimming down at QB and RB right after camp and the final cut before pre-season will be based on which other youngster will make no progress.

Stay tuned, to be continued?

Nostalgia
It's 2095, the 92nd season of IHOF. Christmas tree on my left, nothing but darkness on my right, in that direction is where we'd find Oranje Haven, the North Sea and behind the biggest island of the United Kingdom, the Atlantic Ocean between the homeland of most of our players. Back in 2003 we thought it would be a good idea to bring a football team (back) to the Netherlands, we were warmed up to it, weren't we?

Our home games are still played in Oranje Haven, although it needed some renovations over time, most importantly an expansion early on to make it available for 100,000 visitors. In the heart of the most densely populated part of the country, that should be easy to fill, no? It has been ever since, generations of football fans have come and gone, as have the players. A grand total of 1605 players have signed a contract in Maassluis, not double or triple counting those that returned for second or even third stints. That grand total excludes one player that was drafted twice, but never signed a contract, because back in 2028 and 2029, rookies weren't automatically signed to their contracts.

Of those 1605, 1070 made a regular season roster, not counting dozens of players that tried out between games to fill an injury initiated vacancy, not double counting the 25 players that had two on roster stints with us. And that 1070 doesn't include our recent acquisitions. That's a whole lot, but at the same time it makes you realize that in 91 seasons, we've on average added just over 11 new players to our team every new season, just under 11 if you exclude the first season and the 53 players from that 2004 season.

Okay, those are all fancy numbers, neither meaningful or meaningless if there's no point to my rambling. Is there a point? Well, it's nostalgia season, so I felt like looking back a little bit and dig up some old memories. Remember when I made a list of 50 legends? Well, that was way back shortly after the 2078 season. We're a whole retired, just short of Hall of Fame worthiness, franchise quarterback further away from the inaugural 2004 season. How about increasing that with as many players that should have been added after the 16 seasons that came after 2078? Well, let's do that. Let's kickoff with an update on those that weren't retired yet, then add 10 new names to the list of all-time greats and finish it with a bunch of of also-rans, including the replacement of three players that were promoted to the legends list.



Update on the class of 2064 era players that were still active after the 2078 season

WR #82 J.R. Mills 2069-2079
Wide receiver J.R. Mills cost the Merchantmen a truckload of picks, but the #9 overall selection was high enough to get him. And boy was he worthy it. Not from the beginning though. Despite a 1,000-yard campaign as a rookie and making it a four-season streak, Mills' stamina appeared to be an issue. Injury sidelined him for the majority of the 2073 season. Upon his return in 2074, he upped his game and kept improving, becoming a 1,500-yard receiver and peaking with 111 catches for 2,228 yards in the 2077 season. Coming in at the second most productive season by any receiver in IHOF history. The Merchantmen hope to build on him for another handful of seasons. Mills had another All-IHOF second team season in 2078 with 1,756 yards receiving. His 17 receiving touchdown were a personal record and second best in Merchantmen history in a season that saw the Merchantmen reach the AOC Championship game. After a bit of a down season in 2079, he retired, just 56 yards short of the 15K mark, with 839 receptions for 14,944 yards and 85 touchdowns in 162 regular season games. Currently ranks 3rd in Merchantmen history in receiving yards, 6th in receptions and receiving touchdowns. Unsurprisingly was inducted into the Soleciscmic Hall of Fame.

OT #65 Oscar Meadows 2071-2085
Offensive tackle Oscar Meadows was a surprise first round pick in the 2071 draft for the Merchantmen. Right tackle isn't traditionally a position the Merchantmen invest in, but Meadows had the size and talent to be worthy of that. In his first seven seasons in Maassluis, Meadows proved to be the stud of the line. He allowed 33 sacks and made 198 key run blocks so far. In 2078 Meadows earned his first All-IHOF honors, being a second-teamer with 33 key run blocks and only 4 sacks allowed. His peak season cam in 2081 with 37 ket run blocks and just 2 sacks allowed, earning All-IHOF first team honors, despite missing a game. In 2084 his role demised and in 2085 his activity was limited to a tiny bit of special teams play. Meadows retired after 224 regular season games, he tied Tom Anaya in most regular season games started (213). His career was highlighted by the 2078 AOC Championship game and after his active career with enshrinement in the Solecismic Hall of Fame.

LB #52 Antonio Battle 2073-2080
Linebacker Antonio Battle joined a rich history of first round picks at his position. He had the honor to join the Merchantmen shortly before the big names retired. The veterans imediately recognized Battle's talent and he became a full-time starter as a rookie. With four 100-tackle seasons, 11 interceptions, 50 defended passes, 8 forced fumbles and 12.0 sacks in 5 seasons, his two All-IHOF team selections aren't surprising. He's a premier linebacker, a worthy succesor to Edward Ross and preceding names. In 2078 Battle earned his second All-IHOF first team selection in a season that ended in an AOC Championship game loss. In the 2081 off-season, Battle became a cap casualty and continued his career in Gothenburg (2081), Hanalei (2082-2084) and Kansas (2085), where his career ended in an IHOF Bowl loss.


The Ellis McAlister era players

QB #9 Ellis McAlister 2074-2087
An unheralded afterthought, just a sixth round pick of the Merchantmen in the 2074 draft, McAlister's career didn't start like a fairy tale. He made the 2074 roster as the fourth quarterback and for 5 full seasons was kept on the sidelines. But in 2079 out of the blue, McAlister was promoted into the starting role and continued to be the undisputed starter through the 2087 season. With McAlister under center, the Merchantmen made the playoffs 6 times, peaking with the 2085 AOC Chapionship game. McAlister had 3 4,000-yard seasons, 20+ touchdown passes in each season as a starter and aside from his last season in Maassluis threw for less than 20 interceptions. In 2088 a dire cap situation prompted the Merchantmen to say good bye to their franchise quarterback. McAlister played a season in Arizona, which turned out to be the third losing season in his career. McAlister retired after the 2089 season, in which he failed to find a new home, the Merchantmen lacked the cap space to sign him during the playoffs that season. McAlister retired after 157 regular season games, 144 for the Merchantmen in which he threw for exactly 35,000 yards, 218 touchdowns and 152 interceptions. Currently he ranks 3rd in passing yards in franchise history, 6th in touchdown passes.

DT #96 Glen Stiegler 2075-2085
The arrival of Glen Stiegler came after a strange incident in which the North Plainfield Plague accidentally selected him in the 2075 draft. The Merchantmen were quick to open negotiations as Stiegler was their player to get that draft and the #16 overall pick went into the books as a Merchantmen pick. His arrival made sense, so shortly after the retirement of Shaun Hartman and his sidekick Preston Urquiola. Stiegler didn't reach the levels of play of Hartman, but was a worthy Merchantmen nose tackle, earning All-IHOF first team honors in 2078 and 2080. Like many players from this era, his peak moments came in the 2078 and 2085 AOC Championship games, the latter turned out to be his last game for the Merchantmen as he failed to make the 2086 opening day roster and Stiegler retired the next off-season. In 174 regular season games he made 439 tackles and 56.5 sacks.

G #74 Carlos Webb 2075-2085
Carlos Webb continued a trend of the Merchantmen finding their offensive linemen in the draft in the middle rounds as he was a third round pick in 2075. Against all odds, he became an opening day starter and for 10 straight seasons was undisputed as the team's second best run blocker. In 2077 he recorded 47 key run blocks and in 2083 reached the magical 50 figure. In 2085 he lost his starting job, but due to injuries played in both playoff game victories, yet was benched for the AOC Championship game, which the Merchantmen subsequently lost. Webb retired soon after, meaning the lost 2078 AOC Championship game was the highlight of his career. In 156 regular season games he made 359 key run blocks, making him rank 6th all-time for the Merchantmen and highest amongst guards.

RB #26 Walt Blair 2078-2081
Rarely does a player much such a strong impression in just 4 injury plagued seasons. The Merchantmen picked Walt Blair #13 overall in the 2078 draft and as a rookie he made an impact running for 1,213 yards and 6 touchdowns in just 10 games as his season was cut short. Blair was missed during the playoffs run, fans still wonder whether the Merchantmen would have actually won the AOC Championship game with him. Blair bounced back in 2079 with 1,609 yards and 11 touchdowns, but 2080 was another injury plagued season. In 2081 Blair held out in the off-season, but changed his mind in pre-season, before he signed a contract extension. He left Maassluis after a tremendous season with 1,779 yards and 17 touchdowns, the latter was by far the best in the league that season. Blair played 2 more seasons with the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums and retired after just 6 seasons in football on doctor's advice, but fear for repetitive concussion syndrome was never officially confirmed.

CB #32 Kirk Hitchcock 2081-2093
The standards for a shutdown cornerback were set high after Peter Tucker retired, but in 2081 a new shutdown corner was selected at the #11 overall pick by the Merchantmen. Kirk Hitchcock delivered as a rookie with 5 interceptions and 11 defended passes. He continued to improve his standards and in 2084 earned the first of three All-IHOF first team honors. Hitchcock continued to produce and in 2089 became Defensive Player of the Year after a season with 8 interceptions (2 touchdowns), 20 defended passes and 115 tackles. The Merchantmen failed to make the playoffs that season. The decline started soon after, but unlikely so many veterans in Maassluis, Hitchcock continued to be a starter through his final season in 2093. One of his best games came in the 2085 AOC Championship game, but it wasn't enough to make his team win. With 46 interceptions and 185 defended passes in 204 regular season games, he ranks #1 in Merchantmen history.

CB #37 Gabe Broady 2081-2087
The Merchantmen have a good tradition of finding hidden gems in the undrafted rookie free agent pool and Gabe Broady is certainly one of those. A rookie in 2081, Broady got his chance midway into the season as the punt returner and did well enough to win the job. From 2082 onwards, Broady was the best punt returner in the league, scoring 8 touchdowns between 2082 and '86. Already in decline in 2086, he lost his role in 2087 to Clarence Blackwell. A clearly past his peak Broady failed to make the 2088 roster in Maassluis and retired in the 2089 off-season. 8 punt return touchdowns makes him rank 3rdd already, but his 17.0 yards per return makes him the best punt returner in IHOF history [he ranks second in the Solecismic record books behind a player with 20 career punt returns, we're not going to credit him the best ever, right?].

WR #80 Theodore Bondy 2082-now
Back in 2082 when the Merchantmen picked Theodore Bondy 8th overall, they felt like it was the steal of the draft. To get the pick, the Merchantmen gave up the #20 overall and the 2083 1st round pick. It was all worth it. "Theo" already delivered as a rookie with 95 catches for 1,469 yards and 8 touchdowns, which was just the start of a career as the clear top target of the quarterbacks that he played with, getting targeted an insane 42% of all passing plays. Bondy didn't crack under that pressure or the seeming over usage. 150+ receptions became his norm, as was 2,000 receiving yards, a figure that he reached 4 times. In 2088 times changed, defenses adapted to the throw it to one guy approach, but Bondy continued to be a lock for 1,000 yards. He reached the 20K mark during the 2094 season and going into the 2095 pre-season he's still going strong...

LT #66 Nathan Hadinger 2083-2093
In the 2083 draft, early in the second round, the Merchantmen couldn't believe that left tackle Nathan Hadinger was still available. The decision to pick him was a good one. Although riding the bench as a rookie, from his second season and onwards, it was clear that Hadinger was the pass protecting left tackle the Merchantmen love to provide their quarterback. He was a lock for 10 straight seasons, bar injuries. Which actually came when it was time to shine, Hadinger missed the 2085 playoffs and the trip to the AOC Championship game. With Hadinger in action, the Merchantmen never went one and done in the post-season. A lack of key run blocks will keep Hadinger from Hall of Fame status, but Merchantmen fans know better. With 37 sacks allowed in 153 games, Hadinger did his job and did it very well.

G #72 Michael Szott 2084-2094
Result of a trade one pre-season earlier with Bordeaux, the Merchantmen held the top pick of the second round in the 2084 draft. Guard Michael Szott was an easy pick there, one of the most talented players of his class. Never the best in the league, but all round enough to be the perfect left guard, supporting the left tackle and contributing to the running game. Szott was in and out of the lineup in his rookie season as injuries haunted the line, but from the second season he was a 10-year starter. Szott was pretty much a guarantee for 25 key run blocks and rock solid, never missing a game. He retired in the 2095 off-season after 169 regular season games with the Merchantmen and ranked 10th in franchise history in key run blocks.

OT #61 Howard Humphrey 2085-now
Not quite as planned, the Merchantmen picked right tackle Howard Humphrey at #9 overall in the 2085 draft. Unlike in future off-season, the Merchantmen decided to stick with what looked like maybe the best player of the class. As a rookie he was already in the starting lineup and made a key blocker for the running game, delivering with 44 key run blocks. Howard peaked in 2087 (52 key run blocks) and 2092 (53 key run blocks), marking the best showings of no less than 6 ALL-IHOF first team selections. The 2085 and 2091 AOC Championship games are the most important game in his career to date. To date, as Humphrey is still on team going into the 2095 pre-season and has a shot at improving from 4th to 2nd in Merchantmen history in key run blocks. Without a doubt he's Hall of Fame bound...


So close, the also rans of the last 15 or so seasons:
LT #69 Louie Murray 2074-2086
Ellis McAlister's first left tackle. Quite the achievement for a 6th round pick.

C #75 Butch Pearson 2080-2092
Late first round pick, elite run blocker. Second best center in Merchantmen history after Tom Anaya.

DT #91 Heath Oliver 2083-2087
More of a tackler than a pass rusher. Cap casualty in 2088 off-season. Ran havoc with the Gothenburg Giants.

RB #24 Reggie Thongchanh 2085-2094
Fourth round pick turned into fourth most rushing yards in Merchantmen history, despite being part of a tandem with Francisco Patter.

RB #26 Francisco Patter 2087-now
Seventh round pick turned into 9th most rushing yards, despite being part of a tandem with Thong'. Still on team, might still improve.


Legends of the future:
DT #73 Darien Fletcher 2089-2094
Pass rusher, at least All-IHOF second team in 4 of 6 seasons.

LB #53 Brandon Brady 2090-now
Another instalment of the fine tradition of top-notch LB in Maassluis.

S #40 Devon Farrell 2091-now
Turning into a monster safety. Best safety in the league in 2094.


The buble boys, bound to be also-rans:
TE #46 Clay Gaynor 2090-now
Talented 1st round tight end, but is he suited for the Merchantmen style?

TE #44 Clarence Gore 2091-now
5th round breakout, but already on the decline?

General Manager Notes: Training Camp 2095 report is here
What's going on with Ed Schulz?

With the Merchantmen we went into training camp 2095 with 64 players, including the still injured punter Doug James. Was it a good camp? For some players we saw a lot of progress, some where we were banking on it. Others seriously disappointed. Let's run it down position group by position group, untraditionally from the bottom up. but traditionally rounded to the nearest '5s as per our staff members, which all but our assistent coach suck in judging player talent.

Special Teamers
20/20 (nc/nc) LS Bryce Karney
90/90 (nc/nc) P Doug James (injured)
50/50 (nc/nc) P Doug Guynes
80/80 (nc/nc) K Dylan McMullen
40/55 (+4/nc) K Tracy O'Neal (rookie)
Yup, promising kicker this O'Neal kid is, but McMullen is technically better. O'Neal won't make our pre-season squad.

Secondary
65/65 (nc/nc) S Devon Farrell
50/70 (+9/-5) CB Ernie Grant (rookie)
50/55 (+6/nc) CB Bryson Swafford
45/45 (nc/nc) CB Zachery Weisz
45/45 (nc/nc) CB Jackie Richardson
40/40 (nc/nc) CB Adam Harmon
35/35 (nc/nc) S Chuck Murray
35/35 (nc/nc) CB Britt Hudson
30/35 (+4/nc) S Gabriel Cromer
30/30 (nc/nc) S Jon Brotzman
20/25 (+2/nc) CB Keegan Cosby
Grant is for real, we're going to have a great secondary with Grant and Farrell. Swafford is continuing to give signs that he's better than he's scouted at. Weisz and Harmon continue to be excellent zone defenders, Brotzman a very good one. Murray a serviceable running downs safety, Richardson a decent man-to-man corner and mentor. Cosby looks to be headed for the door out, to join Cromer, who won't even make our pre-season roster. Cosby's kickoff return skills could save him.

Linebackers
75/75 (nc/nc) OLB Brandon Brady
45/45 (nc/nc) ILB Daquan Espino
45/45 (nc/nc) OLB Clayton Jackson
40/40 (+4/+4) ILB Andrew Cochrane
35/35 (nc/nc) OLB Jose Meadows
20/20 (nc/nc) ILB Brant Rayburn
Brady is the man, Jackson and Espino the sidekicks. Meadows and Rayburn are special teamers. Cochrane is the rough diamond that continues to improve, but he might end up just the second special teamer ahead of Rayburn.

Defensive Line
65/65 (nc/nc) DE Caiden Croyle (vet fa)
60/60 (nc/nc) DT Darien Fletcher
45/65 (+7/+3) DE Richie Piotte (rookie)
55/55 (nc/nc) DT Jumbo Mojica
50/50 (nc/nc) DE Gene Kondovski
45/45 (nc/nc) DE Archie Exner
40/40 (nc/nc) DT Harold Gough
40/40 (nc/nc) DT Caleb Domis
30/30 (nc/nc) DT Kurt Ackerman
Let's wait until pre-season changes to get overexcited, this crew is getting older. Piotte is the obvious star to be, we have potentially a great bunch, once again the best in the league purely based on pass rush technique.

Offensive Line
65/65 (nc/nc) G Desmond Pritchett (vet fa)
65/65 (nc/nc) C Robbie Zinn
55/60 (+5/nc) LT Isaac Delgado
55/55 (nc/nc) RT Howard Humphrey
45/45 (+5/+2) LT Johnnie Houston
45/45 (nc/nc) G Hayden Gaylor
40/40 (nc/nc) C Aidan Doyle
40/40 (nc/nc) G Andre Watson
25/50 (+4/nc) G Vince Henselman (rookie)
Quite the decisions to make in mid-pre-season. The top 5 names are most likely starters, but we know Gaylor is a suitable backup, while Watson has been reliable for so long, Doyle is good enough and Henselman had a decent camp.

Wide receivers and tight ends
55/70 (nc/nc) WR Ed Schulz
55/55 (nc/nc) TE Clay Gaynor
55/55 (nc/nc) WR Theodore Bondy
50/50 (nc/nc) TE Clarence Gore
50/50 (nc/nc) WR George Stuckey
40/40 (nc/nc) WR Rickey Lyle
40/40 (nc/nc) WR Branden Sandlin
25/40 (+2/nc) TE Ike Nixon
25/25 (nc/nc) WR Mark Perkins
20/20 (nc/nc) TE Renaldo Crawford
15/15 (+3/+3) WR Nicolas Coady (rookie)
Same bunch as last season, unless Coady makes a splash in pre-season and if one of the other receivers falls apart. Perkins and Lyle are our return specialist.

That said... What's up with Schulz? This is the puzzle I have no idea how to solve. For the second straight training camp, this "58% developed" super star makes no progress. Remember that he also made no progress throughout the entire '94 season. What's up with that, seriously, what's up with that? What's going wrong here? Is there reason to be worried? Not even, the kid had 19.86 yards per catch, this kid can play.

Backfield
60/60 (nc/nc) RB Jack Crane (vet fa)
50/50 (+3/+3) RB Trey Beyer
45/45 (nc/nc) RB Francisco Patter
35/45 (+2/+8) RB Edwin Harlow (rookie)
40/40 (+1/+1) RB Derek Finch (rookie)
40/40 (nc/nc) RB Benjamin Kapp (trade acq)
35/35 (nc/nc) FB Clay Brosseau
30/35 (+2/nc) FB Owen Johnston
Beyer might have locked himself into retaining half of the carries, but will the second one be Crane or will Patter retain his part? Is the Crane signing already one of our worst ever free agent signings? Harlow looks promising, so does Finch. Caveat, our OC can't judge young players, they might actually really suck. Kapp is still very talented, but it's unlikely he'll make the team. Finch and Harlow are also on the bubble.

Quarterbacks
35/35 (+3/+3) QB Earnest Ashley
30/30 (nc/nc) QB Moe Sheldon
15/30 (+2/nc) KH Jon Giles
10/25 (+2/nc) KH Shaquille Trenery (rookie)
5/25 (+2/-4) QB Colton Cote (rookie)
We know Ashley is much better than this and we'll continue to believe that and ignore our OC's assessment. Ashley is our starter, no questions asked. Cote and Trenery, won't make the pre-season squad.


That's it for now, more after our first couple of pre-season games.

General Manager Notes: Pre-season action...
and how a crappy OC can make everything look hazy.

Anticipation is high when pre-season action is about halfway. Offensive and defensive coordinators will take a second stab at scouting the roster of their team. But when they're not all that great, it becomes even more of s crapshoot to figure out which 7 players of the 60-men pre-season roster shouldn't make the final list of 53 players for the regular season.

Special Teamers
90/90 (-1/-1) P Doug James (injured)
50/50 (nc/nc) P Doug Guynes
70/70 (-8/-8) K Dylan McMullen
20/20 (nc/nc) LS Bryce Karney
A decision to be made: James will miss the first 11 (or so) games of the regular season. Keeping him from injured reserve means that we can bring only 50 non-kickers into the regular season. But realistically he'll return during the season and should be better than Guynes. It should be worth it.

Secondary
65/65 (-1/-1) S Devon Farrell
50/70 (nc/-2) CB Ernie Grant (rookie)
40/45 (-8/-8) CB Bryson Swafford
45/45 (nc/nc) CB Zachery Weisz
35/35 (-9/-9) CB Jackie Richardson
35/35 (-3/-3) CB Adam Harmon
35/35 (+1/+1) S Chuck Murray
35/35 (+1/+1) CB Britt Hudson
35/35 (+4/+4) S Jon Brotzman
20/25 (nc/-1) CB Keegan Cosby
So, Richardson on the decline, Swafford got re-rescouted, Grant and Farrell still look good. Harmon took a bigger hit than it appears, but it might just be the rescouting going into the other direction (from overrated to underrated), he's still a starter. Weisz continues to be an elite zone defender. Cosby could be done as a Merchantmen player.

Linebackers
75/75 (+1/+1) OLB Brandon Brady
45/45 (+1/+1) ILB Daquan Espino
45/45 (+1/+1) OLB Clayton Jackson
35/35 (-7/-7) ILB Andrew Cochrane
35/35 (nc/nc) OLB Jose Meadows
15/15 (-4/-4) ILB Brant Rayburn
This is the group. Cochrane makes another swing, this time into the wrong direction. Puzzling stuff, I know. He's actually a worse special teamer than Rayburn and Meadows now, which is bad for his role.

Defensive Line
60/60 (-4/-4) DE Caiden Croyle (vet fa)
60/60 (nc/nc) DT Darien Fletcher
50/55 (+2/-8) DE Richie Piotte (rookie)
45/45 (-8/-8) DT Jumbo Mojica
45/45 (-5/-5) DE Gene Kondovski
45/45 (+1/+1) DT Harold Gough
40/40 (-2/-2) DE Archie Exner
40/40 (+1/+1) DT Caleb Domis
20/20 (-9/-9) DT Kurt Ackerman
Ackerman is still incredibly fast, but he's the odd man out. Mojica took a severe hit, but he's the second best run defending tackle if we keep cohesion in mind, otherwise Domis would be that, it's pretty close though. Croyle took the anticipated hit, Piotte is young and will go all over the place for the next season or two anyway.

Offensive Line
85/85 (+20/+20) C Robbie Zinn
60/60 (-6/-6) G Desmond Pritchett (vet fa)
55/65 (+8/+19 LT Johnnie Houston
55/55 (-1/-4) LT Isaac Delgado
50/50 (-3/-3) RT Howard Humphrey
35/35 (-4/-4) G Andre Watson
35/35 (-10/-10) G Hayden Gaylor
35/35 (-8/-8) C Aidan Doyle
25/50 (nc/+4) G Vince Henselman (rookie)
Okay, one has to go, but who? The starting 5 are set: Houston, Delgado, Zinn, Pritchett and Humphrey. Watson should be the main backup. Doyle is serviceable. Gaylor or Henselman is almost a coin flip.

Wide receivers and tight ends
55/70 (-1/-2) WR Ed Schulz
55/55 (nc/nc) TE Clay Gaynor
50/50 (-4/-4) WR Theodore Bondy
50/50 (-3/-3) TE Clarence Gore
45/45 (-3/-3) WR George Stuckey
40/40 (nc/nc) WR Rickey Lyle
40/40 (+1/+1) WR Branden Sandlin
25/35 (nc/-6) TE Ike Nixon
15/40 (nc/+22) WR Nicolas Coady (rookie)
25/25 (nc/nc) WR Mark Perkins
20/20 (-1/-1) TE Renaldo Crawford
Schulz, oh Schulz. The good thing is that we know he's good, but it's such an enigma. Bondy may sound like he's almost unchanged, but our OC thinks he's a very different kind of player now, he lost a lot of big-play speed. Rookie Coady is a big puzzle as well, I doubt he'll make the team, but he's just so interesting...

Backfield
45/45 (-12/-12) RB Jack Crane (vet fa)
40/40 (-9/-9) RB Trey Beyer
35/35 (-12/-12) RB Francisco Patter
40/45 (+4/-2) RB Edwin Harlow (rookie)
30/45 (-8/+8) RB Derek Finch (rookie)
30/45 (-7/+5) RB Benjamin Kapp (trade acq)
25/25 (-7/-7) FB Clay Brosseau
25/25 (-6/-8) FB Owen Johnston
Three guys will have to go, but who? Our OC is throwing these guys all over the place, especially the two rookies are going from 90's hol recognition, to something like 50/80, or vice versa. Brosseau might be on a fast decline. Too bad, I really like him. He's still a very good run blocker, don't misread me there, but he's re-scouted as no longer clearly top3 to second tier (3rd through 6th). Crane had the typical veteran signing decline. Kapp won't make the team, bummer about that late round pick that would otherwise likely missed the team as well. Will mull over the others.

Quarterbacks
35/35 (+2/+2) QB Earnest Ashley
20/35 (+3/+6) KH Jon Giles
25/25 (-4/-4) QB Moe Sheldon
So, Giles is now a good kick holder again and Ashley made progress? Sheldon turned into even more of a sack magnet than he already was. He's purely a mentor now, Giles purely a kick holder, Ashley our only serious option. But that was something we knew going into the pre-season already.

So, yeah, these coordinators, they're messing with everything and make it both harder and easier to make decision. Some players are obvious over the hill veterans ripe to get released, but you know me, I'm a bit more loyal than the average GM, especially if I think their cohesion can help overcome things.

Contract renegotiations will start too now, with those guys that will make the team and are worth it getting locked up. Fun times.

General Manager Notes: 5 out, 2 more to go
And renegotiations to lock players up.

Last part first, we extended contracts to a good bunch of players, meaning 9 players won't be locked up for next season: QB Moe Sheldon, QB/KH Jon Giles, RB Edwin Harlow, TE/ST Ike Nixon, G Desmond Pritchett, G Hayden Gaylor, G Vince Henselman, LB/ST Jose Meadows and CB/ST Britt Hudson. Six of them will be restricted free agents, which means they'll be protected in the pre-draft free agency. Pritchett signed a 1-year deal this off-season. Sheldon is too expensive to give a new deal. We'll see where we stand next off-season, but I think he'll retire, otherwise he's nothing more than a mentor with cohesion value. Gaylor has been in trade feelers mentioned, which is the only reason why we haven't given him an extension, if he doesn't move away, it depends on the decision whether Gaylor or Henselman will not make the 53-men roster.

Concerning the latter, it's obvious to me that 1 guard and 1 running back will not make the team, which means we go into 2095 with two punters, as Doug James will be inactive, but not put on injured reserve.

Players that were released: undrafted rookie RB Derek Finch, 5th round WR Nicolas Coady (despite his big boost in pre-season), trade acquisition RB Benjamin Kapp, DT Kurt Ackerman and CB/KR Keegan Cosby.

CB Keegan Cosby had been scouted by my staff as our best kickoff returner on roster, but I'm going to stick with Rickey Lyle, or try to find an eleventh hour replacement. It clashes with my belief that you shouldn't give up on young players too early, but the numbers game in the secondary was not good to him. We're probably still overcrowded at CB, but so it goes. He saw no action in his rookie season with us, after we picked him in the 7th round of the 2094 draft.

DT Kurt Ackerman was the casualty in a very crowded defensive line unit. We really have no room for 9 guys, 8 of them will be on the active roster. It was either Ackerman or Jumbo Mojica. The latter can stop the run, while Ackerman is basically just another pass rusher. In 7 seasons with us, his production is only 8.5 sacks, 31 hurries and 7 blocked passes, despite activity in 84 regular season games. He was a 5th round pick find in the 2088 draft.

Last but not least, we're going to try to make our young players get additional action in the last two pre-season games. Which will probably fail, as my staff has been known to be very disobedient and prefers to sub out the young players that need the development time and wear out the low endurance veterans. So it goes, I guess...

Oh, yeah, we played two pre-season games. We won in Outer Banks and earlier lost at home against the Frederick Red Menace. It wasn't worth mentioning as Earnest Ashley was traditionally subbed out for our kick holder way too much and that kick holder tossed for 3 touchdown passes in these games, while Ashley was limited to 1 touchdown. Ashley did win player of the game honors for his 186 yards passing in Outer Banks.

Final decisions after these last two pre-season games.

Merchantmen 53-men set: G Gaylor and RB Harlow released
The Maassluis Merchantmen have announced their 53-men roster for the upcoming 2095 regular season. Guard Hayden Gaylor and running back Edwin Harlow were released. Harlow had been an undrafted rookie free agent signing this off-season and underwhelmed in 2 pre-season games. Gaylor was out of shape after having been a reliable backup for 3 seasons, including starting in the second half of the 2093 season after Howard Humphrey went out for the season with a knee injury. These moves also mean the Merchantmen go into the 2095 season with both punters Doug Guynes and Doug James, the latter expected to be inactive until he's fully recovered from the knee injury that sidelined him for most of the 2094 season and made him already miss training camp and pre-season action.

General Manager Notes: False start or sign of things to come?
So did we start last season. Well, kind of...

Two games in and we're already clearly in for a challenge and quite possibly not the contender I expected us to be. Gothenburg on the road: 41-20 loss. Kansas at home: 29-3 loss. Indeed, the least points we scored in a home game since week 8 of the 2070 season, when the Musketeers from Paris beat us 31-3. 41 points allowed isn't all that usual either, although we did have that 56-13 drubbing in Gothenburg last season, so basically we made 22 points progress. Yay?

European division
1. Bordeaux 1-1
2. Gothenburg 1-1
3. Paris 1-1
4. Maassluis 0-2

Wait, hold on, two terrible showings and I'm not even going to pinpoint what exactly went wrong? Earnest Ashley was dreadful, completing just 10 of 31 passes for 93 yards against the Creationists from Kansas. obviously pulling him didn't make things better, our kick kolder and nothing but a kick holder completed 0 of 4 passes, not counting his interception towards those 'completions'. Do I wish we actually ran the ball a bit more? Of course I do, but what can you do when the situation calls for other calls. We ran the ball 20 times per game, not counting Ashley's scrambles, while we tried to complete a pass 36 times per game, not counting the 2 sacks per game allowed.

Was the defense bad? Yes, yes it was. 6.29 and 5.55 yards per play allowed may not sound like a couple of disasters, but we gave up a league second worst 177 yards rushing per game (yeah, the caretakers in Kansas actually made that offense run the ball 31 times) and a league second worst passer rating of 112.8. Who cares about that passer rating? Not me, but it's mostly a result of allowing a second worst pass completion percentage.

Anything to be proud of right now? No, not really. Glass half full? There's room for improvement, quite a bit of that even! But to see that happen, we do need to see Ashley improve on his (in)ability to connect with the receivers that we got for him. For now, I give him the benefit of the doubt, because our OC really has no freakin' clue how good a young quarterback can become, plus, neither mentor Moe Sheldon or kick holder, kick holder and nothing else but a kick holder Jon Giles will be able to improve on this, unless they catch lightning in a bottle Harry Osborne style. Which isn't going to happen.

Our season will continue with a home game against the equally underwhelming Harlem Apollos, followed by the inevitable way too early bye week and a home game against the Tucker Tigers. Always fun to play them, but preferably with a team that can actually put up a fight. But that's week 5, week 3 will come first. A chance to redeem ourselves, let's take that opportunity, team.

General Manager Notes: Win some, lose some
But we are slowly improving.

Three more games played since my last report and we're coming off a series that has confirmed my confidence in the current group of players.

The worst first: Doug James. Our all-time great in the making has returned to practice, has been reported as 'probable' for a couple of game days now but once in the practice field, it became apparent: he's lost most of the power in his kicking leg. Other elements of his game appear to be still very good, aside from the kick holding that he wasn't going to do with Jon Giles (a kickholder and nothing but; remember that, staff!) on roster. Once he back to 100% we can make a new judgement on where we go between Doug James and Old Doug Guynes, until then we're not allowed to release him and switching back to James earlier would be a recipe for disaster, the kid deserves to not get rushed into action.

Second thing, the second game of the three we played. A home game against the Tucker Tigers, the team we love to hate and a team we're quite often throwing new stuff in our game plan to try and see what works and doesn't work against a team we're most likely going to lose to anyway. Except that we didn't this time and the result was an exciting game in Oranje Haven. In the end one big 73-yard catch and run made the difference, although Tucker's game winning drive to improve to 38-31 from a tied score was more impressive and didn't lean on a lucky play. So, we put up a fight, came back from 2 scores down, but at the end of the day we failed on fourth and one near midfield in the last chance drive and that was the end of it as the defense couldn't force one more change of possession in the last two minutes plus time outs.

So, where are the wins then? Well, before the Tucker home game, we rolled up the Harlem Apollos 24-6 in a near shutout in our place. The defense gave up only 182 total yards, including their final 78-yard drive that put them on the scoreboard.

The other win came at the Augusta Greenjackets, as we brought them back to earth (they had started 4-1 and are leading the AOC Southeast ahead of Tucker) with an overwhelming 44-23 defeat. Two missed field goals hardly mattered as we kept picking off their quarterback, combined with a fumble, for 6 turnovers in the second half alone. We took advantage of all those changes of possession, but aside from those were also quite impressive with 438 yards of total offense and an impressive kickoff returner to win the field position otherwise anyway.

European division:
1. Gothenburg 5-1
2. Bordeaux 3-2
3. Maassluis 2-3
4. Paris 2-3

Familiar sight? This is how it was last season. Complete with Bordeaux sitting as the virtual #6 seeds, except that Gothenburg is currently the virtual #1 seed after winning 30-26 at Tucker, seeing Augusta fall to us and the last undefeated AOC team, the Toronto Lake Monsters fall 29-7 in Atlanta, the surprise Deep South division leaders.

So, 2-3, with already 3 home games in the bag, that's not a good sign. On the other hand, we've played a tough schedule. Yes, they combined for only 16-13, but trust me, aside from the (no offense) unimpressive Harlem Apollos, we played strong opponents.

Earnest Ashley's sample size of 5 games has him on pace for another 4,000-yard season, with a 2:1 td:int ratio. Yes, his completion percentage is low, but we're forcing him to try and he does sport a 7.2 yards per attempt for it.

Our running back tandem Trey Beyer and Francisco Patter from last season has turned into a tricycle with the involvement of Jack Crane. Beyer gets roughly half the carries, with Patter and Crane about 25% each. That last guy's 5.11 yards per carry is quite good, although his third down tiny sample size, that don' impress me much.

The receiving side of the ball is once again the share of five guys. Theodore Bondy gets the most looks, Clay Gaynor makes the most catches, Ed Schulz has the awesome 10.8 yards per target, Clarence Gore the highest target percentage and catch percentage and George Stuckey has scored 50% of our receiving touchdowns. This is a great group, no doubt.

For the offensive line and defensive line the numbers of individuals are even more situation specific than those of the aforementioned guys, whom all are already also heavily influenced by situation, support cast, etc, etc.

Silly stat of the day, or perhaps the whole season so far: we had 6 interceptions against the Augusta Greenjackets, while we had none in the previous 4 games. Try to understand that. I won't, but that's how it goes at times.

Next up? Paris, at home. Week 7 and we're already starting to get a series of do or die games. Although quite frankly: if we want to go places, and actually think we're so good, we'll need to win at least 8 of the remaining 11 games. That's a lot to ask, but these last three games are a boost to the team confidence. Slow start, but things are improving and if we keep working hard, hopefully we get the reward we're seeking.

General Manager Notes: Hot or cold?
We've been both this season, a lot.

We've rebounded, and then some. A tremendous 27-3 root over the Paris Musketeers, which was our second near shutout of the season, brought us into .500 land and we followed up by winning a 35-23 fumblefest against the winless Snapfinger Jazz, despite that they actually dominated the game, if you ignore our pass rush and their 7 sacks for a second. But just as we managed to finally get a winning record again, we dropped hard in Bordeaux, losing 27-7 to the Vineyards.

European division
1. Gothenburg 7-1
2. Bordeaux 5-3
3. Maassluis 4-4
4. Paris 3-5

Back to .500 land, that's where we are. It makes me think we're destined for a series of seasons of floating around that 8-8 record. I certainly hope not, but the way we're winning games and losing games, we deserve nothing better or worse than 8-8.

50% is also almost part of Earnest Ashley's faith, as he's currently near the bottom in the league in completion percentage. With a dropped to mediocre yards per attempt figure, we can't claim that he's getting the most he can out of the passes he does complete, although he does rank 3rd in yards per completion, so maybe he does?

The living legend Theodore Bondy is the main culprit, struggling to make the catches, despite being heavily targetted. Not the 42% of the time he used to be, but 30% does have him far ahead of Ed Schulz (only 21% targeted) and Clay Gaynor (23%). Maybe we have some game plan fixing to do? Schulz and George Stuckey can fairly claim that they've surpassed Bondy in skill and efficiency, while Clarence Gore needs to be worked more into the game plan as he continues to be a dangerous receiving tight end.

Our running game continues to be up and down like our results are. The loss of Michael Szott may have been filled by Desmond Pritchett on paper, but he's lacking the endurance to play well all day long and has lost a step or two already from the elite guard that he used to be. Good old Howard Humphrey is actually leading the team in key run blocks again.

On the defense a couple of youngsters is getting the best out of their playing time. Rookie Richie Piotte is in the running for the defensive rookie honors, although I doubt he's got a serious shot at it, with 5.0 sacks and an interception he's in the mix after 8 games played. Second year defensive tackle Harold Gough leads the team with 7.0 sacks and is clearly one of the best at his position this season, especially as a pass rusher. Rookie cornerback Ernie Grant has a broken clavicle and has been rules out for one and a half months. He might be back in time for the last 2 or 3 regular season games. Second year players Zachery Weisz and Bryson Swafford once again get a chance to play, while it also prompted the return of veteran Jackie Richardson into the rotation.

At 4-3, the Solecismic playoffs probabilities calculator had us at roughly 50% to make the playoffs, despite sitting in the 7th seed slot at that point. After the loss in Bordeaux we dropped to roughly 25% and rightfully so, given that we have 3 home games remaining against the last remaining undefeated team (Iowa Cobbers), the AOC leading Gothenburg team and the team we got clobbered by in week 9 (Bordeaux). The other 5 games are all on the road, with trips to Paris (week 17), and in last to first order also to Arizona, Atlanta, Chicago and Orlando, our next stop in this up and down season. Any other season, we'd already pencil it in as a loss, and I think we'll still have to, despite the Orlando Talons' current 2-6 record.

So yes, we're back in the mix after a tough start, but just barely. I have my hopes up, or had before we came home from the drubbing in Bordeaux. Regroup and go back to one game at a time. Orlando it is. They've been pretty one-dimensional on offense, which sounds good initially, but given their overall talent, we have no reason to think we're the favorite, no matter what the odds makers say. Jerald Harrison is an elite quarterback, he can tear apart any defense. Which means the guys have to bring their A game once again. So, Merchantmen, do it, make it happen!

General Manager Notes: Cold as Ice
We're still alive, but a longshot...

Two more games, against the fifth and sixth best franchises of the 2090's. (We barely make the top10 of that metric, or all things considered it's a miracle we're top10 material?) We visited the Orlando Talons and came close to tying the score in the final 15 seconds, but we came a couple of plays short. Or 8 yards, whichever way you see it. And would have still had to make the two-point conversion. In which case we would have tied up a game that we deserved to lose. Orlando beat us 21-13, a fitting final score. The 34-10 final score at home against the Gothenburg Giants was much more of a disappointment. Yes, Orlando (like us) is only 4-6, while Gothenburg has reached 9-1, but at home against the Giants is a must win game, but certainly not a game where we should get crushed the way we did today. Merchantmen unworthy. I spoke of hot and cold before, the game against Orlando was chilly, the one against Gothenburg was as cold as their old stadium used to be (the Palace of Ice and Frost).

European Division:
1. Gothenburg 9-1
2. Bordeaux 6-4
3. Maassluis 4-6
4. Paris 3-7

So, scoreboard journalism, or whatever, we're still alive, but barely. Really, just barely. With 4 road games still to go, the odds are not in our favor. Neither does our divisional record help to even think about getting past Bordeaux. The final wild card will be tough as well, as we're unlikely to catch up in conference record with the Northeast second place finisher. At least we have that win in Augusta to give us tie-breakers over some of the competition...

Doug James returned to action against the Giants (yay!), but was underwhelming. But really, what can a punter do to make a difference? Well, do what James was capable of before the knee injury. But that's the past, we have to live by the kind of player he has become. Earnest Ashley is struggling, not doing better than his rookie season, which is kind of bad. Theodore Bondy is, well, he doesn't feel like "Theo" anymore. Don't be surprised if he ends the season only 5th on the team in receiving yards. It might be tricky to get much more than 500 yards receiving. Imagine that, a four-time 2,000-yard receiver...

Rookie cornerback Ernie Grant is still out with a broken clavicle, he might not be able to return in time for the crucial week 15 clash with the Bordeaux Vineyards. More certain will be the absence of Isaac Delgado, our guard playing left tackle. A concussion rules out Delgado for the remainder of the regular season, and then some. He might only be able to play if we make it to the bowl game...

Lastly, for now, the complete lack of progress by Ed Schulz continues to disappoint me. Our staff still thinks he's roughly 58% developed, but he has been since our last game of the 2093 season. You read that right: not last season, but the one before that. At least his performance continues to improve, which is still something. But this third year pro with Theo as his mentor, he should show progress, I think. It's almost as if becoming the leader of the receivers group is holding him back...

On to week 12, a visit to the Chicago Norsemen. Last time we visited them was a 30-13 victory in the 2037 season. Ellis McAlister was still our quarterback, Francisco Patter a backup to Reggie Thongchanh and Theodore Bondy already was our offensive star. That day he caught 10 passes for 161 yards and 2 touchdowns. It would be nice to see him do something like that again, but odds of that are slim. Theo is about to find out that he'll be demoted to the WR3 role behind George Stuckey. Yes, even when the season is only mathematically still salvageable, we're not shy of making an all-time great lose his starting role. That too is part of what can happen with the Merchantmen.

General Manager Notes: Stayin' Alive mode!
Although we probably wasted it by now...

So, three more games played and we're finding ourselves still alive. After a hard fought comeback from behind, yet much deserved 31-24 victory at the Chicago Norsemen, we had a bit of a no-show in Atlanta, where we lost 15-10 to the Vipers, and continued with a convincing 37-10 victory at the Arizona Miners. So yeah, a 2-1 stretch in a series of three road games, how about that.

European Division:
1. Gothenburg 11-2
2. Bordeaux 6-7
3. Maassluis 6-7
4. Paris 3-10

Next up is a home game against Bordeaux (up next), which will the kind of game that will surely eliminate the loser from the wild card race. We're both a long shot already, as the wild cards are currently virtually in possession of the Augusta Greenjackets (8-5) and the Rochester Razorbacks (7-5-1). I could start talking about the last two games for us, but losing in Bordeaux will eliminate us as Rochester will face the 7-6 North Plainfield Plague, which means the Northeast second place team will finish 8-8 at worst this season. Right now our best bet is catching up with Augusta, or surpass both Rochester and North Plainfield, both very big question marks in being feasible, but not impossible.

Safety Devon Farrell saved the day in Chicago with 2 crucial interceptions, as Earnest Ashley threw a couple on his own including one that got returned 94 yards for a touchdown. We clearly outplayed the Norsemen, but our 2 giveaways hurt much more than the 3 takeaways. The game winning touchdown came with 26 seconds to go, although a short field goal would have also been sufficient.

In Atlanta our running game was completely nullified. For dubious reasons we ended up with just 17 carries for our running back, while Ashley dropped back to pass 46 times (including that 1 sack). Brandon Brady's pair of interceptions was too little to make up for it, meaning a no-name quarterback with a 17 for 39 with 167 yards, 0 touchdowns and 3 interceptions stat line beat us. These are the kind of games you must win to convincingly claim that your team is playoffs caliber.

In Arizona Ashley bounced back (even recovered a fumble), he got replaced after his 4th touchdown pass halfway through the 3rd quarter, while the running game was surprisingly good all of a sudden. Kickoff returner Mark Perkins' rare couple of fumbles lead to a missed field goal and a real field goal. Our kick holder seriously sucked at quarterback. It's a disgrace that we humiliated the Miners by throwing him on the field. Seriously, staff, that gives us a bad image in this league!

We have to understand that despite that I feel like we have all the tools on offense to do well, this offense is performing at a below league average level. Ashley's completion percentage has dropped to below 50%, Trey Beyer is averaging 3.9 yards per carry and none of our 5 receivers really stands out. Okay, maybe Ed Schulz is actually doing quite well with his 9.41 yards per target. But as long as his development continues to be on a stand still, I weep for thinking he's never going to develop into being the successor to Springer, Haskell, Stanley, Mills and Bondy, but instead join the ranks of the second tier guys like Alfredo Bass, Vince McAlister, Terry Thomason, J.T. Pritt, Marvin Badger, Kai Oburn, Bubba Ellard, Brody Stevens and Dennis Nadell, multiple 1,000-yard receivers, but no Hall of Famer.

Back to the next game: Bordeaux, in our place. Revenge can be on our side, we lost in their place earlier on and it wasn't a good performance either. Last season we pulled them from 2nd to 6th seed with a week 17 win in their place, they haven't forgotten still and want nothing less than a head-to-head sweep. Bordeaux is one of three teams that crushed us this season, it could happen again. We hope not, the thought of sneaking into the playoffs is still on my mind.

So, Merchantmen, no looking back, let's do this, make the miracle happen!

General Manager Notes: One to go, but our season is done
And it's turning out to be one of our worst ever...

We had our chances, we had the Bordeaux Vineyards defense in check, were one of the toughest opponents for the Iowa Cobbers all season, but for those teams the dream is still alive: Bordeaux won at our place 23-13, Iowa won in our place 41-20. Wait, what? Yeah, that's the kind of season we're having. For the fifth time in 15 games we lost by 21 or more points. That's just bizarre to think about, I really think it's unprecedented in team history. I should check the numbers on it, but we're used to losing by a score, maybe two, not three touchdowns and then some...

European Division
1. Gothenburg 12-3
2. Bordeaux 8-7
3. Maassluis 6-9
4. Paris 3-12

Last game to go will be in Paris. Yes, we'll try to win this one too, there's no tanking in Maassluis.

Not much else to share for now though. Earnest Ashley arrived at a phenomenal 300 of 600 pass attempts completed after 15 games. He needs 148 yards to get to his second 4,000-yard season. His 24 touchdowns versus 19 interceptions means he's not flawless at all, but he is in the positive, bar a complete meltdown in Paris.

Theodore Bondy has dropped to fourth most receiving yards on team. Other teams might try to yank it up by overplaying their aged veteran, but we're not one of those, we love our stars, but let them play to their ability. He needs one more catch to hit 50, 4 more yards to reach 600, he needs 17 catches to hit 1700 for his career (not gonna happen) and 48 yards to hit 21,000 for his career. Now there's a nice goal for what once again could be his last game... 5 more touchdowns to reach 150, not gonna happen, right?

I've clearly been lacking in paying attention to the right things though, only now do I find out that our star defensive tackle Darien Fletcher has been on the field much less than his side kicks Harold Gough and Caleb Domis, a duo that's actually still in the race for one of them to be the second All-IHOF second teamer. I hope they both fail as this dreadful team does not deserve to get All-IHOF honors. Which Devon Farrell will undoubtfully get as a clear cut 1st teamer.

Which all sounds the season is over already, but it really isn't we get a chance to beat Paris in their place, always nice to do something like that. The way we've been playing lately? No way, The way we played in the last three road games? Well, we might even blow them away and brush away the -33 in points differential. That should be our goal, to at least even that out. A loss would put us in the worst 7 seasons (8th if we lose by a single point, 6th if we lose by 3 scores one more time, 5th place would require losing by 37 points) all time in that metric, I really hope to not see us fall that hard and deep.

We're better than that, team. Much better. So show it to the world. Y'all can do it, go Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: How 2095 ended...
Like, good, yet not great at all.

The last game of the 2095 regular season, with basically nothing to play for (yeah, other general managers would say: draft position!, in my opinion, we always play to have a worse draft position, always). We visited the Paris Musketeers and it turned out to be far from a close contest between two losing teams. While the Musketeers embarrassed themselves, continuing to think they can throw the ball on every down, the Merchantmen tired to prove they were worthy of at least ending the season close to 'in balance' in points differential. After a 34-3 demonstration, the team came a field goal short of turning the season into a positive, making it our 19th all time in the negative.

European Division
1. Gothenburg 13-3 (#1 seed)
2. Bordeaux 8-8
3. Maassluis 7-9
4. Paris 3-13

The Vineyards had a chance to make the playoffs, but lost 45-38 at home against the Gothenburg Giants in a game that couldn't jeopardize that #1 seed in the playoffs. The Giants made the best of their top seed, steamrolled through their two AOC playoffs games, only to fall behind 27-3 in the IHOF Bowl and despite dominating the second half, falling 27-19 to the Texas Sharks.


Earnest Ashley finished the season completing 320 of 641 passes (as close as one can be to 50% with an odd number of attempts) for 4,117 yards (13nd in the league), 27 touchdowns (tied 10th in the league) and 21 interceptions (tied 5th most in the league). He ran for 6.56 yards per carry, which hints at giving him a bit more freedom in that area, maybe, but he did fumble 5 times (he got sacked 27 times).

Trey Beyer ran for 691 yards (3.99 per carry), Jack Crane for 413 yards (4.35) and Francisco Patter for 267 yards (3.42), with Beyer scoring 7 touchdowns, Patter 3 touchdowns. Not a threeheaded monkey per se, Beyer took roughly half the carries, while Crane and Patter shared the change of pace carries about 50-50, with Crane also taking the third down stuff, converting a depressing low 6 of 23 attempts, that's Merchantmen unworthy, Jack.

Clay Gaynor had 83 catches for 899 yards and 6 touchdowns
Ed Schulz had 67 catches for 1,161 yards and 4 touchdowns
George Stuckey had 62 catches for 819 yards and 9 touchdowns
Theodore Bondy had 53 catches for 626 yards and 6 touchdowns
Clarence Gore had 39 catches for 431 yards and 2 touchdowns
Gaynor was 3rd in catches amongst tight ends, 5th in yardage amongst his peers, 29th amongst all positions, while Schulz was 18th in the league in yardage (one of 24 to get to 1,000 yards), but really excelled in length being 7th in yards per target and 3rd per catch. Stuckey was tied 9th in most touchdowns, result of being heavily used in the red zone by us.

Howard Humphrey once again lead the line with the most key run blocks (29), clearly ahead of Desmond Pritchett (22), Robbie Zinn (20) and Johnnie Houston (17). Andre Watson had 11 in 7 starts, Isaac Delgado only 6 in 9 starts. Delgado was clearly the weakest link on our pass protection as well, which doesn't bode well for him. Fullback Clay Brosseau finished the season with 0 key run blocks. Yes, you read that right: 0 key run blocks in 188 running plays.

On the defense, it's not really worth listing every single starter. Brandon Brady lead the team in tackles, as to be expected, 132 pieces ranking him 3rd in the league. Devon Farrell had exactly 100 tackles, but also 6 interceptions and 10 defended passes. Adam Harmon lead the team with 15 defended passes, Clayton Jackson had 13 of those. Zachery Weisz had 5 interceptions. Gene Kondovski and rookie Richie Piotte shared the team lead with 8.5 sacks, with defensive tackles Harold Gough (7.0) and Caleb Domis (6.5) not far behind.

Our superstar punter Doug James played in the last 7 games and was clearly not the kind of player he was as a rookie. We'll have a tough decision to make, having to opt for another season of Old Doug Gouynes, or looking further at this position altogether...

And let's wrap the 2095 season up at that. We played several good games, but also ended up getting a freaking high 5 games where we lost by 21+ points, which is an insane number. I haven't checked the numbers, it feels too discouraging to find out it really was our worst season ever in that regard, which I fully expect it to be.

Goodbye 2095, bring on 2096!

General Manager Notes: ... and how 2096 started
Like with a big surprise.

Theodore Bondy decided to return for another season! Even playing a WR3 role for the later part of the season wasn't a reason to think he's lost the love of the game. Theo will join us for an 15th straight season, providing he makes the regular season roster, obviously.

Our former Linebacker Craig McCorkle was to my own surprise inducted into the Solecismic Hall of Fame. Our 18th overall pick in the 2079 draft, he played 9 seasons with us, all but the rookie campaign as a full time starter. He played out his career after we traded him in 2088 over cap woes for 3 seasons with the Arizona Miners and a final season with the Fairbanks Northstars. Yes, he was great, one of the 10 best linebackers in team history, but only the 3rd to deserve HOF honors? He played in 143 regular season and 9 playoffs games for us. A complete linebacker, no doubt. Those final four season on a league wide scale did make him jump into a realm of good enough, it seems.

Sticking with the retired players theme, our former standout defensive tackle Heath Oliver, a cap casualty as well in 2088, apparently retired following the 2094 season. Initially a Merchantmen great (he ended up playing 5 seasons with us, 79 games in total), his stint with the Gothenburg Giants will become his true home with 7 seasons and over 100 games played for them. A one-time All-IHOF team selection, it remains to be seen whether the HOF selection committee deems him worthy. I suspect he'll fall short, despite how massive a player he was.

We also learned about the retirement of our one-season defensive end project Jorge Marone. Despite being a third round pick, we gave up on him after just one season and eventually he proved us wrong. He bounced around a bit, almost retiring in 2086, but the Chesapeake Chitterlings gave him a future contract. He failed to make their 2086 team, then bounced around from Rochester to Paris and by trade ended up in Chesapeake again, playing for 7 seasons there, without missing a game. He finished his career with 60.0 sacks and most importantly: an IHOF Bowl victory at the end of the 2093 season.

Four of our own players on roster decided to not return for the 2096 season.

Quarterback Moe Sheldon joined us in 2088 after the cap woes decimated our team, stepping in after we release Ellis McAlister. Sheldon had to fend off several young projects to still end up starting in 74 regular season games for us in 8 seasons on roster. 2091 was clearly his best season, when he threw for 24 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions in 14 games guiding us to a bye week and a close loss in the AOC Championship game. Lately he mentored Earnest Ashley.

Cornerback Jackie Richardson's role had gotten smaller here, slowly falling from a highly touted shutdown cornerback signed as a free agent in 2090 to our fourth corner last season, mentoring the youngsters. He played for 6 seasons in San Antonio prior to joining us and spent 6 seasons with us as well. He ended up played in 96 games, including 4 in the playoffs.

Guard Desmond Pritchett leaves us after just one season. We felt he was still good enough for another season or two as a starter, but he decided otherwise, making 2095 his only season in Maassluis.

Long snapper Bryce Karney joined us late in his career, after 4 seasons in Moontown and 4 seasons in Gothenburg. He topped those figures with 6 seasons in Maassluis, playing in 96 total games for us. He lost the 2083 bowl game with Moontown against Gothenburg, then lost the 2088 bowl game with Gothenburg against Oakland, meaning he went to two bowl games without victory.

Last but certainly not least, wide receiver Nicolas Coady retired. We picked him in the 5th round of the 2095 draft and it had been my plan to bring him back during the season if the opportunity would arise after we solved the punter puzzle, an injured reserve would make room for him, or maybe in the post-season after us getting eliminated. I forgot about it and as such, the kid decided to retire. Quite the bummer, I really wanted to see what he could show us in his second training camp and pre-season, this kid was one of the most enigmatic players we ever drafted in terms of how good or bad he might be. We'll never know, forever he'll fail to go into the history books to have ever played a down in the IHOF...

With all that said, we're entering the 2096 off-season with 44 players on roster and 9 draft picks as we have two additional 3rd rounders, which adds up to 53 players already. We have 5 restricted free agents that I will probably attempt to re-sign in kick holder Jon Giles, tight end Ike Nixon, guard Vince Henselman, special teams linebacker Jose Meadows and interceptions specialist cornerback Britt Hudson.

Okay, full roster, but we actually have $85 million in cap space. Yes, you're reading that correctly. Obviously some of that is reserved for the draft picks, including an expensive #12 overall pick, which together add up to roughly $28 million, giving us about $57 million to play around with. How about that!

And trust me, we're going to invest that money. Some of it will go to underpaid last year of contract players like Ed Schulz and Robbie Zinn, maybe Clayton Jackson, Darien Fletcher and George Stuckey will convince me. Theodore Bondy is also up for renewal. At the same time, our most expensive wide receiver is Branden Sandlin. Indeed, the backup that played in only 2 games last season, he's currently 4th highest paid on team...

So, we're onto a new off-season with cap space to work with, a young quarterback that I still have faith in, a future hall of fame wide receiver that might hang around for another season and lots of plans to improve our defense to bring us really back to Merchantmen worthy levels. The Gothenburg Giants have dominated this division long enough now, it's time to end their streak of AOC Championship game clashes with the Tucker Tigers. Let's do this, Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: It's all so quiet...
Yeah, the off-season isn't flashy so far.

First things first.
I made a blunder. A big one.
Okay, not really, I completely misunderstood how player agents work in this world. The plan was to make a big offer to the free agent quarterback Angel Henson, the guy that went #1 overall in the Brandon Bell draft. Bell won the head-to-head game, but currently is enjoying (is he, really?) his retirement. Henson mistakenly ended up in the free agents pool and at to be expected from quite possibly the best quarterback in the league, he wanted big money. In an attempt to make him an offer worth considering, I calculated what we could get available and made him a very serious offer: $205M signing bonus and a $44M salary for each of the next four seasons. The bonus is the highest I could offer, the salary was based on the calculation that we'd have about $127M available and need to reserve about $10M to be able to extend Robbie Zinn and Ed Schulz, our most prominent in their prime offensive players. We agreed terms with six expensive players to save cap space this season and even released angry defensive tackle Jumbo Mojica.

All for nothing, as it turned out we offered Henson the contract before we made the other moves. Apparently player agents will turn down 'over the cap' offers before it's time to make a decision. All the moves we made gone to waste, meaning we'll likely end up with a truckload of cap space going to waste, which we could have used to pull forward future contracts into flat ones. Henson ended up signing with his own team Frederick Red Menace for $146M/year over 3 years. No, we could not have made that work under the $524M salary cap.

We also missed out on the phenomenal wide receiver Tevin Lester, whom we figured we could still offer about $30M a year to play together with Henson. Yes. he's 34 years old, but he can still play ball. Alas, no team up of these two future Hall of Famers. Kid signed with the Chesapeake Chitterlings. A team that may have their window of opportunity to close for a season or two after their quarterback retired, but given the team's tradition and skilled general manager, I'm sure they'll surprise the league and post a 12-4 campaign anyway.

Instead we re-hired five restricted free agents: kick holder and nothing but a kick holder Jon Giles, special teamer and nothing but a special teamer Jose Meadows, fourth string tight end Ike Nixon, because we need a backup cornerback Britt Hudson and we have no idea how good this guard Vince Henselman can be.

Oh yeah, the draft kicked off and instead of trading out of the first round, we grabbed the highest graded guard of the class Nickolas Toler. Undersized, not one of the 10 best graded players in this class, but we have a looming hole at on our offensive line and he might be good enough to fill it. But the #12 overall pick on a guard, he'd better be as good as Ricky Castillo was in the 2030's, the best guard to ever play for the Merchantmen, in my opinion, and quite possibly the one player I think was snubbed for Hall of Fame honors, this kid carried the running game back in the day, even more than left tackle Kerry Zumdahl did, who did get enshrined. It was truly a tough decision to trade Castillo and Zumdahl to our biggest rival back in the day and to see them collect 3 IHOF Bowl rings each as body guards of the greatest of all: Jackie Collier. Our tiny little victory was in 2039 when we actually beat them en route to our first and lost IHOF Bowl.

Okay, so, what now? We have $132M in cap space. Yes, you're reading that correctly: $132M in cap space. Even after the consideration of draft picks, we'll still have $100M of unused cap space. Which means we'll get a chance to spend about $50M on the players that need a new deal to avoid seeing them run off as free agents. And still leaving us with $50M to spend on free agents. Which we direly need, because we have 48 players signed and 9 incoming draft picks. So we have $50M to spend on 3 free agents to add up to the 60 men pre-season roster.

We've currently got offers out on two long snappers, a guard who can mentor Toler and Henselman and a punter. Yes, we're trying to bring 3 punters into training camp. But I can assure you, I will offer some serious contracts to a handful of interesting players that currently have no idea they're on our radar. We hope to hear good news soon about some of them signing with us.

And from there on, it's back to draft goggles, a triplet of third round picks, and a bunch of later rounders to round out the roster, or to jump ahead of the undrafted rookie free agent pool. Which we have no business looking at with our crappy defensive coordinator and disastrous offensive coordinator. In terms of scouting, that is.

Enough rambling, chin up, glace ahead to what the future will bring us. No wait, what we will get ourselves in that future. It takes effort to make things happen, so let's make that effort. 2095 was just a setback, 2096 will be better, a new chance to tighten the gap to the Gothenburg Giants and reclaim what once was ours: the top spot in the European Division.

General Manager Notes: The luxury of having cap space...
...and finding nobody to spend it on.

Pre-draft free agency didn't go by unnoticed in Maassluis. A sensational number of 6 veteran players signed a contract with the Merchantmen to spend, at least, training camp in and around the Oranje Haven facilities.

Quarterback Efrain Batcheck, 29 years old, 7th season in the league. Was the Outer Banks Ospreys' starter for the last two seasons after riding the Harlem Apollos' bench for four seasons. A former fifth round pick, what not to love about that aspect? We signed him to a two year deal with a $5M bonus and salaries of $7M, which we all know are much less guaranteed. Will battle with Ernest Ashley for the starter role, or otherwise will be forced to mentor him.

Punter Shaun Barlow, 31 years old, 10th season in IHOF. Signed with the Rochester Razorbacks as an undrafted rookie in 2087 and after 6 seasons there was signed by the Williamsburg Colonials. Was twice an All IHOF first teamer. We offered him a 3-year contract, worth $10M/year, including the $10M bonus. This likely leads to the departure of both Doug James (oh, what could have been) and Old Doug Guynes.

Defensive tackle Jerome Shumate, 28 years old, 5th season in the league. A fifth round pick for the Chicago Norsemen back in 2092. He's a bit on the light side to play on the inside, but lacks the height to play outside, so we'll likely put him on the inside anyway, focusing on running downs. We gave him a 3-year deal worth $28M, only the $7M bonus truly guaranteed.

Linebacker Evan Hicks, 33 years old, 12th season in the IHOF. A third rounder midway the '80s, played out his rookie contract with the Chicago Norsemen and after contract disputes in the 2088 off-season decided he wanted to play elsewhere and was signed by the Augusta Greenjackets, who released them this off-season. Should bolster our run defense, if he holds up in camp. Otherwise will walk away with just the $1M bonus on the 1-year deal he signed with us.

Linebacker Hayden McNeil, 31 years old, 11th season in the league. Discovered by the Hanalei Dragons back in 2086 at the end of the fourth round, played out his rookie contract there and then hopped around from the Snapfinger Jazz (4 seasons) to the Houston Mustangs (1 season) and the Arizona Miners (1 season), that last one in a backup role. We see him as an improvement of our running downs unit, or he will walk away with a $2M signing bonus from the 1-year contract we agreed on.

Long snapper Travis Hampton, 30 years old, spent 7 seasons with the Harlem Apollos after being hired as an undrafted rookie. We decided to spend pretty heavy for the position he plays (a $3.5M bonus on a $12.5M 2-year deal), as our staff thinks he's the best guy in business.

And then the draft came, or continued, however you see it. Following the selection of guard Nickolas Toler in the first round, we dealt away a lot of picks, received others as compensation, even traded back into the late fifth round and finished the draft with 8 rookies. After Toler we picked quarterback Kelvin Everett and safety Omar Leszynski in the third round, running back Ronnie Vanden Bosch late in the fifth round (I'm going to regret picking a guy from Den Bosch, it could be a recipe for heartbreak), safety Paul Figures in the sixth round, then we rounded out with three seventh round picks kickoff returning wide receiver Darien Thompson, wide receiver Sebastian Hamilton (our OC is high on high, the rest of the league's OC's thinks much less of him) and long snapper Shawn Goldberg (he was an insurance pick in case Hampton wouldn't sign with us, turns out our staff currently thinks Goldberg is a top8 long snapper in the league, how about that.)

Given the overall ineptitude of our coordinators in judging young players' skills, it was a tough, expensive, but responsible decision to invest in veterans. It will result in an unusual low number of undrafted rookies to join us for training camp.

Which leaves us sitting at $86M under the cap, with 62 players signed. I'm fully expecting to spend a good chunk of that money on players that will be out of contract after this season, to begin with wide receiver George Stuckey, as he decided to tell us he deserves to get a new 4-year deal for roughly $15M/year, which is actually just a small raise over his current $12.75M final season. He's going to get it, although not as backloaded as he's requesting. We'll do the same thing with several other players, but not until mid pre-season, as we all know that football players can do crazy stuff after pre-season week 2 that can make them look completely different.

Training camp will be important too, we'll find out a bit more about our younger players' development. I think that's the next thing we'll report on. Or maybe I'll get into the post-draft, pre-training camp signings before that, we'll see how it goes.

General Manager Notes: No undrafted rookie free agent signings
But we did sign two veterans.

Kurt Ackerman is back in Maassluis. We signed the 33-year old veteran defensive tackle to a two-year minimum salary, minimum bonus contract, to spend at least training camp at Oranje Haven. He'll get a chance to show us he can still play ball, despite that we released him last pre-season, which meant he spent all of the 2095 season in the free agents pool.

Guard Todd Springer was our second veteran signing. We have two young guards on roster who could use some mentoring and why not from an IHOF Bowl winner with 9 seasons of experience as a starter for the Houston Mustangs. He was recently released there and we decided to pick him up on a one-year $15M contract, with a $5M bonus. He should be sketched in as a potential starter, but with our surplus on the offensive line, don't be shocked if he ends up being a backup after pre-season is over.

More amazing has been the complete void of signing undrafted rookie free agents. We're usually a team that heavily scouts that player pile to pick up a diamond in the rough or two, but this off-season we sent contract offers to only two such players and both decided to take an even higher offer from another team, even though we're traditionally offering quite a bit more than rookie minimum salary. I don't see us making any last minute signings for training camp, meaning the seven players selected in the recently finished 2096 draft will be our rookie class.

One of our rookies will make a position switch in training camp: Omar Leszynski will be flipped from safety to cornerback, a position that better suits his body and skills.

We're entering training camp with 64 players signed, which means 4 of them will not even make the pre-season roster. Most likely I'll make a decision in the punters group (3 on roster), maybe at quarterback (4 signed), perhaps at long snapper (2 signed). Rookie wide receiver Sebastian Hamilton is an obvious suspect as well, despite that my OC thinks he's our second best wide receiver on roster, potentially. But we'll have to see how that goes in the next couple of days. Overall we've got: 4 QB, 4 RB, 2 FB, 4 TE, 8 WR, 2 C, 4 G, 3 OT, 3 P, 1 K, 5 DE, 5 DT, 8 LB, 6 CB, 4 S and 2 LS.

For now, it's training camp preparation.

General Manager Notes: No more room for Doug and Doug
It is what it is...

We finished training camp with 64 players on roster. A simple conclusion to make there: 4 players had to be released before pre-season. The decisions were somewhat easy to make. With 3 punters on roster, I decided to release both Doug James and Doug Guynes. Center Aidan Doyle and longsnapper Shawn Goldberg were also released.

Doug James was supposed to become our all-time great punter, we picked him in the second round of the 2093 draft and he proved it with an impressive rookie campaign. Then he blew out his knee in week 1 of the 2094 season. We waited for his recovery, which came midway through the 2095 season, let him take punt for the final 7 games, but it was quite clear that he was no longer the player we drafted. A sad, but easy decision to release him now.

We also released Doug Guynes, the punter that preceded James and jumped in as a repaclement, dubbing him 'Old Doug'. It was nice to have him back, but I decided to stick with our new signing Shaun Barlow.

Center Aidan Doyle wasn't initially on my chop block list, but with the signing of Todd Springer and draft selection of Nickolas Toler made our interior linemen group quite large. We trimmed down to 8 offensive linemen by this move and will keep second year pro Vince Henselman and veteran Andre Watson in mind of for some reason we need to miss Robbie Zinn as our lone center.

Longsnapper Shawn Goldberg was our late seventh round pick, taken as an insurance in case veteran Travis Hamilton wouldn't sign with us. But Hamilton did sign with us, which means we really don't need two longsnappers.


Wait, hold on, MIJB, what happened in training camp!?

Alright, let's take a quick look at the young players that made a good impression in cap and those that made a bad impression. We're going with the traditional scale of 0-100 for pro football players.

+7/+6 G Nickolas Toler
Our first round pick made good progress, our staff (hahaha!) now thinks he's our second best player in potential.

+8/n.c. CB Ernie Grant
Our first round pick last season is making good progress. His endurance continues to be his weakness, but this kid is the real deal.

+4/+4 QB Earnest Ashley
We remember the words from our previous OC, a guy that was very high on Ashley. We've kept believing in Ashley and he made more progress.

+1/+4 QB Kelvin Everett
Let's call this a mixed bag. Pre-season will be interesting.

+4/n.c. G Vince Henselman
Undrafted rookie last season, way too early to be able to judge him, given our OC et al.

+3/+1 CB Omar Leszynski
The move from safety to cornerback sounds nice for him. But it's tough to think this third round pick will actually make our regular season roster...

+2/+2 DE Richie Piotte
Our second round pick last season continues to grow into an elite defensive end.

+2/+1 CB Bryson Swafford
Still growing, but in his third year now, he'll have to prove he's starting material.

+2/n.c. KH Jon Giles
Best kick holder in the game, according to my OC (not this guy again!?), but I'm seriously considering to cut him in favor of the older but slightly less impressive backup Efrain Batcheck.

+2/n.c. TE Ike Nixon
Fourth season on team, if he survives the cuts wave, but he's still green. It's likely he'll be our TE4 once again.

no change WR Ed Schulz
Yeah, just mentioning him because of the "no change". It's becoming more clear that his potential of 70ish will never be reached and he'll be stuck at 55ish.

+1/-2 WR/KR Darien Thompson
Underwhelming receiver, okay kickoff returner. If he holds up, he might win that role. Might.

+1/-4 WR Sebastian Hamilton
This guy will drop, drop hard. But for now we tell our OC: good choice, getting a 50ish wide receiver in the seventh round!

-1/-6 RB Ronnie Vanden Bosch
Have I mentioned that our OC can't judge young offensive players, making it pretty much pointless to draw conclusions? I will try to make this fifth round pick still, unless his last name continues to annoy me.

+3/-14 S Paul Figures
Yeah, figures... He is only a sixth round pick and might still be pretty okay.

Enough about training camp, pre-season week 2 is upcoming and might completely change everything I just thought about these young players. Stay tuned...

General Manager Notes: Bye bye Francisco Patter
And six other players, our tentative 53 men list is set.

This is part of the business: making tough decision on players that have been reliable and loyal for so many seasons. Today we trimmed down our roster to 53 players, following the first two games of pre-season action. Who did we release?

Running back Francisco Patter, 9 seasons on team, 137 regular season games, 6 playoffs games. A 7th round pick in the 2087 draft, was an active member of the team since day one. From season two and onwards was part of the tandem with Reggie Thongchan'. Ran for 1,000 yards in '89 and '90. Saw his role get smaller lasgt season in a three-headed rotation, most notably losing third down duties to Jack Crane. Patter is top10 all-time for us with 5,754 rushing yards and 35 rushing touchdowns.

Defensive tackle Kurt Ackerman leaves us for the second time in his career. We rehired him prior to training camp, after we had already released him in the 2095 pre-season roster cut waves. I fully expect him to retire after this season, despite that he's still one a fine pass rushers at his position.

Seventh round rookie wide receiver Sebastian Hamilton was an easy release. Our offensive coordinator was all over this kid, claiming he would be a potential WR2. Guess again, he won't make the team.

Wide receiver Rickey Lyle had been on the chopping block before, but this time he wasn't going to make our team as the kickoff returner. He was okay at that, got that role the plast two seasons. Initially a high second round pick in 2091, picked in hopes of turning him into value again as we tried to trade that pick without success. Lyle leaves with just 46 receptions for 461 yards and 3 receiving touchdowns in 46 games for us.

Safety Paul Figures was our medium high sixth round pick. The way he looks now to our defensive coordinator, there's no reason to keep him, even knowing he was our fourth safety on roster.

Linebacker Evan Hicks leaves us after training camp and 2 pre-season games. It's not like he didn't look like the kind of player we thought he can be, he held up quite well despite his age, but we still have Daquan Espino and especially have the emerging Andrew Cochrane.

Cornerback Britt Hudson leaves us after 3 seasons. Discovered as an undrafted rookie, initially signed and released by the Chesapeake Chitterlings. Decent special teamer, nose for interceptions. But in 35 games played for us, 2 interceptions wasn't enough to convince me.


Otherwise, pre-season was a mixed bag, as to be expected with a dreadful scouting coordinator duo as we have. The key results from the re-scouting of players:

QB Earnest Ashley +8/+8, an increase that we expected to see. He's still signed cheap to his rookie contract, but next off-season we'll have a decision to make. Ashley's demands have increased to somewhere around $55M per season. Well, you can prove yourself this season, kid.

WR/KR Darien Thompson +2/+8, our original seventh round pick in the recent draft. No, he won't play on our offense, but his kickoff return skills and special teams skill make him an easy addition to the 46-men active roster. Fans love him too, let's just hope he doesn't fumble...

WR Theodore Bondy -12/-12, the legend, the future Hall of Famer, the 37-year old that returns for his 15th season and will make the team. Has little gas in the tank left as a true receiver though, I might have to think twice about what his role will and can be behind Ed Schulz and George Stuckey. He will be a no-brainer on the special teams unit though.

C Robbie Zinn -18/-18. Yeah, this looks bad, but at least he was considered to be so good that it means he's still an above average starting center in the league.

LT Isaac Delgado +15/+15. No surprise here, we knew he was better than our OC had him at. Our previous superior scout was convinced about this kid. It's quite the decision to make here as Johnnie Houston to me feels like he's still the better pass protecting left tackle, while Howard Humphrey remains to be a solid run blocking right tackle. But I guess it's really between Humphrey and rookie Nickolas Toler to be the right guard, with veteran free agent Todd Springer jumping into the left guard spot. Luxury decision to make here.

DE Gene Kondovski -12/-12. This means he'll be demoted to less action, but still on the rotation.
DE Richie Piotte +5/+5. This kid is so great, he's going to be the complete end that we need. This unit will be quite good this season, with the addition of veteran DT Jerome Shumate.

LB Andrew Cochrane +7/+7. This has been one of those players that made progress before, dropped last season, but now he regains the trust from our defensive coordinator. I think he improved just enough to over take Daquan Espino as one of our running downs linebackers. Add in his special teams skills and this guy is a lock for the 46-men active roster.

LB Brandon Brady -9/-9. The decline has kicked in. He's still impressive, but not extraordinary.

CB Ernie Grant +1/+8. Yeah, I trusted in this guy, and it continues to look like a good decision. Goes into his second season as our clear shutdown corner. His endurance is starting to catch up with his pass defending skills as well now. Peter Tucker, Kirk Hitchcock, watch out: this kid has what it takes to challenge you for best cornerback in Merchantmen history.

S Chuck Murray +7/+7. A welcome improvement from the 7th year veteran. Unhappy about playing time, but this is reason enough to bring him back into the running downs rotation and consider him again for the dime formation.

LS Travis Hampton -2/-2. This sounds like a small decline, but fact is that Hampton went from best longsnapper by my scout to like 6th best. Still excellent, but just not the best and as such worth the cap space we invested in him.

So, that's where we are now.

Pre-season action?
We lost 16-13 at home against the Chesapeake Chitterlings and followed up with a 31-10 loss at the reigning IHOF champions Texas Sharks. To be fair, on paper the toughest competition we could face, aside maybe the Oakland Black Panthers. Earnest Ashley was dreadful in both games, didn't even sniff at his 50% completed passes from last season, threw 3 interceptions and didn't even scramble in either game. Backup Efrain Batcheck played on the same level as Ashley, making this look like a no-brainer. We're going to let rookie Kelvin Everett play a bit in the last two pre-season games. Yes, Everett will make the team as our fourth quarterback. Rookie Ronnie Vanden Bosch ran okay enough to make the 53-men roster, for now. Theodore Bondy had 1 reception on 10 targets, ouch. The defense had 9.0 sacks in the two games combined. And as per usual, the staff annoyed me quite a bit by replacing rookie guard Nickolas Toler in both games, while endurance lacking veterans were kept on the field for the full game. Stop doing that. Seriously! It's annoying!

So, what's next? Renegotiations with the players that are still on roster and will be out of contract after this season. Because that's what the second half of pre-season is for, and is the only stage of the season where it actually makes sense to extend contracts. We have close to 20 players to talk with, but I seriously doubt that the flat contracts that we'll give them will take away all of the $76M of cap space that we still have. We have the 5th most cap space in the league. Insanity.

So, that's where we're at. We finish the pre-season with games against the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums and at the Capital City Blues.

General Manager Notes: Pre-season in the books...
We suck. In pre-season. But will we when it counts?

Our 53-men roster is set. Really. I'm not going scavenger hunting through the free agents pile and the trade block. Let's take a look at the players that are supposed to make the 2096 season a success for the Maassluis Merchantmen! (As per usual, I'll round overall ratings down to the 5's and 10's.)

player	cur/fut	how acquired	notes
QB Earnest Ashley	55/55	'94 pick #39	our starting QB
QB Efrain Batcheck	45/45	'96 FA	our backup, mentor QB
QB Kelvin Everett	10/40	'96 pick #77	our project?
QB Jon Giles	25/35	'93 URFA	just a kick holder
RB Trey Beyer	35/35	'91 pick #137	RB rotation
RB Jack Crane	40/40	'95 FA	RB rotation
RB Ronnie Vanden Bosch	30/35		RB rotation
FB Clay Brosseau	20/20	'86 URFA	lead FB
FB Owen Johnston	25/25	'94 URFA	backup FB
TE Renaldo Crawford	15/15	'88 FA	run blocking TE
TE Clay Gaynor	55/55	'90 pick #17	starting TE
TE Clarence Gore	40/40	'91 pick #151	receiving TE2
TE Ike Nixon	25/25	'93 URFA	backup TE
FL Mark Perkins	20/20	'92 URFA	our PR guy
FL Branden Sandlin	35/35	'87 pick #186	gold old WR4
FL Ed Schulz	55/70	'93 pick #16	our fast WR1
FL George Stuckey	50/50	'90 pick #50	our decent WR2
FL Darien Thompson	15/25	'96 pick #206	our KR guy
SE Theodore Bondy	35/35	'82 pick #8	our legend WR3
C Robbie Zinn	65/65	'93 pick #34	starting C
LG Nickolas Toler	45/75	'96 pick #12	our OL6 project
RG Vince Henselman	30/50	'95 URFA	reserve run blocking G
RG Todd Springer	60/60	'96 FA	our starting LG
RG Andre Watson	30/30	'86 pick #125	veteran backup G
LT Isaac Delgado	75/75	'94 pick #14	complete OT
LT Johnnie Houston	60/60	'94 pick #46	pass protection LT
RT Howard Humphrey	45/45	'85 pick #9	our starting RG
P Shaun Barlow	60/60	'96 FA	our punter
K Dylan McMullen	70/70	'94 FA	our kicker
LDE Archie Exner	45/45	'87 URFA	pass rusher
LDE Gene Kondovski	35/35	'86 pick #90	another pass rusher
LDE Richie Piotte	70/70	'95 pick #48	our star DE
RDE Caiden Croyle	55/55	'95 FA	Piotte's side kick
RDT Caleb Domis	45/45	'93 pick #187	pass rusher
RDT Harold Gough	45/45	'94 pick #78	pass rusher
RDT Jerome Shumate	55/55	'96 FA	complete DT
NT Darien Fletcher	55/55	'89 pick #9	stud DT
WILB Andrew Cochrane	40/40	'94 URFA	run defender, special teamer
MLB Daquan Espino	50/50	'86 pick #29	unhappy backup
MLB Hayden McNeil	55/55	'96 FA	run defender
MLB Brant Rayburn	10/10	'90 URFA	special teamer
SLB Brandon Brady	65/65	'90 pick #19	our star LB
SLB Clayton Jackson	40/40	'87 pick #89	pass defending LB
WLB Jose Meadows	25/25	'93 URFA	special teamer
LCB Ernie Grant	65/80	'95 pick #17	our shutdown CB
LCB Adam Harmon	40/40	'90 URFA	zone defender
LCB Omar Leszynski	20/50	'96 pick #78	reserve
LCB Bryson Swafford	50/50	'94 pick #43	running downs CB
LCB Zachery Weisz	45/45	'94 pick #81	zone defender
SS Devon Farrell	65/65	'91 pick #28	our star S
SS Chuck Murray	45/45	'90 URFA	running downs S
FS Jon Brotzman	35/35	'90 URFA	passing downs S
LS Travis Hamilton	20/20	'96 FA	long snapper

Question marks remaining?

Jon Giles is our kick holder, but Efrain Batcheck is decent enough to actually consider dropping Giles and actually do that scavenger hunting. Kelvin Everett looks too promising to give up on him now.

The wide receiver situation is good, but not great. Schulz and Stuckey have proven they can play ball, while Bondy and Sandlin will be cohesion rising WR3 and WR4 options. Yes, Sandlin will be back to the active roster.

I'm flipping coins between Toler, Springer and Humphrey for 2 OL starting roles. Zinn is our center, Houston the LT, Douglas the RT or LG. Toler is our future stud, he needs playing time, but Springer is currently much better. Humphrey is a running game cohesion bomb for the OL, but he's also a pass protection liability. Maybe we're going to take a game by game kind of approach...

On the D-Line I'm thinking it might be better to split up Piotte and Croyle and team them up with the long timers Exner and Kondovski to spread the talent and cohesion around. At the DT spot that's less of an issue as Fletcher is the only cohesion bomb.

At the linebacker group, It's worth considering to push Rayburn aside and add Brady to the special teams unit as our third linebacker.

I think that gets you up to date with where we stand.

General Manager Notes: New Season, new opportunities!
And we kick it off with a loss... Again.

After three seasons of starting it on the road, finally, we got a season opener in Oranje Haven. As per usual, one of our division rivals came to town and the Bordeaux Vineyards were the lucky ones. After a 6-1-1 series in the first four seasons against quarterback Walter Czech, last season he turned the tide and lead the Vineyards to victories against us. Given that, he has grown into the kind of player maker that we have to fear.

First quarter, Merchantmen draw first blood with a field goal after Earnest Ashley had found Clay Gaynor for 27 yards and Ed Schulz for 35 yards. Bordeaux tied it up 3-3 after Czech found Reggie Springer for 32 yards and Rusti Siavii ran for 28 yards. With a steady drive, Ashley drove us down field, saw rookie Ronnie Vanden Bosch run for 22 yards, inches short of a touchdown, but two plays later Ashley found touchdown machine George Stuckey for the 10-3 lead. A team effort strip sack by the defensive tackles gave us a chance to rack it up, but Ashley immediately followed up with an interception on a short pass.

Bordeaux got their engines running in the second quarter and leaning heavily on their running game eventually saw one of their backs pound it in for the 10-10 tied score. After three and out and a quick stop after four plays, We were at bat next and this time Earnest Ashley found Ed Schulz on a 44-yarder to set up Jack Crane's touchdown run for the 17-10 lead. On second and very long our defense chocked and long before the big break, Walt Czech connected to Derrick Velazquaz (yes, that kid that we once drafted and traded as a rookie to Bordeaux) to tie it 17-17. We choked our chance to take the lead before half time, even gave Bordeaux the ball back, but the half time score was 17-17 after all.

Second half, Bordeaux drove deep, but we avoided a field goal attempt and saw Ronnie Vanden Bosch run for 33 yards on our first play from scrimmage, followed by Earnest Ashley's passes for 15 yards to Theodore Bondy and then a 19-yarder for the touchdown to George Stuckey and a 24-17 lead. The ball went back and forth on medium drives, but neither team got a shot to even kick in the remainder of the third quarter.

The fourth quarter pretty much started with a blocked punt from our punter Shaun Barlow, which two plays later resulted in a quick touchdown pass by Walt Czech. After a missed extra point, we were still leading 24-23, thankfully. After three and down with two dropped passes by Theodore Bondy (oh, boy), we lost our run blocking tight end Renaldo Crawford for the rest of the season with a severe achilles injury. Otherwise bad was our defense on a third and five pass from Walt Czech to his tight end Reggie Springer for a 59 yards touchdown, putting us down 30-24, our first time trailing all game long. After three and out and a defensive meltdown, we were ripe for the picking, but Zachery Weisz blocked a short field goal to keep us alive. We drove downfield, anchored by Earnest Ashley's 22-yarder to Theodore Bondy, but our first play inside their red zone ended up in an interception. Our defense held ground to force one more chance for us, but a coaching blunder to punt on fourth down with less than a minute to go and only 1 time out remaining, ended the game for us after Bordeaux went into victory formation three times.

Ashley completed just 19 of 42 passes for 277 yards, 2 touchdowns, 2 interceptions. Yes, he's still in that 50% zone. Maybe we need to give him more easy short throws in our game plan? Clay Gaynor made 6 catches on 16 targets (are we overusing him?) for 80 yards. Ed Schulz had 93 yards on 3 catches (are we underusing him?) George Stuckey had 2 touchdowns, Theo Bondy had 3 catches on 8 targets. Rookie Ronnie Vanden Bosch ran for 62 yards on 5 carries, while veterans Beyer and Crane combined for 76 yards on 20 carries. The defense? They gave up 445 total yards. Still, we had chances, but we didn't take advantage of them and eventually lost this coin flip game.

Division
1. Paris 1-0
2. Bordeaux 1-0
3. Maassluis 0-1
4. Gothenburg 0-1

Yup, the reigning division and conference champions Gothenburg Giants lost 28-6 at home against the Paris Musketeers. Paris had quarterback Cary Bradford starting for the first time in 7 seasons in the league, completed 17 of 25 passes for 212 yards. He once was the Orlando Talons' mr. Irrelevant.

No time to keep sogging about our performance today, we have a new game upcoming, at the Outer Banks Ospreys, the only team to start the season with a shutout, handed to them by the Moontown Illuminati. Yes, based on our player collective, we have every reason to think we can't just win there, but do it by a good margin. Which usually is the kind of game we end up losing.

But not this time, team. Don't be like that. We've had our brain fart decision in week 1, a monumental one, from here on it can't get worse, can it? Go make us proud, go Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: Another whirlwind?
Or was week 1 the anomaly?

Two games further into the season and we're suddenly a winning team, at least for now. We came back from 14-0 down in Outer Banks to beat the Ospreys 23-17, while we kicked a lot of field goals while beating the Orlando Talons 26-6 in Oranje Haven. So yes, we're 2-1 and back in the mix.

Division:
1. Bordeaux 2-1
2. Paris 2-1
3. Maassluis 2-1
4. Gothenburg 1-2

Ok, hold on, let's get back to those games and how we won them.

In Outer Banks, we got ran over (26 carries for 152 yards), failed to put down a running game in return (52 yards on 26 carries? seriously, OL, you're a lot better than that!), but in a 50-50 passing game game, Earnest Ashley was mistake free, while our cornerbacks combined for 3 interceptions to help set up a field goal, nullify a punt return fumble and to secure the win.

Against Orlando, we got outgained in total yards again, but penalties and solid return yardage added up to winning the turnover battle. Our running game was reborn (140 yards on 25 carries), while Earnest Ashley struggled, yet got the job down with a rare under 200 yards showing. Ronnie Vanden Bosch ran for 62 yards on 10 carries, too bad the rookie lacks the stamina to tote the rock more than that. Richie Piotte had 3.0 sacks and also lead the defense with 6 tackles.

Overall, our investment in run stoppers isn't getting any results at all. We're giving up 5.13 yards per carry, 147 per game. Our pass defense is giving up a second worst 13.3 yards per catch. Overall we're allowing 391 yards per game, 4th most in the league. Imagine what our statistics would be like had we not had a roster loaded with topnotch defenders (Piotte, Fletcher, Brady, Grant, Farrell)... Oh, right: 3 games, small sample size.

So, next up, we're going to get a real test. Or not really, as per usual, week 4 is once again our bye week.

Last and almost ignorable: we placed tight end Renaldo Crawford on injured reserve and signed Jeffery Blake as his replacement as our run blocking TE3. He's returning to Maassluis after three seasons of floating around for one-season stints in Augusta, Gothenburg and Harlem. He returned in the road game at Outer Banks. His previous game with us? Our last playoffs game in the 2092 season after an 11-5 campaign and as a wild card reaching the conference semi finals. With Blake back on board, we've won back-to-back games. Let's hope he'll turn out to be our lucky charm, an unjinxable one.

General Manager Notes: We're winning games
But so is the rest of the division.

Once again, I'm going to start with the division standings, because after 6 weeks of small sample size football, this division is as tight and competitive as one can be.

1. Gothenburg 4-2
2. Bordeaux 3-2
3. Paris 3-2
4. Maassluis 3-2

Yup, that's right: we're in last place, despite a winning record. Not unique, but rare enough to wonder what more we can do, other than make sure we stopping losing games.

Because "losing" is how we continued the season. In a back and forth game against the North Plainfield Plague, defenses weren't just impressive, they kind of dominated. We were held to 267 total yards, while we allowed only 253 total yards. With 4 turnovers on each end, you'd think we'd probably won this one? To the contrary though, our special teams unit allowed 148 punt return yards, but in return we blocked a punt and scored a touchdown on that play. In the end, it wasn't sufficient at all. The Plague scored their 31-23 lead taking touchdown with less than 5 minutes to go and in the final two minutes a pick six was the final nail in the coffin for a 38-23 deficit on the road. Earnest Ashley in particular must not have slept well after this game: 3 interceptions, 7 times sacked and 3 fumbles on those plays.

Week 6, at home against the Rochester Razorbacks. The Merchantmen defense was once again impressive, but this time around Earnest Ashley displayed another side of him, earning Solecismic Offense Player of the Week honors as he completed 24 of 40 passes for 318 yards, 3 touchdowns, no turnovers and a running touchdown to boost. The defense allowed only 155 total yards, anchored by second-year professionals defensive end Richie Piotte (2 sacks) and cornerback Ernie Grant.

Next up a new chapter in the Futility Bowl rivalry against the Toronto Lake Monsters. The current Northeast division leaders as per usual will be visiting Oranje Haven for this clash. An opponent that will give Earnest Ashley favorable flashbacks as he posted his first career victory in a 34-14 victory in the 2094 season, the then rookie threw for 245 yards and 4 touchdowns. More of that tomorrow would be very welcome, we need everybody to up their game or continue playing like they did in week 6 to stand a chance in this strong division. Keep this up, Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: Too early to throw the towel...
... but I can't deny I'm reaching for it.

Goodness, can football be a weird ball game. We gain 176 total yards, give up 330, don't win the turnover battle, have more penalties and we lose just 23-17 to the Toronto Lake Monsters. Then we gain 391 yards, give up 224 yards. don't lose the turnover battle, but 127 yards in penalties hurt us and we lose 17-13 against the Paris Musketeers at home.

Fair to say, I think our season is in ruins, impossible to fix. We've played 7 games, 5 of those at home and we've already lost 3 of those in our place. That's a recipe for a 6-10 season. Sure, we're still outscoring opponents, but these last two games were a confidence breaker followed up by a game of whatever we do right, we'll find a way to lose anyway.

Is there reason to lose confidence in our quarterback? I don't think so. Despite completing 47 percent of his passes, he's moving the ball 241 yards forward. I don't think he's a pick machine, despite 8 in 7 games and 56 in 39 career games. I'm skeptic that our game plan is terrible, although I must admit I made some chances for the game against the Musketeers. His receivers are far from replacement level players, I truly believe that a trio like Ed Schulz, George Stuckey and Clay Gaynor should be able to combine for 200 yards and 2 touchdowns every single game, no exceptions allowed.

Should we give the ball to Ronnie Vanden Bosch more often? He's our leading rusher with 236 yards, despite the third most carries of the running back trio. But his elusiveness isn't just his problem, unexplainably it's catching on to the guys that don't have that disease, even Jack Crane.

Division:
1. Gothenburg 6-2
2. Paris 5-2
3. Bordeaux 3-4
4. Maassluis 3-4

Are we still alive? Of course we are! Win the next 9 and there's quite simply no way we'll miss the playoffs. And if Richie Piotte keeps this up (he's leading the league with 9.5 sacks), we should be able to run havoc on every offensive line and quarterback we'll face in the last 9 regular season games.

Merchantmen, this season isn't over. It's far from, we're not even half way there yet! Chin up, don't be afraid to catch the wind in your face, it's part of life. This too is football. Stand firm, don't give up, we've got what it takes, just start acting like we do!

General Manager Notes: When it rains, it pours...
No wait, the sun is shining!

Two more games in the bag and we've returned to winning football in them. We bounced back with a 36-23 victory at the Harlem Apollos, scoring touchdowns while they settled for field goals. It was a breakthrough game of sorts for Ed Schulz. So far, our lighting speed quick wide receiver had struggled to even top the 100 yards mark, doing it 5 times in 52 games, but at Harlem he made the most of his 7 catches with 202 yards. Earnest Ashley spread around the touchdown slings to his three tight ends and the legend Theodore Bondy.

We followed up with a solid, yet scoreboard technically underwhelming 3-0 victory at the Bordeaux Vineyards. Holding them to 220 total yards with Walt Czech completing just 18 of 36 passes for 111 yards was the most impressive statline from our defense. Earnest Ashley posted his second straight 300-yard game, but as we were consistently pushed back deep inside our own half to start drives and struggled to reach midfield as well, it remained to be a game where Bordeaux just needed one big play to bounce back and in the final two minutes, they came one or two plays time short of field goal range.

European Division:
1. Paris 6-3
2. Gothenburg 6-3
3. Maassluis 5-4
4. Bordeaux 3-6

Wait, what? Indeed, the Paris Musketeers have managed to sweep the Gothenburg Giants and are the shocking division leaders. Yes, we found a curious way to lose to them as well, in week 9 they saw the Giants' kicker miss a potential game winning field goal in their 30-29 victory. Is Bordeaux done? Never say never, but this appears to have turned into a lost season for them. Unless they bounce back tomorrow in Paris.

Our next stop is Gothenburg. Sure, there's reason to be optimistic, but I'm skeptic nevertheless. They're not the best in the league this season, but are third in the league in points scored. A big test for our defense that all of a sudden ranks second in least points allowed. It won't last much longer for one of those units. Heck, if we somehow come away with a 50-49 victory in Gothenburg, I'd still be happy. We'll see what happens, the Giants usually have a trick up their sleeves. I doubt we have one this time around, but never say never. Feel free to bring out the clichés on how every game is a new game, and so on...

General Manager Notes: Nope
I give up, 2096 won't be our season.

Today we didn't just lose, we laid down a Merchantmen unworthy result. Losing is one thing, getting crushed is bad enough, but getting shutout 38-0 makes zero sense. This team isn't crappy enough to score just a single field goal in 2 full games. I don't have the motivation to make drastic changes right now, but status quo means regression. It's time for change.

Time to root for your pals over in the Northeast Division! :)

If y'all were helping, sure, but the Northeast went 0-4 against Gothenburg. :rant:

General Manager Notes: Stayin' Alive mode
5 games to go and we're not out of the picture yet.

Granted, unless we start getting more efficient in our red zone offense, we'll be a long shot. But today's 23-13 win over the Capital City Blues at least keeps us in pursuit of both the division title and the wild cards. We gave up an 82-yard pass play in the first quarter to fall behind 10-0, but from there on we regrouped and the defense was strong enough to allow for two more visits to our half of the field and a failed and succeeded field goal on their end was enough to give us a chance. And the offense did just enough to get there. Earnest Ashley struggled once again, 17 of 39 completed passes, but gaining 251 yards with 123 of those by Ed Schulz was just enough to get the job done. Defensively, our should be state of the art pass rush actually lived up to our potential and broke up 15 of 48 passing plays. Richie Piotte was once again the big man, leading the unit with 3.0 sacks. In the secondary, Ernie Grant continues to improve and is turning into the shutdown corner that we thought we selected in the 2095 draft a full round ahead of Piotte.

We lost one of our running backs for the remainder of the season. Jack Crane dropped out with a severe hamstring pull. On the offensive line I made one major change: benching free agency signing Todd Springer. Rookie Nickolas Toler will step in at left guard and get a chance to prove he's a top10 guy from his class. Good old Howard Humphrey will continue to play at right guard, we need him to maintain cohesion on the line. Youngsters Johnnie Houston and Isaac Delgado are undisputed at the tackle slots, Robbie Zinn at center. The only alternative is Delgado at left guard, Toler at right guard and Humphrey at right tackle, but that would put our best run blocker on the left side of the line, while we're running slightly more often to the right.

European Division:
1. Gothenburg 8-3
2. Paris 7-4
3. Maassluis 6-5
4. Bordeaux 3-8

Yup, Bordeaux is done, they lost 6 in a row now. That team is too good for such a record, but there they are, the strongest roster in this division. Gothenburg has 4 road games remaining, but the only way we can catch up with them is not just beating them in our place in week 17, but to get tie-breakers we need to beat Paris in week 15 and hope for the strong Bordeaux team to beat the Giants in that same week.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves, to even be in the mix by then, we'll have to put down a good display at the Fort Wayne Fury in next week's game. Despite their 4-7 record, we know their quarterback Max Dillon too well, he used to be Paris' guy in previous seasons. Sure, we crushed Paris and Dillon twice last season and we beat the Fury in the last three clashes with them, but results in the past are no guarantee on the day after tomorrow. We'll have to stick to the plan, yet find a way to improve it at the same time. The season is far from over, but one game at a time might be the only way to approach it and have a chance come week 17.

General Manager Notes: I don't get this team
One day we suck, the next we beat the champions. Huh?

The rollercoaster that the 2096 season so far has been reached a new low and high. A visit to the Fort Wayne Fury turned from quick 7-0 lead into a 30-7 pummeling, we had no answer at all to quarterback Max Dillon, but in particular were really dreadful offensively. Earnest Ashley was heled to below 200 yards passing, with Ed Schulz making just 2 catches for 16 yards. Meh...

Much less meh-worthy was the home game against the reigning IHOF champions the Texas Sharks. It wasn't like we really outplayed them, I think we didn't, but we got the job done just enough, both in forcing them to kick, while we saw a defense heavy second half result in our go ahead touchdown with just under 3 minutes remaining, while we somehow held them to just a missed field goal to give us an 18-15 victory.

Defensive end Richie Piotte has continued his quest for leading the league in sacks. He reached the 16.0 mark after 13 games, he's second half a sack behind. With that number he's already the second best Merchantmen player in this category, ever, with only Hall of Famer Daquan "Da Machine" Strugielski three times capable to do better than 15.5 in a season. Da Machine's record is 19.5, so if Piotte keeps this pace, he'll get there. The sad part is that his productivity isn't resulting in the whole team racking up the numbers, the guys around him are mindboggling disappointing. I mean, second best is Darien Fletcher with 4.0 sacks. That's unacceptable bad. 29 sacks as a team is below the ability of our defensive line, no, this entire defense. Sure, it's not league worst by all means, but I have greater expectations from a unit like this one.

European Division:
1. Gothenburg 10-3
2. Paris 8-5
3. Maassluis 7-6
4. Bordeaux 4-9

Our next stop? Paris. Yup. The team that we dominated earlier this season but an unprecedented distribution of penalties between the teams handed us a loss. Served us right for our discipline that day, I suppose? I can only hope we avenge that stupidity, as it has made a difference in being in the middle of the playoffs race and hanging on by a last thread.

So, Paris next. We're going to play spoiler from here on. If we luck into the playoffs? So be it, but at this point I just want to regain our pride with a winning record, preferably with wins over Paris and Gothenburg. Paris first. Do it, Merchantmen.

Yeah, they kicked our butts.

General Manager Notes: no winning season, again...
But if we pull the upset, we can end up at 8-8. Yay?

A dreadful season has not quite come to an end yet, we added a couple of losses to the results. The Paris Musketeers didn't play all that well on their own place, but we failed to take advantage, outgaining them by 80 yards, posting 5.7 yards per play versus 3.5 yards per play, it all was not enough to avoid a 20-17 loss. And at that end our last chances for a trip to the playoffs.

You'd think we'd bounce back in a road game at a team fighting for the #1 spot in the draft. Yeah, think again, nothing in this season makes sense. The Moontown Darksiders made the best of all 4 of our giveaways (we had no takeaways) and 2 missed field goals, beating us 26-3. That's right: the fourth game in seven where we were held to 7 or less points. Wow.

At Moontown, Earnest Ashley completed 15 of 48 pass attempts, with 3 interceptions, for 192 yards. A passer rating of 18.7 was his reward. I had no idea he was capable of such a low point in his career, despite thinking he's the kind of player that deserves $40M per season. In 15 games he completed 46% of his passes for 3,609 yards, 18 touchdowns, 20 interceptions. His worst season to date, without a doubt. Even as a green rookie he played better, much better.

Division standings:
1. Paris 10-5
2. Gothenburg 10-5
3. Maassluis 7-8
4. Bordeaux 6-9

Yeah, Gothenburg has been freefalling and we're here to make it worse for them, there's no way we'll roll over for them. Last game of the season is in our house. They have their playoffs ticket booked, contrary to the division leading Musketeers, who can still miss out on tie-breakers if all the other hopefuls from Harlem, Toronto and Augusta all win their last game, as well as the Giants. Which of course is what we will try to not make happen. Our points differential is atrocious at -35. If we tie the last game, it will still go down as the 7th worst season ever. Thankfully a worst ever would require losing by 46 points, I don't see that happening tomorrow. Right? Right!? I mean, you never know with this team, not the way our offense has been playing this season. Goodness, have we completely lost the ability to play football. The offensive coordinator will no longer hear he's the worst in the league in terms of judging player talent, he's clearly unable to get results out of the players at all.

General Manager Notes: .500 land it is
And the unlucky loss of a game report makes me keep this short.

I was working on a big report on how we played the Gothenburg Giants today, had our spoiler role in the playoffs race in the Atlantic Ocean Conference. Then in the middle of my writing, I hit the wrong combination of keys on the keyboard. Gone all my work.

What happened on the field? We beat the Giants 21-6, a quick pick six put us 7-0 up and before the second half was over, the final score was already on the score board. Both teams had a couple of okay drives in the second half, but none came close enough to put points on the board. Earnest Ashley threw for 301 yards, Ed Schulz was his main receiver with 6 catches for 104 yards and a touchdown.

European Division
1. Paris 10-6
2. Gothenburg 10-6
3. Maassluis 8-8
4. Bordeaux 7-9

The season ended here for us, while Gothenburg will have to continue their season in the wild card round at the Harlem Apollos, while a win would have made them the #2 seeds. Paris lost in Bordeaux, also missing out on the #2 seed, as a result hosting the Augusta Greenjackets. The #2 seed went to the Atlanta Vipers, who lost in San Antonio, extending their streak to 3 losses, but with Gothenburg on their 3-loss streak and Paris flipflopping their way into a 10-6 record, it seemed like nobody was capable of holding onto that #2 seed. Atlanta got it in the end after all. I'll spare you the drama in the other conference, it got even crazier there in the race for the last two tickets.

And with that, our season came to an end.

Earnest Ashley had his worst season so far, and I'm afraid the kid and his agent will completely lose sight of what makes sense when you're unable to complete even half of your passes, throwing more interceptions than touchdowns, so I'm sure they'll come up with a completely unrealistic $250M over 5 years kind of contract demands. Yeah... About that... I'm not sure we're going to do that.

Our running game was very "meh". Not just the lack of touchdowns, lack of yards per carry, lack of key run blocks from our linemen, but also the lack of actually carrying the ball. We actually had 1 carry more than last season, which comes to show we've had this problem a season ago as well. We also threw the ball 1 time more than last season. How about that...

Our run defense was improved. Our pass defense even more improved than the run defense. Which makes me draw a simple conclusion: our offensive system is broken. The offensive coordinator can't just not judge player ability, he's not making us play well when we have the ball either. Oh yeah, our special teams unit took a step back as well, which is not something to ignore either.

The outlook for the off-season? We'll be going into it with 51 players signed and roughly $50M in cap space. We'll have our draft picks, with a bonus second round pick from the 4-12 Houston Mustangs, which will be the #36 overall pick. Nice on top of the #15 and #46 picks that we 'earned' with our 8-8 campaign. But the loyal reader knows darn well that I take too much pride to ever consider throwing a game away. Unlike Earnest Ashley has been doing for us this season...

Six new members for the Merchantmen Club of 100
As the 2096 regular season came to an end for the Maassluis Merchantmen in the home game against the Gothenburg Giants, on the field safety Devon Farrell started in his 100th straight game for the Merchantmen. As he's been a day one starter and is yet to miss a game due to injury, with 4 playoffs games in that timespan, he reached the number in his sixth season. Most players need 7 seasons to get to 100, the quickest route would be 5 seasons of 16 regular season games each with 4 playoffs games in each of those 5 seasons. Wide receiver George Stuckey wasn't a day one starter, but he too played his 100th game for the Merchantmen in the final game of the 2096 season.

Farrell and Stuckey join a long list of players, several that are Hall of Famers, while others were long time support cast players. All of them get their name and picture on the walls in Oranje Haven for this achievement in loyalty and longevity. They were two of six players to join the Club of 100 during the 2096 season, as they were preceded by linebacker Brandon Brady, tight end Clay Gaynor, safety Chuck Murray and cornerback Adam Harmon. The walls have gotten pretty full, as with the addition of Farrell and Stuckey there are now 287 players to make it.

Five players are within a football season of joining the club. Safety Jon Brotzman is just 1 game short, as is tight end Jeffery Blake, who returned to Maassluis during the regular season for a second stint. Tight end Clarence Gore is 2 games short. Free agent defensive tackle Kurt Ackermann will have to return for a third stint in Maassluis to join the club, being 12 games played short. Current punt return specialist Mark Perkins is 18 games away, which means he'll need more than just a regular season to jump in.

Where membership of the Club of 100 is achieved during their active careers, so far 83 players have had their name and fame enshrined into the Ring of Honor of the Merchantmen, for which one player is selected and announced at the first exhibition home game of each season. Linebacker Craig McCorkle got his name called this off-season, shortly after being inducted into the leaguewide Solecismic Hall of Fame. McCorkle already was a member of the Club of 100.



Notoriously missing from the Club of 100 are wide receiver Alfredo Bass, running back Stanley Givens and cornerback Randall Allen. The three of them do have their name and fame in the Ring of Honor, where they were added when no candidates were available with 100 games played. All three joined the Merchantmen later on in their careers, retiring shortly before their 100th game played in orange-white-and-blue.

Alfredo Bass played only 48 games for the Merchantmen, but he was a phenomenal wide receiver back in the early years of the IHOF and in only 3 seasons with the Merchantmen, bowing out with a then very respectable 82 catches for 1,229 yards and 9 touchdowns. one might that the Solecismic Hall of Fame restrictions were too harsh back in his day to give Bass a chance to get in.

Randall Allen played 5 seasons for the Merchantmen, was an outstanding shutdown corner back in the '10 and '20s and he too is notoriously missing in the Solecismic Hall of Fame. Allen's 49 career interceptions, 173 defended passes, 13 forced fumbles and 607 tackles in 166 regular season games would in today's era be good enough to make it.

Stanley Givens played only 60 games in 4 seasons for the Merchantmen in his Hall of Fame worthy career. He put his name in the football history books as one of few running backs to truly improve the running game from above average to very hard to stop. Although, his 4.40 yards per carry is deceivingly low, he was part of a phenomenal offensive unit, including fellow Hall of Famers quarterback "Rusty" Harrison and wide receiver Gabe Springer.

General Manager Notes: 2097 begins with end for Theo and Humphrey
Is this the start of a new era?

The off-season in the International House Of Football traditionally starts with a wave of retirements. The wave in Maassluis was sky high, the Merchantmen and Oranje Haven were overwhelmed, can we withstand it? At the same time, we were prepared we knew this day was coming.

Theodore Bondy, wide receiver
8th overall pick in the 2082 draft. Last player standing of his draft class, and we still hoped he wouldn't quit the game at the age of 37. As a rookie impressed with 95 catches for 1,469 yards. In his second year broke out with 153 catches for 2,030 yards and 13 touchdowns and All-IHOF First team honors. 2084 was an off-year, but he bounced back with three sensational seasons. In 2085-2087 "Theo" was a phenomenon, racking up 39 100-yard games, nearly 170 catches per season, 17, 19 and 16 touchdowns, 2,100+ yards with the extreme in 2086 with 2,449 yards. Those seasons Bondy was an undisputed All-IHOF First Team selection and guided the Merchantmen into the playoffs, shined with two 200-yard playoffs games, but the ultimate reward didn't come, the team didn't get past the conference finals. Bondy and the Merchantmen got back to the conference final in 2091, but by then Bondy had turned from phenomenal to extremely good. After 15 seasons, 233 regular season games (Bondy misses 7 games), 13 playoffs games, 1,728 catches (3rd most in league history) for 21,524 yards (also 3rd most in league history) and 150 receiving touchdowns, the journey is over. The #80 jersey will forever be tied to Theo, to never be used again by the orange-white-and-blue.

Howard Humphrey, offensive tackle
#9 overall pick in the 2085 draft. Humphrey was a rare offensive lineman to start as a rookie for the Merchantmen. He delivered immediately with 44 key run blocks in that rookie season. As the starting right tackle, Humphrey was the key run blocker for the Merchantmen for nearly a decade, being a six time All-IHOF First Team selection. After a nasty injury mid-way through the 2093 season, he continued to be a good player, but never returned to be a dominant force. With Humphrey on the team, the Merchantmen got into the playoffs 5 times, never went one-and-done with him as a starter, but the conference championship game was their best performance, achieved in 2085 and 2091. With 178 regular season games played (177 started) and 11 playoffs games in 12 seasons, racking up 422 key run blocks (2nd most in Merchantmen history) in those regular seasons, Humphrey proved to be an unprecedented run blocking right tackle. No doubt Merchantmen fans and historians see him as the best at his position to ever put on the orange-white-and-blue jersey.

Aside from these obvious hall of fame candidates, the Merchantmen lose 5 more players:
Clay Brosseau, fullback
undrafted rookie signing in 2086. Spent two seasons watching from the stands, but eventually became the fullback of the team, playing in 145 regular season and 4 playoffs games. Meant to become a premier run blocker, Brosseau ended up making 56 key run blocks in 9 seasons in an active role. Unimpressive from a distance, but the most by any fullback in his time of action in the IHOF.

Andre Watson, guard
late 4th round pick in 2086. Had to wait two seasons in the wings, but then became the starting right guard. Held on to his starting role for 6 seasons, but the last 3 seasons saw his role diminsih to 6th and 7th lineman. Had 4 seasons with 30+ key run blocks, playing in 129 regular season and 6 playoffs games.

Renaldo Crawford, tight end
Originally a third round pick with the Toronto Lake Monsters in 2087, release in pre-season of his rookie season, picked up by the Frederick Red Menace late in that season. The Merchantmen signed him as a free agent in his second season in the post-draft free agency period. His role flipflopped from starter to fourth (inactive) choice, but the faith in his ability to be a suitable run blocker and special teamer never vanished. Last season was a disaster with a season ending injury in the first game of the season, which turned out to be the last as well, his 100th regular season game played for the Merchantmen. He didn't need the 2 playoffs games to join the Club of 100.

Jeffery Blake, tight end
Undrafted rookie signing in 2088. As a rookie was forced into action as the TE2. Held on to an active role for 5 seasons in Maassluis, then bounced around in the conference from Augusta through Gothenburg and Harlem back to Maassluis last season to fill in for Renaldo Crawford, as Blake too was known as primarily a run blocker and special teamer. Blake comes 1 game short of joining the Merchantmen Club of 100.

Todd Springer, guard
One-season rental for the 2096 season. Originally signed to mentor first round pick Nickolas Toler, but ended up starting in 11 regular season games after all. Was benched after the 38-0 drubbing in Gothenburg, but got has vengeances in week 17 in the 21-6 payback game in Oranje Haven. Before his one season in Maassluis was a respectable run blocker for the Houston Mustangs.

God speed guys.

And with that, it's time to move on. An off-season to figure out whether we want to spend all of our post draft cap space (roughly $62M) on quarterback Earnest Ashley, or want to look elsewhere. Our offensive line is depleted, we're down to 4 starters all 27 years or younger and what looks to be a career backup.

The defense is completely unchanged, only run stuffing linebacker Hayden McNeil isn't locked up. Second-year stars sack machine Richie Piotte and shutdown cornerback Ernie Grant are coming off All-IHOF worthy breakout seasons.

The off-season focus will go to the offense, exclusively, I suspect. A new offensive coordinator, a new look at the QB situation, the RB situation, the WR situation, the look for a fifth lineman and perhaps the biggest challenge: constructing a game plan that fits the players we have. Oh yes, new era, it is. Let's do this!

General Manager Notes: How little things can cheer you up
Or how little things might mean a lot more than we perceive.

The Maassluis Merchantmen have a new offensive coordinator! Alexander Petty has been replaced after two seasons of not getting our offense anywhere. Coming in is Clarence Byrd, a smashmouth adept, previous the San Antonio Tidal Force head coach. It wasn't much of a success, they won 12 games. Not, not in a single season, in those 4 seasons. Byrd is returning to his old profession, he used to be an offensive coordinator, a job he held for 15 seasons with four difference franchises. Initially with the Kansas Creationists for 4 seasons, then 2 seasons with the Capital City Blues, 7 with the Chesapeake Chitterlings and 2 seasons with the Tucker Tigers, with whom he won an IHOF Bowl in his first season. The 'promotion' to head coach in San Antonio was clearly not much of a success and as the Tidal Force hired a new head coach, Byrd got his chance to return to what he does best. Alexander Petty didn't have to wait long to get his name called, he ended up with his dream job: he was hired by the Hanalei Dragons as their new offensive coordinator.

Next order of business: investigating which players will be out of contract after the season, to get a sense of which will require an investment in cap space and which will be somewhat easy to hold on to. Early outlook of players that want to get paid: LT/RT Isaac Delgado (+$11M), LT Johnnie Houston (+$15M), TE Clay Gaynor (+$22M) and most prominently QB Earnest Ashley (+$42M). All four are a risk for going into hold out.

Bad news of the day? Quarterback Marty Forland was traded to the Paris Musketeers. Not only does that bring one of the best passers in the league into the division, it also means I got outbid by the Musketeers. They paid two future first round picks for a 33-year old 13th year veteran. I was willing to pay a couple of second round picks, but a couple of first rounders felt too much. Don't tell Earnest Ashley though, despite his absurd $55M/year request, I do feel like we're in the business again to invest in a QB. A guy like Forland would cost something like $75M/year, even as a short term solution.

The situation reminded me once again of the 2078 off-season, when I signed free agent QB Bennett Morris and drafted RB Walt Blair. Those two guys turned a decent offense into one of my favorite offenses ever. J.R Mills regressed from 2,228 receiving yards to 1,756, but also improved to 17 touchdowns. We reached the AOC Championship game that season. Blair's season was cut short after 10 games, but boy was that a fun RB to watch. So much different from the two Hall of Famers Norbert Talley and Stanley Givens. A bit more of Donald Terry, but with the endurance to actually carry the ball 25 times.

So yeah, I can sometimes daydream of good decision made in the past and hope I can recreate them.

We're coming off two seasons with a negative point differential. Last time we went through that back-to-back was back in 2022... Back then we were very bad, we were outscored 8 straight seasons. Then came the 2023 off-season. We traded for RB Stanley Givens, drafted WR Terry Thomason to give the legendary Gabe Springer a sidekick. Even the injury to Russell Harrison wasn't enough to have him and Patrick McDonnell become the best QB (duo) in the league that season.

Sure, sure, 2078 was kind of an era ago, 2023 was like 3 or 4 eras ago. Still, turnaround is possible, both times it did require some investment in players and that's where I should go this off-season. No tipping of my hand, but I think this is where we are this off-season and what has to be done. The defense is ready, the offense needs a new starter or four to get into a truly good shape. With or without Earnest Ashley? We'll see about that after pre-season...

General Manager Notes: The quarterback crossroad
Give it to him or start all over?

For decades Merchantmen fans have been spoiled. We may not have had the best quarterbacks in football suiting up for us, but it's undeniable that I've done a good enough job as the general manager of this team to almost consistently make sure we had a quarterback that could legitimately be called playoff caliber. From Louie Flannery, to Rusty Harrison, to Jay McGee, Perry Coleman, Bryson Chow, the underrated Lester Lowe, Alfred Hickman, the one- or two-year rentals until we switched to Ellis McAlister, McAlister himself and most recently Moe Sheldon and now Earnest Ashley.

Hold on, I have to admit that Ashley has far form convinced me as of yet. Yes, he's got the looks of a capable quarterback, our new offensive coordinator (and the one we fired two days ago) both confirm what our staff saw in Ashley as a draft prospect. He's considered to be slightly better than expected back then, so, based on that certainly worthy of a second round pick.
But after 3 seasons of .500 land football and completing roughly 50% of his passes, we have to wonder where we've gone wrong. Are we too high on Ashley or are we asking things from him he can't do? Some numbers:
Missing from the equation: we've got reason to believe that Ashley, contrary to some of his predecessors, doesn't have pick machine written in his DNA. His 18 fumbles in 48 games aren't a serious concern either, it's very moderate for a starting quarterback. Which suggests that the game plan is forcing him too much into making bad throws. Perhaps it's time to look one more time at what he can do. With a new Smashmouth coordinator, providing we find some improvement in our running backs group and a suitable fifth offensive lineman, we might be able to support the pass with the run again. Our running game has fallen apart recently:
Simultaneously, the number of sacks allowed by the line has gone from 33 in Moe Sheldon's last season to 26, 29 and 36. Sample size issues come around here, but Sheldon was a notorious sack magnet, while Ashley shouldn't be. Is it the young incoherent line? Who knows.

Game plan changes or not, the decision here isn't just whether we like Ashley, it's also a $50M decision. We've reached the crossroad of whether we want to spend 10% of our salary cap on a quarterback. Ashley's current cap figure is $6.31, the 26th highest figure on our team. His agent is requesting a $238M deal over 4 years, a $41M bonus and increasing cap figures, from $48M this season to $70M in the 2100 season. Preferably I'll give him a flat contract, which should end up close to $60M per year. This would make him jump into the top10 of highest paid quarterbacks in the league.

Strategic decision: can I stick with his current $6.3M figure and wait for free agency next off-season? Perhaps, but of the other 31 teams in the league, I'm sure at least 2 or 3 others would be interested in Ashley. If he remains healthy throughout the 2097 season, his demands will only rise, $75M/year won't be an absurd estimation for what he might get.

The good news? We actually have the cap space available, this season. Next season will be a new test, as Ernie Grant and Richie Piotte will start asking for the moon and the stars as most elite cornerbacks and defensive ends do. But that's the day after tomorrow's concern, we haven't even made it to tomorrow yet.

Which brings me back to the original question to be answered: are we willing to commit to Earnest Ashley? Giving him the money means he'll have to be our quarterback for 3 more seasons, probably the 2100 season as well if we go bonus heavy and decide to cap him out once or twice in the next off-seasons.

The other options? The draft, we're going to interview a couple of quarterbacks, including some that are likely to drop past the first round. Trading for a veteran that looks good enough to me, that ship has probably sailed. Several have been put on the trading block, but aside from Marty Forland, who went from Oakland to Paris, they aren't an upgrade over Ashley. Which basically comes down to this: will I make an offer to Ashley now, or wait until we've seen the results of the first two or three rounds in the draft?

I think I have my plan ready, but not ready to share it with y'all just yet. After all, the competition in this league is also reading along...

General Manager Notes: We have a new quarterback!
Nah, fooled ya.

Trade talks came and went by. We made a sound offer for a veteran quarterback, we stood a good chance to land him. But the other party reevaluated their situation and (rightfully) decided to stick with their man. Too bad for us, I think we would have made a great improvement. It would have ended Earnest Ashley's chances to get that $240M contract he's seeking for here. He would have been stuck in a hold out or play out the rookie contract situation.

The other option, the draft? The top two prospects were out of reach. As in, I could have tried to make a worthy offer for the 1.2 pick perhaps, something like three first round picks, it could have landed us a Michigan quarterback. We didn't make an offer for the pick, unlike another team in our conference. Will I completely ignore the draft from here on? Never say never...

However, we've started the negotiations with Earnest Ashley. We know his opening bid, our counter offer is, may I say so, a very generous $220 over 4 years offer, with basically $100M guaranteed. If he takes it, we're tied together for the next 3 seasons at minimum. If he turns it down, well... Let's not go ahead of that.

For a while I hoped that at the 1.15 slot we would easily land one of the two top prospects at guard. Well, so much for that, before the top10 was over, both were gone. Even the top rated wide receiver was taken after them. Imagine that! I didn't just leave it at that, I reached out to a team that picked ahead of us in the first round, in an attempt to get their rookie. No such luck either. I'm not going to tell which player just yet, maybe after the off-season is over, but fair to say, I think that player would have fit on our team. One of those guards? All in due time.

And that's not where the impasse ended. Once the #15 overall pick went on the clock, I glanced over the list of prospects that we interviewed and I saw three things: the first round prospects were already gone, or I came to the conclusion that he's undersized. The second and third round prospects felt like too much of a reach. It didn't take long to get an inquire from an interested team: the Arizona Miners offered their 1st round pick in the next draft. I got a bit cocky, asked for a bit more, but it's realistically a pick worth settling for, even though I'm not convinced it will be a lock to be a top10 pick. The alternative was a very interesting looking linebacker. It was very tempting, but took the trade out. And Arizona grabbed said linebacker.

So, so far, the off-season isn't getting us places, it's status quo at best. Still a couple of top half second round picks remaining of course. And another inquire or two out there to fill a couple of holes on our team. I've got to keep believing we can turn things around this off-season. It's certainly possible.

General Manager Notes: We have a new running back!
And I'm not kidding, like I did yesterday.

First things first: Earnest Ashley took our lowball offer. One could say "four more years of Ashley", which means we're tied to him for at least 3 seasons at $55M per season, roughly 11% of our overall cap figure. But to be fair, I think he can play ball, otherwise I wouldn't get into the troubles of offering him the money.

To support him, we've made a big trade. Minutes after I decided to make a bid for the Forth Wayne's running back, the said player, Bert Ta'Amu went onto the trade block. We jumped in offering the 2.14 overall draft pick and a swap of future picks to seal the deal. Our staff is convinced this is the best running back in football, what's not to like here? The only minor issue could be his age (he turned 30 in the off-season) and will enter his 9th season in the league. I'm fully aware this might be just a one-year rental.

We followed up our restocking of the offense with the selection of rookie guard Ronald Staigvil. The 23-year old 6'3" 321 pounds Minnesota graduate looks like a promising run blocking prospect. To help him develop (and to have a worthy backup on the team), we quickly acquired veteran Caleb Turnbull from the Fort Wayne Fury.

This basically means we're a backup center, backup tackle and maybe a sixth wide receiver away from a filled up roster. Well, maybe a backup tight end as well and figuring out which running back to ditch. And we might want to re-sign veteran linebacker Hayden McNeil or a similar run stopper to plug the one real hole on the defense.

Which is an optimistic way to say that I think we're much better than the 8-8 campaign we had last season. Well Ta'Amu make the difference? Hard to tell now, we'll still have to survive pre-season. We haven't even finished the draft yet, let's do that first.

I sent most of our remaining picks to the aforementioned Fury and all that we have left is a couple of mid-seventh rounders. Just in case I get goggles and think there's somebody I might want to sign after the draft, making sure I won't have to go into a bidding war. Don't count out the possibility that I'll trade back in somewhere in the fourth or fifth round as I have a couple of players on 'sleeper pick' list.

Because, never say never?

General Manager Notes: We have a new fullback!
Yeah, we're working down by position.

Where did we find this new fullback? We made a draft day trade, acquired the 4.13 pick from the Fort Wayne Fury (yes, them again) and gave them our third round pick next draft in return. Damien Wanamaker is a 21-year old, 5'10" 233 pounds run blocker with stamina. Nothing spectacular, but if he works out, he might fit in our Smashmouth offense. He was one of 12 players that we interviewed, the only one that got past the middle of the second round.

The two incoming rookies and two to be use seventh round picks excluded, we increased our roster to 51 players. Two of them were our free agent linebacker Hayden McNeil and running back/special teamer Harris Gerhardt. The third is fourth year right tackle Dusty Webster. Because, you know, we're going to need a third tackle on roster to get through the season. But it's fair to assume he's by no means a guarantee to make the final 53-men roster.

Our cap situation had gotten tight after the Ta'Amu acquisition and expensive extension for Ashley, but a restructuring of Ta'Amu's deal and our center Robbie Zinn's had gotten us back into a healthy situation. We might do some more of this to make room for extensions for our offensive tackles Johnny Houston and Isaac Delgado. But preferably that will have to wait until pre-season is ongoing, because, you know, strange things can happen after the second pre-season game.

Anything else to add for now? Not really. The Ashley and Ta'Amu moves have been the clear cut highlights of the off-season, with our fingers crossed nothing crazy happens in terms of holdouts and aforementioned pre-season partying. For now, it's waiting for the draft to wind down to the middle of the third round, see us grab a couple of guys to keep them out of the undrafted rookie free agents pool.

General Manager Notes: We've got a new Tight end!
And a center.

Seventh round of the draft rolled around and in that round we grabbed two more players. Tight end Myron Lofton is the second highest player at his position this draft. He's supposed to be a decent run blocker, able to get open, actually not drop the ball too often and good on third downs. Two picks later we selected center Rickey Mason, a center, second fastest in this class, speed is an important measure for a center. Mason is big with his 6'7" and 304 pounds, while Lofton is kind of the opposite at 5'11" and 243 pounds. Both stand a decent chance to make the final 53 men roster, as we were short a player at both positions to get a healthy number of minimum required plus one.

General Manager Notes: We don't have our tight end?
Clay Gaynor has decided to hold out.

Well how about that. We make our tight end the most targetted player on the team and he starts making exorbitant demands. $105M over 4 years is what mister Gaynor is asking for. Do we have an alternative? Sure, run the ball 40 times per game, but we're still going to need Gaynor in the passing game. We're likely going to pay the man, after I figured out where to get the cap space. Which actually isn't a problem as of now, we actually have the space available to re-sign him before training camp. But who's going to tell our offensive tackles that Gaynor is taking the money reserved for them?

General Manager Notes: We have a new wide receiver!
He's also a kickoff returner, yay!

Another veteran has joined the Merchantmen this off-season. Wide receiver Malachi Pierson joined us after we agreed terms to a two-year deal. A key factor for wanting to sign him is his kickoff return ability. Long ago he was a touchdown machine for the Outer Banks Ospreys, over here he'll be an option as our WR3 or WR4, depending on where Branden Sandlin (yes, he's still on the team) stands after pre-season.

We missed out on a bunch of undrafted rookies, but two of them did join us. Safety Artie Hall will get a shot to prove us he's good enough to join our secondary. Odds are slim, but never say never for a zone defender. Bruce Nekolny is an interesting defensive end. Very green, but if he develops, he could be the kind of pass rusher we like to have in our rotation. At the very least, the kid has a good motor.

We're going into training camp with 58 players signed.

Hold on, 58, does that mean Clay Gaynor is going to report for camp? Why yes, he is indeed, after signing an improved and extended contract. To make the cap room available, we gave wide receiver George Stuckey a contract cap out. We're going into training camp with $5.6M cap space. Of course, things will be completely different once we're in the middle of pre-season. Which is still far away.

For now, we're going to take it as it is. We have a surplus at all the non-special teamer positions. We haven't even tried to sign a second long snapper, Travis Hamilton should be the best in the game, according to our new offensive coordinator.

General Manager Notes: We have a new play book!
It was about time.

Time for change. I said this before, several times. Many times? At least more often than just now. We took some advice from other owners/general managers across the league and after a couple of training camps of stalemate, this became the one to make a difference. It's tricky, because before training camp it's hard to see what offensive personnel you'll have heading into the new season, but it's the uncertainty we have to live with.

Things I took into consideration? First of all, our return to a Smashmouth offensive coordinator. Things hopefully fall into place with Bert Ta'Amu as our running back. Ta'Amu will likely lose some of his skills, but for now, we'll have to consider this is the best running back in the league. Hole recognition, third down skills, decent breakaway speed, little elusiveness, can protect the blitz, has receiving skills and the endurance to be an all downs back. This is a player to build an offense around.

Our fullback situation is simple: we have a gun that can run block. Owen Johnston is a 4th season Merchantman, rookie Damien Wanamaker is most likely too green to jump in right away, but I hope he'll be indeed an excellent run blocker. Our tight ends aren't much of run blockers, those guys retired. Clay Gaynor is actually half decent at it, but Clarence Gore isn't. 7th round rookie Myron Lofton is just as green as Wanamaker, while 5th year backup Ike Nixon is a probably the better option than Gore. Gore and Gaynor do have something in common: we can use them as additional pass blockers when we don't target them, which is seemingly something our offensive coordinator likes to do. Directional running won't be too complicated, we'll go all over the place, slightly more to the middle over Robbie Zinn and over the right side, where right tackle Isaac Delgado will step into the role Howard Humphrey used to have.

Our passing game? Earnest Ashley likes to throw it deep, but he's supposedly at his best when he's going to to throw for 0 to 20 yards. How convenient, no? We'll still let him try the occasional long bomb, like we used to do, but this is where we'll be focusing on.

Ed Schulz is our big play guy, he can get downfield and when he gets there, he's one of the best to break away for a big gain, fastest player in the league they say. First and second down material. George Stuckey is better at getting open, can get downfield too, but lacks that big play ability to be as special as Schulz. Both have the courage to run all kinds of routes. Ta'Amu will get looks too, stepping into the WR3 role in a way. Kind of, because we also have Malachi Pierson now, a third down receiver, this man might have to sub in for Schulz on third downs. Rookie tight end Myron Lofton could grow into that kind of receiver that can only get you a third and less than 10 catch. But so can Clay Gaynor, our TE1, who might be overall our only guy that can play well in all kinds of situations. WR4 Branden Sandlin is still a guy that can get open and make a big play. So yeah, in theory we have something nice here.

What to expect from here on? Tomorrow we'll be getting training camp results, primarily reports on the progress of the youngsters and a second assessment on the rookies. Later on pre-season action, with a complete new scouting report of the roster. Followed by renegotiations, 25 of 58 players are in the final year of contract. We can get about $50M available in cap space after cap outs, so we're in a flexible position, but we'll see where we stand after we've made our 5 final cuts to trim down to our 53 men regular season roster.

General Manager Notes: Training Camp results
Little surprises.

My staff made an assessment of our players before and after training camp and on a 1-100 scale, below is what our youngsters look like, with the progress in actual numbers and as always the overall numbers rounded to the nearest 5s.

The rookies:
+6/-2 to 35/65 G Ronald Staigvil
+5/nc to 20/55 C Rickey Mason
+4/+1 to 30/50 TE Myron Lofton
+4/+1 to 25/50 FB Damien Wanamaker
+4/+1 to 20/35 S Artie Hall
+3/nc to 15/40 DE Bruce Nekolny

A lot to like here. These numbers make me believe that Staigvil is the real deal, roughly a 60s rated guard, with 80s potential in run blocking and the endurance to still be good in the 4th quarter. Mason doesn't have endurance at all, but his run blocking potential might be closer to the 80s potential than I could have hoped for. Lofton, Wanamaker and Hall made the kind of progress that on par for a guy that floats between an active backup and a guy that starts because there's no clear cut starter. Which isn't fair, because Lofton already looks like a decent third down receiver and potentially a viable run blocker. Wanamaker will possibly be our new fullback, depending on where he stands compared to veteran Owen Johnston after pre-season, but I really like his 90s potential in run blocking. Hall looks okay, but a longshot to survive the final cuts. Ditto for Nekolny, despite his endurance and 70s potential in pass rush technique and play diagnosis.

The 2nd year players:
+7/nc to 65/70 G Nickolas Toler
+5/nc to 25/50 CB Omar Leszynski
+2/nc to 15/30 QB Kelvin Everett
+1/nc to 35/35 RB Ronnie Vanden Bosch
+1/nc to 15/15 WR/KR Darien Thompson

Toler is a true starter, very good run blocker, solid pass protection, a bit on the low side in endurance. Leszynski was +3/+1 previous camp, so another sign that he might be the run stopping, man-to-man, interceptions making defender. A very useful player on likely running downs. The Everett project might end a pre-season earlier than I'd like to, but other than his sense rush ability, scrambling and presumably a decent ability to avoid interceptions, can we really give him the active roster slot a project quarterback needs to develop? Vanden Bosch has another bad camp, we'll have to trust him by his over 4.0 yards per carry to be a worthy RB2. Thompson should hang around as the kickoff return alternative to veteran signing Malachi Pierson.

others?
+3/nc to 30/40 RT Dusty Webster
+2/nc to 30/40 G Vince Henselman
+2/nc to 30/30 TE Ike Nixon
+2/nc to 25/30 KH/QB Jon Giles

The fourth-year right tackle Webster made some progress, but is still a liability in the running game, if we'll ever field him it can only be in a game where we won't run much over his side of the line. Third-year guard Henselman looks like the prime suspect to not make our 8-men offensive line group. Fifth-year tight end Nixon may not sound like he improved a lot, but he's making a very solid case for being a suitable special teamer and a receiver that can get downfield and make a play. Kick holder Jon Giles actually sat out 2096 as we went with Efrain Batcheck in that slot, there's still no reason to think we'll ever want Giles throwing the football for us, but he's worth something as a mentoring kick holder, if we find an active roster spot for his this season.

The lineups have been set for the first two pre-season games, with a random game plan, which is usually asking for silliness. But we'll see what will happen. We'll be playing with the projected starters, hoping to give the 53-men roster making youngsters additional playing time (if the staff doesn't substitute them!) in the last two pre-season games.

Two more days and we'll know where to go with the remainder of pre-season. Can't wait to see what we'll have by then.

General Manager Notes: When Father Time comes around
Or how pre-season can end a player's career.

Pre-season action has started and boy were we in for a mixed bag. As I mentioned before the action, the plan was to throw the starters out there. The defense kept up their side of the deal, giving up 503 total yards, combined. That's encouraging, isn't it? Well, except that we gave up a lot of rushing yards, usually a bad omen for things to come. The pass defense was at their A game, seemingly, yanking up 8 sacks in 60 pass plays, none of the four quarterbacks that we faced completed 10 or more passes or reached 100 yards.

But really, what's it worth when the starting quarterback is pulled from the game at half time? We let Earnest Ashley throw the ball 25 times in total spread over the two games, completing 16 of those for 161 yards. Sure, this wasn't my game plan, just the staff randomly throwing around some plays from our play book, there was no general idea behind the play calls.

What about Bart Ta'Amu? Well, he fumbled the ball in both games, which is exceptional for a running back that had 10 fumbles in the last 4 seasons combined. He fumbles about once ever 100 touches, that's very good in my opinion. With 5 catches for 33 yards, he didn't excel there, but we don't really want him to, he'll be there as an additional receiver, not the primary target.

Elsewhere on the offense, Ed Schulz and George Stuckey both had a decent and a horrible game. Good old Branden Sandlin was our top receiver so far: 9 catches, 124 yards. Clay Gaynor scored the only touchdown. Yes, we lost 14-3 in Chicago and won 19-13 against Oakland with 4 field goals.

But after all that jibber dabber, we all know that pre-season is the moment in the season where the staff completely re-evaluates the team. And for some players the re-evaluation will result in an unexpected departure from the Merchantmen. Let's go over the team position group by group, as usual with players graded 1-100, rounded to the nearest 5's, while I'll add what my staff thought compared to right after training camp.

Quarterbacks
55/55 nc/nc QB Earnest Ashley
35/35 -8/-8 QB Efrain Batcheck
25/30 nc/+2 KH Jon Giles
15/30 nc/nc QB Kelvin Everett
Batcheck played well in pre-season, before he fell apart. Ashley is the starter, which is no surprise, we're tied to him for $55M/season for 4 seasons. Giles might make the active roster as the kick holder, if we find a roster spot. Everett still puzzles me, but this second-year 3rd round pick is no Ellis McAllister, we have to admit that. Still, too early to give up on him, no? But do we really, really, really need to go into the regular season with 4 quarterbacks?

Backfield
60/60 -9/-9 RB Bert Ta'Amu
35/35 nc/-1 RB Ronnie Vanden Bosch
25/45 +1/-2 FB Damien Wanamaker
30/30 -7/-7 RB Trey Beyer
30/30 -8/-8 RB/ST Jack Crane
25/25 -5/-5 ST Harris Gerhardt
20/20 -3/-3 FB/ST Owen Johnston
Ouch. Seriously. This is the end for Jack Crane, mister sure hands, former Giants legend. Beyer isn't likely to make the team either, we could keep him for cohesion, but with Ta'Amu, he won't get any carries anyway. And next season will be a no go either, I suspect. Wanamaker will be our fullback. If he makes a bit more progress, because Johnston is the better run blocker for now and a special teamer too.

Tight Ends and Wide Receivers
55/55 nc/nc TE/ST Clay Gaynor
55/55 nc/nc WR Ed Schulz
50/50 +6/+6 TE Clarence Gore
50/50 nc/nc WR George Stuckey
40/40 -3/-3 WR/KR Malachi Pierson
30/45 nc/-2 TE Myron Lofton
30/30 nc/-3 TE/ST Ike Nixon
25/25 -9/-9 WR Branden Sandlin
20/20 nc/nc PR Mark Perkins
15/15 nc/nc KR Darien Thompson
The bad news? Sandlin's decline. The so-so news? Schulz' lack of progress since pre-season of his second season has our fear become reality: he's a phenomenal player, but not in every aspect. He's basically a WR2. And so is Stuckey. And so is Gaynor. Which means we're not in a bad shape, just not as great as I hoped we could be. None of these guys will be cut. Or maybe Thompson as he's about 50-50 being our second or third best kick off returner.

Offensive Linemen
80/80 +2/+2 C Robbie Zinn
70/70 +1/+1 LT Isaac Delgado
65/70 -1/nc G Nickolas Toler
60/60 +1/+1 LT Johnnie Houston
35/60 nc/-4 G Ronald Staigvil
40/40 nc/nc G Caleb Turnbull
20/55 nc/-1 C Rickey Mason
30/35 -3/-5 G Vince Henselman
25/35 -4/-6 T Dusty Webster
Who said Zinn isn't top-notch? Yeah, our previous offensive coordinator. Shame on you! I like this group. Cohesion will be lower due to the departure of Howard Humphrey, but I think we'll okay. Staigvil is green, but with Turnbull to mentor, or even to jump in if he doesn't develop, we have a little bit of depth here. Henselman or Webster won't make the final 53-men list. If we have cap space after renegotiations, don't be shocked if both are out of here.

Defensive Linemen
70/70 nc/nc DE Richie Piotte
55/55 +1/+1 DT Darien Fletcher
55/55 nc/nc DT/ST Jerome Shumate
50/50 -3/-3 DE Caiden Croyle
45/45 +1/+1 DT Harold Gough
40/40 -1/-1 DT/ST Caleb Domis
35/35 -7/-7 DE/ST Archie Exner
25/25 -6/-6 DE/ST Gene Kondovski
15/35 nc/-4 DE Bruce Nekolny
Nekolny won't make the team, the rest will. Eight pass rushers, with Piotte, Fletcher, Shumate and Croyle also capable of supporting the run defense. It means this is a great unit.

Linebackers
50/50 -12/-12 LB/ST Brandon Brady
50/50 -4/-4 LB Hayden McNeil
40/40 -1/-1 LB/ST Andrew Cochrane
40/40 -9/-9 LB Daquan Espino
35/35 -6/-6 LB Clayton Jackson
25/25 -2/-2 ST Jose Meadows
_5/_5 -3/-3 ST Brant Rayburn
The decline is here, big time. Both Brady and Jackson are no longer the elite players that they used to be. Brady is now a serviceable starter, Jackson by no means a guarantee to be the second passing down linebacker, he's got to fear for Cochrane. The only player that might fail to make the final 53-men list is Espino. He's been unhappy for a very long time and also on the decline. We might want to check our cap situation before the season starts and think about acquiring a viable starter here...

Secondary
75/75 -1/-1 CB Ernie Grant
65/65 +1/+1 S Devon Farrell
50/50 nc/nc CB/ST Bryson Swafford
45/45 nc/nc CB/ST Zachery Weisz
45/45 nc/nc S Chuck Murray
25/50 nc/nc CB Omar Leszynski
35/35 -3/-3 CB/KR Adam Harmon
25/25 -6/-6 S/ST Jon Brotzman
15/25 -3/-5 S? Artie Hall
Yeah, that wasn't going to happen for Hall. The returning group will stick. Brotzman regressed just a little bit, but was on a time-share with Murray already, which will hardly change. The tricky part is to phase in Leszynski, as he's potentially a running downs cornerback, but is stuck behind Grant and Swafford.

Kicker, Punter and Long Snapper
70/70 -1/-1 K Dylan McMullen
60/60 +2/+2 P Shaun Barlow
20/20 nc/nc LS Travis Hamilton
Yeah, sure, why not. Hamilton is the best in the business and we're paying him for it. McMullen still has to prove he's worth it being a top3 paid kicker. Barlow is barely top10 in the game.

Tomorrow, 5 of the 58 players above will have been told they are no longer part of the Maassluis Merchantmen team. A bunch that are to make the team will be offered a restructured and in some cases an extended contract. All with the intent to later on lock up the two offensive tackles Delgado and Houston so they won't walk away after their rookie contract runs out. And then we'll see about further cap outs or other cuts to potentially look at one or two holes on the team. Finding a team to part ways with a suitable WR1 is too much to ask for, but I think we might have a shot at finding a linebacker that could improve our already very fine defense. So, yes, the 53-men on team tomorrow are not set in stone to be the opening day 53-men...

General Manager Notes: Time to make a plan
And to hand out a bunch of signing boni.

Pre-season action finished. We have to admit that the bad news was our overall inability to score points. In 4 games we scored 42 points en route to 1 victory, ouch. To be fair, we explicitly didn't make a true effort to set a game plan, but bad news it was regardless. One thing was clear though: quarterback Kelvin Everett isn't IHOF material. As proved our kick holder Jon Giles, he will never be more than just that: a kick holder. But more shocking was Bert Ta'Amu's inability to gain ground, a very worrying trend.

The defense held a third opponent below 300 yards, but in Colorado the defense wasn't really there. We got run all over (193 rushing yards) and let their starting quarterback complete 8 of 10 passes for 128 yards. Ouch.

We went into the last two pre-season games with 53 men on roster. These will also be the guys that go into opening weekend as our guys, but I'm not at all convinced all these guys will make it throughout the regular season, the bye week might see us make some moves. The five players that failed to make the cut?

Running back Trey Beyer had been on the team for 6 seasons since being a 5th round selection in the 2091 draft. After 3 season in a backup role, we made him our top ball carrier in 2094, by far his best season with 5.47 yards per carry and 8 touchdowns. But the decline set in and was very noticeable by our staff.

Running back Jack Crane leaves Maassluis after 2 seasons. Signed as a sure hands ball carrier from Gothenburg, where he was a 6-time 1,000-yard rusher, for us his production was just 661 yards and 3 touchdowns in 27 regular season games.

Guard Vince Henselman leaves us after 2 seasons of inactivity after being a 2095 undrafted rookie free agent signing. A couple of undrafted rookies from this season's class, safety Artie Hall and defensive end Bruce Nekolny, failed to take the job of any of the returning defenders, nor convinced enough to stick around as a project.

So, quarterback kelvin Everett did make the 53-men list, but I'm definitely keeping my eyes open for an upgrade at other positions. Last season's third round pick is already on my not-gonna-happen list. I made a serious effort to acquire a player at a position of need, but both trade attempts failed, both teams decided to give the player I inquired for a bigger role on their team in the upcoming regular season. Too bad, but it won't stop me from trying...

General Manager Notes: ... when a plan comes together?
Or how two big plays made a difference?

New season, new opportunities. In the last three season our season started with a loss, forcing us to try and play catchup. Time to end the trend, but the challenge was hard, hosting the defending European champion Paris Musketeers and their brand new quarterback Marty Forland.

Our off-season was busy, yet little really changed. The worst thing that happened was not re-signing offensive tackle Isaac Delgado, because I miscalculated our cap situation by about $300K. End result? Delgado is a free agent next off-season, while we created about $17M of cap space that now remains unused this season and will aggravate our cap situation next season by that figure. Face, palm: d'oh!

But today, was about the game against Paris with a brand new game plan on offense and not so much on defense. And here or there things seemed to work out yet others, well, not so much, I guess?

Paris got the ball first, but after a smooth 8-yard run the first pass thrown by Marty Forland was picked off by veteran Hayden McNeil near midfield. After a couple of incomplete passes, Earnest Ashley decide to change the plan as the designated target missed his route and the kid went on a scramble, proving why he became the player in the IHOF with the second highest base salary, with a magnificent 46-yard run for a touchdown. A sold out revamped Oranje Haven exploded. Less than a minute off the clock and the Merchantmen were already leading: 7-0.
Paris gained enough ground on their second drive to pin us inside our own 1-yard line, but with a tricky run from Ashley for 15 yards, the chains were moved and turned out to be the start of an 8-minute dominant drive for the full 99 yards. Ashley to Gaynor for 15 yards on third and long, an Ashley scramble for a first down, a 14-yard toss to Ed Schulz, a bunch of strong runs from Bert Ta'Amu and eventually a 24-yard touchdown pass on third and long to a wide open Malachi Pierson. A three-and-out later, we were back in Paris territory before the first quarter was over.

The Merchantmen offense then finally ran into the Paris defense for a bit, but Dylan McMullen didn't make a mistake on his 30-yard attempt to put us 17-0 up. Paris finally woke up and Marty Forland lead the offense of his new team with a lot of tricky plays (wide receiver run, fullback catch, and so on) and eventually scrambled from 2 yards out for making it a 17-7 score. A holding penalty haunted our next drive, but our defense stepped it up again and stopped Paris near midfield after 4 plays.
Earnest Ashley was sacked just before the two-minute warning, giving Paris a short field to attempt to do something about the 10-point deficit before the break. Forland continued to complete passes to his alternate targets, but as the time ran out, Paris was forced to settle for a 35-yard field goal, giving us a 17-10 lead at half time.

The second half began with a similar bang as the first half did. On the second play of our first drive of the half, Earnest Ashley found a wide open Clarence Gore at our 44-yard line, only to see Gore turn it into more than just a 12-yard gain, eventually outrunning all the remaining defenders and notching a 68-yard touchdown! Yowza! How about that for taking a 24-10 lead? The star players of the Merchantmen defense stepped it up on the next drive, with a beautiful team sack from Darien Fletcher and last season's sack machine Richie Piotte. Ashley quickly turned to spotlights back to his offense with an 18-yarder to Gore and and a 20-yarder to Clay Gaynor, but after running the same play twice, both times resulting an an incomplete pass to Malachi Pierson, we settled for a 21-yard field goal for a 27-10 lead.
Paris replied with a shift from throwing the rock to running with it. Chandler Ferguson's 34-yard run was the highlight of the drive that eventually was stopped in our red zone to force a 36-yard field goal for keeping us 27-13 up. A quick three-and-out was on our offense and two plays later Paris saw Ferguson have his big play of the day, bursting through our defense for a 58-yard touchdown run and becoming the league leading rusher after week 1. After the missed extra point, it was a one score game nevertheless: 27-19, Maassluis.

A quarterback sneak on third and short failed at the start of the fourth quarter, but our punter Shaun Barlow managed to pin Paris at their own 6-yard line. Marty Forland tried to get his offense forward, but on their sixth play, who else than Richie Piotte penetrated the Paris defense and sacked the quarterback. Earnest Ashley followed it up with a magnificent 29-yard throw to Clay Gaynor on third and long, an 11-yarder to George Stuckey, but as we were closing in on field goal range, the whole offense collapsed on third down, Ashley was strip-sacked and Paris' Bert Wescott recovered the loose ball. The Merchantmen defense immediately stepped up and after two short runs and a hurried pass, the ball was back in Ashley's hands at our own 19-yard line with 6 minutes to go and still leading by 8 points.
After Bert Ta'Amu ran for 8 yards, Earnest Ashley found Clay Gaynor for a 30-yard gain on third and one, then Ed Schulz for a 32-yard gain on the ensuing play to burst into the red zone. We tried to have Ta'Amu pound it in, but we had to settle for eating Paris' time outs and a 19-yard field goal for a 30-19 lead. Paris had no choice but to go into throw deep mode and our defense was well prepared. Adam Harmon deflected a pass, Jon Brotzman and Zachery Weisz tackled a wide receiver for a short gain, Harold Gough hurried Marty Forland into a bad throw and on fourth down Archie Exner did the same thing. We could have gone into victory formation right there, but we decided to let our rookie guard Roger Staigvil make a false start penalty and give Ta'Amu one more carry before Ashley made the game ending knee drop. Maassluis 30, Paris 19. Yay!

A round of applaus from the loaded Oranje Haven fell over the Merchantmen players, our fans were visibly enlightened with such a strong start to the season. Sure, Chandler Ferguson's couple of big runs in the third quarter made it a close game again, but overall we outgained Paris 468 yards to 324 yards, a tremendous performance.

Earnest Ashley took the most of the accolades, completing 19 of 35 passes for 304 yards, 2 touchdowns and also running for 78 yards and a score. Is the beast unleashed, or will sample size turn out to not be in his favor? Fair to say, his two big plays, one in part result of Clarence Gore's big-play ability, made a difference, but that sometimes that's what's needed to make a difference.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Gothenburg Giants beat the Bordeaux Vineyards 34-27 after almost, but not quite, choking a 21-point lead. Surprisingly lead by Mercury Pierce, as the Giants' seem to not yet be sold on first round pick Deon Sheldon nor the experienced veteran Cary Bradford they signed from the Musketeers after he quarterbacked them to the AOC Championship game.

Division:
1. Maassluis 1-0
2. Gothenburg 1-0
3. Bordeaux 0-1
4. Paris 0-1

Our journey continues with one of many trips to the USA, facing the Frederick Red Menace after tying the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums 20-20, dodging a loss by seeing them miss two field goals in overtime. A new encounter with the highest paid player in the league, who signed a new 5-year deal giving him a cap figure of nearly $106M this season and earning him another $100M signing bonus on top of previous off-season's $198M bonus. In comparison, Earnest Ashley's cap figure of $57M is modest, isn't it?

General Manager Notes: Let's not get too excited
Earnest Ashley's back to earth

Rendez-vous with Angel Henson, quite possibly the most talented quarterback in the league right now. We had the pleasure to face him in his own Frederick as our Merchantmen clashed with the Red Menace.

A couple of defended passes and an ineffective short pass on third and twenty gave us the ball quickly, although deep inside our own red zone after a holding penalty. The first attempt of the Earnest Ashley to find Ed Schulz deep down field, but after finding George Stuckey for 17 yards, the next toss was a 53-yarder to Schulz. A 16-yarder to Stuckey set us up for a goal line offense and on the third try, Ashley himself tricked the defense and ran it in for the 7-0 lead. After another three and out by our defense, we got the ball back near midfield, but solid pass defense from the home team forced us to punt it back. A tackle for a loss, a sack shared with Darien Fletcher and a blocked pass on consecutive plays by Richie Piotte gave us the ball back after the punt. We converted on third and 7, but were pushed back by a chop block penalty and eventually were to punt as well. The defenses had taken firm control of the game, making it more of a field position battle than an offensive fire power game that was perhaps to be expected.

The second quarter saw the Red Menace revert to a lot of runs to the left side of their line, but an illegal substitution penalty did them in and as Devon Farrell defended a pass on third and long, we quickly got possession. Earnest Ashley found Ed Schulz for 18 yards on the first play to break into Frederick territory and a neat third down toss to Clay Gaynor for 12 yards moved us into field goal range. A 14-yarder and a 10-yarder to George Stuckey then got us inside their 5-yard line. Bert Ta'Amu was held short on first down, but on second down we surprised their defense with a quick toss from Ashley to Schulz for the 14-0 lead.
All of a sudden, Angel Henson's arm looked all warmed up and he started finding his receivers for 11 yards here, 12 yards there, until the pass rush took over, with Richie Piotte making his first solo sack of the game, while Caiden Croyle repeated Henson's to the ground tossing on third down. Earnest Ashley then saw a 28-yard run called back due to a holding penalty and after the punt found ourselves setting up defense near midfield. Angel Henson found Luther Ruhl for 15 and 12 yards to get his team in field goal range just before the two-minute warning. The Merchantmen defense eventually stepped it up as Ernie Grant deflected a pass and the running attempt on third and long was quickly halted. After a 26-yard field goal, Frederick was still trailing 14-3. Bert Ta'Amu had the longest run so far with a 15-yarder, but we decided not to use any time outs to try to extend the lead before half time.

The second half basically started with Earnest Ashley finding Ed Schulz for a 25-yard gain, but from midfield Ashley failed to find Schulz on three straight plays and we ended up punting the ball. Frederick's Angel Henson looked ready to get his team back in into the game, finding a receiver for 21 yards, whilst his running back gained 12 yards to burst into our half of the field. Our defensive linemen crushed Henson's line when he tried to run on second down and a dropped pass on third down forced them to punt from our 36-yard line after all. But a quick three and out forced by the Frederick's stellar run defense, resulted in our defense being back on the field with the ball at midfield after their 20-yard punt return. Richie Piotte rushed Henson into a throwing the ball away on third and short, bringing the ball back to us. Earnest Ashley found Clay Gaynor on third and one as we tricked them to think we'd run the ball, but even the 14-yarder and 10-yarder to George Stuckey, followed by a 13-yarder to Clay Gaynor still kept us out of field goal range and after a touchback and a tremendous three and out, the third quarter was almost over, with no scores added, maintaining our 14-3 lead.

Fourth quarter then started with one of the biggest plays of the day as our punt returned Mark Perkins found plenty of room and gained 63 yards, getting tackled at the opposing 10-yard line. The opportunity to extend the lead was vanished when Earnest Ashley's third and goal toss into the end zone to Ed Schulz was picked off. The momentum shift was there as Angel Henson found his running back for a 30-yard gain to reach midfield. A 16-yard run in the next play then proved to be insufficient to get points on the scoreboard as we managed to force them to punt once again from our 36-yard line. Amidst Bert Ta'Amu's unsuccessful runs, Earnest Ashley showed the way with a 13-yard run. A 15-yard toss to Clay Gaynor on third and long, soon after followed by a 15-yarder to Ed Schulz were enough to set up a 44-yard field goal for a 17-3 lead. And things got even better for us on the kickoff return as Adam Harmon tackled forced the returner to fumble and his fellow cornerback Bryson Swafford recovered the ball. Four plays later, Dylan McMullen converted a 32-yarder to extend the lead to 20-3.
Frederick's other kickoff returner then got his team back into thinking the game wasn't over, bringing the ball the full 93 yards back for a touchdown and trimming their deficit to 20-10. After a quick three and out, Frederick got the ball back near midfield with just under 5 minutes to play. Angel Henson found a couple of his receivers for decent gains and after settling for a nice 51-yard field goal, we knew that a 20-13 lead wasn't easy to bring to the finish line. Earnest Ashley found Ed Schulz for 16 yards on third and long, helping the clock tick down to the last two minutes. But as we thought we were about to secure the victory, Ashley's throw to Schulz was picked off and returned to midfield. Angel Henson found a receiver for 22 yards, scrambled for 3 yards and at our 25-yard line, they looked ready to tie it up. Our pass rushers looked still fresh and Archie Exner broke up their second down play. On third down, our shutdown corner Ernie Grant got the better of their tight end, batting the ball away. On fourth down Jerome Shumway got through the line and as Henson tossed the ball away, we had it back with 48 seconds remaining. The Red Menace had to spend their time outs to stop our unsuccessful running plays, but a solid punt pinned them just outside their own red zone with 12 seconds remaining. A short toss to the tight end sealed the deal, he got tackled quickly and the game was over: Merchantmen win, 20-13!

Earnest Ashley crashed back to earth, completing just 22 of 49 passes for 284 yards (still a great figure, obviously), with 2 interceptions. He did throw and run for a score, which turned out to be the only two offensive touchdowns of the game. Ed Schulz had 8 receptions for 142 yards, while George Stuckey had 7 catches for 88 yards. Bert Ta'Amu was held to just 58 yards on 28 carries, oof.

Elsewhere across the league, the Gothenburg Giants beat the Chesapeake Chitterlings 27-14 and will play their third straight home game next. The Paris Musketeers were crushed 30-7 at the reigning NAC champions Williamsburg Colonials, while the Bordeaux Vineyards lost 20-16 at home against the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums.

European Division
1. Gothenburg 2-0
2. Maassluis 2-0
3. Bordeaux 0-2
4. Paris 0-2

Our next stop will be at the Rochester Razorbacks, who started the season with two closes losses.

Joining us there will be linebacker Preston Bradford, whom we acquired for a fourth round pick next draft from the Outer Banks Ospreys. The second year defender didn't seem to get a lot of playing time there and I see him as a suitable addition to our pass defense and good enough to play on running downs as well. With the decline and age of our linebackers group, some fresh blood is very welcome. I don't expect to see him play much in this game, but after our bye week we'll see how to get him involved.

To make a roster spot available, second-year quarterback Kelvin Everett will be released. Our third round project from last season will leave us barely into his second season with us. Our previous offensive coordinator wasn't to be taken serious on his assessment of Everett, but our current coordinator has no praise about him. He can sense the rush and scramble, he's smart, but he doesn't have the arm to succeed at this level of football. We never worried about his size, although he might have been better suited as a running back?

And that's it for today.
Two wins in a row to start the season. Last time we did that, we were 4-0 after week 5 of the 2093 season and still 5-1 after week 7. We won only 2 more games down the stretch and finished the season with a 7-8-1 record. And eventually it marked the end of Moe Sheldon's period as our starting quarterback. Sheldon hung around for two more seasons, but only in a backup role, mentoring our current quarterback Earnest Ashley. A player that so far this season gives us hope that we're finally back in to the race for the division title, but today his old turnover habits and struggles with completing passes returned. New game plan, old habits, or was today just an anomality? We're about to find out in the next game, or the 13 to 17 remaining this season...

General Manager Notes: three down, sixteen to go?
No, no, no, don't get over excited now...

The Merchantmen were back in business. Third game in as many game day weeks and this time facing the winless Rochester Razorbacks, in their place.

First quarter, first possession. Malachi Pierson finally showed why we signed him, bringing the opening kickoff to our 48-yard line. Earnest Ashley's first deep throw to Ed Schulz got defended, but after finding Clay Gaynor for 13 yards, it was Schulz on the 35-yard reception. And then Schulz again from 4 yards out to take a 7-0 lead after just 2 minutes. We stuffed their running backs on their first two plays, but after Clayton Jackson allowed an 18-yard catch, we needed two more runs for no gain to make their next pass completion come short for the first down. Mark Perkins returned the punt 16 yards and after Ashley found Schulz on third and four, the big one became Ashley's 40-yard throw to Pierson to reach their red zone. George Stuckey came 2 yards short on second down, but on third down Clay Gaynor made the scoring catch. 14-0 Merchantmen, yay. Our defense continued to dominate, but the Razorbacks took the gutsy move on fourth and second near midfield and kept the drive alive on a run up the middle. Eventually quarterback Kai Silvanic found Gus Perez for a 7-yard touchdown, making it 14-7.

The second quarter saw us start with getting stopped after three plays, but not for the first time this season the defensive line dominated and forced three and out in return. Only to see our offense get stopped short for the second time. But just as the fans though their home team was about to drive downfield, Jerome Shumate was on duty to strip sack Kai Silvanic and also recovered the losse ball. Defensive domination continued, until we surprised them on third and short with letting Earnest Ashley run, seeing him gain 17 yards. It was short lived, three plays later he was rushed into throwing the ball away and all we could do is pin them at their 6-yard line. More domination from our defensive line and for a second we thought Richie Piotte sacked their quarterback in the end zone, but it was eventually called a sack at the 1-yard line. The punt return was moved up field 16 yards by Mark Perkins and on third and long, Ashley connected to Malachi Pierson for 17 yards to move the chains again. Their pass defense showed up on the next three plays and we settled for a 38-yard field goal to increase the lead to 17-7, the half time score.

The second half began with our defense forcing another quick stop and although we were pinned deep inside our own territory, we managed to gain enough ground to push them back to within their own half. This time the pulled the throw on a likely running down trick on us, their wide receiver turn a screen pass on fourth and one into a 27-yard reception. Four plays later, they did run it on another fourth and one. But that's where it ended, the next fourth down turned into a 34-yard field goal to make it 17-10, still in our favor. Our our next possession it was Earnest Ashley to Ed Schulz again for the chains moving plays, leading up to our own fourth down moment, where Ashley failed to connected with any of his receivers, where a 51-yard field goal could have made it a two-score lead again. The defense stood strong on the next drive and Mark Perkins returned the punt 18 yards, while George Stuckey made a 13-yard catch to have the third quarter end with that 17-10 lead for us.

Sitting at midfield, you'd think this was a spot to work on our lead, but as we tried to make a bit of a hail mary pass on the first play in the fourth quarter, it ended up getting intercepted in the end zone. Three plays by Richie Piotte halted the Razorbacks quickly and after another neat punt return from Mark Perkins, we were inside their half to start our drive. Earnest Ashley found Clay Gaynor on third and short and then on the next play saved the drive with a fumble recovery after his running back had dropped it. Bert Ta'Amu is still struggling on our offense, got stopped short on third and short, making us settle for a 38-yard field goal for a 20-10 lead.
Our defense was once again dominant on their possession, but after a 24-yard punt return, Mark Perkins lost the ball and the Razorbacks got it back at their own 34-yard line. This time around they didn't go for it on fourth and one, punting the ball back to us. We failed to gain any ground or waste much time on our possession, seemingly giving them the opportunity to get their drive going for what could be their next to last chance to save the game. Quarterback Kai Silvanic kept the drive going and the chains moving several times, but just past midfield our fast defensive tackles infiltraded their backfield and after Harold Gough sacked the quarterback, Caleb Domis picked up the fumbled ball. Bert Ta'Amu finally woke up with a nice 8 yard run on third and 6, soon after followed by a 13-yard run. Dylan McMullen was given the opportunity to extend the lead to two touchdowns, but his 44-yarder went wide left. Rochester needed Silvanic to run for it on fourth and one to save their drive, but with time running out, he ended up finding our linebacker Brandon Brady to seal the deal. With 1 second remaining, victory formation was called. Maassluis 20, Rochester 10. Another win!

The rest of the division got swept by their Northeast division foes, helping us into the division lead:
1. Maassluis 3-0
2. Gothenburg 2-1
3. Paris 0-3
4. Bordeaux 0-3

For week 4 we'll return home to face the San Antonio Tidal Force, a rematch of the two 2094 drafted quarterbacks Jonathan Freeman, taken #1 overall, and Earnest Ashley, by now the highest paid player of their class.

Earnest Ashley comes off another typical game as he completed only 18 of 38 passes, but still threw for 206 yards and 2 touchdowns. 10 more incomplete passes went to Ed Schulz, which is quickly turning into a trend. It's time to make some adjustment to the game plan to help them both into not getting overused. Bert Ta'Amu continues to struggle and not help Ashley out here, despite that Ta'Amu gained 92 yards today. The defense was tremendous once again.

And now, we're getting to the spot where we're going to expect too much from this team. I can vaguely remember the last time we started the season 3-0, I may have mentioned it the other day already - yes, I did. With this team, you can never know what happens next. Three good showings from a team that I know that can play this well, but we're not sky high talented all around enough to proclaim we're 12-4 bye week material. I mean, some of our players are, but we can't expect Richie Piotte to also play on our offensive line. He'd probably be considered too short and underweight to succeed at it. So, let's keep him on the defensive line, which is actually just barely above average in the pass rush categories, go figure if they'd start playing up to their potential even more... But combined with the secondary and linebackers, they're currently making the case of being a top-notch pass defense.

Reason for optimism is there, now let's not spoil it and continue playing well. Some tweaks to the offensive game plan will be made, as will we make some defensive personnel changes after the arrival of Preston Bradford as our new elite zone defending linebacker. Keep this going, Merchantmen.

General Manager Notes: Been here, done that...
But can we keep it going this time around?

Location: Oranje Haven. Opponent: the San Antonio Tidal Force. Week four of the 2097 season, our Merchantmen are playing above expectations, being on a 3-game winning streak to start the season. The visitors are coming off their first victory of the season, wanting more of that.

The Merchantmen defense was on the job on the first San Antonio possession, forcing three and out, after standing firm on a third and two run. After Mark Perkins' 25-yard punt return, Earnest Ashley found George Stuckey for 25 yards, then brushed away a sack and a third and very long situation with a 21-yard toss to Clay Gaynor. After a 15-yarder to Clarence Gore, the touchdown pass from Ashley went to Malachi Pierson for the 7-0 lead. The San Antonio offense responded well, anchored by a 29-yard pass by Johnathan Freeman, they needed less than 3 minutes to level the score 7-7. Bert Ta'Amu apparently liked the new game plan for this game, starting the second Merchantmen drive with 8-yard and 10-yard runs. Ashley found Ed Schulz for a 23-yard gain and with slow but steady play, the 13-yard touchdown pass to Stuckey was set up for the 14-7 Merchantmen lead. The Tidal Force looked unimpressed and quickly brought the ball to into our territory before the end of the quarter.

And then the show really started. Archie Exner ran around the left tackle and floored quarterback Freeman. It didn't keep them from kicking a 31-yard field goal, but the tone of the game was set. Although, other kinds of drama came first as we got stopped quickly on our third possession, followed by back-to-back interceptions by the two quarterbacks. The Tidal Force marched downfield on their next drive, but their kicker missed a 42-ard field goal to maitina our 14-10 lead. Three and out was our offense's faith again, giving San Antonio rookie running back Junior Gregson (boy, did I want that kid, I tried to trade for him) another chance to run through our defense. Not big gains, but short ones that were good enough to move the chains. Caleb Donis made sack number two, but the bigger one was the team effort with Archie Exner on third down to push them out of field goal range. Not much happened in the remainder of the second quarter, ended it with us still leading 14-10.

Bert Ta'Amu got things moving in the third quarter, not a big gain, but short ones to keep possession, until Earnest Ashley got sacked on third and very long. San Antonio got the ball back, but the pass rush from our defensive line had only gotten warmed up and Darien Fletcher and Archie Exner (again) brought quarterback Freeman down to force a punt. The Ashley to Ed Schulz magic quickly returned and a 20-yarder and a 38-yarder were all we needed to jump to a 21-10 lead. San Antonio's next drive was disrupted by Richie Piotte's sack, giving us the opportunity to take full advantage of Mark Perkins' 23-yard punt return. Ashley connected with Schulz for 9 yards and George Stuckey for 11 yards to set up Dylan McMullen's 45-yard field goal. Three and out on both ends followed, seeing a third one by our defense's hands with two stuffed runs and another sack by Archie Exner. The special teams unit, improved with Brandon Brady, then blocked the punt and Brady himself recovered it in the end zone to extend our lead to 31-10.

The fourth quarter started with some hope restoration for San Antonio with a 20-yard run from Junior Gregson followed by bad boy Ernie Grant's unnecessary roughness penalty. The Tidal Force came close, but not quite enough to settle for a 40-yard field goal. Our next drive was extended by Earnest Ashley's 11-yard toss to Clay Gaynor and a couple of completions to Bert Ta'Amu, showing his added value to our passing game. Settling for a field goal wasn't bad, the 36-yarder increased our lead to 34-13 with just over 6 minutes to go.
Down so big, San Antonio had no choice but to go into pass heavy mode and after a pass interference call and 27-yard and 11-yard gains, they thought they would make it work. But no, our defensive ends Richie Piotte and Archie Exner each added another sack to their tallies, the second one making it turn into a turnover by recovering the fumble. Our offense took some time off the clock and then from the side lines saw Darien Fletcher and Gene Kondovski join the sack party with a solo sack each. On fourth and 24 at their own 6-yard line, their offense still tried and failed. Two plays later Bert Ta'Amu ran it in for a 41-13 lead. San Antonio's final drive didn't saw an addition to the 11 sacks, but after their punt, backup quarterback Efrain Batcheck took the honors of the victory knee. 41-13, Merchantmen. Sweet.

A quarterback slaughtering performance, one rarely seen. The closest memory I have is the one we put on Gene Ballard of the Miami Sharks in our 33-3 IHOF Bowl victory. Sure, this wasn't the biggest stage in the league, but a daunting performance still. A showing like this seriously boosts the confidence in our defense.

The struggles elsewhere in the division somewhat continued and now we're even stronger in the lead:
1. Maassluis 4-0
2. Gothenburg 2-2
3. Paris 1-3
4. Bordeaux 0-3

It's way too early to think much of it. We could still end up dead last with a 4-12 record far behind a triplet of 11-5 teams. The four teams we beat have combined for 2 wins in 16 games played. That said, as of now, we're the division leaders and will continue to be so when we face the Atlanta Viper after our bye week. That should be a tremendous clash of defenses, theirs is on paper even more daunting that ours has been so far. It may come as no surprise that for that game, more tweaks to the offensive game plan will be made, we need to focus on not getting too predictable for the opponents...

General Manager Notes: The bye week blues
We're orange-white and blue

Yo, listen up: here's a story
About the little guys that live in an orange-white-and-blue world.
And all day and all night,
And everything they see is just orange-white-and-blue like them, inside and outside.
Orange-white-and-blue: their house, with an orange-white-and-blue little window,
Their own Oranje Haven.
And everything is orange-white-and-blue for them,
And themselves, and everybody around,
'cause they ain't got nobody to play ball, to play ball.

We're orange-white-and-blue
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di

We're orange-white-and-blue
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di

We have Oranje Haven with an orange-white-and-blue window.
Orange-white-and-blue is the colour of all that we wear.
Orange-white-and-blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
We have a girlfriend and she is so orange-white-and-blue.
Orange-white-and-blue are the people here that walk around,
Orange-white-and-blue like Oranje Haven's in and outside.
Orange-white-and-blue are the words we say and what we think.
Orange-white-and-blue are the feelings that live inside us.

We're orange-white-and-blue
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di

We're orange-white-and-blue
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di

We have Oranje Haven with an orange-white-and-blue window.
Orange-white-and-blue is the colour of all that we wear.
Orange-white-and-blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
We have a girlfriend and she is so orange-white-and-blue.
Orange-white-and-blue are the people here that walk around,
Orange-white-and-blue like Oranje Haven's in and outside.
Orange-white-and-blue are the words we say and what we think.
Orange-white-and-blue are the feelings that live inside us.

We're orange-white-and-blue
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di

We're orange-white-and-blue
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di

General Manager Notes: For the 6th time in team history?
Who cares about sample size and the perceived easy schedule?

Five times in Merchantmen history did we start the regular season with 5 victories. Today was our chance to achieve it for the 6th time. Let's dig into the history books first and then find out whether we lived up to the hype and did it again.

2012
It was in the middle of the Louie Flannery era, a Merchantmen offense with nearly two 1,000-yard rushers (Courtney Osgood 1,037 yards, Quentin Hatchette 960 yards), the first season of wide receiver Alfredo Bass on our offense. The defense had the same backbone as it had been since the inaugural 2004 season with defensive tackle Charles Gomez, middle linebacker Cody Cluff and strong safety Lincoln Gilmore. It was a weird season as we started the season with 5 wins, then dropped to 5-5, improved to 10-5 and then chocked the division title in week 17 at home against the fourth place Gothenburg Giants. We avenged it with a win at the Bordeaux Vineyards in the wild card round, then got crushed by R.J. Ellard's 214 yards rushing for the Tucker Tigers en route to their 37-12 victory.

2040
The season after our first IHOF Bowl participation, where we lost and eventually released quarterback Jay McGee in the off-season. As a result it became the infamous quarterback controversy season: Harry Osborne versus Harvey Corbett. I've written a chapter about Osborne before, do look it up. The crux of things, we started the season 8-0, dropped a game, continued winning, then had the chance in week 13 to grab the virtual #1 seed at the Tucker Tigers, but lost there and eventually settled for #2 with a 13-3 record, only to get crushed 24-0 after the bye by the hands of the Atlanta Vipers.

2058
The season after our second IHOF Bowl loss in our second bowl game. 2057 was the season after Lester Lowe had taken over for Bryson Chow, still sitting around as the backup quarterback, this was Lowe's first season starting from opening weekend. We were hard to stop, starting the season 8-0, albeit helped by a lot of home games early on. We then lost big at home against Paris and then close ones at Tucker and Fairbanks to eventually finish 13-3 and #2 in the conference. This time no humiliation, but we did go one-and-done losing 17-14 in a snow game at home against the San Antonio Tidal Force.

2059
Yes, the season after, we outdid ourselves, winning the first 10 regular season games, including a 38-14 pounding of the Tucker Tigers. We then lost at the Chicago Norsemen 29-24, but finished the season with five more wins, highlighted with a 63-3 demolition of the Bordeaux Vineyards. 15-1, #1 seeds, #1 offense with 562 points scored (second best was 468), #1 defense with 254 points allowed (second best was 268). And then the Atlanta Vipers came and popped our bubble. 31-17, it wasn't even really close. Most unsatisfying season in team history.

2071
The comeback season of Alfred Hickman, our IHOF Bowl winning quarterback (or as some fans keep claiming: in spite of Hickman's interceptions; hold that thought) returned after spending a season with the North Plainfield Plague. We won the first 6 regular season games, then barely won one in five and finished the regular season with 5 more wins to close it out at 12-4 and losing the #2 seed on conference record tie-breakers. Hosting the #6 seeded Houston Mustangs, we felt we should win here. But then Alfred Hickman three 6 interceptions, paving the way for Houston's 23-7 victory. Our last four drives of the game all ended in a pick. We were trailing 13-7, so basically still in the race, before that stretch.

In Summary
All that said, it must come as no surprise that starting the season 5-0 sounds awesome, the Merchantmen have a distinct way of disappointing their fans (and in particular their owner) by hinting that good things are to come, only to see it all fall apart come playoffs time.


2097, week 6
So back to today's game, a much anticipated defensive clash with the Atlanta Vipers. They had a strong 2096 campaign, falling apart late in the season, falling from 11-2 to 11-5 and one-and-done as #2 seeds, losing all of the last four games by huge margins. Their 2097 campaign has started tough with a 38-17 trouncing of Houston, followed by close losses at Oakland (currently 6-0) and Tucker (currently 5-1) and after their bye a 30-3 loss at home against the Bordeaux Vineyards, a complete deception.

Well, the first quarter was a confidence booster for Atlanta, coming out of it leading 14-7 and in possession. Their first touchdown drive was a screen pas turning into a 26-yard gain and on their second possession short tosses turned into 32-yard and 24-yard gains, the later for the touchdown and a 14-7 lead. In between, we had scored after Earnest Ashley had found Ed Schulz for 48 yards on our first play from scrimmage to set up the eventual dump pass to Clay Gaynor for a touchdown.

The second quarter was highlighted by Earnest Ashley finding Ed Schulz wide open for an 80-yard touchdown pass, soon after replied by Atlanta's 45-yard field goal, which we eventually responded to with Adam Harmon's interception near their red zone that set up a the first half ending 30-yard field goal for a 17-17 tied score.

The third quarter the balance tilted into Merchantmen favor, as Jon Brotzman accounted for pick number two, which ended up in Earnest Ashley running for a short gain to take a 24-17 lead. On the very next play, ignoring the kicking stuff, Adam Harmon made his second pick of the day to set up a 33-yard field goal for the 27-17 lead. Defenses dominated for the remainder of that quarter.

Then in the fourth quarter things went from bad to worse for Atlanta. On their drive that looked to at least give them 3 points, Caleb Domis pulled off a rare strip sack followed by returning the fumble the full 71 yards for a touchdown and the 34-17 lead. On Atlanta's next drive we stripped their running back from the ball and recovered the fumble near midfield. After converting on fourth and one, Earnest Ashley used his legs to get into the red zone and his arm to find Ed Schulz in the end zone for the 41-17 lead. The drama continued for Atlanta, as penalties pushed them into a 4th and 27 situation and as their decided to go for it with, Richie Piotte floored their quarterback at their own 4-yard line. Ashley's attempt to run for the touchdown failed, but the 21-yard field goal increased the lead to 44-17. A missed 49-yard field goal attempt from the Vipers added even more to the drama, finishing the game as we ran out the clock.

Gothenburg beat Paris 23-19, while Bordeaux fell 31-26 to Fort Wayne, our next opponent.

European Division
1. Maassluis 5-0
2. Gothenburg 4-2
3. Bordeaux 1-4
4. Paris 1-5

So, there, we're still in the lead, having faced the easiest schedule (our opponents combine for 6-21-2). And now have a monkey on our back the size of a silverback gorilla, because if history repeats itself, we're in for a heartbreaking end of this season after the team has teased us all to think we're actually good. Well, let's keep that hope and fantasy alive for now! We'll be visiting the Fort Wayne Fury next and although I'm fully expecting it to be a trap game, we do have to believe that we can pull of a victory at this 2-4 team in their third home game of the season. But it really depends on whether the team shows up that crushed Toronto 52-20, or the one that was clobbered 44-9 by Gothenburg and Mercury Pierce's third 6-touchdown game. I hope the latter, but fear the former. We'll have to wait and see what happens...

General Manager Notes: When you stand corrected
Or how you sometimes find a horrible typo.

Let's refresh our memory on an article about the fifth round pick tradition in Maassluis.
Okay, let's skip past the introduction and the list of cool names.
First of all, as likely as 354 fifth round picks sound, that would assume we went through the first 88 drafts using 4 picks per draft. That's obviously not true. The actual figure through the 2091 draft was 89.

And now that we're on that topic, after Beyer and Gore in that 2091 draft, we used only 3 more fifth round picks. 2096 pick Ronnie Vanden Bosch is currently our backup running back to Bert Ta'Amu, waiting on the sidelines in case Ta'Amu gets hurt. Last season Vanden Bosch 'started' all 16 regular season games, but was actually our RB2 behind Trey Beyer, a fellow fifth round pick.

Trey Beyer is currently unemployed, hoping to get a call from any IHOF team to step in for an injured starter of backup. Beyer was our main ball carrier last season and the two seasons before that. I wrote a snippet about him after we released, but I didn't mention that he eventually ran for 2,621 yards and 21 touchdowns for us, with an additional receiving touchdown and a very respectable 3 fumbles in 617 ball touches. I don't expect him to return to us, unless an injury does roll around, as Beyer is the most suitable candidate on the open market. Maybe we should have kept him over the headcase linebacker Daquan Espino that's getting $7.5M for watching every game from the stands.

Clarence Gore was our other 2091 pick and he's still standing strong, recently joining the Club of 100 and despite being #5 in line in targets, he made a big 68-yarder in week 1 to prove his worthiness. He's already 7th in Merchantmen history amongst receiving tight ends in yardage, 6th in receptions and tied 8th in touchdowns. Not bad when you're stuck behind Clay Gaynor, who might catch him in all three categories by the end of the season, if he steps it up a bit after a relative slow start to this season; Gaynor had 80+ catches the last two seasons for 900ish yards.

We kept one fifth round pick each in the drafts of 2093 and 2095. The latter was spent on smart, fast receiver from Virginia Tech names Nicolas Coady, but his combine scores didn't translate into football skills and he didn't even survive the pre-season cuts that off-season and gave up on his professional football dream in the ensuing off-season. The 2093 pick we spent on left tackle Byron Irvin. We actually let him play on special teams in 9 games and he saw the field in two blowout losses in his rookie season. We gave up on him after his second training camp, not making our 60-men pre-season roster in 2094, he retired from football in the following off-season. So it goes...

2088 pick defensive tackle Kurt Ackerman retired this off-season. He deserves being mentioned on the list of successful fifth rounders as he played 88 games for us in a support pass rush role.

Elsewhere in the league, a couple of our fifth round picks are actually still standing strong. 2090 pick Trey Samuels is still playing for the Paris Musketeers, after we moved him from running back to wide receiver in his rookie training camp, released him after his second training camp with us and then Paris picked him up. He's currently on their roster for a $14.5M cap figure and listed as a starter, despite not getting a lot of targets.

Tight end Randy Holliday was one of our 2087 picks, in 2088 he was actually listed as our starter, then in 2089 moved to our special teams unit and in the 2090 pre-season was cut right after training camp. He didn't give up and in the 2091 off-season was hired by the Tucker Tigers with the intention to move him to center and become their offensive line leader. He was twice released before the season start, but both times re-hired on the day of the bowl game. And today, that's what he is: the unit leader of the offensive line.

Our 2085 pick Tucker Gaylor was a promising wide receiver, broke out in his third season in Maassluis with 51 catches for 720 yards, playing in 7 playoffs games during his tenure. Then we traded him in the 2088 off-season to Paris, which is where he played throughout the 2094 season, with 2092 being his only season in a major role with 49 catches for 568 yards and 6 touchdowns. He signed with the Atlanta Vipers in the 2095 off-season, spending all season inactive there. After sitting out 2096 without a contract, he retired the past off-season. In retrospect, a missed opportunity, I think he was 1,000-yard material.

So, Gore and Vanden Bosch are keeping up appearances in Maassluis this season. And to be fair, they are a fair representation of our tradition. 68 of 92 fifth round picks made the regular season roster as a rookie. Including this season, they tally up to 377 seasons on roster (maybe that's what the aforementioned 354 had to be linked with?), roughly 4 seasons on team per pick. 25 of them are members of the Club of 100. I'm going to pad my own shoulder here, we're having good results with these kind of picks.

General Manager Notes: Win some, lose some
Or the other way around?

We played two more games since my last report and the results were almost night and day different. Our road game at the Fort Wayne Fury was one to forget quickly, which will be very hard actually. And the road game at the Paris Musketeers one to cherish, but we'll know to not take things for granted and understand that we need to keep this level of play up to withstand the Gothenburg Giants that are on our tail.

So, Fort Wayne on the road. We allowed only one touchdown on the Fury's opening drive, which started after Earnest Ashley was picked off on a long bomb at their 1-yard line on our first play from scrimmage. But where the Fury slow but steadily kept turning screen passes into 25-yard gains, we struggled to get even 10 yards out of 3 plays. The end result was that they scored 6 field goals en route to a 25-13 victory. Our first touchdown was Richie Piotte's 44-yard strip sack recovery for 44 yards, while Ashley ran for the second one with 4 minutes to go, when the game was pretty much over. Actually, a blocked punt with 2 minutes to go gave us one more chance, but we ran out of downs before we ran out of time outs. Ashley threw for 86 yards, Ed Schulz had 0 catches on 8 targets. Yes, you read that right: 0 catches on 8 targets. Bert Ta'Amu ran for 38 yards against his old time on just 11 carries. We had possession of the ball less than 17 minutes. We gave up 480 total yards, we gained 115 total yards.

So, how do you respond to that? Earnest Ashley responded with 466 yards and 3 touchdowns, completing 11 passes to George Stuckey for 205 yards and 5 passes to Ed Schulz for 134 yards, both scoring one touchdown. The defense still got run all over just like in week 1 against Paris, but our pass defense kept them in check enough to make our 526 total yards really count.

Gothenburg keeps on winning, beating the San Antonio Tidal Force 38-24, while Bordeaux lost at them and followed by by losing 28-3 at home against the Houston Mustangs.

Division
1. Maassluis 6-1
2. Gothenburg 5-2
3. Paris 1-6
4. Bordeaux 1-6

I mentioned the Houston Mustangs, they will be our next opponents. They're sitting a top their division as well, with a 5-2 record. This could be a pass heavy game, in a sense that Houston and Maassluis rank as the top two in the league in yards per completion. Our pass defense is slightly more scarier, while the running games (offense and defense) are somewhat on par. Even their special teams play isn't far off from ours. So yeah, this could be a close one, it shall be no surprise that the home playing Mustangs are slightly favored.


So, back to today's game, we'll have to understand that George Stuckey's performance was far from unique, yet it was the 30th time a Merchantmen player gained 200+ yards receiving. (Sadly the Solecismic record books are broken for the time period 2079 through 2085, which meant I had to track some of the numbers by hand). Stuckey is the 12th player to achieve this, the full list (with season achieved for the first time and total 200+ games):
2012 Alfredo Bass
2016 Gabe Springer (4x)
2017 Vince McAlister
2030 Terry Thomason
2044 Terry Haskell (2x)
2055 Kai Oburn (2x)
2057 Riddick Stanley
2066 Gerald Cook
2077 J.R. Mills (4x)
2085 Theodore Bondy (11x, including 2x playoffs)
2096 Ed Schulz
2097 George Stuckey

It may come as no surprise that Theo has the single-game franchise record with 285 yards in week 17 of the 2086 season, that season where he had 167 catches for 2,449 yards and 19 touchdowns.

On this list, the one player that really feels like an oddity is Gerald Cook, despite that he had excellent route running ability, we tried to use him as a double coverage magnet and get Bubba Ellard, Riddick Stanley, J.T Rivera or tight end Michael Tenbroeke open. Given that it was the 2066 season, it was easy to forget any offensive accolades though, our defense carried us through the season and specifically in the playoffs. Go ask the Texas Sharks quarterback...

Still, it's kind of surprising that Stuckey broke out today, he jumped up from 22 to 33 receptions and 246 yards to 451 yards. He's always had to fight for his roster spot, was actually traded during one pre-season, until the acquiring team backed out of the deal. He had two 100-yard games until today, both 117-yard showings, but in divisional demolitions. Well, today sticking with Stuckey paid off.

Anyway, we're firmly back on earth with at least one foot. Should have been two feet, but the win today makes the offday in Fort Wayne feel like that: an offday. But there's really no reason to think we can't run in a similar stinker in the remaining 13 weeks of the season. Yes, I'm going to remain optimistic, we're still in the race, firmly, and should strive for getting to week 21. But to get there, we'll have to play well in week 9 first.

General Manager Notes: Big test passed?
We won on the road, again, that's big.

over the years, I mean decades, we've come to dislike playing at the Mustangs. We won there in 2091, but back then we snapped a 7-game losing streak in Houston. And with them leading their division with a 5-2 record, there was every reason to believe Vegas about us being 4-point underdogs.

Malachi Pierson made our first drive count, returning the kickoff 31 yards and four plays later turning third and ten into a 50-yard receiving touchdown, of course coming from the hand of Earnest Ashley. Houston replied with a 45-yard field goal, which we replied with a 36-yarder to make it 10-3 after two possessions. On our third drive Ashley found George Stuckey for 56 yards and a touchdown and before the first quarter was over, we forced a fumble to retain possession, marching into Houston territory before the change of ends.

Earnest Ashley completed a 26-yarder to Ed Schulz to get into the red zone and eventually connected on an 8-yarder to Clay Gaynor for a 23-3 lead. We managed a decent bend but don't break defensive drive, while the offense responded with another solid drive, leaning heavily on Bert Ta'Amu's legs and in the last two plays on Ashley's ability to find George Stuckey in traffic. It wasn't over yet for the Mustangs fans, Bryson Swafford intercepted Eddie Wright's pass in Houston territory. Ed Schulz caught the touchdown pass, making it 38-3 shortly after the two-minute warning. Houston pulled their quarterback before half time and saw Bradley Hansen drive his team downfield for a 36-yard field goal.

Leading 38-6 going into the second half, there wasn't much more to ask than brining him the victory. A Bert Ta'Amu fumble helped Houston into field goal range and they got the full 8 a couple of plays later. Slowly, but steadily, Houston drove downfield on their next drive, eventually seeing them throw it into the end zone twice to make it 38-22. A woken up Merchantmen offense then saw Earnest Ashley find Ed Schulz for 23 yards to push Houston back to their own 1-yard line to start the fourth quarter.

After two runs for no gain, Devon Farrell made his biggest play of the season so far, picking off a potential deep pass and returning it for a touchdown. Houston regrouped quickly, scoring another touchdown soon after, making it 45-28, and brining more life back into their crowd after our backup kickoff returner Adam Harmon fumbled the ball. Hayden McNeil picked off a screen pass two plays later. After quick three and out, Houston had the ball soon again, in our half, but this time Hayden McNeil made an interception in the end zone. It wasn't quite over yet, Earnest Ashley got picked off, but the resulting Houston possession ended on fourth and long as their quarterback scrambled for just a yard too few. A recovered fumbled on our end from their punt returner set up our 32-yard field goal, while another fourth down failure ended the game in our favor: 48-28.

Gothenburg win 21-3 at Bordeaux, while Paris won 31-23 at the falling apart Atlanta Vipers. At the mid-season point for the entire division, we're the somewhat unexpected, yet deserved division leaders.

Division
1. Maassluis 7-1
2. Gothenburg 6-2
3. Paris 2-6
4. Bordeaux 1-7

Earnest Ashley received more praise, throwing for 296 yards and 5 touchdowns, finding Ed Schulz and George Stuckey for 101 yards each. Bert Ta'Amu had his most productive game for us so far, running for 144 yards and receiving for 22 more. At the same time, with 3 turnovers, we gave Houston a shot, which they really blew with their 6 giveaways. Or shall we be proud about our defense forcing all those turnovers?

Our season continues with a home game against the Bordeaux Vineyards. Despite their record, an opponent not to underestimate. Stay focused and we'll get a big opportunity to improve to 8-1.

General Manager Notes: Big test upcoming
Unless you think today was a test?

The Bordeaux Vineyards came to town and lucky for us, quarterback Walt Czech was inactivated for this game. That should pave the way for defensive dominance and getting the job done quickly, if the effective offense shows up.

First drive first, Bordeaux had the ball and quickly drove downfield, only to see Derrick Velazquez (who else?) fumble a 24-yard reception, seeing Devon Farrell recover the losse ball. Three and out was our offense's faith and immediately after, Velazquez made up for the booboo, making a 29-yard catch to setup the 24-yard touchdown pass to Bordeaux' fullback for a 7-0 visitors lead. Following another three and out, our special teamer Ike Nixon forced and recovered a fumble on the punt return. After a couple of strong runs from Bert Ta'Amu, Earnest Ashley found Ed Schulz for a dump pass in the end zone to tie it up 7-7. Bordeaux went run heavy and pinned us at our own 6-yard line after a punt, but Ashley quickly responded with a 22-yard toss to Schulz, while Ta'Amu used his legs to move the chains a couple of times to reach Bordeaux territory.

A couple of plays into the second quarter, Earnest Ashley found George Stuckey for 29 yards then two plays later Clay Gaynor for 10 yards and a touchdown to turn the score into a 14-7 lead. On Bordeaux' next drive, another tight end fumbled the ball as Hayden McNeil pried the ball loose and Andrew Cochrane recovered it in field goal range. Ashley found Ed Schulz on third and longish, twice, and Clay Gaynor on third and goal to make it 21-7. A 30-yard pass and a 26-yard run brought Bordeaux into our red zone, but after Caiden Croyle made a 16-yard sack, Bordeaux was pushed back and saw their kicker miss the 42-yard field goal attempt. Our next drive didn't see much special, but neither did Bordeaux', making Mark Perkins punt return for 23 yards a bit of a highlight. Right after the two-minute warning, Ashley found Clay Gaynor on third and long for 16 yards. A face mask penalty moved us into the red zone and Ashley then found George Stuckey for the 28-7 lead. We actually tried to get the ball back for the break, but had just enough time left to run one more play.

The second half started with an old fashioned smashmouth offense, seeing Bert Ta'Amu run for 14 yards and 8 yards. Helped by penalties and Erneast Ashley once again finding Clay Gaynor on third down, we marched into field goal range. Ashley was sacked on second down, but after Isaac Delgado (boy, will we pay for our miscalculation that makes him a free agent) recovered the fumbled ball, Dylan McMullen nailed a 45-yard field goal for a 31-7 lead. Bordeaux did just enough to pin us at our own 6-yard line and on their punt return gained 21 yards to break into our territory, only to see a bunch of penalties push them back into third and 27. Momentum did appear to flip after their punt, as Ashley's toss to George Stuckey got picked off and returned deep inside our red zone. A 5-yard pass into the end zone trimmed Bordeaux' deficit to 31-13 after a missed two-point attempt. Bordeaux was reborn, forcing three and out and seeing their fill in quarterback find Leonard Gagliardi for 16-yard and 15-yard gains shortly before the end of the third quarter.

Momentum flipped back to Maassluis on the first play of the fourth quarter as Hayden McNeil accounted for his second takeaway of the day by picking off a short pass. A Bordeaux penalty on third down saved our possession, then seeing Earnest Ashley find Bert Ta'Amu for 24 yards to get us into field goal range, only to see Ashley picked off for the second time a couple of plays later. Bordeaux then was stalled by our defense, which then turned into a punt return into Mark Perkins, which he then turned into a 92-yard touchdown. 38-13, Maassluis. Game over? Bordeaux was unwilling to give up just yet, they marched downfield with 22-yard and 24-yard passes, until Devon Farrell picked off a pass and returned it 96 yards for a touchdown. 45-13, with two phenomenal returns, how about that? Bordeaux then turned to their third string quarterback, actually got into the end zone on that drive, but with the scoreboard showing 45-19, neither team felt the need to stop our final drive with a time out, so that was it.

A dominating first half, followed by a second half where Bordeaux tried and got outscored by two 90+ returns. That too is football. Gothenburg crushed Atlanta 49-17, while Paris lost 28-20 at home against Houston.

European Division
1. Maassluis 8-1
2. Gothenburg 7-2
3. Paris 2-7
4. Bordeaux 1-8

Next up: Gothenburg at Maassluis and Paris at Bordeaux. While the French teams are probably seeing their season as a lost cause by now, 6-2-1 right now isn't sufficient to reach the playoffs, the clash in Oranje Haven will be for the division lead. It's one of those games where we always struggle, somehow we're not so good at seizing the opportunity when we can create a cushion between ourselves and the second placed team.

Let's see if we can pull a trick on the Giants in this game, we know they're going to try something, but we're not shy of trying that as well in this particular matchup. Although given our recent success, it doesn't feel opportune to throw everything around here, so there's that to consider... Big game tomorrow, I hope we'll play well, in which case we have a reasonable chance to win. Prove we can, Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: When the big test turns into a bigger challenge
Or: what to expect when a key player goes down with an injury?

Lunch in hand, screen all ready to watch our game of the season, a clash at home against the Gothenburg Giants, one game behind our unexpected strong 8-1 start of the season. The first quarter went from a tremendous 45-yard deep pass from Earnest Ashley to Ed Schulz to a 83-yard pick six to put us 7-0 down, then this happened on the third play of our second possession:*sigh*

I forgot about the game, our franchise quarterback was injured and ruled out for the rest of the day, I had to know how bad it is first. The verdict a calf injury, expected to miss 4 more games after today. We might as well be 8-6 by then and eliminated from the playoffs. Goodness, what a sad moment for this season.

The game actually continued, obviously, but more turnovers hurt our chances: a rare occurance of a lost fumble from both our kickoff returner and punt returner, followed by a strip sack of QB2 Efrain Batcheck and a silly late game interception in our last huzzah opportunity. We outgained Gothenburg, but losing the turnover battle 5-1 is almost always a one way ticket to the L-column.

European Division:
1. Gothenburg 8-2
2. Maassluis 8-2
3. Bordeaux 2-8
4. Paris 2-8

Tie-breakers already make it that so the two French teams will finish 3rd and 4th, the division title is officially a two-horse race now.

No time to cry over the Ashley injury though, we signed Batcheck last season for the moment this would or could happen. The big test turned into a test of what we'll look like without our franchise quarterback and we know now: we can still gain yardage, Batcheck completed 19 of 34 passes for 290 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. The bad news is that our next two home games will see us host two 7-2-1 teams. Our Asstoria Heroes like cupcake schedule ended with today's game.

Time to take a deep breath, regroup and move on. We're still in a good position to go places. We'll have to find ways to win without Ashley, maybe the solid defense can return to their solid play of the first 5 games, that would help tremendously. So, Merchantmen, go to the film room, what how the 2023 regular season went as Rusty Harrison got hurt and backup Patrick McDonnell played to to par in his place, which to this day is still a disappointment that there are no co-MVP titles as they combined for 4,555 yards, 46 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. We'll have to rely on Batcheck to be the 2097 version of Patrick McDonnell. Back then we also had just traded for the best running back in the league in HOF'er Stanley Givens, who played well, but struggled to get to 4.0 yards per carry. And we all know the Merchantmen were also about defense back in the '20s, although that 2023 team lead the league with 507 points scored. That 500-point barrier is still attainable this season. So, Merchantmen of 2097: repeat history, at least for the regular season. Bar the week 17 choke and similar wild card round loss. That team was #1 seed material and so has this team been. Get it together and make it happen!

General Manager Notes: Don't give up just yet
Two losses in a row, that doesn't mean the season is over!

With Earnest Ashley in the sidelines wearing his casual suit, the keys to the offense were handed to veteran Efrain Batcheck. I remember signing him, in hopes to not really need him, just to be there to step in, in case an injury to Ashley would happen last season. I also considered him as a relatively cheap insurance policy in case we would have to part ways with Ashley. This past off-season we signed Ashley for franchise quarterback money, which sealed the faith for Effin' Efrain: the backup role. Against the Gothenburg Giants he was rushed onto the field, played well, but ill timed turnovers limited the chances to beat them. Today another big test against the division title bound Brooklyn Fightin' Bums.

Those Bums got the ball first and leaning heavily on two big runs from their running back, they took a 7-0 lead. Batcheck looked under pressure, but delivered on a crucial third and long with a 19-yard toss to Clay Gayner to get into field goal range. Smooth tosses to Clarence Gore and Malachi Pierson made it 7-7 as the latter leaped into the end zone. A 45-yard run for a touchdown quickly put Brooklyn back in the lead at 14-7. The pressure was on Batcheck again, this time we had to settle for pinning them deep on the punt. The defense forced three and out and field position seemed to go in our favor.

In the second quarter the Brooklyn quarterback saw his tight end turn a short pass into a 27-yarder and then a screen pass to his fullback became a 37-yarder. They key stop there was insufficient to avoid the 21-7 lead taking touchdown on the next play. We tried to respond on our next possession, Efrain Batcheck found Clarence Gore for 27 yards, but Bert Ta'Amu was struggling and we were forced to punt. The Brooklyn quarterback responded with 21-yard and 16-yard throws, followed by unneccessary roughness called against us and the next play turned into a 24-yard touchdown pass for Brooklyn, seeing them take a 28-7 lead halfway thought the second quarter. Goodness, where has that Merchantmen defense gone from the month and a half of the season? We failed to get deep enough to get into scoring position on our next drive, but pinning them at their own 3-yard line might help, no? The defense stepped it up and after a typical Mark Perkins punt return, we might have something. Batcheck found Clay Gaynor for 12 yards, but his next throw was picked off in their red zone. We needed a penalty and a sack to make their completed pass on third and 19 come short of a first down, but they took enough time off the clock, while our staff completely failed to see that calling a time out or two could have given us a scoring opportunity here. So, we went into the big break trailing 28-7, with the crowd clearly showing their disapproval of our lack of courage.

On the third play from scrimmage of the second half, Efrain Batcheck saw Ed Schulz open deep and the receiver turns it into a 44-yard gain. Bert Ta'Amu and Ed Schulz moved the chains, but deep inside their red zone we got stopped and settled for a 22-yard field goal: 28-10. The next three drives were defense heavy, with Brooklyn pinning us at our own two-yard line. After they stopped us quickly, we finally saw change as Ernie Grant promoted his interception into a 42-yard touchdown. With Bert Ta'Amu running the two-pointer in, it got us back to a more respectable 28-18 deficit. But just as we thought we had them, they complete a deep throw for 33 yards to end the third quarter.

We started the fourth quarter with stout enough defense to force them to punt again, this time getting pinned at our 3-yard line. Efrain Batcheck took the challenge, completing a 15-yarder to George Stuckey, running for 8 yards and a couple of plays finding Ed Schulz for 18 yards on third and long. A sack on third down at midfield then stopped our drive, meaning all the effort just turned into a bit of field position improvement. Our run defense was abysmal on the next drive, giving up 9-yard, 17-yard and 13-yard runs, eventually leading up to a 53-yard field goal that their kicker (lucky for us) missed.

So, with 3 minutes to go, 10 points down, we might still have a chance. But that chance ended pretty quickly. Despite a 13-yard toss to George Stuckey and a 13-yader to Bert Ta'Amu, a sack and false start penalty in between lead up to a fourth and seven situation. Instead of going for a short throw to move the chains (we still have time outs as well), Batcheck is asked to go for it and his deep throw to Malachi Pierson got defended. Brooklyn runs our or time outs and they need just one more 13-yard run to make that worthless. Brooklyn 28, Maassluis 18.

Such a let down. The first half was a disaster, we failed to take some risks when it was warranted and we took a bigger risk than needed when we didn't have to. A bigger let down is seeing us lose two big tests at home, after we went 4-1 on the road to get to that 8-1 record. At 8-3, we're still in a very good spot to go place, but, with 3 of those 5 games on the road, I can't feel confident at all. Our next home game will be against the 8-2-1 Orlando Talons, I feel like we really have to lock somebody in the film room to work out a game plan to stop the #2 offense in the league. They have scored 20+ in every single game so far, no other team has achieved that.

European Divsion
1. Gothenburg 9-2
2. Maassluis 8-3
3. Bordeaux 3-8
4. Paris 3-8

Yeah, the eliminated French teams all of a sudden start winning games, albeit against NAC Mid-Atlantic teams that are 3-win teams as well.

So, Orlando next. Earnest Ashley is still out, and in all honestly, we can't even blame Batcheck as he's been playing up to par with Ashley. It's really all up to the defense to step it up in the big games. Sure, Houston and San Antonio were big tests, which they passed, but we're going to need them to show up every game, not just every other week. I know this team can do it, dropping to 10-6 and first team outside the playoffs would be anticlimactic after such a tremendous start. Game by game, drive by drive, play by play. Reset the focus, we can do this, Merchantmen!

General Manager Notes: 50-50 for the home stretch?
At least for this home game streak.

It was a bit early to give up faith in the team when Earnest Ashley dropped out injured. After all, he was completing only barely over 50% of his passes, surely Efrain Batcheck should be able to copy that, no? But facing the Orlando Talons, half a win ahead of us in the wild card race, this wasn't going to be a game where we'd be the favorites, or were we by a point or so?

It doesn't start well when your kickoff returner muffs the ball and the opponents recover it. All you can hope for then is your defensive stars to step up (and they did) to hold them to a 36-yard field goal. We responded with a decent drive, but closing in on field goal range, we chickened out. Orlando responded, but a couple of sacks eventually stalled their drive just enough to force them to punt to maintain their 3-0 lead. We failed to gain too much ground in return and Orlando woke up on their next drive.

But barely into the second quarter, our defense stepped up again, forcing them to punt. Bert Ta'Amu woke up, big time, with runs for 11, 8, 9 and a catch for 6 yards to move past midfield. We went for it on fourth and one, but our trick play failed. Virtue of our defense, three and out was there to give it back to us. Ta'Amu continued his good day with runs for 6, 7 and 26 yards, but we ended up punting yet again, to pin them deep. Randal Solomon lead an impressive drive from Orlando's 6-yard line and finished it off with a 22-yard touchdown pass to his running back for a 10-0 lead. Our offense was stopped quickly, but just as you'd expected Orlando to run out the clock, they decided to go for it, finding Devon Farrell on their way, picking off Solomon's pass and returning it the full 60 yards for a touchdown! Going into half time trailing 10-7 felt much better.

Orlando had the ball first in the third quarter and moved the ball quickly to end up with a converted 49-yard field goal for their 13-7 lead. Our offense couldn't do much, but neither did they, although they pinned us at our own 1-yard line. Efrain Batcheck finally got his groove going, finding Malachi Pierson for 13 yards and Ed Schulz for 20 yards on the next play. Bert Ta'Amu moved the chains and so did George Stuckey on a 10-yard catch and soon after Ed Schulz on an 18-yard catch converting third and very long. Pierson made another crucial third and long reception to keep the drive going, inside the Orlando red zone.

The drive continued in the fourth quarter as Clay Gaynor made a 22-uard reception on Efrain Batcheck's pass to brush away another third and fifteen play, coming a yard or so short to make the touchdown. It followed two plays later as Bert Ta'Amu bulldozed it in, making the 14-13 lead complete. Orlando fought back, saw Randal Salomon complete a 30-yard pass to one of his receivers and a pair of sacks by the hands of Caiden Croyle and Archie Exner were required to push them out of field goal range. From our 5-yard line, we started another strong drive. A pass interference call on third down moved the chains, but the equally important play became George Stuckey's 44-yard catch. It all stopped there though, as we failed to gain any yards on the next bunch of plays to make a field goal attempt impossible. Our defense forced three and out, which was strengthened by Mark Perkins punt return to midfield. Batcheck found Ta'Amu for 29 yards and another score was inevitible, right? It turned out to be a 33-yard field goal, sufficient to extent our lead to 17-13. Momentum was on us though, Ernie Grant intercepted a screen pass on the first play of the next drive. Slowly, but steadily did we move the ball and take out Orlando's time outs leading up to our 26-yard field goal to jump to a 20-13 lead with under a minute to go. Their kickoff return got the Talons somewhat of a good field position, but their second play turned out to be their last: Preston Bradford intercepted the ball in Orlando territory. Victory formation followed: Merchantmen win 20-13!

Elsewhere, the Gothenburg Giants crushed the Toronto Lake Monsters 37-3, while the Paris Musketeers upset the Tucker Tigers 45-27, meaning the European division leader is now #1 seed bound. Bordeaux extended their winning streak to 3 games.

Division standings
1. Gothenburg 10-2
2. Maassluis 9-3
3. Paris 4-8
4. Bordeaux 4-8

Despite that Orlando played quite solidly in the first half, we somehow took control with that pick six just before half time and turned it all around. We actually outgained them 375 yards to 319 yards, so we can honestly say we were the better team. Turnovers were in our favor, but I think our running game finally made a difference as Bert Ta'Amu had his best game in orange-white-and-blue so far: 137 yards rushing, 35 yards receiving, 1 touchdown, 5.7 yards per carry.

Next up, a road game, at the Chesapeake Chitterlings. Almost any other season a sure loss. This season? They're floating around .250 land, they're on a 6-game losing streak. BUt 5 of those came on the road and today they got unlucky at the 11-1 Oakland Black Panthers, losing 23-20 in overtime after choking a 13-point lead in the last 2 minutes and a half. There are no easy wins in IHOF, especially not against traditionally the league's second best franchise: they're still 126 regular season wins (minus 3 ties) ahead of us. They missed their chances to record win 1000 this season, they'll get their somewhere during next season anyway (only 9 more needed). We're coming off win #903 overall (including playoffs games) and hope to yank it up to 910 this season.

But, one win at a time, drive by drive, play by play. Yet another big test, with Earnest Ashley still out. Keep course, Merchantmen, something like today would be nice.

General Manager Notes: You win some, you lose some
Does it still apply after back-to-back losses?

Two more games in the bag and to be frank: they were a couple of disappointments. At the Chesapeake Chitterlings we forgot how to play football, in particular on offense. Effin' Batcheck completed 16 of 36 passes for 167 yards and 3 interceptions. Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster. Bert Ta'Amu was held to 59 yards on 20 carries. It shall come as no surprise that we lost. Now, if the defense had played any better, we might have come closer than a 22-10 deficit. But can I really blame the defense here, when they hold the opponents to 301 total yards?

Then week 15 at the Gothenburg Giants. What was supposed to be the game of the regular season, after our sudden downfall, we were just playing for keeping division title hopes alive and more importantly not dropping outside the virtual top6 for the playoffs. The good news was the return of Earnest Ashley, a game earlier than anticipated. The bad news that our running game was silenced, while our defensive performance was laughable, as if we completely forgot how to play on that side of the ball: giving up 208 rushing yards and letting Mercury Pierce complete 16 of 23 passes for 224 yards is unacceptable. I mean, an average defense is allowed to struggle here, but we've got a team with guys that are getting or soon to be demanding quarterback money. Well, kids, play up to it, you've got to earn it. So yes, indeed, while Earnest Ashley was perhaps the best player on the field, actually earning his paycheck, kind of, but it were the Gothenburg Giants that won 36-24. The Giants got the big plays, we didn't.

European Division:
1. Gothenburg 12-2
2. Maassluis 9-5
3. Bordeaux 5-9
4. Paris 4-10

Gothenburg has secured the division title in this game, but a bye week isn't secured yet. Our playoffs hopes rely on the wild cards. The one thing we've got going for us is that we're pretty much secured tie-breakers over all other hopefuls, but with Tucker 2 wins ahead, Augusta 1.5 wins, while San Antonio and Orlando are both 0.5 wins behind, the only team that's likely to be tie-breakable is Houston at 1 win ahead of us.

But to be allowed to talk about playoffs, we'll have to play the way we did in weeks 1 through 10, not like the 1-4 losers from the recent 5 games. Yes, I went there, I upped my standards, especially in a series of home games. Next up are the Williamsburg Colonials, despite their 6-8 record, a team to fear, even in Oranje Haven. It's time to, well, not just regroup, but really, show the league what we're made of.

sorry to hand you that loss... would have been better for both of us had you prevailed

no explanations here... i guess it's just bad QB play at work for us, but wow...

General Manager Notes: The downfall continues...
We're gonna need a lot of help now.

Goodness, we've not hit rock bottom just yet. Today, we had a chance to redeem ourselves, facing the already eliminated Williamsburg Colonials. It really showed on the field, the team with nothing to play for ran havoc on us and travelled back home with a 23-3 victory in their bags. Leaving behind a disillusioned Merchantmen team and ditto fanbase. The virtual #1 seeds after week 10 have dropped 5 of 6 games, 3 of those at home. Today's deficit took the cake of ineptitude, our offense gained a grand total of 173 yards. Earnest Ashley completed 13 of 41 passes for 137 yards and 1 interception, while Bert Ta'Amu was stuffed into 34 yards on just 16 carries. Now where did that balanced game plan go, what happened to what we ordered the team to display? I suppose we were forced to pass a lot. It was a disaster, our star receivers got silenced: Ed Schulz had 2 catches on 13 targets, George Stuckey 3 catches on 10 targets.

European Division
1. Gothenburg 13-2
2. Maassluis 9-6
3. Bordeaux 6-9
4. Paris 5-10

So, 9-6, sounds still good, right? Well, sadly, nope. Even at 10-6, odds are slim that we'll be getting the last wild card into the playoffs. Our competition is composed of the 9-5-1 San Antonio Tidal Force and ditto 9-5-1 Orlando Talons. Indeed, a couple of teams that we actually beat. San Antonio will be visiting the 11-4 Houston Mustangs, locked into the #3 seed. Orlando will be hosting the 6-8-1 Snapfinger Jazz. So yes, I suspect we're in for disappointment, even if we somehow manage to win at the Bordeaux Vineyards.

But we've got to believe in that longshot scenario, because it'll be any given Sunday, or Saturday this time around... Chin up, onto the plane to Bordeaux. Make it happen, Merchantmen.

General Manager Notes: Too little, too late
We won, but it wasn't enough.

Yes, we won our last regular season game, beating the Bordeaux Vineyards 26-6. Earnest Ashley completed 20 of 35 passes for 227 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. Ed Schulz was the top receiver with 6 receptions for 93 yards and 2 touchdowns, George Stuckey hauled in the other touchdown. Bert Ta'Amu ran for 131 yards with a 5.7 per carry average. The defense allowed the most talented quarterback in the division Walt Czech to complete 14 of 27 passes for 185 yards with 2 interceptions.

The good news came from Houston, where the home playing Mustangs beat the San Antonio Tidal Force 34-24, but the bad news came from Orlando, where the home playing Talons crushed the Snapfinger Jazz and claimed the last wild card in the Atlantic Ocean Conference. And with that, our season came to an end. For the second time in 94 seasons, a team in the IHOF missed the playoffs after an 801 start.

European Division
1. Gothenburg 14-2
2. Maassluis 10-6
3. Bordeaux 6-10
4. Paris 5-11

We scored 419 points (7th in the league) and allowed 329 points (9th in the league), our points differential of +90 is the 6th best in the league.
but that just wasn't enough this season.

Earnest Ashley completed 515% of his passes for a career low 3,147 yards, result of missing almost 4 full games due to injury. His 29 passing touchdowns was a career high though and his 12 interceptions presumes that maybe he can finish a season with less than an interception per game. He also ran for 4 touchdowns.

Ed Schulz finished 4th in the league with 1,399 receiving yards and tied 5th with 11 receiving touchdowns, all that on tied 18th most receptions. The latter somewhat misleading as we targeted him a league 6th most 202 times. George Stuckey had 67 catches for 998 yards and 7 touchdowns, Clay Gaynor 48 for 601 yards and 5 touchdowns, Bert Ta'Amu 48 for 420 yards and 3 touchdowns, Clarence Gore 35 for 393 yards and 2 touchdowns, Malachi Pierson 21 for 255 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Elsewhere across the team, center Robbie Zinn, guard Nickolas Toler, defensive end Richie Piotte, defensive tackle Darien Fletcher, cornerback Ernie Grant and safety Devon Farrell all had All-IHOF worthy seasons. We'll see where they rank amongst their peers after the IHOF Bowl. All it says to me is their contract demands will increase, which will be quite the problem given that we signed Earnest Ashley to a true franchise quarterback contract last off-season and that we'll have to fend off opposing teams for the services of offensive tackle Isaac Delgado after my cap management blunder. We'll also have an expensive collective of draft picks, although our couple of first round picks will be pretty low at the #20 and #18 (from Arizona). Our additional second round pick from Fort Wayne will be #46 overall and our own second rounder #52.

It is what it is. Preparation for the off-season starts a little bit earlier than hoped, perhaps even anticipated. The 5-0 and 8-1 starts mislead us to think we were back in business, we're closing in on Gothenburg, but are not quite there yet. New opportunities will come. As early as 2098.

General Manager Notes: 2098 begins now...
With a hall of famer announcement, some retirements and 2097 honors announced.

Kirk Hitchcock got elected into the Solecismic Hall of Fame, unanimously. Our 2089 Defensive Player of the Year is the first Merchantmen player to get so much praise. After 13 seasons of service, 204 games in the regular season, 13 in the playoffs, he earned it. Best cornerback in Merchantmen history. So far?

Gene Kondovski retired after 12 seasons as a pass rusher for the Merchantmen. We picked him in the third round of the 2086 draft, moved him from linebacker to defensive end and made him part of our rotation from day one. 188 regular season games, 8 in the playoffs, 52.0 sacks. Those are the core numbers. The last two seasons, he was stuck as our fourth defensive end far behind Richie Piotte.

Malachi Pierson, wide receiver and kickoff returner, leaves us after just one season. Former second round pick for the Outer Banks Ospreys, moved to Colorado later on and spent 2097 in Maassluis. Scored 5 touchdowns last season.

Travis Hampton was our long snapper for just 2 seasons. Just turned 32, so we were pretty surprised he called it a game, but that's up to him. Too bad that he leaves at the top of the game though...

Cornerback Ernie Grant and safety Devon Farrell were both elected All-IHOF first teamers, while defensive end Richie Piotte got second team honors. Grant had 6 interceptions, 16 defended passes, Farrell 4 interceptions (3 touchdowns and 16 defended passes, Piotte had 14.0 sacks.

This means we're going into the 2098 off-season $18M over the cap, projected closer to $49M after draft picks, not keeping in mind that we'll have to count only the top 5 picks towards the cap. We don't have a lot of negotiable room, which we will need to both be able to re-sign three of our four free agents and lock up Ernie Grant and Richie Piotte.

We'll go into the draft with picks #18 and #20, as well as #46, #52, #81 (virtually #79 as two higher picks are stripped for cap violation), and later on a couple of 5th rounders, a 6th and a 7th rounder. Those first rounders account for roughly $7.5M each, the second rounders roughly $3M each and the third rounder just under $2.5M, adding up to about $24M in cap cost. Combined with aforementioned $18M, meaning we're actually going to be at $42M over. Not an easy task, but I think it's manageable, but we'll know a bit more tomorrow when we can truly investigate whether I can make some cap magic.

General Manager Notes: We hired a new defensive coordinator
Yeah, apparently we needed that.

I wasn't expecting a change in our staff, but apparently Ryan Ivans became available after the Oakland Black Panthers decided to not just offer him a new contract, but during the staff draft they replaced him, which gave us the opportunity to grab Ivans from the pool of unemployed staff members. We said goodbye to Doug Serna, who ironically was hired as assistant coach by Oakland. Ivans' strength compared to Serna is his ability to judge player potential better and developing young players. In return, Serna had a better reputation as a play caller.

Early peak at our cap situation? Ernie Grant and Richie Piotte want us to throw about $50M extra to them. Add in that wants roughly $25M for the upcoming season and you'll quickly see that we have to find about $115M in cap space. Not an easy task at all, I'd say. But I think I'm up for the challenge. Let's do this.

General Manager Notes: Delgado stays, Buysse selected
And a whole bunch of renegotiations were accepted.

Let's start with the blockbuster trade, we are the Masters of Trade after all. We sent the 1.18 and 1.20 picks to the Chesapeake Chitterlings in exchange for the 1.7 pick. I actually had the same deal worked out for the 1.4 pick, but just before I gave my final "deal" to it, I checked the cap situation one more time and concluded that pick would be too expensive. The good news: we landed our target player those 3 spots later after all: wide receiver Vinny Buysse.

Earlier that day we were able to renegotiate with just enough players to make the cap space available to sign tackle Isaac Delgado to a 5-year $180M contract. Three players declined our first renewed contract offer, which meant it was pretty close in the end. Odds were that Delgado would otherwise signed a $150M deal with the Gothenburg Giants.

Our talks with players will continue, as it's no secret that we'll need to find cap space to lock up our All Worldly defensive end Richie Piotte and cornerback Ernie Grant. Center Robbie Zinn chipped in today, all that's left is left tackle Johnny Houston and wide receiver Ed Schulz accepting the much bigger signing bonus than they're requesting. It's funny how these player agents' logic keeps these players from getting to sign a better deal than they're requesting...

Giving up two mid-low first round picks for one wide receiver felt like a heavy price to pay, but if Buysse is the complete receiver that we hope him to be, he'll be worth it. My track record is still kind of 50-50 on first round wide receivers, with 4 Hall of Famers to boost my confidence and Theodore Bondy obviously going to join the bunch, quite possibly even with an unanimous vote.

We grabbed Buysse from a group of 5 wide receivers that we looked at. It's true that 3 of them were picked ahead of Buysse, but when we talked with the Frederick Red Menace for the 1.4 pick, that list was still 4 names unspoken for. When I inquired for the 1.7 pick, I already had a close to done deal for pick 1.9 or 1.10, just in case.

I considered trading back up and in for the last wide receiver from our list, but he was promptly taken in the mid first round. In retrospect, moving up was the right decision. All the players that I felt were worthy of a first round pick were taken before the 1.18 pick rolled around, so giving up two first rounders still feels like a better result than trading out for the nth time.

We're still holding the 2.14 and 2.20 picks and I'm convinced I'll be able to plug one hole on our team with it, and am seriously considering to improve one other position with that 2.20 pick, if the opportunity arises. A trade out wouldn't be a loss either, cap space is once again hard to come by.

General Manager Notes: Cap space!
And a couple of new rookies.

And a long snapper. Goodness, we know it's part of the game, but it's always tricky to find a good long snapper. Especially if you're used to great standards and just had the best in business retire. We signed 29-year old Sebastian Garner, he was previously with the Arizona Miners and actually failed to maker their 2097 roster. Does this mean he's our guy for 2098? You'll never know with my standards for special teamers...

Speaking of special teamers, after a two-step trade down from pick 2.20 to 3.9, we ended up selecting top graded kicker Gino Shea. We didn't interview him, not particularly anticipating to go for a replacement of Dylan McMullen here, so there might be a modest chance that we'll go into the 2098 season with 2 kickers on roster. Could we? Really? McMullen could mentor Shea. McMullen wants a big increase on his contract, which isn't something I'm willing offer him.

We did offer new contracts to a bunch of veterans, most importantly our WR1 Ed Schulz and former stud linebacker Brandon Brady. The latter has turned into a pure run stopper, so his complaints about playing time aren't going to chance soon, which means I will keep my eyes open for a new linebacker. Daquan Espino is unwilling to re-sign with us, which is too bad, as we hung on to him and his fat contracts despite having regressed into replacement level player.

We did bolster our defense at the 3.17 slot in the draft by picking defensive end Robbie Dobreski. Going into the draft, this was the guy I wanted to pick. My staff is very optimistic about him being a suitable replacement for recently retired Gene Kondovski. Wait and see, obviously.

After a bunch of renegotiations and draft pick trades, we're now at 48 players signed, the incoming rookies Vinny Buysse and aforementioned Shea and Dobreski with about $23M in cap space. We're going to need it, not just to lock up Ernie Grant and Richie Piotte, but also a bunch of other veterans. Not to mention that I'd still like to bring back Branden Sandlin and Hayden McNeil. Sandlin's salary request is far away what we can afford for a WR4, 5 or 6 though, so it's going to be tricky. McNeil might see us get some competition to re-sign him as the free agents market is drying out, so I will have to consider what to offer him now or risk losing him.

We're also in possession of three seventh round picks, which means we can snag up a bunch of guys before they become undrafted rookies. And there's always a chance that I second guess things and move back into this draft...

General Manager Notes: Three more picks!
The 2098 draft is finished!

With three seventh round picks, we had some chances to grab some players before the post-draft bidding war on undrafted rookies ensues. We picked up safety Blaine Wright, running back/kickoff returner DaShawn McIntyre and quarterback Bill Bensen. We missed out on a linebacker by 2 and 1 picks, but so it goes at times. Will they make the pre-season roster? Likely. Will they make the final 53-men list? Unlikely, but never say never...

General Manager Notes: Rookie first looks!
And a couple of hold outs.

Our six rookies reported at Oranje Haven, and we've got some closer look at them. Yes, it's still early, we know we're going through a couple more re-evaluations of them, but still.

Vinny Buysse
The good news: the kid reminds me of Ed Schulz as a rookie. The bad news? See the good news. The kid is fast, my offensive coordinator thinks he's in the top five big play receivers in the league. But his ability to get open is underdeveloped, albeit I must feel happy about his very good potential. Our OC also thinks he's in the top 15 amongst all receivers in overall talent, the best of this draft class. And he has the endurance to play on all downs.

Gino Shea
Well, he's a kicker, what else to say? My staff thinks he's the second best kicker of this class. To be fair, I was expecting that to happen, but the main difference is that Shea actually can be an elite kickoff guy and looks still top five to ten in point collecting skills.

Robbie Dobreski
Yeah, we're not overwhelmed yet. I hope he lives up to the hype from my defensive coordinator of being very underrated. He's got the potential in pass rush technique and play diagnosis, but that is what we were looking for here.

Blaine Wright
Seventh round safety. Looks potentially good to very good in all the areas you'd want from a strong safety: run defending, zone defense, play diagnosis, interceptions.

Dashawn McIntyre
Kickoff returner of running back? A bit of the first and not much of the second, a bit of both or just a young special teamer? We'll find out in pre-season, or maybe not until he's in his third season.

Bill Bensen
We locked up Earnest Ashley for 5 seasons, did we really need to take a flyer here? But yes, of course! You can always keep your eyes open for a new quarterback.


Besides that, we got the news that two of our best players went into hold ut modus. Darien Fletcher and Richie Piotte are obviously amongst the league's elite pass rushing defensive linemen. Both want a new deal, their contracts are expiring after this season. The good news? That was already in my plans. The bad news? We'll have to offer it them now, before training camp. I hoped to be able to wait for pre-season, but that's no longer an option now. Our first shot at it has been offered, I hope they agree quickly so we can focus on other stuff before pre-season and leave the contract tinkering for mid-re-season.