[MIJB#19]

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!