[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Side stories of the 2090 season
How about that Theodore Bondy guy?

Remember how he broke the franchise receptions record last season? Probably not, because I completely missed it and never wrote about it. Apparently it happened in week 11 early in the fourth quarter during the 19-17 loss in Gothenburg. Bondy tied it and broke it on the very next play.

Usually, these kind of things are the side stories for me, not really the important stuff (wins and losses, players getting injured or not living up to expectations), but sometimes there's some time to focus on the individual honors. To be clear, we don't give players more playing time to break records and such, we play to win. But, looking over some other stuff, I noticed Bondy has cracked into the 14K receiving yards, which obviously means he'll have a shot at 15K and such the franchise record. Interestingly enough, he'll go into 2090 as the #4 all time. He jumped ahead of one of the four hall of famers, Riddick Stanley, the one I have the least affection for, as far as that's a thing.

15,001 Terry Haskell
14,944 J.R. Mills
14,531 Gabe Springer
14,371 Theodore Bondy
13,511 Riddick Stanley
11,996 Terry Thomason

(yeah, if we're going to list guys, let's at least mention Terry for being the other guy over 10K)

Anyway, this means there will be, or could be fans who keep track of Bondy's chances to get past them one by one. If he keeps pace with the last two seasons, say roughly 80 yards per game, Bondy can pass Springer in week 2 at Hanalei, Mills in week 9 at Harlem and Haskell in week 10 at Bordeaux. Must be a joy to reach those milestones in front of hostile fan bases, but that's what the likelihood is. Needing 630 receiving yards, it's no given still, but bar injuries, Bondy should get there by the end of the season, even with just 40 yards per game.

The touchdowns record, also in Haskell's hands, is (at 128) well out of reach for now. Bondy jumped into the 100-club, sitting at 105, one behind Springer's 106 and just ahead of Stanley's 103. Naturally, the receiving touchdowns record is almost equally out of reach for now. Haskell has 127 of those, Bondy and Springer sit at 105, Stanley at 100. In both categories, Mills is far behind with just 85 (receiving) touchdowns.

In a similar fashion, Kirk Hitchcock took the all-time passes defended record for Merchantmen players. He's currently at 147, far ahead of Tai Wayne, who had been the recordholder for such a long time, retiring with 135 of those after the 2015 season. Hall of Famer Peter Tucker came close at 130, but he settled for the interceptions record with 45 of those. Hitchcock is still 9 behind on Tucker, even still trailing safety Thurman Hopper and his 42 interceptions.

And last but not least likely, center Butch Pearson has a shot at jumping into the franchise top 5 in number of key run blocks. With 308 of those he ranks sixth now, but he's 25 behind mid '40s to '50s guard Bryant Huffman, which is a number he topped in each of his 9 seasons as a starter (he spent his rookie season inactive). The top 4 is still far out of reach though, as Carlos Webb is fourth with 359 key run blocks.

If this stuff is your thing, keep your eyes open for it. I'll probably forget about it and maybe remember by the end of the season, or maybe only if one of these three phenomenal players retires in the next off-season. Which is getting us way ahead of things, we're not going to worry about the projected $71M over the cap, excluding draft picks, that we'll be in then. We'll focus on this season, where we hope to make one more bounce back towards the upper echelon of teams in the league. The defense looks ready, the offense looks barely unchanged.

The biggest question will be: Moe Sheldon or Brandon Bell. I think you know by now which route we'll take, but if Sheldon starts struggling, or worse, we have some confidence in Bell being good enough to jump in. And worst case scenario, Francisco Farley can make his additional years on team come into play.