[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: 2/3rd-ish 2117 report!

We've gone through a swing of 6 more games and, after quite the rollercoaster we're still a top the division. I won't say "don't ask how", because you know I'm going to tell you here and now anyway.

Week 7 vs Toronto
The defending league champions came to town and didn't didn't just show their all pass attack near perfection, they also taught our quarterback a lesson in ball control. QB Bart Tanner was intercepted 4 times, while he and RB Rusty Kemp also added a lost fumble to the tally and QB Harrison Singleton got his share as well with one more interception. Yup, 7 turnovers against the team that went 19-0 last season, I think you can quickly imagine how such a game would end. Well, it was 14-44 by half time and neither team scored a touchdown in the second half.
QB Bart Tanner threw for 227 yards with touchdowns to TE Arnie Huffman and WR Jessie Vertelney, who also had 102 yards receiving for the day. We gained 439 total yards, which is quite good against this opponent and we lost the field position battle by just 7 yards despite losing the turnover battle 2-7.
Result 14-50 loss

Week 8 at Paris
Despite giving up 378 total yards, the Paris Musketeers needed an early pick six to put points on the score board. Our own offense was underwhelmingly bad, yet they eventually put just enough points on the board to avoid an embarrassing loss.
QB Bart Tanner threw for 237 yards, with a touchdown to WR Rodolfo Lane.
Result: 13-7 win

Week 9 at Harlem
Struggles with our wide receivers not living up to their cap figures, it has helped our quarterback into turning into a pick machine this season and in this game another pair of lost fumbles made for steep hill to climb. We also have to give credit to an opponent that saw their running back run for 141 yards on us. But at the end of the day, when you're losing the turnover battle 0-4, it requires excellence on all the other drives to avoid deficit, which we were not capable of.
QB Bart Tanner threw for 263 yards with a touchdown to WR Rufus Montgomery, while RB Rusty Kemp scored our other touchdown.
Result: 20-31 loss

Week 10 vs Bordeaux
And then, when you thought we had rolled our snake eyes already, Bordeaux got something of a single roll Yahtzee! against us. In what was a very strong showing from our offense and defense, we found ourselves trailing 41-20 with 14 minutes to go in the game. All that most the result of the Vineyards scoring touchdowns on a fumble return, punt return, interception return and a kickoff return. Despite that, we didn't give up and took advantage of a pair of 4th quarter interceptions thrown by their backup quarterback (almost evening out on QB Bart Tanner's 4-interception game).
We almost pulled the unlikely comeback, scoring a pair of touchdowns and a
field goal to set us up for trailing by 4, moving downfield with under a minute remaining and Tanner throwing that 4th interception in the end zone to end the game.
QB Bart Tanner threw for 368 yards, threw 2 touchdowns, ran for 1 as well. RB Rusty Kemp ran for a touchdown, TE Corbin Robbins caught 2 touchdowns. WR Rodolfo Lane for a change lived up to his talent and exorbitant salary with 152 yards receiving.
Result: 37-41 loss

Week 11 vs Gothenburg
Having dropped to second place in the division based on the divisional game loss to Bordeaux, we were fully expecting to see the downfall continue with a near knock out punch by the Giants in our own house.
After a bit of a false start for them, we took the quick lead with a short 35-yrd drive for a touchdown and after both offense put down dominant drives for a 14-7 score in our advantage, everybody was getting ready for a shootout.
Nothing of that came through in the remaining 3 quarters and a bit as the stingy defenses on both sides put quite the display on the field. Especially our pass rush showed up for a change and late in the game saved the day when Gothenburg was driving for would could have been a comeback from behind touchdown as DE Christopher Wrighster had a strip sack complete with recovering the losse ball.
QB Bart Tanner threw for 252 yards with 2 touchdowns. WR Jessie Vertelney and TE Ted Gordon made the touchdown catches.
Result: 20-14 win

Week 12 at Brooklyn
And then a real shootout came to the football field. Helped by 3 interceptions thrown by their quarterback in the first 20 minutes of the game, we took an early lead and even saw it in become a 2-score game late after a tremendous 60-yard touchdown run by RB Renaldo Billodeaux. A fumble by this hero helped the Fightin' Bums set up their touchdown for a 31-30 lead with just over 4 minutes to go. With just over 2 minutes remaining, we decided to punt, nailing them deep inside their own red zone. The gamble proved to be worth it as we trhee-and-outed them, followed by a strong punt return by WR Rodolfo Lane to set up a 45-yard field goal for the 33-31 lead. Our rookie K Jeffery DeGroot succeeded and in the nail biting final 45 seconds, Brooklyn failed to get into field goal range as well.
QB Bart Tanner threw for 265 yards and a touchdown to TE Ted Gordon. RB Renaldo Billodeaux ran for 118 yards and 1 touchdown, RB Rusty Kemp also ran for a touchdown.
Result: 33-31 win

That was quite the rollercoaster of games as we ran into quite the load of of turnovers, in particular QB Bart Tanner's return to his 2115 habits of throwing multiple picks in a game. We thought we fixed that issue last season, but apparently not. The wide receivers also went a huge step back this season, WR Jessie Vertelney has 5.9 yards per target, WR Rodolfo Lane has a 48.9 catch percentage and WR Rufus Montgomery has less than 3 receptions per game. Their combined tally is 127 catches for 1673 yards and 9 touchdowns in 11 games. These guys are just not untalented enough to have these totals.

Despite all that, we're still hanging onto the division lead, for a big part based on a bit of an off season for the Giants and in particular our head-to-head win flipped the division lead into our favor.

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

Our remaining schedule isn't easy at all. We're visiting Augusta Greenjackets (5-6) next, in recent seasons our rivals for the wild card race. Then we'll host the Chesapeake Chitterlings (8-3) in what seems to be a back to 10-win quality season for them. Then we'll host Paris, which has to be the closest thing to a guaranteed win as you can have in the league this season. And we'll close it out with a stretch of road games at Williamsburg (6-5) and at Gothenburg. Both of them are looking more stable than we do, which says quite a bit as they are not playing their best football at the moment. Again, a tough stretch, where under normal circumstances going 2-3 would be mildly acceptable, but given where we are right now, to win the division we'll need to win at least 3 games, preferably the last one, but we'll have to stop doing this forecasting and try to focus on game by game. Augusta is a tough cookie to crack.