[MIJB#19]

General Manager notes 2080: Too little, too late?
We've been winning 2/3rd of our games since the bye, but the triplet of losses before it have handicapped us.

We've won our last three home games by wide margins (37-13 over Snapfinger, 27-12 over Capital City and 31-6 over Houston) and in between won 24-14 at Bordeaux, but the stupidity in our 31-30 loss in Orlando and ineptitude in the 40-20 loss at Gothenburg have us trailing the wild card teams by 1 win and inferior tie-breakers. Had we won only one of the six games we lost (three of thosewe were the better team) and we're heavily in the mix.

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

Sure, 1 win behind, but Gothenburg has already secured tie-breakers, we'll need more than just 1 win. Aside from Gothenburg, three other 7-5 teams are ahead of us, as are the 6-6 Toronto Lake Monsters. On our tail, aside from Bordeaux, are three 5-win teams. The race for the wild cards is going to be wild.

QB Ellis McAlister has slowly recovered, improving to an 18:13 touchdown:interception ratio after 12 games. With 3,196 yards throwing, he's on pace for another 4,000-yard season. He's back into the league lead of yards per completion and third in yards per attempt.

RB Walt Blair has been missing in action in the last four games and about three quarters with a concussion. With 727 yards rushing and 5 touchdowns on the ground, he's still our ground game leader. We hope to see him back in action for the three home games.

WR Dennis Nadell unsurprisingly is our leading receiver. 66 catches for 1,067 yards and 5 touchdowns. He's in the upper echelon of the yard per catch guys, but he's mediocre in the per target list and catches less than 50 percent of his targets. WR Brody Stevens (62 for 753 yd and 3 td) and TE Monty Elliott (54 for 726 yd and 5 td) are sniffing at missing 1,000 yards by about 50 or so.

Our offensive linemen are doing well in the key run block figures. C Nicky Sherman and G Carlos Webb will likely come just short of 40 blocks for the season, G Harvey Hank isn't far behind them either.

The defense, well... I like the talent on this unit, but they've let me down quite often. We've got the fifth worst run per carry and fifth worst yards per catch numbers. Head shaking bad. ok, at least we've got the best pass rush in the league. (Too bad we're missing our key defensive end Arnie May in the last four regular season games).

Skeptic? Pessimistic? Realistic? A bit of all three, I think. If we win the last 4 (it's a lot to ask for with a road game at the 7-5 Texas Sharks and home games against Bordeaux, Derek Barge's Moontown Darksiders and Paris), we'd still need about 4 other teams to collapse.

Yeah, Derek Barge is coming to Maassluis in week 16, his first visit to Oranje Haven, if he remains healthy in the next couple of game. He's highly regarded as the second best player in league history, after Jackie Collier. That's a game we can sketch into the L-column already...

Ok, let's be optimistic: we're only eight wins away from our second IHOF Bowl victory!