[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: It wasn't meant to be
Unfortunately.

The choice of word is peculiar here. My grandfather's last name translates to "fortune", but literally translating "unfortunately" back from English to Dutch, it doesn't feel like the words are the same. Despite that, I feel like today I didn't have the fortune my grandmother ones told me he had. To win her over, he had to try really hard, she turned him down, but he didn't give up. She told me about that during a period of heartbrokenness, it was more than a decade after he died, and about decade before they were reunited. She then was the one person in the world most strongly believing in me to be able to get things right, just like she had done before during my darkest years. Grandmothers can be like that, give their grandchildren a feeling they are special, in this case it helped me restore faith, or the very least, in rough times I think of her wise words. Was I really special to her? I bet all nine of her children, kids-in-law, dozens of grandchildren and significant others and their children, all had a special place in her hart.

Surely, this doesn't mean anything about today's AOC Championship game, because in the end, I'm not the one on the field, it's the 46 players that were drafted or signed as a free agent. Freaky enough, there are no players on roster that were technically acquired through trade, although several of those taken in the draft were the actual outcome of a trade. It does matter for what happened a couple hours after the game, but sometimes you have to realize that although the universe keeps giving signals that are too absurd to not have an underlying meaning, they can turn out to not mean fortune is written in the stars.

Back to the game, perhaps not an instaclassic, but at the same time the Merchantmen today put up a fight at the Tucker Tigers and showed the resilience to not give up when trailing 27-3 shortly before half time. But, the 30-23 final score wasn't going to be changed in the last drive that could have given us, the Merchantmen, a chance to ty it up and force overtime. We only have ourselves to blame for throwing short when we need 65 yards to go from the end zone. We didn't show the courage for a hail mary pass. Our fourth down attempt with 12 seconds to go was half-assed, too wimpy to get anything achieved.

So, after a strong season, with the discovery of a fifth round rookie tight end, the reward for keeping faith in a veteran quarterback that just needed a couple of seasons to get accustomed to the environment (4 interceptions in 16 games remains to be impressive). It also made clear that after three years of hope, it was time to give up on Brandon Bell and move on. Sure, we won't show him the door right away next off-season, we still need a kick holder, preferable one that knows the franchise inside out, but franchise quarterback, apparently he's not. At least Bell has that. And we'll have a chance to build on this better than expected comeback to the elite season, hope to find the cap space to keep this core together for another season and see where a cohesive team can go.

Heartbroken? I think I am, but not willing to admit yet. I've played this part in this kind of movie before, except this wasn't a movie, it was real life, no nightmare to wake up from, just "it's not going to happen". Time to get this ship back on the ocean and set sail for new opportunities, learn from the experiences, or try to make note of what may have gone differently. But sometimes the stars appear to be aligning, but the most important one appears to be slightly off, but far enough to have things fail.

Some day, or more, in the future I'll look back on this day and remember that sometimes taking the efforts isn't enough, but I can't say there was no attempt to go for it. The other side of the story remains true: after bad luck in the past, it's good to come close and feel alive, knowing dreams can almost happen. Apparently not today. But tomorrow it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life, for me, and I'm feeling good.