[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: 3 and O after 4
Yup, early bye week, again.

It's a tradition for us to have our bye week early. Twice per three seasons, we have our bye in week 4, once we have it in week 5. That's the faith of a generic schedule.

Week 3 was a pleasant surprise with a hard fought 20-17 victory over the Fort Wayne Fury. We struggled at times (Moe Sheldon threw for 209 yards, 1 score, 1 pick, 1 lost fumble), broke out sporadically (Francisco Patter ran for 61 yards and a score on just 10 carries) and had one defensive player peak above the rest of his unit (Devon Farrell made a pick, recovered a fumble and defended 3 passes). A quick 17-3 lead eventually was crucial to fend them off, although not giving up a touchdown in the 58th minute of regulation surely also lead to that.

Division:
1. Maassluis 3-0
2. Paris 2-2
3. Gothenburg 1-3
4. Bordeaux 1-3

We're one of five remaining unbeaten teams, with three of them a game ahead us with a 4-0 record (Chesapeake and Hanalei in the NAC, Tucker in the AOC). That fifth team is the 3-0 North Plainfield Plague, our next opponents at their place. It will feature the #1 running game (ours) against the 27th best run defense (theirs), their 26th ranked running game against our #5 ranked run defense, with mediocre passing games and defenses. An area of improvement for us is our red zone offense, with 12 points out of 5 visits. Reason enough to look a bit at our game plan for this game.

All that aside, 3 games is just such a small sample size. Francisco Patter has an obnoxious yards per carry figure of 8.97, that's just text book example of an outlier. Although we hope he can keep it up, finish top 3 in rushing yards with just 11 carries for 99 yards per game. Combined with Thongchanh getting 18 carries for 74 yards per game. Yeah, that's just silliness.

But beating the Plague wouldn't be silly, we know we can do it. Make it happen, team. Go Merchantmen!