[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: .500 land it is
And the unlucky loss of a game report makes me keep this short.

I was working on a big report on how we played the Gothenburg Giants today, had our spoiler role in the playoffs race in the Atlantic Ocean Conference. Then in the middle of my writing, I hit the wrong combination of keys on the keyboard. Gone all my work.

What happened on the field? We beat the Giants 21-6, a quick pick six put us 7-0 up and before the second half was over, the final score was already on the score board. Both teams had a couple of okay drives in the second half, but none came close enough to put points on the board. Earnest Ashley threw for 301 yards, Ed Schulz was his main receiver with 6 catches for 104 yards and a touchdown.

European Division
1. Paris 10-6
2. Gothenburg 10-6
3. Maassluis 8-8
4. Bordeaux 7-9

The season ended here for us, while Gothenburg will have to continue their season in the wild card round at the Harlem Apollos, while a win would have made them the #2 seeds. Paris lost in Bordeaux, also missing out on the #2 seed, as a result hosting the Augusta Greenjackets. The #2 seed went to the Atlanta Vipers, who lost in San Antonio, extending their streak to 3 losses, but with Gothenburg on their 3-loss streak and Paris flipflopping their way into a 10-6 record, it seemed like nobody was capable of holding onto that #2 seed. Atlanta got it in the end after all. I'll spare you the drama in the other conference, it got even crazier there in the race for the last two tickets.

And with that, our season came to an end.

Earnest Ashley had his worst season so far, and I'm afraid the kid and his agent will completely lose sight of what makes sense when you're unable to complete even half of your passes, throwing more interceptions than touchdowns, so I'm sure they'll come up with a completely unrealistic $250M over 5 years kind of contract demands. Yeah... About that... I'm not sure we're going to do that.

Our running game was very "meh". Not just the lack of touchdowns, lack of yards per carry, lack of key run blocks from our linemen, but also the lack of actually carrying the ball. We actually had 1 carry more than last season, which comes to show we've had this problem a season ago as well. We also threw the ball 1 time more than last season. How about that...

Our run defense was improved. Our pass defense even more improved than the run defense. Which makes me draw a simple conclusion: our offensive system is broken. The offensive coordinator can't just not judge player ability, he's not making us play well when we have the ball either. Oh yeah, our special teams unit took a step back as well, which is not something to ignore either.

The outlook for the off-season? We'll be going into it with 51 players signed and roughly $50M in cap space. We'll have our draft picks, with a bonus second round pick from the 4-12 Houston Mustangs, which will be the #36 overall pick. Nice on top of the #15 and #46 picks that we 'earned' with our 8-8 campaign. But the loyal reader knows darn well that I take too much pride to ever consider throwing a game away. Unlike Earnest Ashley has been doing for us this season...