[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: 2088, Farley or Sheldon?
Yes, it's going to be one of those seasons.

For good reasons, we haven't had much flipflopping at quarterback over the recent few decades, but this season could be a classic case. I'm hopeful in Francisco Farley, ok, somewhat hopeful. But we've also got this Moe Sheldon guy, he's one of the "most careful quarterbacks" in the league.

Game one it was Farley, he stunk. Game two we did a one half each, both played okay. Game three, today, it was Farley and he threw a seemingly secure victory away. We were 17-0 up at half time, but in the second half his incautiousness began two interceptions in the third quarter, a pick six in the fourth quarter to revive the Toronto Lake Monsters and then one more in overtime. Shockingly enough, our defense held Toronto to -10 yards in that overtime, but a 53-yarder got them the victory anyway.

You'd think our running game that was so strong last season should have bailed Farley out today? No such luck though. Reggie Thong ran for just 64 yards on 32 carries. Howard Humphrey had 15 key run block opportunities, Butch Pearson 9. They combined for 3 successful key run blocks. Let's shake our heads on that... (What do you mean, passing is at an alltime low? We freakin' stopped running forward as well!)

At least we know now we can make a punter punt 13 times for 630 yards against us. That's impressive.

But no, we completely sucked, flabbergasted I am about how horrible we're doing compared to last season and it's not just the new quarterbacks, it's also the units that had close to no change of personnel. Just, no idea what we're all of a sudden doing wrong that used to be right...

That said, despite an 0-3 start, if we win the next 13, we'll be division champions anyway. The last time we started a season 0-3 was in 2080. We bounced back to 7-6 back then, but eventually were the weakest team in the divison after all was said and done with a 7-9 record. It was before Theodore Bondy, it was with Walt Blair, with Ellis McAlister, Butch Pearson was a backup role rookie, Craig McCorkle, Antonio Battle and Glenn Brewer were our linebackers and Glen Stiegler was still our star defensive tackle. But yeah, we somehow sucked that season... No we didn't, we outscored our opponents by 45 points, we just happened to lose a lot of games by a field goal or less...

Prior to that, in 2047 we bounced back from 0-3 and 1-4 with an 12-game winning streak into losing the AOC Championship game. And prior to that, 2030 actually was a crappy 5-11 season... Or was it? We still outscored our opponents after an 0-6 start! And prior to that was our 2009 campaign, where we went from 0-3 to 2-7 to an 8-8 record.

So, see there, this is our 5th time starting a season 0-3 and in all of those we either outscored our opponents, won at least half our games and when both happened we reached the conference championship game. But for now, I see very little reason to get exited about anything. Theodore Bondy managed to degrade his yards per target figure to under 4.0 yards, he's barely above 7 yards per catch. Yes, that same Theo Bondy with 4 2,000-yard seasons on his resume.

On a positive note... There's still 13 games to go, 13 more chances to win, 13 more chances to show we can play decent football.

Next up the San Antonio Tidal Force. Blaine Hawkins returns to Maassluis on yet another new team. Last season we beat him three times as Paris' quarterback. He's still looking cursed and unable to play up to his potential. We'll make a push for him next off-season if the Tidal Force also think he's never going to live up to the hype as a rookie. We can dream, no?