[MIJB#19]

What if Osborne was given the start?
Football journalists can sometimes get caught philosophizing about what if situations. Football fans are much less blunt, they know what would have happened. Maassluis Merchantmen fans are no different, back in the 2040 playoffs, they knew one thing for sure: their team wouldn't have crashed out in the playoffs one and done after a 13-3 regular season had the team just stuck with their winning quarterback. This is the story of Harry Osborne.

The IHOF part of the story begins in the 2033 off-season. Future Hall of Fame quarterback Russell "Rusty" Harrison returned to the Maassluis Merchantmen. The 2020 #1 overall pick by the Merchantmen had been traded in the 2030 off-season to the Rochester Lake Monsters over salary cap woes and team management felt that, despite Harrison's talent, his injury proneness was a major concern and his backups had somewhat proven the team could still win games without "Rusty". But in the 2033 off-season Harrison was traded by the Lake Monsters to their nemesis Syracuse Mohawks, who in turn just used him as trade ware, moving him on back to Maassluis. Back home, Harrison played 2 more seasons in the IHOF, missing 12 regular season games and more importantly failing to guide his team to the playoffs.

The Merchantmen already had their replacement in the house in quarterback Jay McGee, a trade acquisition in that 2030 off-season to replace Harrison. But in an era where quarterbacks would get hurt often, top teams in the IHOF made sure they had a reliable backup to step in. McGee had actually been a reliable starter, missing not a single game in his first three seasons in Maassluis, replacing an injured Harrison in those 12 games and during several games. The Merchantmen still had Kerry Lewis on roster, primarily the kick holder in Maassluis.

In that 2035 off-season, the Merchantmen signed a former 2030 second round pick Craig Porter, who came off missing the entire 2034 season after being released by his original team, the Iowa Cobbers, as new management had no faith in him. Still, Merchantmen management felt that the league was evolving and expecting the see running quarterbacks become a thing in the 2040s. One particular player in the draft class had, aside from scoring the mirage number 28 on the Solecismic Score, a 7.42 agility score and for a quarterback those days clocked an impressive 4.56 on the 40-yard dash. More over, he was coming from Michigan, the school of quarterback, or so was popular belief in those days. Despite that scouts saw little passing skills at the IHOF level in him, he still somehow graded 61st overall of the entire draft class. By the middle of the third round, general manager M.IJ.B. couldn't help himself and with the #84 overall pick, the Merchantmen selected the 6'4" 233 pounds 23-year old Harry Osborne.

As he arrived in Maassluis, people in and around the club were still skeptic: could this guy be a future replacement for Jay McGee, the successor of Louie Flannery and "Rusty" Harrison, or the very least a reliable backup? The Merchantmen scouting staff graded Osborne 7/17 out of 100 in current ability and future potential. But it was just training camp, there's no risk in brining a rookie into it as the fourth option, maybe he turns out to be much better than advertised? Still, spending a third round pick was probably a bit too much, but the general manager was optimistic and to his peers was clear: "Harry Osborne is a quarterback project. Looks insanly lowly rated, but had the combine scores of the best QB in the class. Solecismic score and bench press numbers were somewhat disappointing, but otherwise all the signals of being becoming a [starting caliber] quarterback." And rightfully so, back in those days, the Merchantmen had a nose for raw talent.

Osborne had a fine training camp, was amongst the five most improved players of camp, but in that area was in the shadows of fellow rookies guard Julio Ferich and defensive tackle Dwight Hutton. At the same time, the Merchantmen staff was unimpressed by the veteran signing Craig Porter. As a result, Merchantmen management decided that Osborn would be the starting quarterback in the first two pre-season games, back then used to make the younger players accustomed to the team and give them a chance to prove their skills. Osborne threw for 174 and 162 yards and didn't quite show flashes of his supposed running skills.

Although he didn't win the QB2 spot, with the division title locked up and a bye week no longer a possibility, in the last two regular season games of the 2035 season against Iowa and Paris, Osborne got to start both games. In his Oranje Haven debut, he guided the Merchantmen to a 34-17 victory, completing 16 of 25 passes for 181 yards, with 1 touchdown and no turnovers, while running just 4 times for 13 yards. In another run heavy game, he completed 9 of 19 passes for 122 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception at Paris, while also showing his legs with a 17-yard run.

2036, Training camp number two. Story of the off-season was the trade up to pick wide receiver Terry Haskell. A kid that for a long, long time was underrated by the league scouts, but the Merchantmen knew what they were doing, traded a future first round pick to pick him and make the centerpiece of the offense for the next decade and a bit. With Jay McGee just turned 31, there was no real need to think about replacing him, the cohesion boosting Kerry Lewis would be the actual QB2 and Osborne would continue to be seen as the project of the future. Craig Porter didn't make the cut, it was clear that Osborne was given confidence. He had a fine training camp. His pre-season numbers were once again underwhelming, but patience is important with projects. In the regular season, it was Jay McGee's team. Except in week 3, when Osborne was shockingly throw in front of the Tucker Tigers in a loaded Oranje Haven. Osborne completed 20 of 37 passes for 231 yards, with 1 interception, while scrambling 4 times for 26 yards, without getting any first downs.

2037, third training camp. The scouting staff was convinced that Osborne had fully developed and should be considered to be a 18 out of 100 player. Merchantmen management was unimpressed by those reports, claiming to have seen this all before with other promising young players, including the hot up and coming wide receiver Terry Haskell, that the staff had claimed to have reached his potential by then, which he may have, but his statistics were clearly telling that he was much more than a 39 out of 100 graded player. Still, Kerry Lewis was promoted to the pre-season starting role, Osborne's chances to prove himself were limited. By the end of the season, he was still on team, but it was hard to believe he would ever become even the sought after QB2. The foresight for running quarterbacks to become a thing wasn't coming to life either. Patience was crucial.

2038, fourth training camp. The Merchantmen didn't even bother to bring a fourth quarterback to training camp, they were sticking with the threesome of the previous seasons. Osborne was back in action during the first two pre-season games, but once again was held under 200 yards passing. The Merchantmen continued to be the second best team in the conference, behind Jackie Collier and the Tucker Tigers, despite seeing Jay McGee lead them to beating them in week 5 that season, later on crashing at the Tigers in the playoffs. Osborne didn't see the field.

2039, fifth training camp. The Merchantmen brought in two undrafted rookies to challenge Osborne for the third slot in the quarterback group, was this the end? Earl Gretzky was dropped before pre-season, but Marshall Terry did make the pre-season roster. But instead, Kerry Lewis was the pre-season starter. By roster cut day, it was a tough decision, but the Merchantmen went with Osborne over Terry, despite that the latter was considered even more of a possible diamond in the rough project with tremendous upside. The Merchantmen cruised that season, becoming AOC Champions, but losing 23-10 in the IHOF Bowl.

2040, off-season. For the second time in franchise history, team management was struggling with contract negotiations with the starting quarterback, this time Jay McGee. The defending conference champions decided that quarterback was a plug and play position, the management was confident any quarterback could thrive with Terry Haskell and Donald Terry as his sidekicks, leaning on a traditionally strong defense. A former sixth round pick in his 11th season in the league, Stanley Bissel, a backup in Gothenburg the 5 prior seasons, was signed. Rickey McElrath was picked in the fifth round, a quarterback battle was about to emerge. Training camp came and Osborne looked even worse than he did before. But still hoping his less could one day become a thing, he made the pre-season roster, while rookie McElrath was cut. Bissel played with the starters in the first two pre-season games, while Kerry Lewis played with the backups in the second pair of games.

2040, opening week. Stanley Bissel got announced as the new starting quarterback for the Maassluis Merchantmen. Carried by a superior defense, a 20-3 victory in Paris was a welcome confidence booster. Stanley Bissel completed 22 of 34 passes for 235 yards, with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. Week two, Bissel's offense still. Or not. Bissel got hurt on the first drive and all of a sudden, Harry Osborne was back in action after almost 4 full years of not playing a single down in a real game. With the support cast being all so familiar to him from the training sessions, Osborne completed 30 of 37 passes for 291 yards and a touchdown, guiding his team to a 36-3 victory.

2040, somewhere between week 2 and week 3. The awkward part of things was elsewhere. The Merchantmen had been working on a trade to acquire quarterback Harvey Corbett from the Snapfinger Jazz, their 2037 first round pick. The plan was to make Corbett the starter for week one, but apparently faith determined that it would have to be delayed until the win in Outer Banks. Merchantmen management made no secret of the intentions to release Osborne, but he wasn't to be informed until after completing the trade. The trade was finalized after all, but instead of releasing Osborne, it was the recently injured Stanley Bissel who would go to the injured reserve list. Going with the hot hand, Osborne got the start in the first home game of the season. After a perfect game, completing 24 of 31 passes for 388 yards and 6 touchdowns, Osborne was the new lucky charm, the fans were in love, Jay McGee was already forgotten.

2040, week 9. The Maassluis Merchantmen were red hot, showing a 7-0 record with 165 points scored and just 62 allowed. It was obvious that the Merchantmen weren't exactly winning because of Osborne, though, and the 3 turnovers in the home game against Paris made management decide that despite the winning streak, it was time to bring in the trade acquisition Corbett. In a road game against the 1-6 Houston Mustangs, Corbett lead the Merchantmen to a 38-3 victory, with 5 touchdown passes in his debut game. A week later, Corbett was still the starter, this time in a road game at a struggling Bordeaux, after a 24-17 loss, despite Corbett's decent play. Osborne was brought back in though and after two close home victories, the game of the regular season was dawning.

2040, week 13. Game of the week, if not of the whole regular season was on the schedule: A clash of the titans between the 10-1 Merchantmen and 11-0 Tucker Tigers in Tucker. While Osborne was struggling to connect with Terry Haskell, the Merchantmen defense that had been so impressive so far, had no answer to Jackie Collier and his deep throws. Although he completed only 9 passes to his two main targets, Earl Howard and Wes Banks turned those 9 catches into 261 yards and 4 touchdowns. Osborne still threw for 231 yards, but a career high 3 interceptions were quite the problem. A week later, after the hot hand had finally ran into a loss, it was another switch to Harvey Corbett and this time it resulted in a 38-7 victory over Texas. After a 34-30 loss in Gothenburg, the fans expected to see Osborne return, but Corbett continued to be the starter in the last two regular season games as well. The week 17 game against Bordeaux was kind of meaningless, as the #2 seed was guaranteed behind the 15-0 Tucker Tigers and ahead of the 11-4 Atlanta Vipers, so as the backups played in that final game, seeing Corbett play was seen as a signal that Osborne would be back in action in the playoffs.

2040, divisional round. The #3 seeded Vicksburg Vipers came to Maassluis' Oranje Haven and the home team had decided to make Harvey Corbett their quarterback. It turned into a downright disaster. The Merchantmen defense felt somewhat okay by letting the league best wide receiver Rickey Summers make 6 catches for 91 yards, but the key number of the game and talking point for the fans as well was Corbett's touchdowns and interceptions: 0 versus 4.

2041, off-season. The Merchantmen signed quarterback Skip Perron, but it was actually just to make some fog. The Iowa Cobbers had decided to let Perry Coleman walk into free agency and the Merchantmen snagged him up for a flat 3-year $26M contract. Back then, that was considered a lot of money. The controversy between Corbett and Osborne was over. Although, not entirely as both made the 53-men roster for the regular season. On opening weekend, it became immediately clear that Coleman was the man the Merchantmen had been waiting for as he guided the team to a 55-7 crushing of the Gothenburg Giants. Minor victory was for Osborne as he was the guy thrown in for the fourth quarter and as he threw for 110 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, it was clear that Corbett was effectively out of the picture. In week 16, Coleman and many starters were rested as by then it was already clear that the week 17 game against the Paris Musketeers would be the division championship game. Coleman was picked off 3 times, Paris won 24-5 and ended the European domination of the Merchantmen. In the wild card round, Coleman was stuck in a barnburner and saw his defense not come through. With a 35-34 loss at the Toronto Lake Monsters, the 2041 season ended long before the conference championship game.

2042, week 1. The Merchantmen cut back from 4 to 3 quarterbacks. Despite Corbett's display of superior passing skills, on the training field and in scouting reports, he was the one released, meaning Osborne would make the regular season for the 8th season in succession. And he was needed as well as Perry Coleman got hurt against Bordeaux in the first quarter of that week 1 game. Osborne came in to complete 17 of 20 passes for 177 yards and 3 touchdowns, also running for 54 yards. Despite the solid 27-6 win, Osborne's magic wasn't all that obvious anymore. With Coleman out, Osborne started the next three games and the Merchantmen lost all three.

2042, week 7. After Coleman's return, the Merchantmen tried to recover, but as he got injured again, the Merchantmen needed Osborne to close out the home game at the Toronto Lake Monsters. Both teams wasted opportunities to claim victory late in the game, but lo and behold, trailing by 4 points, a hail mary was required to save the game and Osborne completed the 32-yard pass to tight end Irving Clark to bring the Merchantmen back to 3-3. A week later, he would pull a Corbett, throwing 4 interceptions without a touchdown, but in a 20-7 win over the Harlem Apollos, Osborne played better and handed the team back to Coleman with a 4-4 record. After a 5-game winning streak, Coleman got his team to the top of the division, but a 21-15 loss at home to Gothenburg flipped things around, meaning for the second season in a row the Merchantmen lost a division championship deciding week 17 clash. A rematch in the wild card round in Gothenburg saw the Merchantmen fall 20-13.

2043, off-season. The Merchantmen realized that Perry Coleman was as brittle as Rusty Harrison once was and still thinking the '40s will become a running quarterbacks era, they made undrafted rookie Malik Weaver their 4th quarterback for the regular season. Part of it being the expectation to see Coleman get hurt again and actually needing that 4th quarterback to get through the season. Osborne held on to the QB2 role, but as Coleman for a change went through a full season without issues, nobody else threw a pass all season.

2044, training camp. Harry Osborne was reported amongst the players losing a step. But despite all that, the Merchantmen management decided to keep on to him, but also the other three quarterbacks: fragile veteran Perry Coleman, young Malik Weaver and cohesion bomb emergency quarterback Kerry Lewis.

2044, regular season. The inevitable happened: Perry Coleman got hurt in week 3 and Osborne was forced into action to salvage a victory against the Fort Wayne Fury. A week later, Osborne was the starter at home against the Tucker Tigers and as per usual struggled to get the ball into the end zone against the toughest team to beat in the league. Apparently the 38-3 manhandling was enough is enough. In week 4 against the Augusta Greenjackets, Malik Weaver got thrown out there. It wasn't all bad, but 3 interceptions and 1 fumble, while getting sacked 6 times, he wasn't able to overcome the 26-20 loss. Osborne was back in action in week 7, throwing for 219 yards and a touchdown without interception, but unable to avoid 31-27 loss in Paris. A week later, Osborne struggled, despite leading the team to a 19-3 victory at home. In week 9, Weaver was back in action, completing 18 of 25 passes for 335 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, leaning heavily on Terry Haskell's 9 catches for 238 yards in a 27-14 win at Bordeaux. Osborne was not to return to action anymore. But neither was Coleman, the Merchantmen were riding on Weaver for the rest of the season. The Merchantmen flipflopped from solid victories to close losses, resulting in a very positive points margin, but being eliminated from the playoffs before the last game of the season. Weaver got the start and Perry Coleman actually saw some garbage time action in a big loss at Paris.

2045, off-season. The Merchantmen traded up for the #1 overall pick and selected quarterback Bryson Chow. Shortly after that decision, Osborne was released, long before training camp. He did go to training camp with the Oakland Black Panthers and made the team as a mentoring veteran to the young third round project quarterback Mel Briggs. The Merchantmen decided that Perry Coleman could fill that role to Bryson Chow.

2046 and beyond. Perry Coleman retired after seeing action for the Merchantmen in 4 more games to fill-in for an injured Chow. Malik Weaver wasn't re-signed in the 2046 off-season and out of football by the 2047 off-season. As was Kerry Lewis, he retired in the 2047 off-season after 18 seasons and 287 games played. Osborne retired in the 2048 off-season. Bryson Chow ended up being the best running quarterback in Merchantmen history, going into the Hall of Fame, like his mentor Coleman and the only other Merchantmen #1 overall pick Russell Harrison, but not becoming the phenomenal records breaking passer everybody expected him to become based on his rookie profile. Chow would live up to the expectations that the 2040s would see the rise of a running quarterback in Maassluis. Although, Chow turned out to be ahead of his time, as the real rise in the IHOF for running quarterbacks wouldn't really come until the 2060s. Chow ran for 4,872 yards and 25 touchdowns, with 5.6 yards per carry. Osborne ran for 413 yards and 5 touchdowns, with 3.8 yards per carry.

So, back to the original question: what would have happened had Harry Osborne given the start in week 19 of the 2040 season? It's impossible to tell. In the end he never even went on the field for the Merchantmen during a playoffs game to prove what he can do under that kind of pressure. But popular belief is still that he would have done a better job than Harvey Corbett and had given the Vipers a run for their money. But if somehow he would have guided the Merchantmen to victory, they would have still been second-best of the Jackie Collier era, having ran into his Tucker Tigers. In 2040 Collier and his team were on a mission, losing only their week 17 game when backups filled in after having already secured home field advantage. The Tigers crushed the Vipers 36-10 in the 2040 AOC Championship game and went on to a classic bowl game, as the Tigers won IHOF Bowl XXXVII against the Chicago Norsemen in overtime: 43-37.