[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: 2111, a thrown away season

What a disaster of a season. We didn't get haunted by injuries, we did get plagued by a bunch of overpaid players not playing up to their ability at all. At least, that's how I perceive things to be. But let's back up a bit, last time I wrote, we were still a longshot to make the playoffs.

Week 14 at Arizona
For a short while, it looked like we were going to steamroll this road game at the Miners, taking advantage of a couple of red zone fumbles gaining a 17-0 lead. But then our total ineptitude to play defense to save our season showed up again as we gave up a Hail Mary pass to set up a game losing field goal as time expired. QB Singleton threw for 184 yards and a touchdown to WR Maxwell, while RB Billodeaux ran for a touchdown.
Result 23-24 loss

Week 15 vs Paris
The biggest mismatch in the IHOF of late played out as such once again. I won't tally up the number of straight games won against Paris now, but we've gone beyond double digits seasons ago already. Our red zone offense was shaky again, but we played overall impressive enough to make the never in doubt outcome get onto the scoreboard. QB Singleton threw for 325 yards and a touchdown to WR Vertelney, our lead receiver with 129 yards today. Singleton and RB Billodeaux had a rushing touchdown each.
Result: 33-10 win

Week 16 vs Iowa
With nothing on the line anymore, all of a sudden our defense played quite well against arguably the most talented quarterback in football (Donte Biletnikoff). We jumped to an early lead and, for a change against a non-French opponent, we maintained our cool and smooth sailed to an easy victory. QB Singelton threw for 214 yards and a touchdown to WR Maxwell. RB Billodeaux ran for 134 yards and a touchdown. CB Horner actually accounted for a defensive touchdown on an interception return.
Result: 27-7 win

Week 17 at Gothenburg
With home field advantage on the line, the Giants had something to play for, as such we had a spoiler role to fulfill. But despite our stingy defensive play for the first 40 minutes of the game, our offense pulled a dreadful no show of a game, while the defense eventually did fall apart in the last 20 minutes of the game. QB Singleton threw for 231 yards and had a touchdown to TE Alcala.
Result: 13-23 loss

European Division:
1. Gothenburg 13-3
2. Maassluis 6-10
3. Bordeaux 6-10
4. Paris 5-11

Despite our dreadful double-digit loss record, we still managed to outscore opponents. although by just 7 points.

QB Harrison Singleton has turned into a turnover machine with 22 interceptions thrown, almost doubling his career figure to 45 in 56 games where he threw more than a single pass in garbage time. He failed to improve his yards per pass attempt figure, despite being so-called fully developed now and playing with fully developed WR Jessie Vertelney, still going strong veteran WR Calvin Maxwell and TE Ted Gordon who's supposed to be fully developed as well now. Gordon played a dreadful season, hauling in only 931 yards on 172 targets. Vertelney improved to 1222 yards, whilst Maxwell had 956 yards receiving. Rookie RB Renaldo Billodeaux was a brighter light on the team, running for 1,105 yards with a 5.9 per carry average. QB Singelton and RB Bennett Holmes each gained 500+ yards as well. It's fair to say at least the running game was doing well. We actually lead the league with a franchise record 74 red zone visits. So, yeah, the turnovers must have been a huge deal in why we didn't end up scoring 500 points this season.

Defensively, we just never played up to our ability. The pass defense was dreadful, inept, a complete waste of cap money. I can live with finishing next to last in passing yards allowed per game, as it can be the result of playing with a lead (as we did in most games) and a result of having the field position advantage (which we usually have on special teams, combined with a decent turnover margin). Our lack of ability to force turnovers wasn't the only thing hurting here, we actually were second worst in yards per pass attempt, which means that teams throwing to save their game manage to do that well enough to come back from behind. Like those two games we lost by a single point and the two lost in overtime. I'm disappointed by the pass rush group as well. We finished the season under 20% pass rush pressure, while the talent is here to be top5 in the league and well above 22.5%. Our run defense was below mediocre as well at 4.7 yards per carry allowed.

Shocker of the season, Oscar Harrington converted all 80 of his kicks: 41 field goals and 39 extra points. Curiously, he didn't attempt a single 50-yarder, despite being having the most distance in his kicks of all in the league. We were the second best kickoff return team in terms of yards per return minus yards per return allowed, but our yards per punt return allowed figure was Merchantmen unworthy, being median and our own yards per punt return figure was barely top10.

So, some good things, some unexplainable bad things and with that we have to conclude that 6-10 is far, far, far below the floor I envisioned possible for such a talented group of players.

And for those wondering about our lottery ticket draft pick, the Atlanta Vipers won 4 of their last 5 games, to deteriorate what once looked like a possible #1 overall draft pick into the #6 overall draft pick, even behind the Paris Musketeers. 1 win less would have still placed them outside the top3 picks and we actually lost to the teams that will be picking #1 and #2 now, so it should have never been much higher than #3 anyway. Our own lack of ability to win games landed us the #10 overall pick, so we'll end up with quite some value to figure out how to replace the non-signing you-know-whats that turned down the most expensive contracts I ever offered to any players. Yes, apparently I'm still very bitter, those player agents should be fired and get told they made their players lose out on millions of dollars. Other owners in the league claim they will pay these players, but I've seen this before and know better than that, these players will never get all the money that we offered them had they stayed in Oranje Haven through the 2114 season. I wouldn't call 2112 a rebuild, but it is shaping up to be a bit of a what-the-bleep do we need to do to fix what wasn't supposed to broken off-season. Because 6-10 is beneath us. If only these players would actually listen...