[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: keep on believing
One round of games to go, we're still in the race, although just barely.

Today, we've managed to roll up the Iowa Cobbers 41-10. Wait, let's rephrase that. We managed to roll a Yathzee! of sort. Today, the big plays came on defense and on special teams. Giovanni Morton had a pair of long interceptions return touchdowns, Travis Gellings had his first career kickoff return touchdown and Gabe Broady achieved back-to-back games with a punt return touchdown.

We lost out punter Tito Hornsby. He had to go to the hospital, turned out he needed an appendectomy, he's ruled out for the last game and whatever number of games we'll get to play in the post-season.

We've also lost our number two tight end Gavin Stern, which means Kody Gowan will return to the active roster for the first time this season. Gowan was active in every game of the last two seasons. Stern had been a prominent, yet unproductive piece in our passing game. Ellis McAlister and our kick holder have already targeted Stern 60 times, resulting in just 36 catches for 344 yards. Our star tight end Monty Elliott hasn't done that much better this season, with just 56 catches for 528 yards and 3 scores in 15 games. Elliott does appear to be the leagues best run blocker from his position this season, for whatever that's worth. His receiving numbers are still a lot more than our proven 1,000-yard wide receivers Artie Blazewicz (24 catches for 203 yards and 2 scores) and Dennis Nadell (5 catches for 128 yards).

But enough about our receivers, we'll need a couple of things to happen to be able to reach the playoffs. We'll have to beat the Paris Musketeers. On the road, that will be challenging enough, because albeit being eliminated after today's results, the Musketeers will never stop trying to beat us. We'll also need the Houston Mustangs to lose at the Atlanta Vipers and the Tucker Tigers to loss at the Orlando Talons. Our conference record will be barely good enough to edge the Tigers and Mustangs. This will all be for the last wild card, because there's no way for us to get ahead of the aforementioned Atlanta Vipers and their division leading Fort Wayne Fury, despite that both are just 1 win ahead of us. The Solecismic playoff probabilities machine gives us roughly a 1 in 6 shot, which is actually slightly better than the 1 in 8 odds if you're counting all three games as 50-50 to win or lose.

1 in 6, those are better odds than rolling a Yahtzee!, but given that we rolled one today, it seems unlikely the dice will favor us again tomorrow. For now, a win is a win. There's still hope. Stay strong, Merchantmen!