[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Choking complete
All that's left is playing spoiler...

In what was clearly a must win home game against the Gothenburg Giants, our season came basically to an end. We played along for 3 quarters, but in the end we simply had no answer to their running game, despite game planning heavily towards stopping it. We gave up 3 offensive touchdowns, which was the same total in our previous 4 games combined. And the offense once again failed to play up to its ability. Running only 9 times is both depressing and completely unacceptable within our game plan, I'm tempted to say it should be mathematically impossible within our plan, but so it did go down.

Still mathematically alive, we followed up with a 19-16 overtime victory at the Iowa Cobbers. Indeed, yet another overtime game. It's weird that we built a 2-score lead, then won the turnover battle, yet still found a way to choke that lead and allowing things to go to overtime. Our specific game plan on defense somewhat paid off, but the offense, well, it's still just not doing what it clearly has the talent to be able to do. But as they say: a win is a win.

European division:
1. Bordeaux 11-4
2. Gothenburg 8-7
3. Paris 8-7
4, Maassluis 7-7-1

Yeah, the teams in front of us have had their own fair share of mixed results and in week 17 it's Gothenburg at Paris where the winner needs help to get into the post season, needed at least two teams ahead of them to choke. A tie in that game would be the ultimate season end in style, as it would eliminate them both and actually is the life boat for the Harlem Apollos, as they can only make the playoffs with that tie. For us, we can only play spoiler and try to keep Bordeaux from grabbing the #2 seed. The Fort Wayne Fury fans and players will likely hope for that. If we win, we'll finish the season in third place, regardless of the result in Paris.

To be fair though, although we flirted with the playoffs being a legitimate option through week 12, the tie at North Plainfield combined with the home losses against Arizona and Gothenburg wasted our chances, but specifically a team giving up 338 points in 15 games and having a -33 points differential going into the final game at the best team still to be faced, we really don't belong in the post-season anyway.

So, season 100 will have to do without the Merchantmen in the post-season. What we can claim today is being the third franchise to reach the 900-win milestone. But that is something I'll have forgotten by this time tomorrow, because these are the kind of statistics we're not playing this game for. The one number that we failed to change once again is the 1 in IHOF Bowls won. We'll have to wait for the second century to get a shot at that...