[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: And there goes the season
Just mathematically alive, that's what we're looking at now.

Let's go back to the time between our silly loss against the Oakland Black Panthers and the time before today's game against the Tucker Tigers. It was time for change, okay, not really, but we went to the film room and analyzed the Tigers' 11 games this season. We noticed some interesting things in their trends with formations, run tendencies and such. As a result, we crafted a specific game plan for this particular game.

Game day. They kick off, we receive. Francisco Patter runs for 12 yards, but the third play of the drive, a Brandon Bell pass gets intercepted near midfield and returned to our 26-yard line. We make the right call on their first play, stop them on the second, but then they throw for 14 yards on third down and as we forgot to spy him, their quarterback Donovan Muth runs the ball in for a 7-0 Tucker lead. Santiago Messenger responds with a 35-yard kickoff return and Bell with a 10-yard pass to Patter. Then a backwards pass (why, people, why!?) and two dropped passes. They respond with passes for 18, 8 and 15 yards to break into our end of the field. On third and 10, we lineup to protect the first down, instead they turn a short pass into a 30-yard gain. We stop their two runs, but on third and goal their WR3 is wide open in our end zone: 14-0 Tucker. Another strong kickoff return and a neat third down conversion by Patter bring us into their territory. A penalty on our end gets wiped away by Bell with a 25-yard pass to Theodore Bondy. Patter converts again on third and short, then from their 6-yard line, Reggie Thongchanh runs it in for the 14-7 score. But before the second quarter begins, we allow a 63-yard kickoff return, so much for that momentum shift...

Our run defense stands strong after they have another big catch by their tight end Ron Virgadamo, forcing them to settle for a 22-yard field goal. It's a small victory, but we're still trailing 17-7 early in the game. Reggie Thongchanh runs for 10 yards and Brandon Bell finds Theodore Bondy for 25 yards to march into their turf. Bell then finds Bondy for 19 yards to get into field goal range. Three plays later, Bell finds Bondy open in the end zone: 17-14, we're back in the game. On third and 3 we have no answer to their star wide receiver Lewis Burchfield, who turns a short pass into a 34-yard gain. For a change we allow a couple of decent runs, but after two strong stops of their running backs, we see one of our defensive lineman actually closing in on their quarterback (finally!) and they are forced to kick (and score) the 34-yard field goal. Down 20-14, we're clearly still in the game, but on third and short, Brandon Bell throws his second interception of the game. Starting at our 26-yard line, Tucker has field position and plenty of time to increase the score before half time. A quarterback scramble saves the drive (we should have spied on Donovan Muth a lot more) and two plays later he throws a 10-yard touchdown pass to a 26-14 lead as the kick is missed. We try to go for it, but unlike our own excellent pass rush unit missing in action, their pass rushers do get on top of our quarterback and so the first half ends as they run out the clock.

Five plays into the second half, the stadium falls completely silent, aside from a bunch of flown over Tigers fans. Long pass by Donovan Muth and for whatever dubious reason our corners play well, but still can't stop his receiver from the 57-yard touchdown reception. Tucker goes up 33-14. A nice kickoff return gets partially called back for an illegal block and on third and 12 we somehow see Brandon Bell throw to a player that diverts from his route and fails to get the first down. A penalty pins them inside their red zone, but despite that we fully expect them to throw, we have no answer to their 37-yard pass from Muth to Lewis Burchfield. On third and seven they throw for a 17-yard gain and this time our goal line stand collapses on third and short: Tucker takes a 40-14 lead. And at that point our staff decided to pull Brandon Bell and bring back Moe Sheldon. Obviously he gets sacked on the first play (hey, wasn't that why he got benched?) and obviously his third down pass falls incomplete (wasn't he benched for a reason, staff?). We then stand strong against their running to force three and out (yes, we actually did something right today: stopping their rushing attack. In reply, a typical Sheldon drive starts, with short but steady gains.

Moe Sheldon scrambles on the first play of the fourth quarter. And on third down can't even connect with Theodore Bondy for a short gain (goodness, Moe!). Tucker immediately responds with a 22-yard pass against our nickel formation, but three plays later another rare pass rusher break through their line and forces the incomplete pass and a punt. Obviously we call plays that get us nowhere and three plays later Tucker is actually inside our turf after the punt return. On third and long, we sit back to stop their short pass short of the first down, but instead give up a 26-yard pass to their second tight end (Tucker has a strong duo at this position). On the next third down, they catch us off guard and run for the first down, but three plays later we stuff them (the game log correctly claims "The defense looked extremely familiar with that play") and a 25-yard field goal towards a 43-14 lead is their reward. Santiago Messenger then has a nice kickoff return, but follows up with two meaningless way too short receptions, that are proof that we are too chicken to make anything of this game (sigh). We stuff them on their next drive, but on the punt return Reggie Thongchanh goes all Courtney Blackwell, fumbles the ball and Tucker makes things even worse, returning it the full 42 yards for a 50-14 lead. Moe Sheldon throws a couple of silly passes to should never be on the field tight ends and the game is over.

What a disaster.

Brandon Bell gets pulled, despite that he actually got us places, aside from the two interceptions. Our run defense worked, but our pass rush and pass defense were completely missing in action. Not just a bad day, it was a complete off day. So, game planning, did it work? You can't defensively game plan your offensive turnovers away and we were giving up big plays in spite of what was actually a solid run stopping effort.

Elsewhere in the division there were other results, but this loss basically destroyed our still very reasonable hopes of making the playoffs.

Division:
1. Gothenburg 9-3
2. Paris 5-7
3. Maassluis 4-8
4. Bordeaux 4-8

Half of our wins came against Bordeaux to keep us out of last place. We had three losses that 9 out of 10 times would have been wins. And then we had not one but two unbelievably depressing results in Gothenburg and today against Tucker.

Four more games, all winnable. Two on the road, but we end it with a home game against Gothenburg (we can play spoiler and possibly throw them from #1 seed to #4 seed), but the season first continues at home against the Fairbanks Northstars. They're sitting at 3-8-1 and are still licking their wounds from picking what everybody thought was a sure thing franchise quarterback at #2 overall, only to see him do incredibly stupid stuff after his first pre-season game (a game against us, in which he was shockingly kept inactive) and become a complete waste of a roster spot. The dead cap hit of cutting his ass for next season would be $51 million, so they're stuck with him for the next season as well, if they want to play it cap technically save.

That doesn't change the fact that we've wasted so many opportunities this season, we're fully capable of pissing away this opportunity to save face. I hope we fail to fail, put a solid performance on the field, entertain the loyal fan base and prove why I'm thinking this collective of players actually would have been capable of making a surprise run in the playoffs.

Mathematically, we're still in the race even, but it'll require some incredibly weird scenarios that are too much to work out for now. We'll check back on that after another game or two, for now, winning the next game is all that matters. We can do this, Merchantmen.