[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Tic-tac-toe
We finish 2094 with three wins in a row!

So, what happened? Well, we played out the regular season with a 17-10 victory at home over the Colorado Cutthroats and a convincing 31-17 win in Bordeaux. A painful loss for the Vineyards: they fell from #2 to #6 seeds, even a tie would have saved that bye for them. Let's skip the game by game dissecting for a little bit.

Division standings:
1. Gothenburg 12-4
2. Bordeaux 12-4
3. Maassluis 8-8
4. Paris 6-10

AOC
1. Tucker 13-1-2 (yeah, imagine that, not 14-2, but 13-1-2, will we ever see this record again?)
2. Fort Wayne 12-4
3. Gothenburg 12-4
4. North Plainfield 6-10
5. Orlando 12-4
6. Bordeaux 12-4
7. Augusta 9-7
8. Maassluis 8-8
9. Houston 7-9
10. Atlanta 6-10
11. Paris 6-10
12. Rochester 5-10-1
13. Harlem 5-11
14. Snapfinger 3-13
15. Toronto 3-13
16. San Antonio 2-14

(And for those wondering, the NAC:
1. Texas 15-1
2. Oakland 12-4
3. Kansas 12-4
4. Chesapeake 12-4
5. Capital City 10-6
6. Williamsburg 9-7
7. Frederick 8-7-1
8. Brooklyn 8-8
9. Outer Banks 8-8
10. Moontown 7-9
11. Hanalei 7-9
12. Arizona 6-10
13. Iowa 5-9-2
14. Colorado 5-11
15. Fairbanks 4-12
16. Chicago 4-12

So, with that, our season has ended.

Earnest Ashley finished the season with 4,009 yards passing, 25 touchdowns and 27 interceptions. Was that good, was that bad? A little bit of both, actually. Last time we had a quarterback throwing for 4K was in 2086 Ellis McAlister, a season after his 30-touchdown figure. Last time we had our quarterback throw 27 or more interceptions? That was all the way back in 2068, Alfred Hickman then had 28 touchdowns and 27 interceptions, two seasons after he quarterbacked us to a bowl victory with 27 touchdowns and 28 interceptions. Let's call it a good sign of things yet to come. I've got to end on a positive note here.

Trey Beyer ended up as our leading rusher with 903 yards (5.47 per carry), despite getting 35 carries less than Francisco Patter, who ran for 682 yards (3.41 per carry). They ran for 8 and 6 touchdowns respectively. Reggie Thongchanh's stint as our RB1 ended this season, he was promoted from rotation guy to a full time special teamer. Our quarterback Ashley ran for 317 yards and 2 touchdowns with a 8.13 per carry averages. Yeah, our quarterback knows how to tote the ball.

The receiving end of things saw the season end without a 1,000-yard receiver for the first time since, well, let's look it up... 2073. Theodore Bondy had a career low 76 catches for 883 yards and 7 touchdowns. Bondy was targeted 24% of the time, a career low as well. But that was all by design, it was the plan to spread it around. Ed Schulz had 42 catches for 834 yards and 4 touchdowns, George Stuckey had 53 catches for 750 yards and 6 touchdowns, Clarence Gore 61 catches for 617 yards and 3 touchdowns, Clay Gaynor 46 catches for 498 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Other individual stuff to let the guys know they did better than so-so?

Mark Perkins lead the league with 912 punt return yards. This should be considered to be a team effort thing, as getting a chance to return a punt means the defense forced the opponent to punt and means the offense was deep enough in the opposing territory before that defensive stop to actually make the punt returnable. Which is basically general football statistical explanation, which might be more obvious than I made it seem. He returned that ball for 6th best 16.0 per return, scoring 1 touchdown and finishing the season with just 1 fumble on 59 touches (2 receptions on top of the 57 punt returns). Now that's reliable and responsible punt returning!

Our kicker Dylan McMullen was a disaster. Okay, that's a bit harsh, but this fresh guy had 9 missed field goals and 3 missed extra points. Not quite numbers to be proud about, but we gave him a fat contract, there's reason to be not so happy here. Too much pressure? Counting his money at night?
Our emergency signing punter Doug Guynes, returning back home because Doug James will be out for another week or 37.

The team pass rush was unacceptably bad. 4.4% of pass plays ended in a sack, 24% in a pass rush based negative play. The latter is kind of okay, being tied 8th in the league. Our pass defense percentage was 6th best, the run defense about average. I'm not going to single out any defensive players. Well, except for the monster linebacker Brandon Brady and the All-IHOF bound safety Devon Farrell. And maybe nickelback Adam Harmon and defensive tackle Darien Fletcher, also All-IHOF bound.

Let's move on to the offensive line, where the two rookies Isaac Delgado and Johnnie Houston didn't contribute much to the running game, but were kind of reliable in the pass protection. Center Robbie Zinn lead the team in key run blocks, while Howard Humphrey wasn't back to his all-star leven after missing half of last season. Guard Michael Szott was rock solid.

So, what's next? After the playoffs, we'll have the 2095 off-season. We'll go into that about $26M under the cap, providing no retirements make the situation better or worse. We'll have an additional 4th round pick that will be the 9th pick in that round.

First those playoffs. Bordeaux and Gothenburg will face off in the wild card round. Two 12-4 teams, separated by the tie-breaker of which one of them actually beat us. Gothenburg it was and as such this game will be played up North in Sweden.

So... Let's end it here for today's rambling.

We improved by half a win compared to last season and actually outscored our opponents by 48 points. We deserved a bit more, I think, but with how strong the elite in both conferences have been this season, even with 3 wins out of the chokes, we would have still missed the playoffs at 11-5.

Next season, we'll improve and be back in the mix. I think that's where we could be then: in full sail.