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Old 01-03-2020, 09:11 AM   #195
MIJB#19
Coordinator
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Maassluis, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
General Manager notes: Ellis' reign coming to an end?
Four interceptions and a lost fumble. That too is Ellis McAlister.

Every now or then, when things go wrong, they go horribly wrong. In our home game against the North Plainfield Plague very little went wrong, actually. Sure, when our stupid cornerbacks decided to blitz, we got punished all four times, but basically today was all about an inefficient running game and a mostly a quarterback that couldn't keep the ball on the team.

Three times before in his career did Ellis McAlister get picked off more than 3 times in a single game. All of those off days happened in Oranje Haven and today was the fourth time. Granted, he was playing through the pains of a broken thumb, but he coped with it at the Tucker Tigers.

But elas, Ellis, it happens.

What makes it so interesting though? Some guy we signed off the street as an undrafted rookie free agent banged on the door of our head coach and asked for playing time. It was quarterback Francisco Farley. Granted, he got good grades in the pre-season, a guy that made unexpected good progress. But this guy is asking us to let him take over from a winning quarterback, from his own mentor. What gives? It's not like this went by behind the scenes, for whatever reason this somehow went out to the rest of the world and now we have a disgruntled second string quarterback, whom the staff will likely ignore entirely if McAlister gets hurt and will probably place our frickin' kick holder under center.

What about that rejuvenated game plan? It was okay, we held a pretty solid team to 281 total yards. It wasn't impressive, but it was a huge improvement over the first three games, where we looked lost on defense.

The offense probably needs some tweaking as well though. Like Artie Blazewicz, today it was Tucker Gaylor struggling with just 2 catches on 8 targets. The catches he made counted hard though (53 and 44 yards), but we can't have that when Theo Bondy is held to 10 catches for 115 yards, like today.

European division:
1. Paris 3-1
2. Bordeaux 2-2
3. Maassluis 1-3
4. Gothenburg 1-4

So, we're sitting 1-3 at our 1/4th of the season point, with a couple of home losses and every game could have coin flipped the other way. Well, I'd rather see us throw a six sided die with 3 or higher being in our favor. That's where we want to be. Or really, I want to see this loaded highest paid roster play up to their potential and post 8 solid wins and then see where the 8 coin flip games will go. Thinking about 12-4 is a very optimistic after a 1-3 start, I give you that.

Back to that Francisco Farley guy though, history learns that when young players start complaining about playing time, they seem to think they have the potential to be better than the current starter, or think they are at least starting material in this league. I'll applaud that thought if Farley really is that good. In fact, we'll have to somehow please this kid sooner or later as he's on a one-year minimum contract and if he's really that good, we don't want to lose him in free agency next off-season. We'll look at things later on, for now, we have a proven winner, a quarterback that on average has gotten us to 9-7 wild card round losers. Yeah, the last two seasons he actually posted post-season victories, in his 12th and 13th season in the league. Still, the keys are firmly in the hands of Ellis McAlister and we have no intention to let him hand them in.

For now...
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* 2005 Golden Scribe winner for best FOF Dynasty about IHOF's Maassluis Merchantmen
* Former GM of GEFL's Houston Oilers and WOOF's Curacao Cocktail
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