Season Nine (2016)

[Tasan]

Still no retirements, this almost disappoints me. OC is up for a contract, and this will be tricky. Good luck for us though, this guy who has real nice ratings takes a pay cut to stay with the crappiest team in the league.

We have 30 players under contract. Time to hit the signing block.

We tied with GB for worst record, but won the tie breaker, so we have the #1 pick. GB gets that and all our other picks, for a pretty powerful draft.

Reeves creeped up again, to 69/69, gaining Avoid Drops bars and Endurance, plus prolly some more of others. LT Clemons drops further, to 69/69.

Everyone resigns without trouble, and we extend a few more guys. We head to training camp with grey skies overhead, nobody thinks we are any good.

Well crap. Reeves dropped to 63/63 after camp. I guess we are totally screwed now. At least Clemons didn't fall anymore.

[Tasan]

Keeping with the West Coast Offense this year.

Shut out twice in the PRESEASON! This is going to be rough...

We finally get our first win in week 5, 27-24 over the G-Men. This is a milestone win, our 30th of the challenge. The offense really clicked with McG coming back from a week off with an injury to have a real good game, and McM ran well also. The D held them off at the end and we get the win.

Week 10 our punter goes down for 4 weeks with a bad knee during a loss. We use the "Kicker" rule and go sign a scrub. We cut CB Buchannon and sign scrub P Shannon Boyer. I'll cut him as soon as I'm done with him. I actually start my K at P though, because I think he'll do okay there.

In week 12, we go up against 8-2 Pittsburgh as 10 point dogs and come out with a 19-0 shutout! Win #31 sure was tasty. Bass kicked 4 FGs, and McG hooked up with Reeves for the lone TD. The running game as a whole was good as well. The D forced and recovered 3 fumbles, and picked off 3 passes, plus threw in 2.5 sacks for good measure. Seems like a pretty good effort all around. I was truely afraid we were only going to win 1 this year.

In the final week of what is probably our final season, we face off against the Giants, and come away with a 27-14 win for #32. That was a season sweep of a decent division opponent, so this is a win I actually feel good about. Plus, it gets us to 3-13, a tremendous accomplishment for this group of scrubs. QB Ellard filled in for McG again because of injury, and got the PoG award for a real fine day. Reeves was the real star again though, going for 131 yards and a TD. The D was solid.

Reeves finished with 131 catches for 1747 yards and 10 TDs, one of his top seasons in a career with many. McG actually had his second best career rating with an 86.0, but missed 2 games and most of 2 others due to injury. McM was nothing if consistant, getting over 800 yards again with a tad over 4.0 YPC. SS Kinney had 4 picks and 130 tackles, so I think he may show up in the awards. DE Brody was decent, with a team high 8.5 sacks, but nowhere near his past years. All in all, even at 3-13 this team suprised me. I only expected 1 win this year, and they tripled that. I really really don't think we'll continue next season, but I've been saying that for 3 now, so who knows.

WR Reeves is again 1st team WR, and truely deserved it. He caught over 63% of the over 200 passes thrown at him. Sadly, our SS does not get on the awards roster even with his insane stats season.

[Tasan]

Well this ragtag bunch of losers will be around at least one more season, although we have our first retirements. They kind of hurt, because two players from one position left. TE Gibson, formerly a FB and our current Receivers leader, retires. He never really played much, but was a leader in both the backfield and receivers and never complained about playing time (or lack thereof). TE Matos also retires. He was the reason Gibson switched to TE, when Matos went down with a season long injury and we had another OUT at TE. Matos was also a Red Flag, but we NEVER had issues in the receivers with complaining, so I'm not really sure how much those really matter. Finally, OLB Eric Haslett retired as well. He was a started from day one, switching from MLB to OLB, and having several solid seasons. He will be missed, because he was basically all we had left in the LB corps.

Our DC needs a contract. Fingers firmly crossed yet again. YIKES, our owner only will allow a contract that would be about a 50% decrease in salary for him. Time to find a young guy to take over I guess. I find an old guy (Everett Bush) who doesn't want much for what will probably only be one season at his age. He accepts the max we can offer. Okay, I thought his named looked familiar. He was our DC 2009-2011. I guess he's a glutton for punishment.

We had the worst record in the NFC (again), so our picks go to the second worst, Minnesota. We kill the upper deck ticket prices to $10, so at least maybe we'll have a drunken crowd up top.

Peeking at the draft, I really wish I had some picks in it, its the strongest offense draft I've ever seen, with 2 QBs 8+, 2 RBs 7.5+, and a WR at 7.4. And it really doesn't drop off for a while, either. And those 5 guys all really have bars to back up the ratings, and combines to back up the bars. I mean, its red and blue all over the first page.

We have 35 of a possible 49 players signed right now. All should come back with no problems.

Maybe stretching the rules some, but I offer a contract to CB Buchannon who I had to cut in the punter incident last year. He's only a 10/10 guys at this point anyway, so he's just roster filler.

50 guys are on the team when the draft rolls around.

SS Lee Kinney decides to hold out at the start of late FA. I give him what he wants for 2 reasons:
1. He's the #2 tackler all time for the league.
2. He's asking for a PAY CUT, with a cheap extension.
There you guy sir, less money this season and next, plus a 3rd at cheaper than what his one was going to cost. No problem.

On a note of stupidity, I could have just IR'ed my long term hurt WR Slusarczyk instead of cutting someone last season. Yet another justification to resign Buchannon. At least in my crazy mind.

We sold over 20k tickets this year, mainly I think because of our $10 upper deck. At least it won't be a complete ghost town when we play.

Reeves continues his ratings slide, but it didn't seem to hurt him last year at all. He's now a 60/60 with pretty good bars left. Clemons continues declining, now under 70 at 69/69. We no longer have any 70+ players. In contrast, we have 8 under 10/10. Wheeeeee this should be fun.

[Tasan]

I doubt we win a game this season, this just has to be said now.

[Tasan]

And in week 2, my team proves me wrong, winning 14-3 over San Diego. We almost pulled off the win in week 1 as well. This was win #33 overall. The D went sack and pick happy, and Reeves caught a TD in the victory.

Week 7 sees us beat up on SF 14-10, win #34 overall. Both scores come in the second quarter for us, and we coast on D the rest of the way.

hahahahahahahahahahahah Week 12, DE Brody, our career sack leader, goes out with the infamous Tabacco Withdrawl Syndrome....He was one of three guys left on D that could do anything. I think we'll prolly be 2-14 this season now.

Week 15 sees us lose one of our two remaining TEs to ACL surgury. It saddens me to do so, but we have to convert our lone FB to TE. I've really liked him there, and our running game stunk when he was hurt and out, but since we really don't have one anymore, I guess its okay.

Okay, after looking again, long time RB backup Bucky Jennings can play TE, so he's the one. He and Bush were pretty much equal at this point, so it was a wash, and we still have our FB who can convert to either TE or RB if needed.

And my prediction turned out right. We go 2-12. Brody came back in the last week, wearing a patch under his helmet aparently. Reeves, while having an off season for him, still catches 119 passes (66% of his targets) for almost 1400 yards. His YPC was the lowest since his rookie year, however. On defense, our sack leader (Brody) had 4.5, and top picks were 2. McM had less than 700 yards and under 3.5 YPC. McG had an awful season. I hope this is the last, because I don't think I can take another dreadful season with these guys, as much as I love some of them.

Reeves is shut out of awards this year. Its a shame, because he played the last 5 games with a bad hammy and played well. Nobody else (suprise suprise) gets any awards.

Fingers crossed to for multiple retires.