A wing and a prayer (an HC09 Falcons Dynasty)

[Skarecrow]

Thanks for the compliments on drafting guys. I don't mention it much during the actual recaps, but I put a TON of research into my scouting, and I do my best to interpret half-filled info, although as I mentioned a few pages ago, I'm still limited by a lack of knowledge of current and past NFL players (for the comparisons). As you can see by the roster, I even did ok with the semi-blind 7th round pick in Matt Cleveland, with a pot of 87, not too shabby for 7th round! With some practice, he may make the permanent squad, or at least a 2nd string backup.

The game does make it really easy to pick up the really killer "named" sleepers since your GM's "draft preview", Adam Schefter, and that other guy (whose name escapes me right now) will usually tell you who most of them are in the broadcasts leading up to the draft. I find it more rewarding to find the "A. Dotsons" and "N. Carlton" type guys. The randomly named guys that the game doesn't mention.

English wasn't anything special during the pre-season, but then he was only playing half the game, and didn't know the playbook. The real test will be to see how he's playing once we hit mid-season. Woodson, as much as I had high hopes for him, didn't really improve by mid-season and was still throwing more interceptions than touchdowns.

I've already got game 1 of this season done, and I need to finish writing it up. It's encouraging.

[Skarecrow]

Week 1 vs Saints
Dominating first quarter gives way to a horrible second quarter where they tie it up, although we pull ahead again right before halftime. We pull ahead slightly more in the third, then start the 4th by putting Drew Brees out of the game. Our linebackers are hitting HARD. We prevent them from making the 2pt conversion, and then get another TD of our own to lock it up. Final score is 38-26 Falcons! Way to start the season.

Jack English throws 0 TD and 0 Int for 130 yards with a QB rating of 93.2. Not too shabby for his first real NFL game (preseasons don’t count, I supersimmed em. Hah)

McFadden starts the season with an amazing 190 yards in 41 attempts with 5(!) touchdowns. If he doesn’t make offensive player of the week with that, then Superman must be playing for one of the other teams.

LaRon James only got 5 attempts, but he made 23 yards out of them, tieing McFadden’s 4.6 average runs-per-attempt. I’m quite happy he’s ready to go should McFadden get hurt.

Nobody stood out on receiving, English hit Jackson, Milner, Goldman, and Bellows all for 24 yards or more. Bellows did have one amazing 29 yard catch after a hail mary bomb. He had to jump his full vertical to get it too. It was a thing of beauty. I gave him an emotional response, and he gave me a -8 reaction. Dick.

We did have several players knocked out of the game needing xrays. Patrick Lee is the one that conerns me. He’s our only decent cornerback.

Approval is up to 49 after the game. Would be better but my boys botched a defining moment in the 3rd quarter.

Patrick Lee is indeed out 3 weeks. Crap. Next week is against the defending Superbowl champions, the Air Raid Patriots, and we need him covering those receivers. Double Crap.

On a brighter note, not only did Darren McFadden win NFC Offensive player of the week, Eugene Wilson won NFC Defensive player of the week with 7 tackles, 1 forced fumble, and 1 fumble recovery. Go Falcons!

Considering half the league is pretty much by definition undefeated going into week 2, I’m not entirely sure how they do the rankings, but we’re #2 in the NFC South, and #10 in the NFL.

[Skarecrow]

Week 2 vs New England

Only one 90+ Patriot is injured, while we’ve got several out.

Patriots get an early TD in the first. Start the game off right! A bunch of back and forth, and then we recover fumble on a punt, to turn it into a FG… strike that, a MISSED FG. Wtf. Know what, I’m stopping right here. Basically the short story of this quarter is we can’t stop the Brady passing machine on a regular basis, while their D is almost completely shutting down our running game, leading us to rely on passing which… well they shut that down too. We’re looking like quite the chumps here. I know these are the defending superbowl champs, but we look silly. Quarter ends 14-0 Pats.

Second quarter, The English-Bellows-Jackson connection finally wakes up, and we score 2 passing touchdowns! That’s the only good news. In bad news, McFadden is still completely shut down, and the Pats manage THREE TDs, to end the first half 35-14 pats.

I don’t know what I said to the team during halftime, but I apparently lit a fire under them. English is earning every cent I’m paying him, Jackson and Bellows are bucking for sportscenter highlight reels, and even McFadden is finding microscopic holes in the D line to exploit. Two Atlanta TDs brings it to 35-28 with one quarter to go.

Our D is no slouch either, as they stop two Pat drives short of scoring, and English and McFadden make sure we take advantage of the opportunity, tieing it up 35-35 with 4:32 to go. Brady does what Brady does, scoring a touchdown in little more than a minute and a half, to pull New England up 42-35 with 2:53 left in the game. English won’t be shown up by a man 11 years his senior, and manages the same feat in less time, tieing up a second time 42-42 in just over a minute! 1:47 left on the clock. Despite a valiant effort, we can’t hold off a Patriots FG and they push up to 45-42 with 12 second left and that’s enough to win the game.

Supreme effort on our part, coming out of the locker room at halftime was an entirely different team than went in. I think that the game we played during the second half tonight would have beaten anybody else, and even the almighty Pats will FEAR this team in a season or two. The only true low point of this game was A. Serna, who lost us the game in the first quarter with that missed 35 or 40 yard FG attempt, although he didn’t know it at the time.

Fantastic game for English, QB rating of 124.9 even with 1 interception, due to 6 TDs and 419 yards!

Rushing was disappointing this game, especially after last week. McFadden was held to only 44 yards in 14 attempts, a testament to the Pat’s overpowering D. They’re the real deal. James didn’t even make positive yardage this game, ending with -7 yards.

Don’t think that this means McFadden is getting dirty looks in the locker room, because the reception totals show that somehow English decided that McFadden was his main man, tossing him 8 receptions for 178(!!) yards, averaging 22.2 yards. That’s got to be one of the best reception games ever for a guy who isn’t even a WR! English did spread the love, tossing to 7 other receiving targets aside from McFadden.

My approval is up to 69, even after losing, due to the results of a defining moment in the game.

Despite English’s amazing stats, Tom Brady wins Offensive player of the week with 581 passing yards and 6 touchdowns. Yeah, ok, I guess that’s hard to top.

Even a loss still leaves us 2nd in the NFC south, but drops us to 17th overall in the NFL.

Awwwwwwwww CRAP. McFadden injures himself in practice… and when the results come back… he’s only out 2 days? WTF. DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT MAN!

[Skarecrow]

Week 3 at NY Giants

Injuries:
DT T.Lewis (3 weeks)
CB P. Lee (1 week)
RE J.Abraham (??)

NY gets an early TD, and our O goes nowhere afterwards, but theirs doesn’t do much better, and we follow it up with more fail. Punt-fest is what I’m saying basically. English throws an interception, and NY turns it into a TD. First quarter ends 14-0

Second quarter is even more embarrassing than last week against the Pats. 14 points for the Patriots and only 3 for us. 28-3 at the half. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to dig our way out of this mess.

First drive of the 3rd quarter, is LONG, but we manage to get it into the end zone on the back of LaRon James, and he scores, I believe, his first NFL touchdown. After holding NY’s offense back for once, LaRon scores his second NFL touchdown 5 minutes later. It’s 28-17 at the end of the 3rd quarter. That’s still a BIG hole to dig out of.

FG by Serna puts us down 8 points 28-20, but only 4:22 to go in the 4th. A bunch of fail on our part gains two more FGs for each team, closing out the game 31-23 NY. Another game of “Good effort, but not good enough.”

Nothing really to note about the stats. English does about half what he did last game. McFadden and James combined for 87 yards rushing. McFadden had another nice game catching the ball, picking up 106 yards doing so. Jackson, who actually is a receiver, got 89 yards himself.

My owner is pissed that I didn’t win 3 out of our first 4 games. Well duh, we had the Pats and the Giants in weeks 2 and 3, what did you think was going to happen? At least next week we’ve got Washington. The Redskins turned into a damn strong team by season 5 of my Steelers franchise, falling just short of the Superbowl twice, but that’s not the team I’m seeing here. Here, they were one of the worst teams last season, and are 0-3 currently.

That, along with the loss in general, knocked my approval down to 61. We’re down to 24th overall in the NFL… yet the NFC south is full of so much suck, we’re still 2nd to the Buccs.

[Skarecrow]

Week 4 vs Washington Redskins

Injuries:
DT T.Lewis (2 weeks)
CB P. Lee (2 days)
RE J.Abraham (4 weeks)

So after I talk **** about the skins, they run the opening kickoff back for a TD. Great.

Serna misses a few field goals. We stop a TD run on their part with an interception, only to get sacked for a safety. How humiliating.

Half ends 9-0 skins. Yes, it is really that embarrassing.

Third quarter is scoreless.

Fourth quarter we get a TD to close the gap to 9-7, but Washington responds by pulling up another TD, widening the gap to 16 to 7. We charge downfield and score another TD, bringing the game back within 3, but fail to recover the onside kick, and that’s the game.

Overall, we lost because we keep giving them the ball, and failed to make plays when needed. Very disturbing. We just lost to one of the worst teams in the league.

Screw scores, everybody sucked.

I’m down to 58 approval rating. “We’re down to 28th in the league, and… somehow… still 2nd in the NFC south. Yes, really, the Panthers are ranked 29th, and the Saints are ranked 32nd. The Buccs are actually ranked #1 in the NFL right now. I don’t think we’re taking the division from them. We’ll be lucky to just get a wildcard spot at this point.

We’re up against Carolina next week, and considering that’s the only team we could consistently beat last year, if we lose to THEM, we’re in deep deep ****.

[edward_1385]

Great looking roster going in the season... Sad u didn't get Alonzi Simms from Michigan State he is a monster in the linebacking core no matter were u put him... Sucks about Chicago and Carolina taking away a couple of ur players, but don't worry Jacksonville always does that to me in all of my ffranchises...

Good deal to get the first pick and English and GREAT job getting him to sign for offer 1, and plus having no holdouts...

Started of looking good in season opener, but the next 3 games man o man ur team underperformed... Looks like the game against the Pats really took the wind outta of ur guys... Great comeback against the Pats though... But, now the Redskins game was a pathetic output from ur guys though they should have played alot better than that though...

Btw, good luck beating the Panthers, u did it twice last year, so it shouldn't be a problem for ur team this year... But, better watch out for Juran Riley he can really give u headaches...

On a side note if the Buccs wasn't in ur divison then u could eaisly win ur divison with a 5-11 record... NFC south and AFC north are the two wrost divison's in this game aside from the Buccs though the are just as strong as the Pats and Colts in this game...

[JMSHHT]

Quote: Originally Posted by edward_1385

On a side note if the Buccs wasn't in ur divison then u could eaisly win ur divison with a 5-11 record... NFC south and AFC north are the two wrost divison's in this game aside from the Buccs though the are just as strong as the Pats and Colts in this game...

In my franchise, the NFC North was the worst division, because the Lions and Panthers just suck, and the Packers plus the Vikings are two really underated teams in this game. Usually the division leader will finish at or below .500. But the recent years the Panthers suddenly got strong and dominated the division.

[edward_1385]

Quote: Originally Posted by JMSHHT

But the recent years the Panthers suddenly got strong and dominated the division.

Well if u pick in the top 5 as many years in a row as they have u had better start being good... Hell, a high school football coach should be able to start winning games with there roster after all that...

Btw, I seen the Bengals finish with a 6-10 record and end up in the AFC championship game againts the Colts and almost beat them...