This Thing I Have Become

It's starting to gnaw at me that I've essentially given up on this hockey team of mine with so much left to play. I am in the most awful position. I'm starting to cheer every Leaf loss because with each mounting loss it just vindicates me even more, look, I can say, I was right this team is just balls to the walls bad. I can't enjoy it when they do win because that only lets John Ferguson Junior shift some of that piling pressure off for another day. Each win is a victory for Fergie, the Leafs management and everything stifling and incompetent about them while every loss is another welcome nail in the coffin and frankly, there are so many nails in there you could probably lift it with a large enough magnet.

So thanks Leafs, you've turned this season into a perverse game for me. I can't tell you how conflicted I was when the Leafs put up that unfortunately timed 5-1-1 stretch because it literally saved Ferguson's job but it also signaled that maybe the Leafs weren't stale leftovers at a time when it still mattered. I mean I don't like Toronto losing but I certainly don't need anyone repudiating Fergie right now. So really yeah, I do want Toronto to lose; I want Toronto to lose often and ugly and the more the better.

The worst part, or maybe the best part is that there are ways out of this. Look at Philadelphia. They were bad last year; they were rank awful, just plain bad and now this year, after management change and a dizzying year of deft moves they are back. Or what about St. Louis. A couple years ago they were bad, real bad but they cleaned management and put some guys in place who had a Plan and the today the Blues are as good as anybody in the league. The point is things aren't hopeless. This season is still a wash I think, but it shouldn't go to waste. A top five pick plus what we can sell at deadline and Toronto could be on the right track like snap crackle boom. Remember what St. Louis got for Keith Tkachuk last year? Atlanta practically gave away the farm. Imagine what Mats Sundin could bring.

Or we could have Fergie, lame duck Fergie come out at deadline time and looking at the standings that, at least nominally, show Toronto within a few points of the playoffs, he could give up another first round pick because if it works and the Leafs make the playoffs his job is safe for another year and if it doesn't work, well it's not like he'll be at the draft table in June anyway. Fergie is dangerous is what I'm trying to say. He's cornered and battered from all sides including his boss Mr. Peddie (who should be swept out too, or at least, swept away from hockey) and he has to know that the only way he has a job in Toronto next year (I don't know why he would still want the job but anyway) is if the Leafs make a playoff appearance and at least make it close. I sincerely and deeply and honestly do not want the Leafs making the playoffs under Fergie.

Look what you've made me Mr. Ferguson.

Jason

A Post For Wonderful Surprises

I hope you did not get your hopes too high at the prospect of wonderful surprises because today's title is a misnomer, in fact you might call it an out and out lie because the focus for today is on completely unsurprising things and has very little to do with wonder and a lot more to do with depressing reality.

Where to even start. The Canadian Juniors won the gold medal today and this isn't actually depressing so much as it is unsurprising and uninspiring, especially after so many people rang the alarms so furiously after that one single loss back in the first round, the first loss for baby Team Canada since I don't know how long but we are talking years here and suddenly that's all it takes to question whether this team of maybe-one-day-future-studs can win the gold. It was pretty silly. I don't know what it is but maybe it's because I don't follow the tournament much farther than Story is Cont. on page S4, but it was easy money for me to pick Canada as the eventual winner. I don't know how many more straight golds it will take for Canadians to realize that they have the best junior system in the world and that these yearly international tournaments provide the same level of excitement and competition of your average round of mini-golf. Canadian domination of international ice hockey was fun at first, now I think it's just boring.


Surprise number two. The Toronto Maple Leafs are not a very good team. This is pretty much indisputable these days even if nobody on the company payroll wants to say it. Toronto lost to Philadelphia earlier tonight, and get this, this is the really unsurprising thing , they blew the game with two minutes to go in the third. I know! Who could have seen a finish like that!

It's not even surprising anymore when the clock hits five left in the third you just need to keep one eye behind Toronto's goalie because you know there will be some heavy action back there before the buzzer goes. So when Toronto fell behind a man to Phillie with just minutes left to play with the score tied 2-2 you could have reliably turned off your tv right then and gone off to do something more productive, confidant that your Leafs would find some special new way to lose and disappoint you.

The Leafs are 1-5 in their last six if I read the results properly. The Leafs occupy a special portion of the NHL standings reserved for only the really mediocre, the teams that can win two in a row and than just as easily peel off three straight losses and come back with a straight face and tell their fans that there is something more in the tank even though that is what they have said all season. It has been noted by those deliriously devoted to this hockey team that thanks to the particularly mediocre East Conference, the Leafs are never more than four or five points out of a playoff spot and that anything can happen, you know?

Oh but they are so hopelessly romantic. The Leafs are never far from that final eight slot but they are never really close either. To think that this team can suddenly reel off five or six straight wins and then motor on down the home stretch at some wonderful .600 clip is some bizarre dream work that completely ignores the body of work this team has put up all season long.

There is no consistency and no secondary scoring on this team. And yet we the fans must continue to listen to John Ferguson Junior and Richard Peddie tell us that it is not wise to make hasty decisions in this business. Hasty! It's like they lack any sort of perspective or sense of irony or at the very least have nothing but contempt for the fans, the only people who would deign to hold them accountable for turning this team into a mediocre halfway home for players with no where better to be. Hasty! It's like they are incapable of remembering anything farther back than five games ago. The team we have now is just as bad as it was a month ago, two months ago and it is not improving visibly. But we can't act just because the team isn't playing well right now. Right now? I can think of just one stretch of hockey this season when you could have reliably called the Leafs a good team and I think that lasted about ten games at the top.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't want Fergie to do anything. I'd rather he didn't touch the team because you can only see him making some ugly desperation act on deadline day sending more draft picks and prospects for another goalie as he, in that JFJ way, mumbles triumphantly that he has fixed the goaltending situation except he won't mention that this is the third time in his three years that the goaltending needed saving and this is all too depressing because it is all too plausible because we already know what our GM is capable when he's desperate.

I've said it before but obviously not loud enough but Toronto needs to fire Fergie, and Pettie too while we're at it and they need to install someone with experience and iron balls and the courage to trade Mats Sundin and the GM savvy to trade McCabe or Kubina or both and then he needs to start actively rebuilding for next year.

I know how tempting that four point gap looks right now and how close that this team may look on paper but if you have been following this team honestly, I don't know how you can conclude they can or should make the playoffs. I'd rather see them tank now and come back next year with something plausible than to see them continue to bundle along blindly wishing and hoping for that multi-game win streak to happen. Because it won't. And if it does, you know that the Leafs are just as capable of matching it with a losing streak of equal or greater value. This is our hockey team.

Jason

The Three Point Game

Talking about the Maple Leafs right now is kind of tough because they are awful and smelly and big fat meanie liars who promised change and commitment to defense and just an overall improvement but are playing the same listless let-someone-else-do-the-scoring- and-backchecking-tonight game they've been playing since the lockout ended, so I'm not going to give them any time tonight.

Let's talk about three point games instead. The Leafs are pretty familiar with three point games because these guys lose in overtime more than any one else in NHL and it's those eight points from those eight OT loses that are the only thing keeping the Leafs point total near respectable levels, but I'm not talking about them tonight.

The way it stands right now, the NHL awards two points to any team capable of finishing a hockey game in sixty minutes with more goals than their opponent. If both teams have scored the same number of goals, that is, if the score is tied and stalemated and not conclusive after three full periods of skating back and forth over a frozen surface comprised mostly of very cold water and sometimes spare change, if this happens the game goes into overtime and then possibly a shootout if five more minutes of skating back and forth still fail to resolve anything. The team that emerges with the win will receive the same two points they would have anyway, but the losing team, the team that failed, say, the Toronto Maple Leafs for demonstration purposes, will receive one point, which, the astute reader and sporting enthusiast will note, is entirely one full point more than they would have received had they not blown the lead in the dying seconds of the game to a team the Toronto Maple Leafs should beat every single time but instead choke like they were dining on tiny chicken bones before every game.

This results in the three point a game, a game in which three points are doled out between the two teams and a game that has a tendency to skew standings and make bad teams look better and make mediocre teams feel like they still have a shot at something meaningful which is why the NHL likes three point games because this way everybody is a winner and nobody gets their feelings hurt unless you are the LA Kings in which case you are just awful no matter what you do. The three point game is frustrating for me and others too because of just that: it makes bad teams look like they are not bad teams. The Toronto Maple Leafs, that team I am not talking about today, can send out their General Manager and have him, without lying, describe the team he built that has won 15 of it's first 38 games as having a winning percentage of .500 because eight of those losses were in OT and therefore don't count at all for anything.

The Leafs are clearly not a .500 team but the standings don't lie. I am not against three point games though. I do not think the league should stop rewarding points for OT losses.

What the NHL should do is make every game a three point game. Three points for doing your job and giving the fans a resolution at the final buzzer, and then two points for an OT win and the same one point for losing in OT. This would separate out the contenders from the pretenders. Thinking about it, it won't do anything for the cluttered standings column in your newspaper but it's already pretty cluttered as is so this is not my biggest concern.

The NHL is not going to do this because they want parity and they want their fans to think that even though their GM might be inept or just brain dead or maybe their highest paid players are stiffs dreaming of summers somewhere other than this godawful city where all it ever does is snow or rain, that their teams still have a chance because in today's NHL anyone can grow up to be President as long as you try your best and lose in overtime enough.

Jason

Edit - I'm going to try start updating more often for better or for worse whether or not I have anything to say or not. Should be fun!

David Ech-Stein

So J.P Ricciardi is obviously feeling as uneasy as I am about the prospects of starting next season with the same line up as the previous year so he signed David Eckstein to a one year, 4.5 million dollar deal. I think he missed the mark. Looking positive, J.P deserves credit for going out and getting guys who are proven winners, after all it was diminutive Eckstein out there collecting the World Series MVP award back with St. Louis and if there's one word every one uses to describe the 5'7" lead-off man, it's scrappy.

But there's another word a lot of people use to describe the lil guy, and that's "over rated". The Jays already have a regular shortstop, John MacDonald, yeah, the guy they call the Human Highlight Reel, and if you are going to go out and sign somebody to take that position from him, why do you go out and sign an aging small man with all the range and mobility of a rotting tree stump? Eckstein is a defensive liability to such a degree that any advantage gained by having him lead-off the order will be lost in ground balls through his feet. The Jays' rotation have come to rely on having the solid wall between second and third that Johnny Mac represents and then we go 180 degrees around and suddenly next season giving up ground balls will be a liability.

Essentially now the Jays have pitched out 4.5 million dollars for a utility infielder because even if Eckstein starts the season at short you have to imagine that by September that somebody will have become frustrated enough to put MacDonald back where he belongs. MacDonald can't hit, yeah, we know that, but he makes up for it by catching everything hit his way. Eckstein can't reliably catch anything but while he does hit better Macdonald (that's not saying much, most of the Jays' bat boys probably hit better than the Mac Attack) he does not do it well enough to justify putting him on the field every night. If Troy Glaus wasn't comfortably entrenched at third (hey remember that time they had him play short stop? Pretty sure Glaus is better there than Eckstein) they could conceivably shift Eckstein over to where his defensive misadventures would not be such a problem but the point is moot. This was a bad deal, I think and I can only be glad that it only runs one year because I can't see the Jays finding themselves needing to renew this contract.

What's with this team and committing to under appreciated fan favourites like MacDonald and Greg Zaun and then going out and desperately trying to replace them? Poor Zaun. Remember when J.P said hey you're our number one guy congrats you really finally earned it, and then he signed Bengie Molina? And then just a week ago J.P was after Paul Lo Duca and you have to wonder how any player could ever develop any loyalty to this club. And if we're talking loyalty and Blue Jays I can't leave out the way the Jays ran Carlos Delgado out of town.

I am so ready for another General Manager not named J.P Ricciardi to have a crack at this team. I just want to look at my baseball team and feel reassured that there is a plan in place, a plan to improve and get better and compete and, hey now whatever happened to Russ Adams? Remember it was going to be Adam Hill at short and Russ Adams at second and now Hill is at second and there is huge road jam at short and this is exactly what I'm talking about. There is no plan around this team, just a series of ad hoc moves designed to make it look like we are keeping up with the Joneses in New York and Boston. Frank Thomas and Tomo Ohka and Victor Zambrano and Matt Stairs and where does it all lead?

Right back at third in the American League East

Jason

Exhibit F in the David Eckstein is overrated case: http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2006/10/eckstein-round-up.html

The Rios Factor

So Blue Jays GM J.P Ricciardi has made it pretty clear that the Jays' roster for next year is going to look remarkably similar to the Jays' roster from last year. Ricciardi is stubbornly insistent to prove that the team he built for '07 was a winner and he's going to do that by making no significant changes to the team for the upcoming season. This is about as childish as it gets for general managers.

Ok, so the Jays had a some ugly injuries last year, B.J Ryan was out all year and Vernon Wells might as well have been and so J.P wants to prove to all the naysayers who slagged the Jays that what he put together was actually capable of winning if only we hadn't had all those injuries. Whatever. This is how you know the Jays are not an elite team. Look at New York and Boston. They had good teams last year, not theoretically good teams like Toronto, but objective, observably good teams and you don't see them standing around telling their fans hey, we're such good teams that we don't need to improve. Hell, the Red Sox won the World Series and they're the ones at the head of the pack for Johan Santana. Good teams don't tell people they are good teams, they go out and act like good teams. If J.P was serious he would call last year a wash, recognize that shit happens and move on and act accordingly and acknowledge that the teams around him are quickly moving ahead while he pretends that this is still 2007.

There is some small glimmer of a trade in the works for Ricciardi and the Jays after the sunny Winter Meetings. It's hard for GMs to resist the temptation of tinkering once you gather them all together and J.P is nothing if not a GM. The only problem as it stands is that with this trade J.P might just be clipping these Jays' wings.

The proposed trade is Alex Rios, the most consistent thing in black and silver for Toronto last season, and Tim Lincecum, a young hot shot stud pitcher out of San Fransisco. The Giants are sitting on their hands here, and I'm glad they are because I'm not sure the Jays can afford to give up Rios' power or glove heading into next year. Who do they have to replace him? Do you play Matt Stairs? Is Alex Lind capable of really replacing Rios? The conventional wisdom is you don't give up a player like Rios for a pitcher, even a pitcher nicknamed "Franchise", who is only going to play once every five days.

I don't like how this smells. I can't see how Ricciardi could possibly give up Alex Rios without anything to immediately replace him. I mean, remember the last two months of the previous season? The Jays were receiving pitching, they were getting really, really good pitching in fact, but the bats were completely missing, and you aim to fix this by giving up the only guy who was hitting worth a damn? I don't know.

The only way this trade works, Rios for Lincecum, is if Ricciardi wheels around and makes another trade, say, I don't know, McGown for Jason Bay, or whatever. I say Jason Bay because wouldn't that be amazing having the second best Canadian bat in the majors playing for Toronto? Yes it would. And then Ricciardi could whip around again and trade for Eric Bedard and all of a sudden I would never ever say a bad thing about JP again for as long as he was GM no matter what he did. Is JP capable of moves like that? I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to leave such a hole as Rios would create in the outfield without anything to fill it right? And JP has said he would like to up the Canadian content on this team and while Matt Stairs is nice (did he really need two years?), he's no Bay or Bedard. Nobody is safe on Baltimore, we know that, and it's not like Pittsburgh has anything going on and I don't see why this isn't possible, save for the fact that Jays might not have the depth in the farm system to pull this off. I don't know.

So here's what I want: if Rios must go, and I really don't think he does have to, Ricciardi you darn well better have some kind of master stroke genius trade in your other sleeve to replace him. What can I say JP, I've lost faith in you. I no longer believe you can do what's best for this club. So just don't screw this up please. If you are going to make a trade, think big. Think really huge blockbuster big, blow the roof off the top giant. You know? Make us care. Detroit went big by trading with Florida. You can top that Ricciardi.

Jason

Stop Winning Plz

Hey guys what happened to getting John Ferguson Jr. fired? Remember that? We were so close! Fergie was days away from losing his job and then you guys go 5-1-1 and all of a sudden everything is fine and wonderful and Yonge St has been reserved for a future parade.

That's the way hockey works around here though. All it takes to erase two and a half years of poor, listless hockey is a four game win streak and everything is good again. How long can the winning go on? It would have been nice if the Leafs could have held off their rediscovery of their resolve and commitment to team defence until after Fergie was gone but now it's too late and all the fire Ferguson momentum has dissipated and good luck ever getting anything done in MLSE's front office.

We missed our chance is what I'm saying. You just know somebody somewhere is working on a contract extension to reward Ferguson for pulling the Leafs up to ninth in the East.

Jason

Oh Them Winds of Change

Can you feel it? Can you feel it? There is finally the promise of change swirling about Toronto these days; real, deep, meaningful, drastic, sweeping change emanating from the heart of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment offices. John Ferguson Jr may very soon be out of a job. This is a good thing. Fergie, bless him, leaves behind a trail of terrified, timid moves and deals, all swung with an apprehensive look over his shoulder. Rask for Raycroft. Draft picks for Toskala. Money for Kubina and a no mover for McCabe. Whatever. We all make mistakes. But then there was his gruff, tight lipped media face, those washed-up boxing promoter good looks and his terse, uncomfortable, demeanor that from day one never managed to instill any confidence in me.

Listen to me, I sound like he's already gone. I hope I'm not wrong here. I hope we don't have to suffer through the rest of the season watching JFJ sit on his hands, lips pursed while he mumbles something about injuries and tough luck and how we have all the pieces in place despite winning only eight of twenty-four games and displaying all the passion and drive of an old golf cart. I know, changing GMs isn't going to make the Leafs play better. It is so far beyond that now.

It's almost good that the Leafs lost so badly to Phoenix, because when you get blown out by the Coyotes you can be pretty sure there's not much lower you can go. I may be late to the party, but I'd like to join the Blow-Up the Leafs Club. I was pretty sure before the season that the Leafs could be at least eighth-in-the-East competitive, but now this team has shown itself to be the listless no talent bums they were all along.

Toronto needs to bring in a general manager who isn't afraid to say, "This is not a very good team" and then go out and do something about it. Pile those draft picks. Trade Sundin. I don't care anymore. Send him to Ottawa so he can get his Cup and we'll get even more reason to hate the Senators. I mean, they kick the Leafs' ass every time any way, switching Sundin's colours won't change much.

Kabooom

Jason

Post Script: I'm just hearing this now but it appears Fergie tried, and clearly failed to get coach Paul Maurice fired last week which shows the power and influence he still holds over what is supposed to be his team. Everyone involved denied everything but then that's pretty status quo so Fergie's protestations don't count for much.

Lusty Tlusty

We've all done stuff we'd rather forget right? Certain things done under the influence of other certain things, or because hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time, ok? Geez. It's just that we don't all play for the Maple Leafs and most of us can be reasonably sure I think, that if anybody did find out about our transgressions (I didn't notice her five o'clock shadow, ok?) we wouldn't find lurid photos of ourselves splashed across the front page of the Toronto Sun the next day.

What a non-issue. Jiri Tlusty is nineteen and he just got burned by the internet. Tough cookies. Can we talk about the fact that the Leafs have lost back to back games in OT instead?

Jason

No Stanley Cups Allowed

Hey look where'd that come from, who's the dude with the fourth grade photoshop skills, and what's going on here, right?. Well, I've been toying with a name change for a few months actually and this seemed a good a time as any. The old name was stupid. It was based on some silly math and shakier logic, but it was one of those ideas that just made so much sense back when. It's important to know when to ditch a bad idea, and 65 Years and Counting was a bad idea. Let's not get negative though, this is a happy day. I guess my focus can shift more fully to hockey and now I don't have to pretend care about the Raptors, even if they have suddenly become major league model franchise number one.

No Stanley Cups Allowed is, I think, a celebration of futility. Negativity is no fun. It just leads to cynical wrinkles and early heart attacks.

Here's my rejected list of blog names. Think of them of them like an old betamax sitting on the curb, "please love me" post-noted to it.

Toronto the Fair(ly Adequate)
Toronto the (Not) Good (Enough)
Futility in Toronto
The Pain That Unites Us
The No Stanley Cup Zone
Why Try Harder
Maple Leafs Blowing in the Wind
Toronto the Sucks Ass

Jason

Who Brought the Donuts

I don't know if you've noticed but lately it seems like goalies have been putting up shut outs like they were Amish barns. I don't have any numbers to back me up, only a cold, hard hunch, but it feels like goose eggs are on the rise. Maybe it's just that Pascal Leclaire is making a glorious spectacle of himself over in Columbus, but then even Andrew Raycroft got in on the hot clean sheet action which tells you that something must be up. Andrew Raycroft man. Scoring is down from last year, the Internet confirms this, and even last year's numbers are down from the year before that. It only took three years for the big/small market divide to really resurface after the lockout. Ditto the fighting. Are we seeing the return of the low scoring too? Cause man there has to be a better way of fixing the sport than locking everybody out for a year. That got old kinda quick.

Goalies stop being so good thx,

Jason

That Dirty, Dirty 'Stache

Of course the Leafs won against Buffalo. They didn't just have Darcy Tucker and Bryan McCabe back in the line-up, they also had McCabe's gnarly new set of biker bars, which probably deserved at least an assist on 'Caber's goal, just for being there. Ryan Miller knows better than to get between a shot from any dude bad enough to be sportin' a hairy horseshoe. It's just not good sense. I wish I had a decent picture.

Jason

Ze Big E, 'E Is Great Non?

So what about this Lindros guy. He's retired now, some might say a few years too late. The question, burning so passionately right now is whether the dude, in his injury shortened career and taking into consideration both the fact that he was probably the player of the nineties but also made a dick of himself by refusing the Nordiques, considering all that does the Big E have a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Yeah, let the guy in. I think his numbers plus the reputation he built while with the Flyers is enough on its own to get him into the hall. He shouldn't be penalized for taking too many hits to the head, that was just his game, and he shouldn't be penalized for having the parents he did either.

When the time comes, 2010 I think, they should vote him in. Whether that happens or not, well, that depends on how well some journalists can hold grudges I guess.

Breaking News

Jay Onrait is hosting Off The Record while Landsberg gets his face lifted, or whatever it is Landsberg does on his time off. TSN needs to get this guy Onrait his own show. Jay is comedy gold.

Jason

There's This Basketball Team You See

Sometimes I forget I don't like basketball long enough to write a couple hundred words.

Yeah I only pay attention to basketball with one eye open but the lack of respect emanating stateside for the Raptors is shocking. The American sports media has been creaming their pants over and over again all summer at the thought of Boston's newly stacked team, and the predictions from every corner are falling just short of championship. Because we know how historically good teams built to look like a day to day all star team have faired. Team chemistry be damned. You would think in basketball of all sports, those being paid to be in the know would recognize the importance of team play. Boston will improve, yeah sure, it's not hard to improve on 28 wins, but I think Boston fans will be disappointed (Dear Boston fans, you have the Patriots and the Red Sox already. That is enough).

The Raptors aren't getting any respect is my problem. Perhaps the most team orientated team in the East, and easily one of the most cohesive groups in the NBA and for some reason no one can take the next step and predict another Atlantic title for Toronto. The Celtics will come out of the gate like the New York Rangers, slow and uncomfortable. The Raptors are going to be solid all year long. They will win their division and a playoff series or two to boot, and the stupid part is America is going to act all surprised, as if there was no warning for this sudden rise.


Still holding out hope that Brian Colangelo will take over hockey operations too,

Jason

Did Someone Say Road Trip?

Those wacky, wacky, mediocre, wacky Maple Leafs. All the consistency of raw egg yolk plus the nauseous taste that makes you want to throw up afterwards too.

What's up with the goaltending? Paul Maurice seems desperate to make Toskala his number one guy but every time he leaves Toskles in net for too many consecutive games he seems to get burned. We're all expecting some kind of return to form for this guy and that two game win streak, yeah remember how sweet that was?, yeah that two game win streak looked like some kind of turning point and then Toskala allows four goals in the first period against the Crapitals of all teams and the Leafs sleep walk through another loss and it's real sweet that Steen was angry afterwards for the camera, but where was that during the game?

Raycroft is no better these days and it seems like the Leafs do have a goaltending duel on their hands. Two goalies dueling it out to see who can earn the right to ride the bench night in and night out. Maybe they should call up Clemmensen. You know the Marlies have yet to lose in regulation through seven games? This is the Marlies we're talking about. Maybe we should do a wholesale roster swap with them. I don't see how it could get much worse than it already is.

Next game is in New Jersey. I don't think we can call it the swamp any more - the arena is in Newark proper right? Not that I know anything about Newark, but it has to be a locale improvement, right? Point is, this is a Winnable game. I've been saying that about a lot of games lately, and look where that's got us. The Leafs can bounce back though, especially on the road. Get away from the ACC. Do a little soul searching guys. Win some games please.

Jason