Sixty-six points and no excuses: the Strikers' bye hole swallowed Sunday, and Joey McVey is next

Since last Tuesday I've had one line in my notebook about this team: the Strikers could not hide in Week 7. They didn't hide. They got found.

The Wild Cards put 131.44 on them Sunday. The Strikers finished with 66.52, and with nobody left to play, the league scoreboard has this one decided before Monday night starts. George Pickens still has a game for the Wild Cards in Dallas. He can only add to it. The Strikers fall to 2-5.

I've been working this hole since last Tuesday, when the schedule showed Bhayshul Tuten, Kimani Vidal, Brian Thomas Jr. and Sonny Styles all with their pro teams off this week. Tuten had been the Strikers' best scorer the Monday before. That was the warning. Sunday was the bill.

Here is how it came due at running back. Breece Hall was listed questionable with a quad during the week, then turned up on the Jets' inactive list Sunday morning. He sat on the Strikers' bench with a zero. George Holani, who signed with the Strikers last Tuesday and had been working behind Hall in practice, got the job. He finished with 2.8 points.

Mike Paden answered my questions Sunday night, on the record, and he did not dress it up.

"With Tuten and Vidal off and Breece inactive again, George Holani was our back today," he wrote. "He didn't get many chances, and that's not on him. He did what was asked."

Last week I asked Mike whether Holani was more than a body. His answer: "We brought him here to play, not to stand around." On Sunday Holani played. The opportunity just wasn't much of one. I'll take Mike at his word that 2.8 points isn't a verdict on the player. I'd add that I don't know yet what it is a verdict on, and neither does anyone working only from the scoreboard.

Then Mike wrote the line that matters most.

"We lost by a lot more than one running back, and that's on all of us, me first."

He's right about the first part, and the scoreboard backs him. Jared Goff was the best thing the Strikers had, at 18.42. Justin Jefferson, Courtland Sutton and Sam LaPorta combined for less than 15. McLaughlin, the kicker, finished second on the team with 11. When your kicker is your second-best scorer, the problem isn't one position. It's that almost nobody else showed up.

On the second part, "me first," I'll give him credit. Owners usually say "we." I've pressed Mike hard on this beat, about the late running back adds and about a three-point loss to the Tide. He didn't owe me a sentence that puts himself at the front of the line. He wrote one anyway. That's worth something.

It isn't a plan, though. Mike has also told me he doesn't talk about his lineup in the paper, so I won't pretend to know what the plan is. He did tell me this much about what comes next: "The next three are all division games, and we win the one in front of us."

The one in front of them is Injury Prone, at home next Sunday. Then the Dragons come in. Then a trip to the Inexperienced Blitz.

The Delta did the Strikers one favor Sunday. Injury Prone lost too, to the Crimson Tide, and dropped to 4-3. So the gap is still two games, and the team on top of the division walks in the door next.

Last week I asked Joey McVey whether a 2-4 Strikers team worried him. He answered Sunday night, after he'd seen this one.

"The Strikers just got blown out by the Wild Cards. Am I worried about them? No," he wrote. "I'm not worried about anybody in Delta. A division this tight gets decided by who's healthy in November and who's got the guts to make a move. I've got a ring and I've got both."

That's an opposing owner talking, and he has every reason to talk that way the week before he plays you. He's also not wrong about the blowout. I'm not going to argue with a score.

Here's my take, and it is a take. Sunday wasn't the season. A team that's 2-5 with three straight division games hasn't been eliminated by anybody. But it has run out of weeks to call a loss a scheduling problem. The bye is over. Whatever Hall's status turns out to be, I'll report it when it's official and not a day before. And I'd like to hear from Mike who carries the ball against Injury Prone before I read it off the lineup.

Joey McVey says he isn't worried. Next Sunday, at home, is the Strikers' chance to change his mind.