Portland, OR - Portland Timbers ownership and Public Relations teams today admitted that the vast number of excuses that they have available for the 2015 season make it easy for them to relax.

"With Diego Valeri and Will Johnson out for the first few months we already had the excuse of 'missing our star players' available. Then when Ben Zemanski went down, we were able to add "embattled team pushes on' and then when we lost Michael Nanchoff we realized that we hit the absolutely perfect scenario" said owner Merritt Paulson. "We realized that no matter the result we now have an absolutely perfect excuse available.

All available scenarios are now covered for the rest of the year. If we win, it was a plucky win against the odds. If we lose, it was our shorthanded boys giving the maximum effort. If we draw, it was a great result that allows us to wait until our injured players come back. We basically could tie every game for the season, miss the playoffs and still be able to blame our performance on bad luck and missing key players."

Coming off a loss against the Vancouver Whitecaps, the Timbers public relations team was equally satisified with their level of excuses heading into week five. The head of public relations for the team, Dave Tern, stated, "Yeah, it's great. By doing virtually nothing with regard to replacing our missing players in the offseason, Merritt has allowed us to be able to excuse away the lack of wins in the first four weeks. Even the last three years have been a cakewalk despite the Timbers having more ties than fathers day."

TNN asked Mr Tern and Mr Paulson about their opinions on how the fans would take this new found wellspring of excuses and Mr Paulson answered the question with the following statement. "The fans? Who gives a shit. I'd like to replace them all with fans who would just shut up and spend more money on the club. They are replaceable, I am not."