[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: 9 new players, 7 new faces

K Oscar Harrington has officially left the Merchantmen. After 15 seasons of service (247 games), he signed a 1-year contract with the Capital City Blues.

We signed two second-year pro's with familiar names in QB Kent Figures and LB Wendell Reynolds. Figures was a 7th round pick for us in 2116 and after we released him in pre-season, he was picked up by the Texas Sharks on a 1-year deal as their emergency quarterback. Reynolds was an undrafted rookie in 2116, didn't make the final 53-men roster, but kept hope and we'll bring him to training camp 2117 for his second chance.

We also brought in 7 undrafted rookie free agents, all of them on pretty cheap, but not cheapskate contracts. RB Benjamin Reilly has very interesting hole recognition potential, if it holds up, he could challenge RB Edwin Erickson for the RB3 spot, but Reilly's lack of special teams ability limits the odds. FB Ron Carlisle is mainly suited to protect the quarterback from blitzers. TE J.J. Lang has promising route running and special teams potential. P Greg Stephenson is an insurance signing in case P Tyrons Johnston falls apart in pre-season. CB Alexis White is a small (5'7", 185 pounds) special teams ace, with zone defense potential. S Wayne Bridges is potentially a run stopper and zone defender. S Roderick Olivera has some special teams potential, but he'll have to improve on it to even make the pre-season roster.

We'll go into training camp with 68 players signed. Clearly way too many for the actual pre-season limit of 60. Especially the secondary group will need some trimming, we're bringing 17 men into training camp, that's insane.

Evaluating our undrafted rookie score, we managed to get 7 of 9 targets. We missed out on two wide receivers that signed lucrative deals with the two most decorated franchises in the league. WR Irving Stargell received a $4.5M bonus from the Tucker Tiger, where he might turn out to be their new punt returner, or might do nothing but end up on the trade block like half the wide receivers that are picked up by them as rookies. The Chesapeake Chitterlings offered WR Shane Zigler a $3.99M salary, it could make them their new special teams booster with excellent punt return potential.

Another interesting tidbit: the Bordeaux Vineyards made QB Clyde Morris the mr. irrelevant pick. He ran a spectacular 4.32 40-yard dash at the combine, but more importantly, makes for the interesting sandwich of the first and last pick in the same class being both quarterbacks for the exact same team. We actually looked at Morris as our plan B for our last 7th round pick, but with no mentor around, it made it bit less sense to hope the kid could grow to be our future starter after QB Bart Tanner and QB Harrison Singleton. We let QB Blake Stai walk away, he's now in Bordeaux to mentor Morris as well as #1 overall pick QB Hardy Henson.