[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Pre-Season giveth and taketh...
And per usual, it was a bit of both.

We're down a starter. Safety Alexander Marty is no longer suitable to be on our team. After our tremendous 42-6 pre-season victory over the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums, he must have done something stupid, because the staff told me he looked out of shape and has become a lost cause, pretty much. A bummer, I had hoped to have him and Riddick Newsome alternate downs, with rookie Devon Farrell playing continuously. It probably means we're going to throw Chuck Murray out there as the running downs strong safety. It would be wise to throw Ted Frias in the mix as well, to boost cohesion and keep Jackie Richardson fresher on passing downs, but Richardson and Kirk Hitchcock is the kind of duo you simply don't take apart. In theory, this is one of the best CB tandems in league history, we have to put them on the field. Hitchcock himself looks like he lost a step, but only the length of a toe or somesuch.

Regardless, the decision has already been made: Marty is out of Maassluis before the last two pre-season games. We kept him on the bench in his rookie season (2083) and off the defense in his second season, but slowly he grew into a starting role, with 2088 his peak season with 4 interceptions and 92 tackles. 106 regular season games and 4 more in the playoffs. That's his resume in Maassluis.

Wide receiver Tracy Arntt was another casualty before the final cut down moment. Still a quality special teamer and backup caliber kickoff returner, his receiving skills have diminished into near useless at the IHOF level. He was active in all 48 games in the last three season for us.

Theodore Bondy also lost some of his speed, agility and power, but he reamins to be a top10 wide receiver. Behind him, I'm really struggling to decide who our WR2, WR3 and keepable backups should be. Santiago Messenger is locked into a WR4/5 role as our premier kickoff returner. Rickey Lyle will be that at minimum as well, his return skills are sufficient to keep him active and we really want to see him develop his very good route running skills as quickly as possible. It's not unthinkable we'll throw him out there as our WR3 or even WR2. Branden Sandlin is far too obvious to not remain as our WR2 or at minimum WR3. That makes the debate between the three other youngsters: Trey Samuels, George Stuckey and Harris Wilkerson. That last guy is our second best special teamer after Bondy in this group. Stuckey has route running potential and getting downfield skills. Samuels is more of a complete good guy, albeit lacking endurance. We'll put the young guns out there in the last two pre-season games.

Bert Martin and Brandon Bell will be our quarterbacks in the last two pre-season games. Bell started the first two games, but Moe Sheldon took the lion share of snaps and did a fine job. Bell was near flawless in his limited action. I'm still stuck in the same dilemma: Bell isn't developing fast enough and his potential is below how good Sheldon is. We know Sheldon is better at avoiding interceptions, but he does take more sacks and consequently more fumbles. Martin has to impress to stick around as our QB3 or 4. Francisco Farley will go this pre-season without any action. We know what he can and can't do, kind of. He remains as a respecatabe QB3 option, but it's really all on Martin's throwing arm and shoulders to make us decide between these two.

The backfield has one more situation to settle. Asher Ford took a hit, but remains to be a solid special teamer and we'll need two from our backfield. Reggie Thongchanh is the other one and he'll be our RB2 behind Francisco Patter in our time share for now. Trey Beyer and Patrick Joseph will get the last two pre-season games to show which one of them is our potential future RB2. Joseph took a hit, while Beyer took a slightly smaller hit and remains to look slightly better all things considered. Neither will be an all downs back. If we keep one of them, it will be a future RB2 project, simple as that it is.

Our tight end project Clarence Gore made a big jump in the positive direction, meaning we've potentially got a solid receiving tight end. Top10 route running and top2 big-play ability. Endurance and pass blocking skills to boost, we need to find time for this guy to develop fast. Which is bad news for our 1st round pick in 2091 Clay Gaynor, as he looks like more of a more all around receiver and decent blocker. This might actually mean the end of one of our two run blocking tight ends (Jeffery Blake and Renaldo Crawford) as keeping mentor Sherman Bridges all of a sudden makes even more sense.

On the offensive line, we've already made the decision to release rookie Brady Burke. There's no reason to believe he'll be good enough to play ball. The sad thing is that Jared Labbe took yet another hit, which probably means we'll want our backup guard Marvin Silvan to become our backup center. The O-Line will otherwise remain unchanged.

The D-Line saw a hit to Gene Kondosvki, turning him from an exceptional pass rusher into a very solid one. We've already signed him to a new three-year deal, which he was willing to sign cheaper now. It likely means we won't have a roster spot for rookie Trent Donovan, despite his promising potential. But with all those cohesive guys in front of him, can we really use a 9th defensive linemen? I doubt it.

The linebackers unit looks set in stone now. Six guys is usually the number I prefer to have for the regular season and that's the number we have on contract. Brandon Brady is the piece of art there now, good to see him make a leap forward, especially compared to last off-season's signal into the other direction. This is the exact reason why you don't give up on young players too quickly, they can go all over the place from camp to camp and pre-season to pre-season.

Oh, we actually won both those first two pre-season games. The 42-6 victory over Brooklyn was a weird one with 7 field goals and 2 defensive touchdowns, while the 17-13 win at Capital City was a result of Moe Sheldon passing to Theodore Bondy very regularly. But field goals, we're still struggling to get into the end zone once we reach the red zone.

Two more pre-season games with mostly the youngsters in action, supported by a couple of starters on the O-Line, fullback Clay Brosseau, and several starters on the defense. And that's where we basically stand now.