[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Your 53 Merchantmen for 2122?

Still on the fence about our G James Tucker, he's on the trade block, yet at te same time, we just offered him a 5-year deal to keep him from becoming a free agent next off-season.

We've trimmed down to 53 players already and bar some late minute trades, we're basically set for the season.

QB Curtis Ginwright signed with us just in time for training camp and for better or worse survived cuts, being a mentor to and better kick holder than QB Al Schneider. Which is another spoiler about who made the team.

Who didn't make the team? Undrafted rookies QB Seth Ramsey and TE Alejandro Mercado were our post training camp cuts. The cutdown between our pre-season games was quite a bit harder as all seven players had something going for them to make it. Undrafted rookies DE Bruce Montgomery and DT Brock Everett were the easiest decisions, lacking the experience and potential to take the spot of one of the veteran pass rushers. Fellow rookies WR Teddy Whitefield and CB Devan Gagliardi showed too little upside to make the team this season. Gagliardi was a 3rd round pick, Whitfield a 7th round pick. The latter already found a new home in Orlando, while in the process turning down a lowball contract offers from all 3 of our division rivals, which I obviously found hilarious. C Chester Coffey and DE B.J. Shellhaas were backups on our team for the past 2 and 1 seasons respectively, while RB Diego Kosters had yet to play for us despite 2 full seasons on our roster. He's already found a new team as Gothenburg picked him up. Kosters surely will come back to bite us in week 1 already. I considered switching Shellhaas to linebacker to actually make his special teams ability useful as defensive linemen just rarely play on special teams, even when they do are excellent in that area. Imagine that: a 6'3" 276 pounds linebacker... Gagliardi just bombed, it wasn't the switch from safety to cornerback that did him in.

So, who did make it?

Quarterbacks
65/65 QB Renaldo Wilson
40/45 QB Al Scheider
05/05 QB Curtis Ginwright (fa signing)
Wilson is the undisputed starter, Schneider the backup. Ginwright is the better kick holder, but I choose to go with Schneider for now and leave Ginwright inactive.

Backfield
45/55 RB Rickey Jorg (rookie)
50/50 FB Rich Hartman
50/50 FB Marc King (fa signing)
35/50 RB Glyn Sloane
25/25 RB Preston Tanner
Jorg has been a pleasant surprise this pre-season, he's going to be our main ball carrier, with Tanner continuing the short yardage and third down role. Sloane has Renaldo Billodeaux clone written all over, but for the time being he'll have to settle with a backup role and an inactive one due to his lack of special teams skills. In contrast, we'll go with 2 fullbacks again, even using both Hartman and King in some formations based on whether we'll pass a lot or not.
Last season's 1,199-yard back RB Jackson Powell is still without a team, he thought he deserved a 1-year $27M contract during pre-season, but now that the regular season is around the corner, he's finally come to his senses and is asking for a 1-year $7.7M deal.

Tight Ends
65/65 TE Francisco Andersen
40/40 TE Kyle Baker
30/40 TE Sedrick Hill
25/25 TE Perry Bussey
Only one change will happen here as Hill will be our new third active tight end, with Bussey dropping to the inactive backup role. Andersen will still be our starter, despite that he's going to be out of contract next off-season and demanding big bucks. We're going to give him a 5-year contract offer, but I don't see us giving him something else if he turns it down.

Wide Receivers
60/60 WR Rufus Montgomery
55/55 WR Roman Randle
50/50 WR Rodolfo Lane
40/40 WR Tyrone Dillon
10/10 WR Blake Begay
05/05 WR Maurice Sweeney
Lane is declining and will have to worry about Dillon this season for playing time/targets. Dillon has improved to being the player with the highest route running ability on the team, so it's very much worth putting him out there on downs where we don't need a lot of speed or agility, just getting open and not dropping the ball for a short gain. Sweeney is still our better kickoff returner, but it looks like RB Rickey Jorg has the potential to take over.

Offensive Linemen
75/75 G Greg Brizzolara
75/75 LT Dan Clancy
55/80 LT Barry Finley
60/60 G James Tucker
45/45 C Tracy Stewart
40/40 G Alfred Pearsall
30/45 G Parker Prior (rookie)
30/40 RT Ryan Fulcher (fa signing)
Our 5 starters are nearly undisputed, yet Pearsall is the cohesion bomb on the group and as such still threatens Tucker and Stewart. Prior is a project, Fulcher the mentor for Finley.

Defensive Linemen
75/75 DT Floyd Dillon
55/55 DT Jeremiah Cortez
50/50 DT Rodney Gagliardi
50/50 DE Phil Wakefield
45/45 DT Neil Burton
45/45 DE Roger Graf
30/50 DT Raul Oswald (undrafted rookie)
35/35 DE Glen Kafka
Our former running downs end B.J. Shellhaas fell apart in pre-season, becoming nothing but a special teamer, which as I pointed out already is worthless on this position group. Oswald will jump into our pass rushers rotation, which makes it easier to move Burton to the running downs group. Dillon has the endurance to carry this unit, the rest are sidekicks. Graf took a big hit in ability, but is still our pass rush technique end.

Linebackers
55/55 LB Sam Hastings
50/60 LB Cristian Beyer
40/55 LB Travis Cantu (rookie)
40/40 LB Jorge Mayes
35/35 LB Ezekiel O'Neal
20/30 LB Luther Goffee
O'Neal dropped hard in pre-season, which will cost him playing time to Beyer and Cantu. Mayes is on the decline and will play very little this season, unless we find out we need his cohesion value, in which case we'll play him ahead of Cantu on running downs. Hastings and Cantu are the passing downs duo, solid zone defenders. Goffee is ready to jump into the special teams role, together with O'Neal. Beyer will continue to grow, hopefully. A nice trio with Hastings, Beyer and Cantu, but all of look like the perfect LB2 next to a true stalwart. Hastings today signed a heavy 5-year deal, which keeps us tied to him for at least this and the next 2 seasons.

Secondary
70/70 CB Andre McAninch
50/50 CB Zachary Blair
45/45 CB Asher McElroy
40/40 S Kim Fox
40/40 S Cesar Welch
35/35 S Peter Hinsley
35/35 S Jimmie Coxwell (fa signing)
30/35 S Max Junker
30/30 CB Marquis Wolf
25/25 CB Billy Cochrane
Nearly the same group as last season. Coxwell is our new special teamer and will play some running formations and could play dime back if needed. Cochrane will be the casualty and start the season inactive.

Special Teams Aces
85/85 K Jeffery DeGroot
55/55 P Devon Middleton
20/20 LS Roderick Kaeding
A solid group, nothing to dispute. Okay, Middleton lacks a bit of power, but if we play the way we've done in recent seasons, we need his corner coffin skills a lot more.

So, all in all, a good group. But, we're stuck in a very strong division and we'll be placing the other division in the league that had 3 teams with a winning record.

Oh yeah, we smooth sailed through pre-season, although losing at Oakland 31-28, we did win at Fairbanks 24-20 and at home beat Chicago 33-17 and Kansas 48-20. In particular RB Rickey Jorg excelled, as did QB Renaldo Wilson. Those 133 points scored were head and shoulders above the rest of the league (second best is 107 points scored). But, you know, it's just pre-season. Besides, we did give up 17+ points each game, making us the 12th worst in pre-season.

Our season will start at Gothenburg, usually the toughest game of the season. Their quarterback took a big step back in his ability, but that doesn't make me much more confident we can beat them in their home. We'll get our chances and we'll have to take advantage of those. Starting the season with a win would be huge, but a hard fought loss would be acceptable.