[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Pre-season has ended, almost

Bad news around RT Perry Georgopulos' recovery from the knee surgery he needed. Our staff has downgraded his overall grade from 40/55 to 10/15. One of the biggest hits I've seen in 117 seasons with this team. It's rough. He'll sit out the season on injured reserve, I don't see how it makes sense to even activate him when he's upgraded to 100%. Releasing him makes no sense either as of yet, as it would accelerate the dead cap hit for 2121 to $13.3M, instead of $6.65M for 2121 and 2122 separately. The good news is that I can postpone this decision to week 21. Still, bummer this happened and it makes the signing of RT Roy Wilkerson and re-signing of G Alfred Pearsall even more important now.

Better news came from the renegotiations with QB Renaldo Wilson as he signed a 2-year deal with us, he came in one a 1-year contract. I tried 4-year deals previously, but he declined those. But this is good enough for having good odds to not pull a Bennett Morris on us and retire after one fantastic season.

We also extended with WR Rufus Montgomery from a 2-year to a 4-year deal, making him lees expensive in his cap figure for this and next season. Now we can cap him out next off-season, if needed, but the 2122 off-season is going to be even trickier, with the likes of LB Sam Hastings, TE Francisco Anderson and WR Ramon Randle hitting their final rookie contract season. We're likely going to use this additional cap space to extend the deals of RB Renaldo Billodeaux and CB Byron Sokol. We've already made sure TE Arnie Huffman, WR Blake Begay and LB Xavier Hoover are still signed through 2121. It would mean only RT Wilkerson is an unrestricted free agent at the start of the 2121 off-season, if he doesn't retire by then.

Our cut down to 53 was also made. I decided to let go of undrafted rookie RB Corey Ward and stick with RB Diego Kosters as the inactive backup to RB Jackson Powell and Billodeaux.

In case we want to hire a free agent with a bonus request later on, we can still offer a cap out to CB Asher McElroy or DT Francisco Blades, as we re-signed them to 4-year deals in 2119.

Our pre-season action has ended in a 2-2 record, with 104-103 scoring. QB Renaldo Wilson played quite well, showing his passing skills and his rushing ability was likewise to if not better than QB Bart Tanner. In relief, QB Al Schneider played well too. But WR Roman Randle was exceptional, with 3 100-yard showings. I tired to get WR Tyrone Dillon out there as well, but we all know how this works: the staff members really like to take the rookies off the field in pre-season as quickly as possible.

All in all, I'm feeling moderately optimistic about the upcoming season, if we can stay relatively injury free. We're as high as second best roster by the DogBytes metric, but that's something I'd like to see before I believe. But, who knows? Things went fast back in the 60's, when a bunch of talented rookies on defense quickly developed into the best defense we ever had (one of the most impressive any franchise ever assembled) and we did have an encouraging second half of 2119 already.

Back to where we are now, let's stick with the one game at a time approach. The Bordeaux Vineyards are coming to Oranje Haven in week 1. They cruised through pre-season undefeated. It doesn't always translate into regular season success, but we're at least warned.