General Manager Notes: When you stand corrected
Or how you sometimes find a horrible typo.
Let's refresh our memory on an article about the fifth round pick tradition in Maassluis.
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Originally Posted by MIJB#19
General Manager Notes: Fifth round magic!
Myth or reality?
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Okay, let's skip past the introduction and the list of cool names.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MIJB#19
But back to today, we had two 5th round picks in this ongoing 2091 draft and we made our selections. RB Trey Beyer was our pick at 5.9, TE Clarence Gore our 5.23 pick. Beyer has the hole recognition and breakaway speed combination that we like for our running backs. Gore has route running, endurance and some blocking skills. I mean, if they live up to potential, obviously.
We'll see what happens this time around. In all those years, 23 of 354 fifth round picks didn't make the regular season roster. There's no guarantee for these picks to make the team. Just ask our 5th round pick from last season DT Tyrone Hanson, who is smart enough to not have retired just yet, that kid does have the potential to be a solid pass rusher somewhere, someday...
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First of all, as likely as 354 fifth round picks sound, that would assume we went through the first 88 drafts using 4 picks per draft. That's obviously not true. The actual figure through the 2091 draft was 89.
And now that we're on that topic, after Beyer and Gore in that 2091 draft, we used only 3 more fifth round picks. 2096 pick Ronnie Vanden Bosch is currently our backup running back to Bert Ta'Amu, waiting on the sidelines in case Ta'Amu gets hurt. Last season Vanden Bosch 'started' all 16 regular season games, but was actually our RB2 behind Trey Beyer, a fellow fifth round pick.
Trey Beyer is currently unemployed, hoping to get a call from any IHOF team to step in for an injured starter of backup. Beyer was our main ball carrier last season and the two seasons before that. I wrote a snippet about him after we released, but I didn't mention that he eventually ran for 2,621 yards and 21 touchdowns for us, with an additional receiving touchdown and a very respectable 3 fumbles in 617 ball touches. I don't expect him to return to us, unless an injury does roll around, as Beyer is the most suitable candidate on the open market. Maybe we should have kept him over the headcase linebacker Daquan Espino that's getting $7.5M for watching every game from the stands.
Clarence Gore was our other 2091 pick and he's still standing strong, recently joining the Club of 100 and despite being #5 in line in targets, he made a big 68-yarder in week 1 to prove his worthiness. He's already 7th in Merchantmen history amongst receiving tight ends in yardage, 6th in receptions and tied 8th in touchdowns. Not bad when you're stuck behind Clay Gaynor, who might catch him in all three categories by the end of the season, if he steps it up a bit after a relative slow start to this season; Gaynor had 80+ catches the last two seasons for 900ish yards.
We kept one fifth round pick each in the drafts of 2093 and 2095. The latter was spent on smart, fast receiver from Virginia Tech names Nicolas Coady, but his combine scores didn't translate into football skills and he didn't even survive the pre-season cuts that off-season and gave up on his professional football dream in the ensuing off-season. The 2093 pick we spent on left tackle Byron Irvin. We actually let him play on special teams in 9 games and he saw the field in two blowout losses in his rookie season. We gave up on him after his second training camp, not making our 60-men pre-season roster in 2094, he retired from football in the following off-season. So it goes...
2088 pick defensive tackle Kurt Ackerman retired this off-season. He deserves being mentioned on the list of successful fifth rounders as he played 88 games for us in a support pass rush role.
Elsewhere in the league, a couple of our fifth round picks are actually still standing strong. 2090 pick Trey Samuels is still playing for the Paris Musketeers, after we moved him from running back to wide receiver in his rookie training camp, released him after his second training camp with us and then Paris picked him up. He's currently on their roster for a $14.5M cap figure and listed as a starter, despite not getting a lot of targets.
Tight end Randy Holliday was one of our 2087 picks, in 2088 he was actually listed as our starter, then in 2089 moved to our special teams unit and in the 2090 pre-season was cut right after training camp. He didn't give up and in the 2091 off-season was hired by the Tucker Tigers with the intention to move him to center and become their offensive line leader. He was twice released before the season start, but both times re-hired on the day of the bowl game. And today, that's what he is: the unit leader of the offensive line.
Our 2085 pick Tucker Gaylor was a promising wide receiver, broke out in his third season in Maassluis with 51 catches for 720 yards, playing in 7 playoffs games during his tenure. Then we traded him in the 2088 off-season to Paris, which is where he played throughout the 2094 season, with 2092 being his only season in a major role with 49 catches for 568 yards and 6 touchdowns. He signed with the Atlanta Vipers in the 2095 off-season, spending all season inactive there. After sitting out 2096 without a contract, he retired the past off-season. In retrospect, a missed opportunity, I think he was 1,000-yard material.
So, Gore and Vanden Bosch are keeping up appearances in Maassluis this season. And to be fair, they are a fair representation of our tradition. 68 of 92 fifth round picks made the regular season roster as a rookie. Including this season, they tally up to 377 seasons on roster (maybe that's what the aforementioned 354 had to be linked with?), roughly 4 seasons on team per pick. 25 of them are members of the Club of 100. I'm going to pad my own shoulder here, we're having good results with these kind of picks.