[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: training camp was good, but...
But pre-season can be a mood killer...

Improving players by our staff on 1 to 100 scale:
+8 S Guthrie (rookie, R1)
+7 DT Oliver (rookie, R1)
+6 LT Hadinger (rookie, R2)
+6 DE Russell (2nd year, R5)
+5 WR Bondy (2nd year, R1)
+4 FB Cochrane (3rd year, R5)
+4 LB Springer (rookie, R7)
+4 S Marty (rookie, R5)
+4 S Miller (2nd year, R2)
+3 QB Blalock (2nd year, R4)
+3 QB Muchnick (5th year, undrafted)
+3 T Bauer (3rd year, R6)
+2 QB Witkop (rookie, R5)
+2 RB Belin (2nd year, R6)
+2 WR Bunting (3rd year, R7)
+2 WR Tharp (rookie, R6)
+2 CB Broady (3rd year, undrafted)
+2 S Brim (rookie, undrafted)
+1 WR Willbrandt (2nd year, undrafted)
+1 WR Gellings (rookie, undrafted)

Bondy is considered to be fully developed now.

So yeah, our three investments in the first and second round of this draft all made very good progress. One by one, Guthrie the biggest surprise, maybe. Oliver looks great, but still looks like we might have to think twice about putting him on pass defense formations, with all those pass rushers on the bench, especially in his rookie season. Hadinger is so green, no way he's going to start this season, unless disaster strikes and either Louie Murray or Oscar Meadows has fallen apart during the off-season.

Bondy is now considered to be the best wide receiver in the league. Our defensive end project Andy Russell is coming along well as well. Safety Emmitt Miller might be recovering, but we'll have to see how he looks at mid-pre-season.

Overall, we'll have some sort of position battles at safety (7 players on roster, none return specialists), linebacker (7 players on roster) and wide receiver (8 players on roster). In this last group, we've decided to end it here for Ross Willbrandt. He might recover at some point, but with 61 men on roster, he's our odd man out, in a sense that he's not leaving us, but will go to injured reserve.

But for now, a bit of a waiting game. In a day or two, we'll know a bit more about where all the guys stand...