[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: The cohesion, it's slowly returning
Finally.

It used to be our thing: drafting players and sticking with them for a long time. We've had that season where we had to release about a third of our players, but we're a couple of seasons away from that now and I think we're back into the upper echelon of teams, if not team, in terms of cohesion. And by no surprise. Let's run the team down somewhat quickly.

Running backs and offensive line
RB1 Patter and RB2 Thong' are in their 5th and 7th seasons with us. The O-Line has LT Hadinger (9th season), LG Szott (8th), C Pearson (12th), RG Watson (6th) and RT Humphrey (7th). That should be huge.

Receivers and quarterback
WR1 Bondy (10th season with us) and WR2 Sandlin (5th) have become a loyal group. They are the rare ones on this group though. Our options at quarterback Sheldon (4th) and QB Bell (3rd) are no cohesion boosts, while Farley (5th) is barely that either, hence making him not more than a QB3.

Defensive line and linebackers
This unit is getting rock solid. We're likely to rotate all 8 guys on our D-Line and all but one of them have been around for their 4 seasons now: DE Russell (10th), DE Whiting (6th), DE Kondosvki (6th), DE Exner (5th), DT Ritt (8th), DT Ackerman (4th) and DT Mojica (4th). The best of the bunch, DT Fletcher (3rd) is the newest guy. The linebackers are a mixed bag with Brady (2nd) fresh on the team, but Jackson (5th) and Espino (6th) will be good.

The secondary is another mixed bag, which makes the loss of S Marty hurt quite a bit. CB Hitchcock (11th) and S Newsome (7th) are the clear long standing members. This is why re-signing CB McNeil (5th) could be so crucial. We also have CB Frias (4th), but the rest are very new: CB Richardson, S Murray, F Brotzman and CB Harmon are second year players on our team, rookie S Farrell is obviously brand new. It means we'll have to make room for McNeil or Frias in formation where we don't want to exhaust Newsome too much. Richardson and Farrell should be able to compensate with their skills and talent, but we'll be forced to throw Murray or Brotzman in some formation as the safety opposite Farrell, which could make Frias a not so obvious, but plausible play over even Richardson on obvious running downs.

We'll have to look at our special teams unit in this department as well for a bit. CB Hitchcock, WR Bondy and DT Ritt all have been no-brainers for years. RB Thong', DE Kondovski, but even LB Palmer and TE Blake are now becoming boosters for this unit. The O-Line has already been mentioned as being good for it here.

To be fair, it's not exactly by design, but I'm loyal to players, don't throw them away for a potential improvement of 5 or so overall skill points, which does make these players more expensive, but always hope to get return of investment through their familiarity with the team. The staff has had a season together as well now, most notably the OC now here for his second season. Let's hope that bodes well for our offense that was quite possibly bottom 5 last season. (Okay, we were probably better than bottom 5, but having such high standards here, having one of the worst seasons in team history automatically feels like it must have been terrible on a leaguewide scale, which it actually wasn't. Aside from our 5th worst giveaways and turnover margin...

I'm still a terrible game planner on offense though. We once had that Blazewicz special play that worked about half the time to take a quick 7-0 lead in many games, but Ellis McAlister actually had the arm to make it work. Our current group of quarterbacks quite simply won't be able to play that kind of trick play. But, in this fashion, it will be interesting to see what we can achieve with our guys behind Bondy as he will draw double coverage and possibly open up room for guys like TE Gore, TE Gaynor, WR Stuckey, WR Wilkerson and WR Sandlin and even KR/WR Messenger and rookie WR Lyle to make plays. And over time, maybe WR Lyle will become that diversion, without the utopian expectations of him making 10 catches for 120 yards per game.

Tomorrow we'll pull the plug on which WR will be traded, if any. We have an excess of 4 players, which with the given depth at QB (4 signed), RB (5 signed), TE (5 signed) and DE (5 signed) means we do have the roster spots available for 7 WR. In the end, that 53rd slot will most likely go to a special teamer, which would heavily favor RB Ford as our RB3, with RB Beyer or Joseph as a future RB2, which would favor keeping WR Wilkerson on the team. 4 quarterbacks does feel like overkill, Martin and Farley are the obvious candidates to decide between. And at the tight ends group, mentor Bridges could still be the odd man out, despite the desire to groom 2nd year Gaynor and especially rookie Gore quickly.

Enough for now, more tomorrow after the second couple of pre-season games...