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Old 07-02-2020, 01:50 PM   #314
MIJB#19
Coordinator
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Maassluis, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
General Manager Notes: playing the waiting game...
Patience, grasshopper, patience.

Sometimes you know what you want to achieve, don't know exactly how to get there and ask for advice and the advice is simple: you have to wait for the stars to align and then still wait for half a year and be at the right place at the right time. So maybe, last season was just like that moment when I saw the stars align and forgot about the good advice and thought going all in was a good idea. It showed guts, but it wasn't the right time at all.

That's what it can be like to draft a quarterback. You think you see potential, test the waters, get denied big time, but still feel like there's something there. Brandon Bell, I'm looking at you. As I am to you Moe Sheldon and Francisco Farley. With the Merchantmen, it's all about cohesion, we don't rush into action, we slowly build on getting to know each other and wait for the right time to make things happen. But that's also where the analogy goes wrong, because Bell did need to see some action to build experience, not just test the waters but throwing him out there, possibly getting eaten alive by the opposing defensive linemen trying to bulldoze over those five or six guys in front of him to buy just enough time to release his pass and make things happen.

It's just another draft and I didn't just fail to fall for another quarterback, I've decided to make the best of it, look at the three, cheap, guys still on roster and hope their years of service will bail them out, just like what worked for Ellis McAlister after all those seasons of waiting in the wings.

And to make it all possible, we're doing very little. Redoing contracts left and right, just to make sure all these players that had such a horrible 2090 campaign stick around. We get rid of some drat picks that will costs us more bonus money than I think we can afford if they fail to make the team. We're at 49 players signed and have 6 draft picks incoming, which means only the first three will actually count against the cap. The Solecismic assigned financial department can't really add up, they think the other 3 guys will also cost us cap space, but we're actually still about 600K short of being able to afford the higher of our 5th round picks, so we'll have to find a little bit more cap room.

DE Gene Kondosvki hasn't been the easiest guys to persuiade into signing a new 3-year deal. Aside from the fact that he's asking way too much money, I'm too much focused on keeping the D-Line together and hope they will be that top-notch super duper mega awesome unit that crushes not just the sack magnet quarterbacks in the league, but can also run havoc on a half-decent QB with a better than average pass protection. I bet the $6M earning three guys around him won't exactly feel that way, but to me, Kondosvki's $25 (or there abouts) that we'll need to keep him should be divided in four, we're spending close to $78M of our nearly $500M of cap space on 8 defensive linemen, including the backup defensive tackles that we might put more often out there to give the two monster defensive tackles some chances to take a breath.

Still, it won't be enough, which means, before making some cuts, which will come eventually, I've decided to talk with our once franchise MLB, then after a pre-season of back luck has become our LB3, but still with LB1 cap figure. Cutting Daquan Espino now would save us $11.8M from his salary, but it would give us a $23.5M cap hit next season on bonus money alone, while his 'saved' salary figure would be $13.3M. That's a no go for me, we don't cut (or trade) players anymore that will make such a cap hit in the next off-season. In return, Espino wants a 7M bonus figure to save us about $7.5M in salary in each of the 4 years on his contract. I think it's profitable for us in the long run and better than a cap out that will make him even cheaper this season, but escalades it into future seasons. We're going to take up on Espino's offer, either tomorrow or after the draft, if he's not willing to take our slightly lowered counter offer.

It's crazy how saving about $7M in cap space can make such a difference in the next few days, when we'll try to sign undrafted rookies and have to think about some contract extensions at mid-pre-season. 11 players will be unrestricted free agents next off-season (including Kondovski). TE Sherman Bridges won't make our roster in 2092 anyway, if he's going to hang around, it will be to mentor that Clay Gaynor kid that we drafted last off-season. Yes, I'm going to stick with my at least 3 training camps and pre-season out of the blue randomness hoopla that can make or break careers. We have to remember the Ellis McAlister story, the guy that we miracleously kept on team as our 4th quarterback and turned out to be a franchise quarterback, or at least the kind of guy that is good enough to stick around for 9 seasons as a starter.

So, long story short:
* renegotiations, Espino getting a crucial new deal
* draft picks, still looking for 4 late round gems
* close to no free agency action

Hold on, "close to no free agency action"? Indeed, if Espino signs, we'll have some unforseen cap space and I plan on offering it to one free agent on a bonus light offer. It won't be Moe Iveans, who seems to be Kansas bound. Good for him. He bombed in his first pre-season with us and now gets a chance to join the reigning league champions. Good for you, Moe.

But other than that, the waiting game continues. I told myself to never get into this situation ever again, step it up, go for it. But every once in a while, you have no other options, because the other side will have to make the first move for things to work out in the long run. Fingers crossed. And that's not just on landing our late round gems and having a solid pre-season...
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* 2005 Golden Scribe winner for best FOF Dynasty about IHOF's Maassluis Merchantmen
* Former GM of GEFL's Houston Oilers and WOOF's Curacao Cocktail
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