[MIJB#19]

General Manager notes: 2079 draft rounds 4 through 7
And then there was a trade. And another one. And a potential trade partner calling in 2 minutes too late. We shipped a player overseas for the first time in 22 seasons. And a trade that didn't go through, that got amended and eventually was trimmed to a different trade. And then we traded back into the draft. Craziness!

After all the smoke had cleared, we added a 4th round pick next draft, substituted our fifth next draft for Chesapeake's, gave linebacker Roosevelt Dees a new home and selected three rookies.

Kicker Herb Easter was our 4th round pick. The top rated kicker this draft will have a tough road ahead: We've picked 15 kickers in the previous 74 drafts and only 5 of them made the roster for week 1. Of those 5, only 3 survived the roster cuts for their second season and only 2 of them stuck around for more than 2 seasons. And the two that did stick, played 7 and 8 seasons with us. That's excluding Dave Eiermann, who's still active in the league, having spent 3 seasons on our roster. Wouldn't it be something to see the man named 'egg man' get replaced by a kid named Easter? So let's hope Easter breaks the trend and is a keeper. He had the best combine of all kickers, but might be just a kickoff specialist, which in this day and age is much less important than it was back when Al Bettis was the legend.

Our first pick in the 6th round was wide receiver Dwight Clements. Undersized at 5'8", but he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.29 seconds. Imagine that: J.R. Mills lining up with on the other side the gazelles Clements and Rico Techen (clocked at 4.25 this off-season) distracting the opposing secondary.

Our second pick in the 6th round was linebacker Jermaine Page. The trade of Dees made me decide to grab just one more rookie at this position. Page is a special teamer and can play zone defense. We'll have to consider hiring a mentor for Paige and first round pick McCorkle. Too bad the market on inside linebacker mentors is non-existent. There are 3 of these guys across the league, none in the open market. Chicago and Williamsburg won't trade their best linebacker, I suspect, and Paris shouldn't feel happy about trading their best special teamer. So much for that mentor suggestion...

All this wheeling and dealing means we're listing 53 players on roster, 4 incoming draft picks and leaving 3 open roster spots for the pre-season. I'm leaning towards bringing in a quarterback, long snapper and a defensive tackle. But we'll see what's available in late free agency after the draft.