[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: FA signings and late round picks
A handful of new faces to report on!

We completed the draft with the selection of a green wide receiver and even greener quarterback. Nicolas Coady is a wide receiver who had a stellar combine and purely based on that won a pre-season roster spot on our team. Okay, maybe just a training camp roster spot, but pre-season isn't out of the question yet. Yes, it was a precious 5th round pick that we spent on him, but that late in the draft you just try to claim guys that you otherwise might end up overpaying for in the undrafted rookie bidding wars. Same applied to quarterback Colton Cote, our 7th round pick. I think I'm going to call him Coco from here on. His sense rush ability and Solecismic Test score were good enough to make me think: why not? We've thrown out contract offers to 6 undrafted rookies, we'll see which of them will report for training camp.

Other rookie news has been the position change for both Ernie Grant and Richie Piotte. A little bit premature, as we're still going to have to see if they can do something about their weight, but Grant should feel comfortable playing cornerback and Piotte playing defensive end. Grant should lose a bit of weight, Piotte will need to gain a bit.

Our roster was boosted by three veteran free agent signings. Center Aidan Doyle was our backup already last season, we're going to pay him more than minsal to do that one more season, before he finds out sitting on the bench isn't his kind of football. Guard Desmond Pritchett was signed to a heavy 1-year $15M contract, certainly not to rot on the bench. This 34-year old has been All-IHOF material early in his career playing in Houston, we hope he still has a lot of gas left in the tank.

That gas left in the tank is something we'll really have to hope for with 31-year old Caiden Croyle. We didn't hire him to a 2-year $39M contract just to mentor rookie Piotte, we do want to see him play a lot in our rotation. With his endurance, that is the best we can ask for anyway though. Still, with Croyle and Piotte added, we're back up to four suitable defensive ends. But you never know what will happen in pre-season...

So, that means all in all that we're currently at 59 players signed, with 8 of them new faces: 4 rookies (2 starters, 2 longshot projects), 3 starting caliber veteran free agents and 1 promising young trade acquisition. Some roster spot battles will be intense and hard to justify with our crappy scouting OC, but that's what we'll have to work with. Yes, I had to mention my OC's inability to judge player potential one more time. Get used to it, it will come up more often in the lead up to the regular season.

The cap situation has drained us down to just under $10M in cap space. No less than 18 players will be out of contract after 2095, one of them being the newly signed Pritchett, which means 17 of them are potential extensions. You know our drill: we'll get on to it after pre-season week 3. Most prominent names: backup QB Moe Sheldon, breakout RB Trey Beyer, FB Clay Brosseau, TE Clay Gaynor, WR Theodore Bondy, RT Howard Humphrey, OLB Clayton Jackson, CB Jackie Richardson and S Jon Brotzman.

It's getting repetitive perhaps, but this will be yet another update to end with: more to come later. The off-season is far from over, training camp and especially pre-season will give us a whole new look on our roster anyway.