[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Ready for pre-season 2087!
The off-season has ended, pre-season starts today. With 60 players on roster, we've got our exhibition season player collection worked out.

All-IHOF second team safety Bart Guthrie's agent decided that it was time for Guthrie to leave Maassluis. He's moved on to the Oakland Black Panthers for a $116M signing bonus. Yeah, we didn't have that cash flow available. Rex McIndoe retired, Emmitt Miller was released after a season of inactivity will earning starter money. Miller has moved to the Paris Musketeers, hoping to make their 53-men roster.

To fill the gap, we signed 29-year old Bart Farrell, a former undrafted safety, who worked his way up in the IHOF from an afterthought to full time starter at the Brooklyn' Fightin' Bums, then an off year at the Chicago Norsemen and the last two seasons starting for the Atlanta Vipers. He's more of a free safety type, but we'll be happy with him alongside the only two safeties that hung around: Riddick Newsome and run stopper Alexander Marty. Behind them, we've got two rookies eager to make the roster in second round pick Renaldo Upshaw and undrafted Salvador Harper. We released fellow undrafted rookie Eddie Adams yesterday to cut down from 61 to 60 players.

Elsewhere in the secondary, we'll have quite the roster spots battle at cornerback. Seven players are hoping to cling on one of the four or five roster spots we'll reserve there. The release of veteran Tre Poloski might have come as a surprise, but he never lived up to the first round pick hype and we felt he no longer deserved that kind of salary. Kirk Hitchcock and Lee Hancock are obviously our returning starters. Two rookies made it as pure cornerbacks, fifth round pick Jessie McNeill and undrafted Kristopher Reid will likely battle for one spot. Gabe Broady is our cherished punt returner, and nothing but that. Courtney Blackwell might improve to nickel back this season and has been waiting in the wings to take over the punt returning duties if Broady loses some speed. Undrafted rookie Mason Wilson might potentially make the team is one of two kickoff return specialists.

At linebacker, three of seven roster spots are locked up for All-IHOF Craig McCorkle, still going strong Glenn Brewer and rising star Daquan Espino. The latter looks ready to jump in as the new MLB ahead of McCorkle. Veteran Skip Keith hopes to get a sixth season in Maassluis as a special teamer. Undrafted rookie Harvey Cassidy is his main rival for the roster spot. Second-year pro Walt Offerman hasn't had a contract in the IHOF yet, but this off-season we decided to give him the chance after he kept working out for himself in hopes to get into the IHOF after all. Third round pick Clayton Jackson is a passing downs linebacker. The kid might fall anywhere from unseating Brewer as the third linebacker to missing the 53-men cut. Moving him to defensive end was an option, but the staff felt he's too short and small to make that move well.

The defensive line is pretty much unchanged from last season's collective. All-IHOF selection Heath Oliver will once again anchor the line from the middle. A truck load of fast pass rushers will be his rotating sidekicks. Gino Kemp, Gene Kondovski, A.J. Ritt, Andy Russell, Erik Shrader, Tony Whiting and Ezekiel Wylie are back for another season. Undrafted rookie Archie Exner looks very promising though, could be the most suitable pass rusher of this 2087 class and he might take out one of those other guys this pre-season...

Doug Guynes returns for another season as our punter, Thomas Robertson should stay as our kicker. He's in the final year of his rookie contract and (somewhat rightfully) thinks he deserves to be the highest paid kicker in the league. Sure, but we don't have the cap space to make you an offer. Most likely, we'll see the last of him this season and either have to pay him big next off-season or look for a replacement in the 2088 off-season. Timothy Biegen returns for a second season as our long snapper. Karsten Muchnick should hang around for a ninth season as our kick holder (I know it's to no avail, but at some point I hope my staff starts to understand that kick holder means kick holding and surely not second string quarterback!).

Speaking of second string quarterbacks, we picked up undrafted rookie Francisco Farley to challenge third year Ernest Andrews for the slight possibility to ever becoming the replacement for when Ellis McAlister calls it quits. It seems very unlikely either will emerge though, we gambled too much in the draft on two players that I felt were worth taking in the fifth and sixth round, but both got taken shortly before our turn.

In the backfield we've replaced veteran Monty Digler, his third down skills never came to fruition. Seventh round pick Francisco Patter isn't quite that kind of player either, but he's emerging as our strongest most promising rookie. His hole recognition makes him a threat to Leonard Belin and Reggie Thongchanh as a viable ball carrier. Patter might lack the breakaway speed to fit in our playing style. Tristan Cochrane remains as our fullback. I'm still struggling to have our staff find a way to sue him to his strengths, we've underused his run blocking skills for four straight season. Consequently, it makes it tough to defend my decision to bring back the promising run blocking fullback Clay Brosseau for a second season.

At tight end, we've replaced veteran Nicholas Gundy with fifth round rookie Randy Holliday. We'll likely go into the 2087 season with 4 tight ends, which should pretty much guarantee a roster spot for Holliday. Tyler Kotz might emergence as our new third tight end this season after two seasons of inactivity. Miles Barker and Jessie Taylor stick around for another season. I hope we find better use of both guys' run blocking skills in the upcoming season.

At wide receiver, it's still Theo sky high above the rest. With another bunch of franchise records, Theodore Bondy was IHOF's leading receiver in 2086. I do hope we can make him more effective as his yards per target number has dipped again to under 8.0. Artie Blazewicz should remains as his main sidekick, although sixth round pick Branden Sandlin looks like a younger, greener, version of Blazewicz, lacking the return skills to make him a true copy. Tucker Gaylor is going into his third season, will he finally emerge as the player I believe he can be? Chris DeWoody is the alternative and is demanding the WR2 role, but his lack of route running skills has kept him in a WR4 role last season. Ross Willbrandt re-emerged as our kickoff returner last season, but he'll be challenged once again and could lose the roster spot to aforementioned rookie cornerback Mason Wilson. Or to undrafted rookie A.J. Warnock, who might make the roster as a kickoff and punt return specialist, while also good enough to be in a support role on special teams.

Lastly, the offensive line. The five starters remain to be the same, most likely: left tackle Nathan Hadinger, left guard Harvey Hank, center Butch Pearson, right guard Michael Szott and right tackle Howard Humphrey. Hank has to look over his shoulder as second-year Andre Watson made decent progress in training camp. As did center Jared Labbe. The retirement of Louie Murray made us decide to acquire two new left tackles in second-year pro Miles Hanspard and fourth round rookie Myron Hamilton. We'll have to see in pre-season which of these two deserves a roster spot in 2087, it's unlikely we have room for both.

And that's it, the 60 names of players that will be on the Maassluis Merchantmen roster this pre-season. As per usual, 7 names (at least) will not make it to our opening day roster. QB, WR, LT, DE, LB, CB and S are the positions where there's most likely a casualty, but nobody is safe. Okay, that's not entirely true. 4 players are safe, because releasing them will give us an increased dead cap space hit: Butch Pearson, Nathan Hadinger, Daquan Espino and Lee Hancock. Their bonus money cap figures in future years are bigger than their base salary for 2088. Another general manager in the IHOF informed me about the availability of Espino, but I had to tell him this exact thing why he's untradeable. We're projected to be roughly $197 million over the cap next off-season. But so be it, that's how we do things here in Maassluis.

So yeah, pre-season action. 4 games to figure out which players are worth keeping. I hope we have some tough decision to make, not because good players have lost their ability to play ball, but because the youngsters are emerging and too many good players are 53-men worthy. Well, then make it so, guys. Give me tough decisions to make.