[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: We have a new running back!
And I'm not kidding, like I did yesterday.

First things first: Earnest Ashley took our lowball offer. One could say "four more years of Ashley", which means we're tied to him for at least 3 seasons at $55M per season, roughly 11% of our overall cap figure. But to be fair, I think he can play ball, otherwise I wouldn't get into the troubles of offering him the money.

To support him, we've made a big trade. Minutes after I decided to make a bid for the Forth Wayne's running back, the said player, Bert Ta'Amu went onto the trade block. We jumped in offering the 2.14 overall draft pick and a swap of future picks to seal the deal. Our staff is convinced this is the best running back in football, what's not to like here? The only minor issue could be his age (he turned 30 in the off-season) and will enter his 9th season in the league. I'm fully aware this might be just a one-year rental.

We followed up our restocking of the offense with the selection of rookie guard Ronald Staigvil. The 23-year old 6'3" 321 pounds Minnesota graduate looks like a promising run blocking prospect. To help him develop (and to have a worthy backup on the team), we quickly acquired veteran Caleb Turnbull from the Fort Wayne Fury.

This basically means we're a backup center, backup tackle and maybe a sixth wide receiver away from a filled up roster. Well, maybe a backup tight end as well and figuring out which running back to ditch. And we might want to re-sign veteran linebacker Hayden McNeil or a similar run stopper to plug the one real hole on the defense.

Which is an optimistic way to say that I think we're much better than the 8-8 campaign we had last season. Well Ta'Amu make the difference? Hard to tell now, we'll still have to survive pre-season. We haven't even finished the draft yet, let's do that first.

I sent most of our remaining picks to the aforementioned Fury and all that we have left is a couple of mid-seventh rounders. Just in case I get goggles and think there's somebody I might want to sign after the draft, making sure I won't have to go into a bidding war. Don't count out the possibility that I'll trade back in somewhere in the fourth or fifth round as I have a couple of players on 'sleeper pick' list.

Because, never say never?