[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: I love this CB duo
Yay, two of the top5 corners in the league!

Okay, before we get overly excited, I just gave a couple of cornerbacks a $50M signing bonus, each. Richardson is the new guy in town, 29 years old, into his 7th season, we gave him a somewhat inflated contract, going from a $15M salary in 2090 to $35M in 2092 and '93. Hitchcock signed an extension through the 2092 season. He's now at $53.18M dead cap space (due to signing boni) in this and next season. So yeah, we're spending almost $84 of our $494M cap figure on two cornerbacks.

At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, the offensive line is pretty expensive too. Even after some renegotiations to be able to afford Richardson, 4 of our linemen accumulate to over $109M, still excluding the backup guard Darren Theisen that we're paying $9.2M.

All this means that we're now at 53 signed, of whom 32 signed for next season, excluding the incoming 10 rookies. The 21 that will be out of contract will be a bit of a concern, but that's something I don't want to address until after we've played our second pre-season game [okay, seriously, how the bleep can I roleplay it into making any sense that random player development changes happen right between two pre-season games!?]. There might be a hold out or two, but we'll probably be able to cover that.

I'm actually not so thrilled about going into training camp with 63 players signed, it's 3 too many to my liking. We just don't get to see too much about rookies and other young players in camp. It's a first glimpse of their potential, but not the end all be all. It means we'll have to deduce the roster by 3 players before we actually get any sense for where we stand as a team in terms of talent for the (2090) season.

In the mean time, the draft is hopping along. When we're done, I'll write about the whole bunch that we picked, I'll stick with a short summary for now. I had hoped to push the 2nd round picks forward with trades to the 2091 draft, but I got one team interested too little too late: the 2.20 pick had already been used. We did trade our 3rd round pick to the Orlando Talons for their 3rd next draft. We'll probably trade down this way, but it better than to spend a signing bonus on a rookie that might not even make the team. I kept the additional 1st round pick, without making any moves up or down, which is quite unique. Our score so far, mid-way through the 5th round: a RB, a TE, 2 WR, a K, a DT and a LB.

I constructed a new draft board tool, combining all the data we have so far on scout assessments and combine scores. After a fix of an initial small error in calculation, the board actually says we grabbed a kicker that ranks 4th overall, a linebacker ranked 10th, a tight end ranked 16th. On an adjusted board, where we ignore skills I don't usually value highly on certain positions, that linebacker moves up to 2nd overall, the kicker drops to 7th, the tight end to 34th, but we'll also see the defensive tackle come in at 27th. The first WR ranks 38th, the RB 47th and the second WR 123rd.

Sure, no names yet, despite that the draft results are published on the open net? Again, I'll announce the full class all at once.

Other things to consider for now? Well, not particularly. It seems unlikely I'll make a bid for any other free agent, because, clearly, with 53 signed an 9 draft picks incoming, we're still ahead of the 60 I prefer. Technically, the league mandated limit is 70 on roster for training camp, but as I said before, there's little need to go far beyond that 60 figure. For now, I'm hoping that new draft board works. Reading through the history books and seeing how confident I was when we traded up for kids like Gabe Springer and Terry Haskell, despite looking underwhelming from a distance, that's why we're doing this, getting back into being one of those teams that drafts well. We've had such good drafts in the '60s, late '70s and even as recently as the early '80s, it's a track record that I'd like to build on.