[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: 2086, here we come... Almost
The draft has finished, the off-season is soon to be finished, with a crucial training camp upcoming. The goal for this training camp is simple: figure out what plays are missing and what plays are a waste of paper or bits in the play book.

What have we've been doing this off-season so far? Well, we lost a handful of players and acquired 4 rookies through the draft. In the next day or so, I hope we can add a bunch of the 17 free agents that we offered a spot on our training camp roster. Sure, they have a shot at a pre-season roster spot, at least 7 of them could make that, but they'll have to do exceptionally well to earn a spot on our 53-men opening day roster.

How about them rookies?

Fourth round pick Andre Watson looks green, very green. I hope he can live up to his potential, but we've seen many offensive linemen fail before. That said, the kid should realize he's in a good place, we've got a long history of mid-round picks becoming reliable starters on our offensive line.

Third round pick Gene Kondovski looks greener than I hoped. As of now, it'll be tough to put him on our rotation, yet, with Wendell Marshall gone, we've got little other options... He'll get his playing time on the special teams unit and we'll put Ezekiel Wylie on him to learn the tricks. We've still got a deep line, providing father time won't be nasty on the veteran defensive tackles...

Pick #32 overall Lee Hancock looks green as well. Boy, have we misjudged in this draft or what? It didn't even occur to me until now, but him teaming up with Kirk Hitchcock means we've got a cocky couple of corners here. Hancock has enough skill to put him on bump and run kind of duties, so he'll surely see playing time amidst Hitchcock and the stamina lacking Tre Poloski. For nickel and dimeroles, Hancock will have to watch and learn from the others though, especially Giovanni Morton.

Pick #29 overall Daquan Espino looks like he's the most developed of these four draft picks. His arrival is bad news for Billy Springer, our third linebacker in the last two seasons. We'll have to see how we fit Espino into the front seven with Craig McCorkle and Glenn Brewer as the obvious starters, but in all formation with seven or eight on the field, Espino should be good enough to be one of them. For now it might be likely he'll ride the bench on obvious passing downs.

Aside from those four draft picks, we signed as little as zero free agents from other teams. We managed to lock up the restricted free agents Jessie Taylor and Miles Barker, our two most active tight ends last season. We'll want to get them more involved in the running game and a bit less in the passing game, but it's been tricky to make that work last season.

What's on our to do list? A couple of things.

We missed out on signing the best long snapper in the free agent market and didn't spent a draft pick on getting a replacement. So yes, we'll be looking for signing a long snapper in time for training camp.

We have contract extensions to work out with a bunch of key players. Heath Oliver (the best defensive tackle in the league), Bart Guthrie (the best safety in the league), quarterback Ellis McAlister and left tackle Nathan Hadinger are on their last year of contract. We need to agree terms with them before opening weekend. The only relief here is that none of them decided to hold out and make it harder on us.

Ten other players are on their last year of contract. Yes, I understand not mentioning them may seem like disrespecting them, but the four guys I did mention are exceptionally talented players at crucial positions. We'll definitely try to get to terms with the other guys, providing they survive the pre-season cuts...

All in all, we've lost two players that saw a lot of action last season. Replacing Wendell Marshall looks tougher than I had hoped, after all, he exceeded expectations, despite that I did believe in him being capable of what he did for us, which was a breakout year for him. It was a real bummer for him to shove the confidence we gave him aside and move to Augusta. But so be it, we'll find a way to replace him, no worries. Andy Russell and Gino Kemp are long overdue for a 10-sack season, now might be the time to throw them more exclusively on the pass rush and let others do the run stopping.

Cohesion will once again be one of our stand out skills. The special teams unit has thrived last season, we hope to maintain that. Despite a somewhat disappointing month last season, Gabe Broady rebounded and earned a new contract. Heck, his agent is a clearly terrible at this, because Broady is a steal for his cap figure. This guy has been the best punt returner in the league for the past three seasons. It does help when even guys like Theo Bondy, Kirk Hitchcock, Craig McCorkle and Leonard Belin want to play on that unit. Those are key players at other positions, willing to butt heads with opponents to help Broady make his plays. That's another part of the cohesive team we've established here. It's been one of our strengths for decades, it's really thriving in this particular part of the game.

Looking at the schedule for that upcoming 2086 season, the confidence in the team will be severely tested early on. In the first seven weeks, we'll play exactly one home game, against the IHOF's highest decorated franchise, the Tucker Tigers. Around that game, we'll host three playoff-teams from last season: the IHOF champion North Plainfield Plague, the NAC runner up Hanalei Dragons and the Augusta Greenjackets, the team we beat in the wild card round in a very close game. The other two road games are in Gothenburg and Paris. We'll really have to focus on sticking with our plan, try to win as many as possible of these games where we'll usually be underdogs based on homefield advantage. Down the road, the schedule won't ease up, we'll still have to face the Orlando Talons and Fairbanks Northstars (both on the road) and get to host the team to watch in 2086: the Oakland Black Panthers. We'll also have to face the Houston Mustangs, Colorado Cutthroats and Snapfinger Jazz. That's even excluding the double header with the re-emerging Bordeaux Vineyards and the home games against Gothenburg and Paris.

But hey, if we're as good as we think we are, we should be able to play our A game, beat most of them, get in the playoffs and then see how deep we can get. Theo Bondy was back to his 2K form last season, the defense continues to be amazingly talented and the running game and our sidekicks to Theo are good enough to keep every opponent honest about (not) focusing too much on Theo.

But we're getting way ahead of ourselves now, we still have to undergo the waves of training camp, finding out in pre-season whether our guys are still in shape and then figure out which 53 players will be deemed good enough to represent the Merchantmen in 2086.

Go Merchantmen!