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Late Free Agency continues…
In stages 5 and 6 of free agency, there were two final players that I really wanted to land – and had gotten into a bit of a silly bidding war over. Since I have cap space for this year (and under any scenario will continue to), I felt comfortable spending cash this season to try to lock up players on one year deals – who would then become restricted free agents for next season, allowing us to re-sign them without competition.
And so, my fattened one-year offers both work out, and we land two new rookie additions:
TE Vincent Tyler really doesn’t look all that special, but for us, he will be an affinity guy once he is moved over to play fullback. I suspect his skill set will actually be better suited for FB than for TE, actually, so I’m fairly optimistic that he can be a productive player for us. Yes, it’s one more potential body in the mix at the RB/FB group – but I think Tyler might end up being a useful reserve for us, and thinking past old-timer Chadwick Morimasa, he could end up actually getting some on-field time for us down the road if he sticks. If not, he ends up being a one-year cap dent, which is basically ofno consequence to us. Seven other teams had offers in for Tyler – so it’s clear he has some basic skills. We’ll see how he pans out, but I’m optimistic.
On our initial switch from TE to FB, the scout suggests he will translate at an increase – so that sounds great. My scout’s rating (before being processed by the MP engine, which makes things pretty unpredictable) adjusts from 16/48 to 8/32, though, as he is quickly revealed to have practically no actual rushing skills – virtual voids in power rushing ro third down rishing, and also in hole recognition. So – Tyler as a fullback suddenly looks, well, like a tight end (he still can block and catch passes). This makes a real quandary for us here – a player I like, he only gives us an affinity bonus if we move him to FB, but he is pretty clearly a lesser player at FB than at TE. I think I will back off the position switch, and perhaps see if we can get a good training camp out of him at TE.
G Gus Schmit is a young lineman who is the absolutely ideal URFA target for us – he plays a position where I wasn’t sure whether we had enough players to fill in to begin with, has a natural affinity with position leader John Houtz (and a strong enough personality for it to already register), he has the right sort of skills for our offense (skewed a bit toward pass blocking) and registers a pretty solid potential skills rating (my scout currentl rates him at 19/46). Add in the bonus that my scout likes him even more upon his signing (bumping his potential rating by two points with the closer look) and I am now expecting Schmit to make the team this year, even amongst the gaggle of youngsters we have signed in this area.
So, at the moment, we have 66 signed players. Nobody on our roster still unsigned is likely to get a new contract offer, and we have nobody left among the free agent universe that we plan to pursue – so it looks like this is the group that we will head into training camp with.
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