[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: It wouldn't be a draft without Merchantmen trades!

We've been busy. At least I was. We've been a bit of a draft picks broker, picking a bunch of from the Fort Wayne Fury and sending about half of those forward to the Iowa Cobbers. In between, we struck a deal with the Brooklyn Fightin' Bums, us sacrificing our 2105 2nd round draft pick to move up from the 46th overall pick to the 27th overall pick. The first round finished the the Merchantmen being one of five teams with two picks. Our score so far: RT Ivan Dole and CB Lincoln Taylor.

Dole is the 5th highest graded offensive tackle of this class and we made him the 2nd of that bunch to be picked. My staff found Dole to be underrated and thinks he's an excellent run blocker (much needed on this offense) with the endurance to still be good late in the game. We missed out on our main targets CB Spencer Cielo and S Cole Cantwell, both were on our radar to bolster our safety group. We fixed that by picking 6'3" 203 pounds Lincoln Taylor. He was the best defensive back left on the board (our board) and we moved up for it. I debated between Taylor and another defensive back, but we went with Taylor here.

As it stands now, we're still rich in picks, with a pair in the 3rd, pair in the 4th, pair in the 5th, a 6th and a pair in the 7th. With 50 roster slots already filled, it's quite questionable whether we should stick with all of them and they are all openly on the trade market available. It's still nice to hold on to some late round picks to hopefully scoop up a couple of 3rd round value guys that slipped through undetected by other teams. But in the IHOF, that's just very unlikely to happen.