[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: And then there were 53
With 2 punters, still...

The mid-season roster cut day was here. I could have stalled and tried to trade some players, but I decided against it. No dillydallying, get it over with. And apparently I got overenthusiastic and released 7 players when 6 was the desired number for now.

DE Spencer Crawford leaves Maassluis after 6 seasons. A 4th round pick in 2099, he never reached the pass rush potential we thought he had. He compensated with special teams skills and excellent play diagnosis, making him a suitable backup for the rotation. In 4 of 6 seasons, he was active in all games, adding up to 64 regular season games and 2 recent playoffs games.

QB Malachi Manning leaves us after 5 seasons, 79 regular season games and 2 playoffs appearance. That's a lot, but it makes sense as he's been considered an elite kick holder. And nothing but that, basically. Except that my staff always felt that he was better than (for example) Randy Walters, making it impossible to let Walters pick up playing time in garbage situations. Effectively, Manning actually played quarterback 3 times for us.

WR Calvin Hancock leaves us after 3 seasons. As an undrafted rookie he broke into the team as our WR4 and a special teams member. The second and third season he was mostly the latter, but still our WR5 also. He rounded out 50 appearances for us in last season's playoffs, but whatever it is that degenerated him, we were forced to let him go.

RB George Shackleford leaves us after just 1 season. Initially we expected him to challenge our younger guys, but a decline in speed already made us make him an inactive mentor on our team. This off-season, despite that the decline hardly continued, the arrival of Broderick Levine made it pointless to keep Shackleford around.

RB Lincoln Poole was a recent undrafted rookie signing, but by lack of decline from veterans Van Goodwin and Broderick Levine, we decided to not try out Poole as a short yardage and third down back. Levine should be good to take that role from Goodwin.

We also released two of our 7th round picks from last draft. FB Tony Rosebrock and WR Kendrick LaMarche didn't wow enough to make the team. At fullback we'll go with just Randy Julian. At wide receiver, undrafted rookies Teddy Butler and Herman Jeffries made the cut.

We're down to 53 signed and still have both punters on roster. I didn't make a decision yet between Dana Louis and Mack Nelson. Quantitively, I don't have to yet, but I likely will before opening day. And keep my eyes open on what to do with that 53rd slot.

I made a start with the renegotiations and 11 players signed a new deal already. Contracts of LS Bennett Brock, WR Rick Emerson, G Brett Stickney, CB Logan Wallace and C Elijah Cyr have been extended. Contracts of 6 other guys were restructured to give us close to $38M of cap room to work with still. We'll need it, TE Garrett Alcala and K Oscar Harrington declined our first offer. And I still would like to extended the deals of WR Ed Schulz, C Lincoln Stonge, LT Harold Gruenwalder, DE Damien Fletcher, DE Robbie Dobreski, CB Eduardo Cowdrick, CB Wesley Cabrera and S Pete Weaver.

And then, if there's some cap space left, who knows what we can do?