[MIJB#19]

General Managers Notes: Good old calm before the storm?

It has been a quiet off-season so far. At least in Maassluis. Or has it?

I've elaborated on our retirements, which was just one, but at the same time was a very important one: DT Ben Courcy. The preferable order of business is to fill that gap, but the reality is that we're missing the resources to make it happen. That is to say, we could get enough cap space by releasing players and trading draft picks.

The former was not going to happen. We redid the contracts with a truckload of players by now, with the most prominent being a new 3-year deal for QB Evan Drake, extending his contract from being in the final year of his previous one. We also managed to extend the contract of WR Calvin Maxwell, K Oscar Harrington, G Brett Stickney and WR Vinny Buysse. There's also been a wave of cap out moves and restructured deals with the same duration. End result being that we got under the cap without making releases.

But to get there, I also made the decision to trade away our 1st round pick and the couple of 2nd round picks. Our first rounder went to Gothenburg of all places, as the Giants were willing to giving their 1st and 2nd round picks in 2108 for it. We acquired the 2nd round picks in that draft from Brooklyn and North Plainfield in return for the pair of 2nd rounders in this draft. Kudos to these three teams, they've been 3 of the 4 franchises with the most victories in the last 2 seasons. This could be a lesson to new general managers in IHOF, for some are eager to learn (the Paris Musketeers are in good hands), but others are stubborn (not going to name shame here) and don't see the premise of turning a future 2nd round pick into a current one to improve your team now.

End result for us is not getting a replacement for Courcy in the top two rounds of this draft. There's no money to sign a free agent, which might include our own unrestricted free agent DT Mitch Potchynok, which would be very sad if we can't re-sign him.

CB Otis Hane has left Maassluis and moves to the Tucker Tigers for about half of what he was demanding from us right before he got a season ending injury. I hope to re-sign restricted free agent CB Joel Delgado, he stepped into Hane's spot last season already.

The backfield is going to get some reworking as well. I don't see how we can find the cap space to re-sign RB Broderick Levine. He's got offers from other teams and I fully expect him to take the best of them by tomorrow. It means that it's very likely I'll spend a late round draft pick or two on a new running back with the profile of Levine. Which will be quite the challenge.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we have a couple of crucial final year of contract extensions to make. RT Ivan Dole is in the final year of his rookie contract and to be able to make him sign before the 2108 off-season, we'll have to increase his cap figure by at least $5M this season. And we'll going to want to, because he's proven to be worth that mid first round pick we spent on him. We'll also need about $2M to lock up LT Harold Gruenwalder.

It might all be manageable, if only just, so I'll have to take one more look at things with our financial department on how far we can go here. After accounting for the 5 most expensive draft picks that we still poses, we have about $8M to work with now...