[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Down to 53 for 2113?

Yesterday was the second cut down day. Without hesitation, we released 7 players to set a 53-men roster for the final 2 pre-season games. We split the first two beating the IHOF Champions Fairbanks Northstars 16-9 in Oranje Haven, while we followed up with a 33-28 loss at the Kansas Creationists.

The seven players released are RB Korey Burnett, G Jose Bryant, P Zack Lestage, DE Jamie Coffey, DT Garrett Theurer, S Joe Ramsey and S Tanner Phillip.

RB Burnett didn't play in the first pre-season games, but the lack of regression with the returning guys from last season at RB meant that there was no reason to replace any of them, making Burnett the 5th wheel.

G Bryant lost the roster spot battle for the 8th O-lineman to rookie LT Kristopher Harmon.

P Lestage looks like he's IHOF caliber, but our 3rd-year Tyrus Johnston is holding up in ability and potential as a top10 guy. I will keep my eyes open for a top5 guy, but for now Johnston is the best we can get. Lestage is now amongst 6 punters that are on the open market and seriously deserve a roster spot. Although, Lestage is about 32nd in ability, so it could be tough for him.

DE Coffey is now the most talented pass rusher on the open market. But we have so much similar guys on team already, with more years on roster. It just wasn't meant to be, I guess?

DT Theurer took a hit in potential in pre-season, according to my staff. It's too bad, I had good hopes for him. He's still decent backup material, but he wasn't going to play on our rotation behind 4 clearly better guys.

S Ramsey felt like a tough decision, he was the last man out. Reality is that we used him just twice in his first 2 seasons. So unless I could find an active roster spot for him, there was no way it would make sense to keep him, other than for injury replacement reasons or if one of the veteran safeties would have fallen apart, which didn't happen.

S Phillip lost the battle for the kickoff returner spot to RB Sherman Ward and in particular WR Hunter Tuitele. Phillip seems to have better potential, about to be better than both right now, but I decided against Phillip. This kid should make a roster spot elsewhere, it was a disgrace he sat without a roster spot elsewhere in the league all of last season.

We'll head into our final pre-season games now and start the talks with players out of contract next season. We have roughly $23.5M to work with and the most expensive player to talk with will be TE Ted Gordon, a proven 900-yard receiver.


This all also means QB Harrison Singleton did not get placed on injured reserve, we'll keep him inactive until he's ready to return at 100%. Only if the recovery ends up taking longer, we will reconsider late in the season. For the starting quarterback gig for the regular season, it's on between QB Bart Tanner and QB Dakota Peterson. In early pre-season action, Tanner got sacked a lot, while Peterson didn't get sacked and actually used his legs better than Tanner. I haven't made up my mind on this quite yet.