[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: holdouts and new arrivals

The inevitable has happened: QB Bart Tanner has decided to hold out.

After a train wreck of a season, in which he threw 21 interceptions in 13 games, while dropping from a passer rating of 80.7 in 2114 to 70.2 in 2115 and while dropping from 5 to no rushing touchdowns, the kid thinks he did enough to get an upgrade from the $10.6M cap figure last season and the figure $12.7M he's due this season, to getting a new 4-year deal for roughly $44M per season. Is your agent insane? Have you not noticed you lost your starting job after such abysmal play? Bottom line, I think this is basically end of career for Bart Tanner. No other team in the IHOF will be interested to come close to such an offer. Impossible. Nor can we afford such a lunacy.

LB Jorge Mayes has jumped in on the "I want to get paid like a starting quarterback" mess. He's requesting a 5-year $165M deal, which is, to be fair, market value for a stud at his position. Is he a stud? He lead the league in tackles by a landslide. He also "lead" the league in catches allowed, which is one of those stats that sounds bad, but at the same time, is it really? Does it mean he was responsible for the completion? Or does it mean he was the first guy to arrive at the crime scene and make sure things wouldn't get out of hand? We've already offered him a $190M contract, which he declined. Yup, we offered $25M more, mostly in guaranteed money, yet the mathematically incapable agent of his turned it down. Sure, we get it, we're familiar with such incompetence.

We'll try to bring Mayes to his senses and get him to training camp. Tanner's case is a Ken Torphy, a lost cause. I don't see him coming back as our starter and odds are we'll be reverting back to QB Harrison Singleton. Unless we think we can find a way to spend the $27.6M of left over cap space on a quarterback that's fallen out of favor elsewhere in the league. We've had moderate success with that in the past...



The new arrivals
A grand total of 17 new players has reported for training camp in Maassluis. Veteran QB Blake Stai (scouted 15/15) was signed in case we find a young project worth mentoring, which sort of also applies to WR Antonio Price (40/40), whom we'll see as an alternative mentor for WR Rufus Montgomery in case we see WR Preston Gray as too expensive for a WR4 mentor role. I've already mentioned the signing of 31-year old RT Edwin Northcutt (45/45). He'll get some competition as RT Clayton Bernstein re-signed a 2-year deal in Maassluis.

Our rookie class consists of 14 kids, with 7 of them signed as post-draft free agents. RB Reggie Gretzky (30/35), WR Claude Nakis (15/20), K Carter Madison (25/35), LB Ezekiel O'Neal (25/45), LB Wendell Reynolds (20/30), CB Marquis Wolf (25/35) and S Adrian Kornegay (15/25) have signed a 1-year contract. With 65 players signed (including the 2 hold outs), we'll have to release some of them after training camp. Unless they all impress and make some of the selections obsolete.

Pick 1.15 CB Zachary Blair (30/60) scares the crap out of me. Yes, he looks promising and was a top5 prospect on our draft board, but we've already seen the league scouts report on him too, giving Blair much higher grades. That's an alarm bell going off, We might have picked the bust of the draft here... But being a first round rookie, he's unaffordable to be cut this or next season, because he's on a $30M signing bonus and releasing him now would give us $22.5M in dead cap space next season. I mean, that's all "if he sucks", let's hope he's truly somewhere in between the 60 and 70 overall grade...

LB Roy Finch (25/45) was our 5.16 pick. His best traits are his punishing hitting, run defense and special teams. He should blend in as a running downs option as well as a special teams replacement for the retired Avery Distel.

S Britt Schulz (15/25) was our 6.15 pick and all the signs are that he was an underrated prospect. In then end, he might just only be a very good zone defender, but a secondary can never have too many of those.

K Myles Washington (35/55) was our 7.12 pick and is meant to put pressure on veteran K Oscar Harrington to prove us he's worth being the highest paid kicker in league history. Washington's kickoff skills are even more lacking than Harrington's, which could lead us to sticking with the old guy. Unless undrafted rookie Cart Madison jumps ahead of them both.

QB Kent Figures (15/40) skipped the combine, but still scored a 46 in the Solecismic Test and with second best sense rush ability, he was worth a shot at pick 7.14. We interviewed Figures before the draft, but that came back inconclusive.

At pick 7.18 we took a flyer on CB Greg Bradley (15/30) and his punishing hitting and interceptions skills. If his man to man or zone defense skills improve, he'll have a shot at making the team.

At pick 7.27 we took S Cesar Welch (15/40). Another zone defender, with some run defense and paly diagnosis to boot. Which is much needed for a strong safety.

The already mentioned undrafted free agent signings all have their own specialties. RB Gretzky has the breakaway speed and hole recognition combination we have going around on our offense and also brings in third down receiving and special teams skills. WR Nakis is a kickoff returner with possibly just enough special teams upside. K Madison is a kickoff specialist. LB O'Neal is a special teamer, with play diagnosis, run defense and pass rush skills, but he's too small to move to defensive end. LB Reynolds is a punishing hitting special teamer. CB Wolf is a zone defender and nothing but. S Kornegay is a special teamer with zone defense ability.

We missed out on DT Drew McIntyre, a 20/50 rated pass rusher that was on our draft board in the top 15. So, why didn't we pick him? Well, we're so crowded already, even the retirement of DT Gabriel Morris and LB Avery Distel still keep us at 9 true defensive linemen. McIntyre took a cheaper contract in Orlando, but to be fair, their signing bonus was much more enticing than our prove it to get it approach.

We also missed out on power runner RB Bubba Darling and big play WR Mitch O'Neill, both signed in Frederick for a $1M signing bonus. Another big play WR Teddy Cornbower took a $11M signing bonus in Tucker. So it goes, the kid joins their heads or tails group (half of them make the team, the other half never play a down in the IHOF) of fast wide receivers that they usually spend their 2nd round pick on.


All in all, the new arrivals are underwhelming, which reeks of status quo, which in football actually means regression. My focus will now be getting LB Jorge Mayes willing to stay on the team and on the quarterback situation. Missing out on QB Zack Christianson (10/50) might turn out to be not all bad, but I'm not convinced Singleton or Tanner is capable of playing up to the early career promising play they gave us. I don't see any obvious trade targets, but in this league you never know, some teams out of nowhere ship their super star quarterbacks without trying to milk the market. Or maybe Figures turns out to be more promising than we can hope for now...