[mmarra82]

The off-season is underway, we have currently finished filling our staff and are not evaluating potential free agents, and preparing for the 2005 draft.

Finiancially we are once again going to freeze ticket prices for the second concecutive year. Attendance throughout the league dropped slightly, although our fans show good support we are not going to raise prices and turn any fans off. We feel that our successful 2004 season will help draw more to our home games.

As far as personnel goes, we are in the process of making some tough decisions. Shaun Ellis is as good as gone, the decision we are considering, is to tag him a "franchise player," or not. If we do tag him, we will immediately look to deal him for picks or a player, one to replace him or in our secondary. The gamble is, if no one shows interest we are stuck with a heafty cap hit. Ellis has expressed to the organization that if he is not signed by us to a long term deal he want to have the option to explore free agency.

Also, we are mulling over what to do with Aaron Beasley, our secondary leader. Beasley is in the last year of his contract, and willing to renegotiate to where his cap hit would be about 30% less, however, we are then commited to him for another two years or so. Beasley was solid this season, however, we do want to upgrade the position here. Our corners primarily fall into that oof the bench, nickel, dime type corner. Beasely does give us insurance. If we opt to let Beasely go, our attention will go directly to Jacoby Shepherd. Shepherd is an average player in all areas, however, he can battle with last year's 2nd round draft selection, Dana McAllister for the nickel spot. It is expected that Molden will be starting once again, despite his inconsistent performance in 2004.

Solo Play Game Notes - I am currently updating and tweaking the 2005 draft file of real players that I will use, it appears that there will be some inaccuracies due to the commitments of Juniors. I realize commitment day has come and gone, however, to edit that much is becomming a bit overwhelming. I have run some tests with my file, and right now I still have some tweaking to do, it appears to me that the D-Line, Linebackers and Running Backs are lacking ratings and players, so that is where my attetion will be focused.

Also, in tests runs I have noticed that there are a number of talented free agents available. In order to not take advantage of this to "stock my team," I am trying to handle this in a realistic matter. I figure I will limit the amount of bonus money I have, and perhaps limit myself to siging only my players, and focus on just one unrestricted free agent at a time. That would probably limit me to signing about four unrestricted free agents during the initial 20 stages.

My goal is to win a championship for the Jets for the first time since 1969, while operating at a profit.

Stay tuned in, and plese give me some feedback, it really motivates me when I get a response from you guys.