2007 preseason
Transitions and League Observations
No retirements from our young team – we are back intact. A quick look at DE Huffman verifies that he is okay and past his last injury without dropping off the map. Good news there, though I’m worried about him becoming injury prone.
Front Office Decisions
My lead scout is 70, and declining – but I’ll stick with him for one more season. He’s still pretty good.
My OC Levon Moss is up for a new deal – I want to bring him back. He accepts my first offer, and is locked up again. Here’s a refresh on his skills:
Off Coord: Levon Moss, 47
EX: OL
VG: QB,PK
GD: RB,WR,YT
He is improving pretty rapidly – if I give him some players to develop, he ought to be very solid.
Roster Review
Why not go through the whole lot of them – might give me a better sense of what I really need to do here.
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Silvers, Bobby 16 QB 4 56 56 ---
Branch, Jonathan 15 QB 4 25 41 ---
Simmons, Arnold 2 QB 4 22 31 ---
Bunting, Tyrell 3 QB 2 14 28 1 yr.
Silvers seems to have arrived – he didn’t lose much from his original projections. I think it might be time for us to open things up a bit, and let him make some plays. It might be time to make an investment in a backup or another seasoned player, since nobody behind him is worth a damn. (Needless to say, we will re-sign Silvers)
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Newman, Daniel 40 RB 4 41 50 2 yrs
Shea, Ian 44 RB 4 39 41 2 yrs
Ramsey, Kendrick 32 RB 2 31 41 2 yrs
Hoffman, Dixon 25 RB 4 15 18 2 yrs
Woodson, Mickey 36 FB 4 44 50 2 yrs
Giefeke, Walter 49 FB 3 27 36 ---
Who’s the man? Newman? Ramsey on his slight potential bump? I don’t know – they are all marginal, and unless I see another bump up in his potential this year (doubtful). Woe is me. I like FB Woodson, though – he stays out of the way of the ball, and just does all the dirty work for us. (60 run blocking, 77 blocking strength, and 23 route running – he’s just wonderful)
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Metzger, Rich 82 TE 4 42 43 2 yrs
Gaylord, Albert 84 TE 4 36 37 2 yrs
Metzger was on his way to a big season when he got hurt last year – but he could go for 500 yards this year if we start throwing a bit more. TE might not be a terrible spot to target a solid rookie with a 2nd or 3rd rounder, if someone is there.
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
O'Rourke, Nathan 88 FL 4 44 44 ---
Ivory, Nick 81 FL 4 33 40 1 yr.
Sanders, Randall 83 SE 4 38 48 2 yrs
Horner, Jerome 80 SE 4 31 37 1 yr.
Johns, Pat 85 SE 2 27 43 1 yr.
Baker, Bill 86 SE 2 21 43 2 yrs
Probably need to re-sign O’Rourke, and I actually like Sanders fine as my other starter. Not a star in the lot here, but they are adequate. Adding a flashy star would be exciting – and they are always available, even in the early second round.
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Nichols, Kurt 56 C 4 30 46 1 yr.
Garcia, Zack 58 C 4 25 28 1 yr.
Morgan, Jim 63 LG 3 31 33 ---
Parrish, Desmond 61 RG 3 24 30 1 yr.
Stewart, Herman 65 RG 2 13 19 2 yrs
Heinlein, Bennie 71 LT 3 47 54 2 yrs
Daniels, Victor 75 RT 4 24 27 1 yr.
Durham, Graham 60 RT 3 12 36 2 yrs
Bennie Heinlein is turning into a prototypical lead pass-blocking LT – further reinforcing my theory that we need to throw the ball more here. Overall, this group is okay – but that’s probably a function of my low standards. Heinlein is really a B-, and he’s the best of the lot by some margin.
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Cochrane, Paul 9 P 4 42 42 2 yrs
Wingard, Dennis 5 K 2 66 76 1 yr.
We’re okay here.
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Schulz, Deion 70 LDE 3 29 38 ---
Schwirzke, Lee 59 LDE 2 26 34 1 yr.
Huffman, Rodney 78 RDE 3 71 76 4 yrs
Blum, Dale 94 RDE 2 33 42 3 yrs
Walker, Ben 62 RDE 2 15 27 1 yr.
Gibson, Kris 95 LDT 2 35 56 2 yrs
Dawson, Marvin 69 LDT 2 18 24 1 yr.
Carr, Preston 77 RDT 2 13 17 1 yr.
We have to re-sign Deion Schultz, though it’s not clear whether he will continue to improve. Huffman’s future is very important, as is the continued development of Kris Gibson, of course. We remain pitifully thin here, and I’d love to add another monster to the line – maybe a giant DT with the top draft pick.
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Goodwin, Cedric 92 MLB 4 57 57 3 yrs
Westbrook, Barry 97 MLB 4 25 37 ---
Kramer, Mark 50 MLB 3 22 35 1 yr.
Jervey, Kim 51 SLB 4 44 46 1 yr.
Tyler, Howie 99 SLB 3 40 56 ---
Wiggs, Julio 52 WLB 4 40 40 2 yrs
Walker, Richard 96 WLB 4 31 31 ---
Cedric Goodwin remains our standout here – he missed a few games last year, keeping him from another titanic stat season (he had 123+32 tackles in 13 games).
Howie Tyler is turning into a solid player for us, and must be re-signed. With my current starting trio (including run stopper Wiggs), I think we are adequately covered, and Jervey is a pass-rusher who filled in pretty well at the DE spot, as I had hoped he could.
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Player # Pos Start Exp Current Estimate Future Estimate Cntrct
Mace, Wes 23 LCB 4 38 50 2 yrs
Sims, T.J. 35 LCB 4 31 32 ---
Gomez, Craig 27 LCB 3 24 47 ---
Richmond, Deon 43 RCB 2 37 68 4 yrs
Richard, Frankie 20 RCB 3 33 41 1 yr.
Bolyn, B.J. 39 RCB 2 17 32 1 yr.
Richmond, Paul 34 SS 4 39 39 ---
Grayvil, Max 48 SS 3 31 42 ---
Gonzalez, Nicky 33 FS 4 34 39 ---
Jacobs, Thurman 41 FS 3 29 58 ---
Our big money is on Deon Richmond, and he looks like he will be pretty good. Solid first season, and he can play man-up defense, which is what I want. I also like Wes Mace a good bit – that was a good free agent signing for us, and he’s got the starting job locked down for now.
At safety, I don’t know what we’ll do. I like Thurman Jacobs from this group, and I could re-sign any of them if I needed to, but nobody really inspires me that much. I like having a great safety – but it’s a position easily filled with adequate players, and with a team like this with so many holes – it’s tough to pursue safeties too aggressively.
The plan from here? Check for ways to improve via free agency, and I’ll weigh my trade-down options from the #2 pick (which are often fruitful). I’d like to get one more receiving weapon, and a big addition for our DL coming into the year, at a minimum.
Free Agency
We can look at up to 4th year players, so I might get something to work with.
RT Deon Hiatt looks like a great improvement for us, but his stats have been very underwhelming. I will pursue him, and he probably will become our starter – we don’t have a lot on that end right now with Victor Daniels.
CB Scott Dunn will probably come in and compete for a starting job – he’s pretty well-developed as a man-up coverage specialist. Good pickup for us, giving us a nickel back, and depth for an injury at the very worst. Might push Mace for a starting job.
DT Willie Oliveira is a pretty exciting pickup for us – he’s a 3rd year DT with little experience, but he could be pretty good.
DE Lincoln Limon looks like a prototypical injury-prone DE, but he is pretty good. We’ll put in a bid, for certain. Not a game breaker, but a possible starter, or rotation guy.
QB Shawn Matthews isn’t a star, but he’s got some experience and makes a decent enough backup, I think. He’s actually got a career TD>Int stat, a test which Silvers fails by 18.
There are a number of playable cornerbacks out there – I’ll bid on Dunn, but I might go and pick up one more guy, too – we have options, which is nice.
In later stages, I pick up LB Daryl Gaines and RT Frank Bass. I’m worried about picking up RT Hiatt (which I have) since he has become our position leader – and we have numerous conflicts there. It might behoove me to grab another player who might be a more stable position leader there – Hiatt has questionable results, anyway. In that vein, I sign G Billy Rodriguez, but he doesn’t edge out Hiatt (though he does have an affinity with him, oddly enough). I then bring in C Antoine Hambrick, who adds another conflict with Hiatt. (This is tougher than I realized)
Rookie Draft
My initial inclination is that I want to trade down – I don’t see a monster DT or superstar anywhere I can’t live without, and indeed there are plenty of solid DTs later in the first round, I think. I might be able to pick up a pick or two to slide about ten slots, and still get an impact player.
We pull a nice deal – getting St. Louis’s top pick at #7, their second pick this year, and next year’s #1 – all to get our selection at #1. (Echoes of Ryan Leaf, eh?) I wasn’t in love with anyone with that pick – so this is just great for us, I think. The Rams take the best DE on the board – not a shabby pick, really.
At #7, I like a few different defensive tackles. I like one run-stopper in particular, but there are plenty of guys I could be happy with. I deal down to #11, moving from round five to round two, courtesy of the Saints.
Starting with pick #11, I still get the DT that I covet, and manage to use three second rounders to pick up two more players for our defensive front – which should really help us with depth there. I also grab a solid receiver, filling my other target need area.
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Amateur Draft Report:
Rnd 1 - Gary Cascadden, DT, Notre Dame
Rnd 2 - Jimmy Fox, DT, Florida
Rnd 2 - Stanley Fisk, ILB, Oregon State
Rnd 2 - Mickey Rose, WR, Michigan
Rnd 3 - Todd Hampton, T, Tennessee
Rnd 4 - Marlon Politte, S, Iowa
Rnd 6 - Michael Hudson, RB, Nebraska
Rnd 7 - Omar Mayes, DE, Louisiana Tech
Rnd 7 - Luke Fuller, OLB, Mississippi
If things pan out, then we could end up with an impressive array of young players here. DT Fox looked good enough to make me take him, despite already grabbing Cascadden in the first round, and having the defending DROY at DT already. Other players looked intriguing.
We are graded a B- for our drafting this year – a bit better than last season, which seems fair. Last year didn’t work out too well, all told.
Late Free Agency
Incidentally, there was one Akron player in the draft pool this year – finally. I mention this as an incidental comment because he is/was a pretty incidental player, as it turns out. QB Pat Branch comes in as a 2.8-rated QB, a very marginal prospect. In college, he was just a backup – and here, if he gets any chance at all, he won’t be any more than that. I sign him, with hopes that perhaps he can gain the kick holding job – which might see him throw a pass once every couple seasons or so.
I make a sizable number of rookie pursuits – once again hoping to land that elusive young breakout player – guys like Cedric Goodwin, who has evolved into our defensive standout player. I stick with the theory of high current skills and high volatility, and also decide to try to grab players who had fairly productive college seasons – as a backup for the expected volatility (my theory: college star has better chance to break out than bust –not that complicated).
Training Camp
We carry a somewhat untoward 75 players into training camp – so we will have a lot of guys here who simply won’t be around soon. Lots of invitees who will be driving trucks in a few weeks.
Among my pre-camp position switches is moving DT Jimmy Fox to play on the outside – he didn’t have the weight to plat DT for us, so we’ll try him as an end. If he pans out – we could have really made a great stride with our defensive line this year, between Cascadden (run-stopping DT) and Fox (pass-rushing DE).
Code:
Player # Pos Start Exp Cest F Est C Est F Est Chg C Chg F
Silvers, Bobby 16 QB 4 56 56 59 59 3 3
Mathews, Shawn 18 QB 4 46 48 46 48 0 0
Bunting, Tyrell 3 QB 2 13 28 16 28 3 0
Davis, Steven 14 QB 1 11 50 15 49 4 -1
Branch, Pat 6 QB 1 7 33 8 33 1 0
Newman, Daniel 40 RB 4 41 50 42 50 1 0
Shea, Ian 44 RB 4 39 41 40 41 1 0
Adams, Donovan 28 RB 1 37 48 38 46 1 -2
Hudson, Michael 21 RB 1 38 48 37 48 -1 0
Ramsey, Kendrick 32 RB 2 32 42 33 42 1 0
Woodson, Mickey 36 FB 4 44 51 46 51 2 0
May, Pat 29 FB 1 23 38 26 41 3 3
Metzger, Rich 82 TE 4 42 43 43 43 1 0
Gaylord, Albert 84 TE 4 36 38 36 38 0 0
Simmons, Norm 87 TE 1 20 44 22 45 2 1
O'Rourke, Nathan 88 FL 4 46 46 46 46 0 0
Ivory, Nick 81 FL 4 33 40 35 40 2 0
Gough, Reuben 25 FL 1 14 52 15 45 1 -7
Sanders, Randall 83 SE 4 39 48 40 48 1 0
Horner, Jerome 80 SE 4 31 37 33 37 2 0
Rose, Mickey 89 SE 1 31 60 32 55 1 -5
Johns, Pat 85 SE 2 27 43 29 43 2 0
Baker, Bill 86 SE 2 20 37 21 37 1 0
Nichols, Kurt 56 C 4 30 46 32 46 2 0
Hambrick, Antoine 54 C 3 29 47 31 47 2 0
George, Zach 57 C 1 25 41 27 41 2 0
Garcia, Zack 58 C 4 26 26 26 26 0 0
Parrish, Desmond 61 RG 3 24 29 25 29 1 0
Clark, James 66 RG 1 14 38 16 36 2 -2
Rodriguez, Billy 74 RG 3 14 29 15 29 1 0
Stewart, Herman 65 RG 2 13 18 14 18 1 0
Heinlein, Bennie 71 LT 3 47 54 50 54 3 0
Hiatt, Deon 68 RT 4 43 56 47 56 4 0
Bass, Frank 73 RT 3 28 40 31 40 3 0
Daniels, Victor 75 RT 4 24 27 25 27 1 0
Hampton, Todd 67 RT 1 21 50 23 46 2 -4
Durham, Graham 60 RT 3 11 31 12 31 1 0
Cochrane, Paul 9 P 4 38 38 38 38 0 0
Wingard, Dennis 5 K 2 62 68 65 68 3 0
Limon, Lincoln 79 LDE 4 46 49 48 49 2 0
Fox, Jimmy 93 LDE 1 32 47 34 47 2 0
Schulz, Deion 70 LDE 3 30 38 33 38 3 0
Schwirzke, Lee 59 LDE 2 28 36 29 36 1 0
Goetz, Leo 18 LDE 1 18 25 19 26 1 1
Huffman, Rodney 78 RDE 3 66 72 70 72 4 0
Blum, Dale 94 RDE 2 32 40 33 40 1 0
Mayes, Omar 90 RDE 1 16 34 17 33 1 -1
Walker, Ben 62 RDE 2 14 26 15 26 1 0
Gibson, Kris 95 LDT 2 36 57 38 57 2 0
Cascadden, Gary 72 LDT 1 31 65 34 66 3 1
Oliveira, Willie 76 LDT 3 27 47 28 47 1 0
Dawson, Marvin 69 LDT 2 18 25 18 25 0 0
Carr, Preston 77 RDT 2 14 18 14 18 0 0
Goodwin, Cedric 92 MLB 4 59 59 59 59 0 0
Gaines, Daryl 55 MLB 3 30 41 31 41 1 0
Castaneda, Ronald 64 MLB 1 23 47 25 48 2 1
Kramer, Mark 50 MLB 3 22 25 23 25 1 0
Falvey, John 26 MLB 1 18 42 20 36 2 -6
Jervey, Kim 51 SLB 4 44 46 46 46 2 0
Tyler, Howie 99 SLB 3 43 58 45 58 2 0
Scott, Howard 91 SLB 1 18 41 19 38 1 -3
Wiggs, Julio 52 WLB 4 40 40 40 40 0 0
Fisk, Stanley 98 WLB 1 34 61 36 56 2 -5
Fuller, Luke 53 WLB 1 22 44 23 39 1 -5
Lucas, Irving 30 LCB 4 47 47 47 47 0 0
Mace, Wes 23 LCB 4 39 51 41 51 2 0
Gomez, Craig 27 LCB 3 26 50 29 50 3 0
Frederick, Perry 31 LCB 1 10 40 11 33 1 -7
Dunn, Scott 37 RCB 4 50 54 53 54 3 0
Richmond, Deon 43 RCB 2 34 65 37 65 3 0
Richard, Frankie 20 RCB 3 31 38 33 38 2 0
Bolyn, B.J. 39 RCB 2 17 33 19 33 2 0
Richmond, Paul 34 SS 4 37 37 37 37 0 0
Jacobs, Thurman 41 FS 3 31 62 35 62 4 0
Politte, Marlon 38 FS 1 16 47 18 44 2 -3
So, in camp this year – here are our potential developers:
QB Bobby Silvers – very nice to see, even a small bump up
FB Pat May – solidifies the backup FB job
TE Norm Simmons – might make the team after modest jump up
DE Leo Goetz – marginal jump for a college sack star
DT Gary Cascadden – oh, yeah – HUGE run stuffing potential here
LB Ronald Castaneda – might end up being best of the rookie LB lot
WR Mickey Rose looks okay, but he (like Bill Baker before him) is WAY toward the low end of our expectations. I expect Rose will stick around and perhaps even start – but he’s clearly not the gamebreaker that we had hoped to be getting here. He didn’t fade in camp – he just wasn’t that good to begin with.
Season Analysis
So, where do we go from here? It’s Bobby Silvers’ team, and it’s time to open things up a bit – we have an OL suited for more passing, and we will go with many more multi-WR sets than last season, trying to get something more out of our anemic offense than we have been thus far.
The only place on this team where we have chemistry problems is with RT Deon Hiatt, who has become our OL leader, and is hated by four other players. There’s a simple solution there, but I have felt that I need Hiatt to cover the right side – we just don’t have anyone else who can do it. I knuckle down, and decide to let Hiatt go (eating his signing bonus to do so) – we will play with somewhat lesser players, but the chemistry should be tons better. With that – we have zero chemistry conflicts on the team – that might help, no?
Our roster rating has leaped – all the way to 2 out of 100. Good sign?
This should be a step forward – I think we’ll be better than the measly 3-13 from last season. If our DL can stay reasonably healthy, we should be much improved there – and I think the defense is starting to look pretty respectable overall. Offensively, we still need OL help and would like to have a real “playmaker” emerge – but overall, we have guys who can play a little bit, at least. I’m hoping for six wins, and a nice ray of hope.