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Revolving Doors in Wichita
The IFL trade deadline is now just days away and Outlaws fans have seen yet another trade deal hit the headlines.
Two long time Outlaws legends have joined the mini exodus of players leaving through the revolving doors at the Wichita team headquarters.
Here we catch up with GM ukpatfan and take the opportunity to analyse his recent wheeling and dealing.
Q: Thank you for meeting with us today Uk.
Yesterday saw OT Eric Vitale and ILB Wes Martin leave the Outlaws organisation following years of service.
Both players had been absolute stalwarts for the franchise with a combined 233 career starts for the team.
There had been rumours that Wes and Eric might be on the trade block but their leaving is still difficult for long time fans to believe.
Can you give us the full details of the trade and explain your thinking behind the move?
Uk: “Sure. Both players have joined the Reno Wolfpack and in return Wichita receive several high end draft picks and a couple of young replacement players.
Reno has sent their 2017 3rd rd, 2018 1st rd and 2019 2nd rd picks in addition to OT Carlton Scotti and MLB Britt Duffy.
We are happy with the deal and wish Reno luck with their two new guys. Both are very experienced and talented players and we are sure they will do a great job for the Wolfpack.
It’s always a sad time when veteran players leave a team after years of exemplary service, but the time was right to make this deal.
Both Wes (10yr vet) and Eric (9yr vet) are drawing to the end of their careers and we felt it made sense to pick up a good return on them both before they finally hung up their cleats as we are building for the future.
That being said both can still do a fantastic job in the pros, both are contracted for two years and they were an attractive proposition for prospective buyers.
It’s a fine art judging when to allow players to leave.
You want to minimise the effect on the team but want to balance that with commanding a good market value.
We feel we have got it right this time.
Q: Media reports suggest that Vitale and Martin had been on the trade block for a couple of weeks.
How much interest was there in the two players and were Reno always in the front running to acquire them?
Uk: “Yes, we’d quietly shopped both of them over the last couple of weeks. We sent out a league wide wire stating they were available and also contacted a couple of likely teams direct.
Initially we may have wanted too much for each guy as the enquiries were slow to come in, but we adjusted the asking price and saw some interest spark up.
Martin especially attracted several teams. I think we had three franchises (two NC and one AC) make firm offers for Wes.
All of the offers were of a similar level, roughly about a 2nd and a 3rd for him, with maybe a replacement LB thrown in.
We only had the one firm offer for Vitale but it matched out valuation of a 1st rd pick.
Reno had expressed an interest in Vitale earlier and when they recently lost an ILB to a leg break, I think they saw Martin as an upgrade at the right time.
We were close to completing a deal with another team for Martin, but when Reno came back interested in a double deal we knew they were our preferred trade partners.
We’d like to put on record our thanks for the no nonsense and speedy nature of the negotiations which took place with Argot.
Q: How did the two players react to the news?
Uk: “Both guys know the business we are in. Both know Wichita are building for the future and that they were very saleable assets likely to move on.
They said their goodbyes to the locker room this morning and are looking forward to the challenge over in Reno.
I think they are both happy to be joining the same team too. They are two well respected professionals and they will get stuck right in. I’ll be watching how they play with interest and they will always be sons of Wichita and welcome home any time.
Q: Let’s look at your trade deals as a whole since the beginning of the season.
We’ve seen Martin and Vitale leave, but there have been other significant deals on the offensive side. RB Mercury Troyer and SE Kim Newman both left for Portland and Norfolk respectively. The Troyer deal also saw SE Roman Stonebarger come the other way and join the Outlaws.
First of all, the Troyer deal. Why did you pull the trigger?
Uk: “Right, generally we wanted to get some extra draft picks in to help us build over the next couple of seasons.
We saw Troyer as surplus to requirements as he was Tracy Norris’ back up, but again, he had value and should be capable of starting in this league.
It’s also fair to say we needed an upgrade in the receiving corps. Essentially when we saw Portland shopping Stonebarger, we saw it as a good chance to move a surplus RB and upgrade our wideouts.
The deal suited us and when you look at how Roman is playing we think we got decent value for an effective young player.
Q: There was some controversy after the trade with a jilted trade partner letting fly at the Portland management. You seemed to get sucked into that little piece of mud slinging. Any hard feelings?
Uk: “Nope. We try to run our franchise on a friendly basis. We don’t bear grudges and that little spat is behind everybody.
Trading is an emotive business and sometimes the pot boils over. It’s gone, forgotten and we’d like to formally extend the hand of friendship to the Oakland front office.
Q: The Stonebarger trade seemed to open other doors. As one WR came in another went out with SE Kim Newman going to Norfolk in return for two 2nd rd picks.
Newman is a young and effective player so why was he allowed to go?
Uk: “We weren’t originally looking to trade out a receiver but Norfolk came knocking and we liked the deal.
With Roman joining us, we felt we had maybe 3 or 4 good second level wideouts on the books and there was room to allow one out the door. When Norfolk enquired about Newman and we negotiated the right deal for Wichita, we were comfortable letting him go.
Newman leaving doesn’t really leave a hole in our offense and two 2nd’s for him (albeit projected low 2nd’s) represents good value. We wish him and his new team well.
Q: Finally, after all that business you have stockpiled a nice little pile of future draft picks.
An additional 1st, three extra 2nds and an extra 3rd is not a bad haul. How do you see Wichita using those additional picks?
Uk: “It’s difficult to tell this early on. We have a nice nucleus of young talent building on the team but there are holes.
We needed extra firepower in the draft and now we have some.
We are comfortable using each draft pick to pick up five extra starting calibre players (hopefully), or if we see a guy we like we can now move up should we want to. It’s about options and we like the options we now have.
Ask me again at draft time!!
I know it' s all about my own team but it's a bye week....indulge me please fellas!!
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