My guess is that there is always an accountant and a lawyer on site when teams are structuring the contracts for proposal. I highly doubt they promote former scouts and pro personnel directors and just suddenly expect them to be able to construct a legal binding document worth millions of dollars. That's why its perplexing that numbers guys get moved into the general manager role without the blink of an eye. We've made that mistake twice with Tannenbaum and Idzik. Just like personnel guys can't suddenly become lawyers and accountants, numbers guys don't suddenly become personnel guys.
I agree, that's why it's so important for everyone to be on the same page before a hire is made for HC, I remember the big thing with Rex was the CB position, he needs CBs to run his defense, however I also remember the jets passing up BPA on board to satisfy Rex's need for CB. As one poster mentioned in another thread, under the old regime the jets probably would have passed on Leonard williams. That's why I believe this FO will do fine in the draft, I'm sure TB shares his opinion with MM, but it's not just his opinion that counts. TB will accept any player that is drafted if it's BPA and will try to put him into the mix. Just look at Mauldin, who would have thought that a 3rd round pick would have such a good year with limited playing time? I forsee this years draft being the same, they will select BPA which will set this team up well in the long run.
The 2 would certainly butt heads a lot . Who gets the final say when the football guy really wants a player and the business guy doesn't want to spend the money ? Just have to hire a 3rd GM then to decide then
We've had bad experiences here with hiring numbers guys as GM but I don't necessarily think thats a bad approach. They just need to look at it the right way. Tannenbaum let his numbers game fail him, ie. he strayed away from prudent contractual decision making. And Idzik is an outlier as he was just completely in over his head. A numbers guy can have plenty of success in the GM role IMO. They can look at players and decisions in the lens of "rate of return", "weighted output," "demand on the market" etc... Player personnel guys have a tendency to fall in love with a certain player, adhere to traditional norms, stubborn belief in only a certain way to win, etc. The GM should be a CEO type. You have scouts with the football mind giving their opinions on certain players, you have coaches giving their opinions on how they would like to incorporate players, the GM needs to be the type that can see a step ahead of those guys and address issues like where they can most effectively piece together what everyone wants or set them on the path towards what they should be wanting. This lends itself well to numbers guys actually as they aren't married to football philosophy. by the way, Mike McCagnan has an economics degree and very much thinks about decisions in a numbers' guy realm. So although his experience in the league is in personnel, he could very well be considered a "numbers guy" by his philosophies and background
didnt the same scouts that brought us the idzik draft also bring us last years draft? iirc it was the same group and i remember well that they waited until after the draft last year to shit can them as they had all the info that he fo needed to go through the draft. so this year really is year 1 of this group drafting with their own guys giving htem the info. hold on tight!
I disagree. I think if you did a detailed study of NFL GMs over the last 30 years, you'd find out just how wrong you are. There's no doubt that the GM has to understand numbers, work with the cap, make complex financial decisions and function like a CEO. But numbers guys don't know beans about talent and heart. Tanny didn't fail because he didn't look at the numbers in the right way or because he strayed away from "prudent contractual decision making." He failed because he doesn't know beans about talent, building a team/roster, and understand the basics of the draft. One simply cannot trade up year after year and have 3-5 player drafts and not wind up with huge holes on one's team and no depth. One cannot have JAGs (or worse) playing at key positions on defensive and/or offensive units. He focused exclusively on some positions (CB, DL) and ignored others (OLB, WR, OL) thinking any old cheap FA or UDFA would function adequately. Further, Tanny failed because of his ego. He cared more about seeing his own face on the back pages of the tabloids (making a big splash in the draft or FA), than he did seeing his team because of wise decisions he made. Eff him. He has zero business working in the NFL as a GM.
It's not even just numbers guys and philosophies, I would ideally like an eye for talent. Not that the opposite cannot work. Maybe we just had the wrong numbers guys in there. Tannenbaum's philosophy was simple. Backload every contract and guarantee them on the backside. Pay the player's who helped your succeed team three years prior, big money when they are out of their prime. It helped keep a competitive roster together for 3 solid years where we pushed to the AFC championship game. I think well rounded is the best way to describe what you'd want in a general manager. I think the common trend in the top GM's (Ozzie Newsome, Rick Smith, Ted Thompson, Kevin Colbert, etc.) All come from the personnel ladder of the spectrum.
Could it be that the draft was successful because MM gave the previous scouts parameters that Idzik and Rex could not provide them with?
Mac is a scout himself. That's where he put his time in. He made changes too in the FO, and has the final say. I hope he goes BPA like you said, in the early rounds for sure. It's about the players in the end. Having good players on the roster.
I just don't think the scouts/"football guys" are all that great to begin with considering the job. identifying a guys' heart and talent (as it translates to the league) is an extremely difficult task for numbers guys and personnel guys alike. Cleveland hires Paul Holmgren, one of the smartest, most respected, football guys around, he trades up to draft Trent Richardson. 2 years later he was ripping the Browns for trading the guy. Richardson sucks ass. Bill Belichick runs the show in NE. Nobody questions his football mind. How many jacked up decisions has he made over the years regarding players. Jerry Jones is an insurance guy. He's been the Cowboys GM for years. They've had their ups and downs, he's at least an average GM, and the returns he's gotten over the years some teams that are hiring these fancy scouts would kill for (like Cleveland). Just some examples but long story short- I think everyone kinda sucks at seeing how talent will translate to the league. Getting a guy that can see above individual pieces, how to get the maximum return from your FAs, current players and college players within the constraints of a salary cap would lend itself well to a person who thinks along the lines of numbers and economics
If there is a definitive LT available at 20, what do you guys think of starting this guy at RT to groom to eventually Brick, kicking Breno in at RG since he can be a mauler type? Just a thought
You must be an accountant or numbers guy. Paul Holmgren, he of the Philadelphia Flyers? LOL Surely you mean Mike Holmgren. Holmgren was a great QB coach, OC and even HC. When he went to the Seahawks, he was HC, GM and Exec. VP. After 3 seasons, he was fired as GM, and remained their HC. Coaching is one thing, picking talent is another. Tuna proved that. Different skill sets with some overlap. Give me a guy with a scouting and personnel background as GM any day and my team will beat your team GM'd by a numbers cruncher 9 times out of 10. (I give one game to account for injuries and bad games.)
whoops on holmgren hahaha fair enough I guess we just disagree. I don't necessarily believe one philosophy is better than the other I just don't trust these football minds. I also don't think you can possibly say though that 9 times out of 10 one side is better because: QB is where its at, obviously, so a good QB will make either philosophy look better. Can these player personnel/scouting types identify who is going to be a better QB? hmmmm maybe. Look at Grigson in Indy, young scout is hired in 2012, guy is freakin gifted Andrew Luck in his 1st year. An absolute no-brainer, don't have to have a football mind, my wife could make that pick, etc. He gets "executive of the year" that year and he's proceeded to make horrible decision after horrible decision. They have zero real talent on that team. But we think he's a good GM because why? because he got them Andrew Luck of course! (who literally ANYONE would've drafted) ---- I know I am all over the place but I also think about a guy like Anquan Boldin. That guy was an amazing player at Florida St his senior year. They make it to the sugar bowl and their QB gets hurt so they put him in at QB and he nearly got his team the win thats how much of an athlete he was. Most people outside of the scouting focused world would say "damn that is a good football player". Scouts looked at his 40 yard dash which was slow and they determined he wasn't that impressive. The great football mind Bill Belichick even takes Bethel Johnson, a different WR over him a few picks before with half the college results because he runs quicker at the combine. Boldin became the 13th player in the history of the game to grab 1,000 balls btw this year while Bethel Johnson hasn't played in a game in 9 years.. I could see the argument regarding scouting focused types more 20 years ago when it was more difficult to get access to the players. Well shit- obviously they would know more about who will be successful because they are the few that have watched everyone. In today's world though, everyone, hell even you and I, can watch every single player NFL or College's game tapes/combine workout/etc. What is missing is not more people inside the box, but more people outside the box.
That's ok, easy enough to make a name slip. Yes, it's ok that we disagree. I can understand not trusting football minds. In spite of all the advances in testing, metrics, psychological and personality testing, etc., in some ways the draft IS still a crap shoot. And of course, as you state, if one has a once in a generation franchise QB fall into one's lap, one will look a lot better than he is. Personally, I don't think Grigson is very good at all. Like you said, anyone could have taken Luck. The fact that he (Grigson) did doesn't make him a good GM. I do think that scouting/personnel types have a much higher success rate and better chances of finding those diamonds in the rough and low-round gems. Those are the guys who aren't blown away by Combine workouts, speed alone, or who pass on a real football player because he doesn't meat the prototypical height/weight and speed numbers for the position. Belichick is just another example of a HC who is a lousy grocery shopper. You seem to lump HCs and scouting/personnel types together in to "football minds." I don't think they belong together at all. I can't think of a single HC who had known input into the draft or who had absolute control over personnel who didn't fail at it. There may be one or a few who succeeded, but I truly cannot think of one. Chip Kelly is a good football coach, but he failed miserably with personnel in Philly. Rex supposedly had a lot of input into the drafts with the Jets, but forget that, we do know that he was given one pick in each draft. Who did he take? John Conner and Tajh Boyd are two. If Mangini had as much input into personnel as some posters here posit, then he may be an exception to a HC who had a good eye for personnel, but even he took the Boar Hunter and Kellen Clemens. That doesn't mean that all GMs with scouting and personnel backgrounds are perfect or always make the best choices. We don't know what goes on behind the scenes. We don't know when owners or team Presidents may overrule a GM. We don't know when Scouting Depts. jump up and down and tell the GM not to take a certain player or conversely lobby for a player and the GM ignores them for some reason. He could simply be mistaken. We all fall in love with college players sometimes. He could be trying to give the HC what he wants instead of what he knows is best. He may not like the player, the school the player is from, or the player's former HC. He may have fallen in love with some metric. He may not think a player is a fit in the team's schemes. Conversely, he may want to prove that he's smarter than other GMs and think he can spot players that others can't. He may think he can fit a square peg into a round hole. Luck also plays a role. Some players are great in college, and then fail in the NFL, but it's not due to a lack of trying, poor attitude or talent. Sometimes they have just already peaked and maxed out their talent. Sometimes they get into the NFL and can't stay healthy, whereas they never missed a snap in college and had no injury history. Some players are constantly banged up in college, were backups, played different positions, got little or no coaching or whatever, and they get to the NFL and explode upon the scene. The one thing that is of central importance to any GM and that is having a quality scouting and personnel dept. If he doesn't have that, he's going to fail regardless of his background. A numbers guy can succeed as a GM if he is smart enough to realize his limitations, keep his own ego in check, finds the best scouts he can, and then listens to them. He still has to avoid the temptation of falling in love with players and trading up too often, or having favorite positions and ignoring others.
Agree with everything you said. However, as long as he's the #1 football guy in Miami, I hope he has a very long, long career. So happy to see the bonehead decisions being made for one of our division rivals.
Tell it, brother. I hope he spends the rest of his career with the Dolphins and they never see another winning season. LOL
Troll thread. What is the point of this thread, when the Jets don't have a top 10 pick this year? How come you cherry picked "top 10" and left off some other first rounders (Richardson, Wilkerson, Mangold, etc.)
How is this a "troll thread?" I am simply stating facts and not making any inflammatory remarks to other forum members. Was Terry Bradway the Jets "top scout" for the pas 14 years? Yes Were the GMs whom Terry reported to Bean Counters without a scouting background? Yes Did the Jets have far more misses than hits in the draft over the past 14 years? Yes
