Yes there was. We've seen a good start before, and a collapse of gigantic proportions later. However, that does not mean you do not want to see a good start. You still want to start well, that gives you a better chance to succeed. Doesn't mean Mooge will succeed eventually, but it sure is better than shitty start. Plus JD's good start was way overrated because we had such shit before him. JD OL always sucked and he got only a 3d round pick in return for a top 6 draft pick in Leonard Williams. Surrounding Sam with Perriman as the best weapon? We were not objective when evaluating JD. We were blinded by great Adams trade and his shitty predecessors and did factor in critical mistakes he made as I listed above. But objectively speaking JD did not start out as well as Mooge did. Yeah, a fluff piece I agree. He hasn't had that killer move yet that improves the team drastically. But I do think it is fair to say the guy looked very competent to start with.
I’m not so sure he had a plan…I’d have to go back and look to remember what all his moves were, but was he the GM who cut costs by getting rid of the Holmes and Sanchez contracts? I remember at the time he got some kudos for shaving costs and “fixing the cap” kind of stuff, but they were no brainers that pretty much everyone on this board was already saying should be done. No genius moments there. And then he proceeded to waste a high first rounder on Calvin Pryor if I recall? He wasted all of the 12 picks…I think Enunwa was a 6th rounder and the only player from that draft worth anything at all. When you have that many picks, that’s when you either trade some away for future assets or you use some of them to trade up and get a player you are targeting. He didn’t do either. He just wasted them all on garbage players. He had no strategy. Cutting bad contracts is not a strategy…it’s a move anyone can make. And to be honest, trading away pro-bowlers and all-pro’s is also not high on my list of “great moves”…anybody can trade away good players. It’s all in what you do with the return. So far, Mougey at least got good returns on his trades…so did JD though early in his tenure. Let’s see what Mougey does and I hope it’ll be better than what JD did but again I guess that’s a low bar. But no, I refuse to give Idzik any credit…dude was not qualified for the job and was one of the worst we’ve ever had, and that’s saying something when we are comparing to the likes of Terry Bradway, Mac, and JD. All terrible GMs
Yeah you know your last comment there hits with me…kind of how I feel. We got through week 1 of free agency and spent a bunch of money and signed a bunch of players, but it really doesn’t feel like we got “good”, let alone “great”. At least to me, it feels like we kind of got “meh”…yeah maybe a little better and maybe the floor is a little higher, but we were just SO bad last year that it feels like almost anything should be better. Are we improved? Maybe (probably?). Are we good? Time will tell, and maybe the hope is that the whole turns out to be greater than the sum of the parts. We’ll have to see it on the field. But of course, we still have the draft to go, and we have a few nice high picks so maybe the initial free agency wave was to raise the floor, and the draft is to get us from outright shitfest to maybe closer to average?
his plan was build through draft and be conservative in FA. He stockpiled picks. Goal was to mimic Seattles success at time. for whatever reason his picks stunk. Obviously buck appropriately stops w him but we should all realize that’s an organizational failure as it’s not the GM who does the scouting and assessing just like the head chef rarely does the cooking
Doesn't really matter to me until we see some wins. I know that it isnt totally his fault, but the buck stops with him and Glenn. Team should be significantly improved from last year, but if that doesn't result in a more successful season, he'll be on the hot seat going into next season. Maybe even at the end of this season if it gets bad enough. He seems like he understands the job. I really like how he manages the late round draft picks. When you have a plethora of day three picks, it makes sense to use some of them to get solid players. Hopefully he nails this draft and Geno plays well. I'd like to see him and Glenn both stick around.
@Borat floated the correct word. Competent… i don’t need flashy, I don’t need WOW, I need competent. This team has been lacking competency from the owner (still incompetent) all the way down. If our new GM can remain competent, and that permeates to others, the team may just turn it around. The only barometer that matters is wins. History dictates they will fail but here’s hoping they can change that.
Yah I get that and don’t disagree on the buck stopping with him and the failure being more than just the GM I was more reacting to the strategy comments…to me, just saying build through the draft and be conservative in free agency is not a strategy really…it’s a “how are we going to execute” whatever the strategy is. Pretty much every team will say they want to build through the draft…that’s cost control. Obviously the Rams have been successful kind of going against that by always trading away picks, but for the most part, most teams will want to “build through the draft” When I talk about what a GM’s strategy is, I’m more looking at how he wants to build the team more specifically than saying “I’m going to build through the draft”. I mean stuff like ok, what is your vision of a successful team…things like lead with defense, or lead with offense, and then the next level down well ok, if you’re leading with defense, where are you going to prioritize, is it the DL, is it the secondary, do you envision a lean fast D, or a stronger bulkier D, do you invest most of the money at edge, or some other position? How do you prioritize draft picks? Do you spend high picks on key positions? On O, are you going to be a smash mouth team so you need a huge mauling OL, or a run and gun type team where you want more agile OL? That kind of stuff…and maybe Idzik had some of that, but I never heard it to any real depth. And the way he used his picks was less than optimal. Sure, a lot of that is just poor execution…he had a shit scouting dept or he didn’t listen to them or whatever the reason was but his draft picks were awful. So yeah, semantics, but that’s kind of what I was reacting to on the strategy comments. It’s different than, let’s say, Mac, who came out and said he would not spend high picks on OL…ok so he didn’t value it as much and his strategy was to stock the OL with mid round picks and cheaper free agents. Or JD who was opposite and said he did value OL / DL and spent high picks on that. Now Idzik didn’t get as much time as those two because he was just so damn terrible, but maybe had he gotten more years, we’d have started to see what his strategy actually was…I guess that’s possible. But man our history of GMs has been so fucking terrible outside a couple guys like Parcells and then Tanny…and Tanny’s strategy wasn’t sustainable with his multiple tradeups…sure he did hit on guys like Revis and Harris but he missed on the QB in Sanchez and that’s almost always a GM killer, but you can’t keep having 3 to 4 player drafts and stay competitive… Anyway, that’s my two cents…
I think idzik was more focused on that cap and trying to draft guys in Seattle mold eg dbs. I never got the sense he was connected w coaching etc jd I think was more focused on mimicking Philly. Strong (literally) ol’ and dl. I actually didn’t hate him nd feel we’d be in a different place but for the Zach Wilson fiasco. Imagine if we draft Penai sewal (sp?) instead which was much more aligned w his thinking. Or if he was hell bent on offense then Chase. That Wilson decision killed him. we should also keep in mind the cost of the seemingly perpetual change of what we’re trying to do as a team. It takes time to build organitional competence nd expertise from scouting to coaching to strength and nutrition.
