New GM search

[RedBeast]

2.85 BILLION in value, and they go cheap? What a cluster**** we have. Surround yourself with the best and brightest, that is the key to success. This old school approach won't work in todays NFL. We are ****ing doomed guys. Dont expect any serious contention for our team, for at least 5 years. Maybe Bruce will be gone by then and if we get lucky? Danny-boy might roll a 7 once, as our God forsaken owner

[elkabong82]

1 minute ago, thesubmittedone said:

@elkabong82 Hope you're right, brother... but a few things: 

 

1) JLC has actually been writing favorably about the Skins the last couple months. He's been one of the few reporters continuously shooting down the craziness surrounding Kirk, specifically. He also wasn't part of the chorus regarding Scot the last month or so. 

 

2) He is no longer with the WP, so I'm not sure it's valid anymore to just lump him in with them because he worked for them long ago. 

 

3) He's been pretty credible in general with whatever he's reported about the team the past few years. Furthermore, he's citing league sources here. I doubt he does that if he has none.  

 

4) Maybe you're right about the money deal, but it's tough to just ignore the general theme of the article... that the best and the brightest don't see the Redskins as a place to come and thrive. That it's best to stay away so as to avoid the way the FO is setup with the Skins. It absolutely kills me to see him say that:

 

 

The bolded there is just so frustrating to read... do you really think he's blatantly lying there? If so, I really do hope you're right. But it's tough to blame anyone for believing it at this point. It's not just "believing every negative slant". He didn't frame this as his opinion.

 

Hey... there's a simple solution, though. It's tied to the one positive that came out of this article in that they're "casting a wide net" and trying to get the best in here. And that's if they do. Just hire someone truly respectable and reputable, then none of this matters.   

 

He's a Ravens fan and that's where I think the disdain stems from, not that he was with ComPost, and I've seen him consitently taking negative slants when FO is involved. He was part of the name change crap too. 

 

He was indeed part of the chorus on the Scot stuff http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/redskins-dysfunctional-ways-on-display-again-as-team-mishandles-gms-absence/

 

Nobody knew what was going on at that point, but Scot did say it was family issue. JLC right there with the rest assuming Skins FO dysfunction.

 

When it comes to signings and player interest he is good. When it comes to team operations he's as in the dark as the rest (since most teams are not transparent with their operations given the nature of the league). I get given the team's past that it takes time to overcome the dysfunction stereotype just like it took time to get over the big free agent spending stereotype (about a decade, lol), but this local media vs. Snyder stuff has ruined DC sports media. Even when the other teams do well, Skins news dominates the newsfeed even when nothing is happening. I lost all respect for them when the name change crap went down (and not one of them has advocated for NAs since the Post's own research shot it down). It sucks because other than a handful of people you can't read anything anymore because it's all hot take garbage. It's almost as bad as news media has gotten. Basically you have to sift through all the opinion hit piece to find actual factoids hidden within. In this case it's that we're looking at the best teams for a new GM, which is fantastic!

 

The bolded, I'd bet that a few people they've reached out to have declined interviews, they didn't share their reasons as to why, so JLC after :because" speculates as to why. Did a couple decline due to the team leak about Scot? Wouldn't surprise me. But the power dynamic of Allen-Scot-Gruden actually was set up like normal teams do and Art said as much in the other thread. One could tell JLC they didn't interview because they didn't like the team leak and JLC could easily re-write/interpret it as "concerns of how Snyder runs the team and Allen's over-reaching power." It's not exactly true, but it can be spun that way, and rest of media does this all the time so why not sports media too?

 

Agreed though. They just need to hire someone with a good rep and win games.

1 minute ago, RedBeast said:

2.85 BILLION in value, and they go cheap? What a cluster**** we have. Surround yourself with the best and brightest, that is the key to success. This old school approach won't work in todays NFL. We are ****ing doomed guys. Dont expect any serious contention for our team, for at least 5 years. Maybe Bruce will be gone by then and if we get lucky? Danny-boy might roll a 7 once, as our God forsaken owner

 

Their offer of $1.5 million per year is in line with the average range of what a GM makes. They make between $1 and $3 million dollars per year on average. You don't start out with a crazy high number. You can't negotiate down, only up, and it reeks of desparation. For what would be a first-time GM it's not a low offer. 

[Andre The Giant]

8 minutes ago, elkabong82 said:

In this case it's that we're looking at the best teams for a new GM, which is fantastic!

 

 

Totally agree ... it's exactly what the Skins should be doing.  Don't settle ...

 

Thrilled with this development.  First true good news in a while (other than the Pryor signing).  I'd assumed DW was up for a promotion by default so that Bruce could maintain control over organizational synergy (less so than personnel).

 

Agree that organizational synergy is of utmost importance, but so is having a strong competitive advantage when picking personnel.

 

I wonder if they'll speak with the Cardinals' Terry McDonough.  He's highly regarded in the league, and his brother works with Jon on MNF.

 

[RedBeast]

@elkabong82 we are not a stable franchise nor do we have a great reputation. Gotta pay extra to get the right person here and give him the latitude required to right the ship. That is chump change on 2.85B. Same with facilities, scouts, back office, IT, etc...hire and buy the best. Won't happen with Bruce here...he is following the old broken Tampa Bay model, look where that got them. We are not a first class club nor do we have first class staff or facilities.

[elkabong82]

1 minute ago, RedBeast said:

@elkabong82 we are not a stable franchise nor do we have a great reputation. Gotta pay extra to get the right person here and give him the latitude required to right the ship. That is chump change on 2.85B. Same with facilities, scouts, etc...hire the best.

 

I agree it will take a little extra to get a new GM with an established record to come here given the recent turmoil. But you don't start out by offering your biggest number you're willing to go. Skins themselves need to operate like a normal FO. Starting off big on money reeks of desparation and would only confirm the dysfunction speculation. Start out at a reasonable number, see who bites, negotiate up from there.

 

We hired Scot's scouting service even before he was GM here. That seems to be the move of a team who hires the best and spends money on it. I wonder if anyone has info on what NFL teams spend on scouting and how/if it correlates with success. I've looked for it but haven't been able to find anything.

[RedBeast]

@elkabong82 understand your point, but sometimes you have to put down your pride and open the checkbook. My point was that we should hire and surround the team with the best available. Head to toe evaluation and renovation. This team needs an enema

[Jericho]

Not sure how many people are Orioles fans, but I think they are some parallels here with the Baltimore Orioles and its GM search in 2011. Back then, the Os were looking for a new GM just like the Redskins are now. However, they were coming off a historic run of incompetence (13 straight losings seasons, which is/was an AL record and 2nd longest such streak of all time). They also had a notoriously difficult owner. They really were not seen as a good job. The team tried to bring in some up and coming hot shots, but none of them wanted the job.

 

What do you do when no one wants to take your job? You go to the people that don't have options. Which could mean an internal hire. In this case, the Os went with someone who didn't really have other options, Dan Duquette. He was actually seen as a pretty good GM in the late 1980s/early 1990s when he was with the Montreal Expos. He parlayed that into a job with the Boston Red Sox. He wasn't terrible with Boston, but he was fired in 2002 when the team got a new owner. Everyone remembers the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 with Theo Epstein as GM. But most of the main players were acquired by Duquette (he acquired Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield, Johnny Damon, Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez, Derek Lowe, and Kevin Youkilis among others). So he was doing something right. But he also was out of baseball after that. Nine years later, the Os hired him off the scrap heap. It's actually worked out decently well for both Duquette and the O's. But that's probably an absolute best case scenario. A guy the league has forgotten about that still has skills.

[Rufus T Firefly]

7 hours ago, elkabong82 said:

So maybe let's try to stop believing every negative slant put out there by the same people that tried to paint us as racists for supporting the team name. They want us to be bad, they want the FO to be the worst ever, and every thing they put out about us reeks of that desire. 

 

[Riggo-toni]

19 hours ago, NewCliche21 said:

 

This is infuriating.  You'll blow tens of millions on crappy players but not ten million over a few years to get a guy who won't let you hire crappy players?  Where is the business sense in that?

 

Nobody wants to come here, so you've gotta compensate for that with your wallet.  The more I read, the more that I think that Bruce is a liability and not as much an asset.

Back in 2002, Bobby Beathard agreed to return to the Skins as GM. Snyder lowballed him at 500k, but Beathard accepted. Snyder and Beathard then arranged to have their respective agents hammer out the details.

 

Beathard was in DC area LOOKING AT HOMES when his agent spoke with the front office. His agent accepted the 500k (less than vet min for a player), but wanted added incentives for playoff appearances, players making the pro-bowl, etc. Snyder's guy flatly refused. It was 500k a year, period.

 

When Beathard got home to San Diego, there were several messages on his answering machine. He called the Skins FO, but they were apparently put off that he hadn't responded earlier and that his agent hadn't accepted what they considered a done deal. Snyder told his rep not to bother returning BB's calls, and rehired Vinny Bugeyes instead.

 

So, rather than give a GM with 4 rings (and who put together the essentials of a 5th) and half a dozen SB appearances with 4 different teams, we got Cerrato. Just to avoid potentially paying chump change for successful results. Let that sink in.

[NewCliche21]

1 hour ago, Riggo-toni said:

So, rather than give a GM with 4 rings (and who put together the essentials of a 5th) and half a dozen SB appearances with 4 different teams, we got Cerrato. Just to avoid potentially paying chump change for successful results. Let that sink in.

 

I wish that I hadn't read this.  Just pisses me off even more.

 

Marty had some John Schneider guy with him when he was our coach, leading us to an 8-8 record with excellent trajectory.  That Schneider guy would go on to run the Seattle Super Bowl team (hiring GMSM as far as I know), and we would get Spurrier and Vinny.

 

I wish Snyder, when making a decision, would ask himself what he would do.  And then not do that.

[Conn]

The Eagles owner just wrote a letter "imploring Washington to act like an NFL franchise" and honestly I was 50/50 on if he was talking about the Redskins or the politics-that-shall-not-be-discussed-here before I clicked on it.

[Skins-in-CT]

10 minutes ago, ConnSKINS26 said:

The Eagles owner just wrote a letter "imploring Washington to act like an NFL franchise" and honestly I was 50/50 on if he was talking about the Redskins or the politics-that-shall-not-be-discussed-here before I clicked on it.

 

I thought the same thing until I read it.  it applies to both the team and the other thing 

[BLEED-B&G]

Who was the guy Scot was going after in Green Bay but they wouldn't let him go?

[jjpomeroy]

20 minutes ago, BLEED-B&G said:

Who was the guy Scot was going after in Green Bay but they wouldn't let him go?

 

 

I believe it was Alonzo Highsmith

http://www.packers.com/team/staff/alonzo-highsmith/7a3b79fe-0e64-4d5e-9b38-fb475ac6328c

[celts32]

From reading some of this it sounds like everyone wants to hire a guy sort of like the one Bruce just fired.  We had a great GM and Bruce fired him while Dan stood by and did nothing.  Who they hire and give that title to is meaningless as long as Bruce is around.  #FireBruceAllen

[TSO]

I'm just waiting to see what they do in terms of the organizational structure. 

 

To me, it's very simple. They either hire a legit GM with respectable credentials or they don't. If they don't? That's all that I'll need to know about what happened and which narrative is the most likely truth. 

 

From day one, when they made the Scot hire... I posted on here a ton of times that it's not even about Scot for me. I was just ecstatic we actually had the organizational structure that traditionally allows for the highest likelihood of success. I even said it wouldn't matter if Scot was eventually let go for due cause, or even Gruden (as much as I like and believe in both), but that as long as the hiring process was solid (get the known best and brightest experts in their respective fields) and the structure kept in tact (give them that respective title and the responsibilities that go with it with no fear of being undermined), we'd be okay. 

 

For now, I'm hoping (naively?) the part of JLC's article that said they're "casting a wide net" is true and the part that says some of the most respected candidates already withdrew is false. Bruce's recent nonchalant attitude when talking on the matter of hiring a GM didn't give me much confidence, though. But maybe there's a reason for him not being direct about it that I don't understand right now. 

[RWJ]

19 minutes ago, thesubmittedone said:

I'm just waiting to see what they do in terms of the organizational structure. 

 

To me, it's very simple. They either hire a legit GM with respectable credentials or they don't. If they don't? That's all that I'll need to know about what happened and which narrative is the most likely truth. 

 

From day one, when they made the Scot hire... I posted on here a ton of times that it's not even about Scot for me. I was just ecstatic we actually had the organizational structure that traditionally allows for the highest likelihood of success. I even said it wouldn't matter if Scot was eventually let go for due cause, or even Gruden (as much as I like and believe in both), but that as long as the hiring process was solid (get the known best and brightest experts in their respective fields) and the structure kept in tact (give them that respective title and the responsibilities that go with it with no fear of being undermined), we'd be okay. 

 

For now, I'm hoping (naively?) the part of JLC's article that said they're "casting a wide net" is true and the part that says some of the most respected candidates already withdrew is false. Bruce's recent nonchalant attitude when talking on the matter of hiring a GM didn't give me much confidence, though. But maybe there's a reason for him not being direct about it that I don't understand right now. 

Just think that whomever is hired as GM will do the dirty work of do the talent evaluations and BA will be the one making the final selections on draft day and in FA.

[TSO]

7 minutes ago, RWJ said:

Just think that whomever is hired as GM will do the dirty work of do the talent evaluations and BA will be the one making the final selections on draft day and in FA.

 

Then it's unlikely they'll get anyone worthy of the title. And, as I stated, it'll say all that needs to be said.  

[Conn]

19 minutes ago, thesubmittedone said:

 

Then it's unlikely they'll get anyone worthy of the title. And, as I stated, it'll say all that needs to be said.  

 

Right. If we get someone obviously legit, them having final say will be self-evident because no one worth having final say would take a job where it wasn't theirs. The odds of this happening are very low most likely. The only reason we got a qualified candidate like Scot without him demanding full organizational control was because he had red flags of his own that put him within our reach, and he was basically fine playing super-scout for a GM-level salary--but even that fell apart.

[TSO]

6 minutes ago, ConnSKINS26 said:

The only reason we got a qualified candidate like Scot without him demanding full organizational control was because he had red flags of his own that put him within our reach, and he was basically fine playing super-scout for a GM-level salary--but even that fell apart.

 

Agreed, but I'll just say it's not even about full organizational control. Just final say on personnel which is what we were told Scot's GM title gave him. 

 

I think if that's what that title truly represents, it shouldn't be hard to nab a great personnel mind from one of the more successful organizations. They'll likely not care about the organizational stuff, just like Scot said when he was first hired. That Bruce would handle that side and he'd take care of personnel. 

[Rocky52Mc]

Since we apparently can't have someone who is in full command of the position of GM, why not hire Mayock? You're talking about a guy who has had first access to NFL game film before anyone can see it, knows the current field of players all too well, and has an exceptional eye for college talent. Again, if we're about to hire someone who doesn't have final say, why not bring Mayocks expertise in here?

[RWJ]

When it's all said and done expect one of Williams, Santos or Campbell in no particular order.  Would Jon want to come in and help his brother as GM, probably not as he has a very good paying job, what is it $5 mill a year or something like that?  Louis Reddick would be a great hire too, I think.

2 minutes ago, Rocky52Mc said:

Since we apparently can't have someone who is in full command of the position of GM, why not hire Mayock? You're talking about a guy who has had first access to NFL game film before anyone can see it, knows the current field of players all too well, and has an exceptional eye for college talent. Again, if we're about to hire someone who doesn't have final say, why not bring Mayocks expertise in here?

I think Skins are interested but is Mayock.  For Schefter to report this before anyone else is interesting.  He's someone I think they are eyeing but again in the end names get tossed around and they end up going inside the organization.  I think Campbell has done his time and should be promoted from w/in when they go that route, which I believe they will in the end.

[Conn]

1 hour ago, thesubmittedone said:

 

Agreed, but I'll just say it's not even about full organizational control. Just final say on personnel which is what we were told Scot's GM title gave him. 

 

I think if that's what that title truly represents, it shouldn't be hard to nab a great personnel mind from one of the more successful organizations. They'll likely not care about the organizational stuff, just like Scot said when he was first hired. That Bruce would handle that side and he'd take care of personnel. 

 

I agree with you in principle, but I think it would boil down to full organizational control because if we ever got what you and I would consider a "real/qualified" GM, they wouldn't work with Bruce Allen.  They'd want to bring in their own people which is something no one's ever been allowed to really do since Bruce came on board. Maybe a contract specialist, general councel type like Schaffer would be kept.

 

But they wouldn't want an ally of the owner also being at or near the top of the organization, it's just not how those guys operate. There's a reason the 49ers had to settle for a total unknown just happy to get the phone call, like John Lynch--because they insisted on keeping their own Bruce Allen (his name is Paraag Marathe) around and also decided Shanahan would get a say in personnel. The respected FO guys ran from their scheduled 49ers interviews faster than I can type this sentence once that news got out. It wasn't a serious opening for those guys and this almost always happens with bad teams who try to hire these personnel studs away from GB, BAL, etc.

 

Those guys can afford to wait for the perfect opportunity because their current, successful teams will just keep giving then raises and grooming them forever. 

 

We'll never be serious contenders for this type of FO talent while Allen has power in this organization and has a role in the interview process, I fear. These guys, deep down, might not "care" about a lot of the non-personnel power that generally comes along with the GM title, but they probably still won't get involved with a team who wouldn't offer it to them because it's a red flag they don't need to deal with. 

[TSO]

11 minutes ago, ConnSKINS26 said:

Those guys can afford to wait for the perfect opportunity because their current, successful teams will just keep giving then raises and grooming them forever. 

 

You might be right, and it's certainly a logical way of thinking.

 

But there are only 32 of these positions available and I can imagine someone legit wanting the position here, even if it's under Allen as TP. So long as that person is truly in charge of personnel and the scouting department like the GM position supposedly had when given to Scot. Remember, Scot himself chose here over the Raiders because of the supposed control he'd get. 

 

It boils down to that, in my mind. Does that title and its responsibilities actually exist here or not? If yes, I think they can attract some qualified people. If not, well, it'll be pretty obvious. 

 

I'd say the difference between you and I right now is you've already come to the conclusion it doesn't. Which is totally reasonable. I'm willing to extend some benefit of the doubt until it's obvious even though I anticipate being disappointed. 

[Morneblade]

I honestly don't think any GM here will have complete player control. I don't think Scot did either. If he did, why on earth would he have to go to Snyder to give Cousins a chance? Having to circumvent BA tells me that he had to go above BA (as far as the decision was concerned) because he did NOT have complete control of personnel. If he did, he just would have made the decision to go with Cousins and that would have been that.