woodpecker

Just clicked over from the Howell hype thread, so I’m feelin it for Sammy…4 TDs! Wash 31 Sea 23

Mostly a lurker, but I came to realize yesterday that I’m a bit addicted to this site. Glad it’s back, not only for my personal sanity, but more importantly I would’ve been seriously down on the new owners if they had really pulled the plug in the middle of the season without warning like that. I really can’t stand social media, and dipping my toes in there a little bit yesterday reminded me of that. This is as far into it as I really want to go. Maybe a message board like this is simply social media for us older folks, but that’s fine. I prefer a more mature conversation anyway.

Both of those quarterbacks look great, but I think they will both be top five picks, and we shouldn’t pay the price to move up. Have to agree with the people saying we are pretty much forced to go OL at this point. I will be pretty happy either way, just knowing that an actual GM is doing the picking finally! Sam is not looking like the next Brady, but I think he’s shown enough to give it another year. I was skeptical, so he has certainly exceeded my expectations.

Don’t know if it’s the reason, but yeah he definitely lead with the helmet. as for the game, addition by subtraction may well be a thing. Seems like the defense has played better without CY the last few years. And now that we are probably better off losing, we will win. Wash 27 NE 13

Yep. But it’s the Bears problem now. Sure is nice to be the one who got over on the other team in a trade for once instead of the other way around!

I don’t think anybody is saying it works all the time. It’s just that it has a better track record than anything else we’ve seen. Coach as GM has rarely worked well, if ever. “GM by committee“ even worse. Pedigree or not, the Bears just made a bad hire at GM. They’ll have to move on from him as soon as possible. Doesn’t mean having a GM run the show is a bad thing. Instead of the Bears, why don’t we talk about the Eagles, Ravens, Bills, 49ers and many other teams who are thriving under the leadership of good GM’s. Again, nobody’s disagreeing with you that there is more than one way to skin a cat. But some ways are better than others, and I think a great GM is exactly what we need to turn this franchise around—so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

@conn you forgot the second part where he calls us a loser culture. And maybe that’s fair, but we shouldn’t need to hear that from a Falcons fan??? I mean, didn’t we just go down there and beat them a couple weeks ago?

OK. So sounds like he had the superstar player you need. And he got the lottery picks you need to put the talent around him. So the ingredients were there for a championship team, but some of the picks didn’t work out and they fell short. Maybe the GM making those picks wasn’t the greatest? Or maybe that’s just the way it goes with draft picks sometimes. But it seems like you are making my point more than yours… The process was correct even if the results haven’t been. As a wizards fan, I know enough to tell you that second round of the playoffs is certainly not easy for them. Not at all. In fact, I only remember once, when they lost to Boston. So again, I think you are throwing out exaggerations to try to make your point, which actually takes away from your point.

Dang dude. I don’t follow the NBA as closely as some, but A quick check of the results tells me the 76ers are far from being a “colossal **** up”. Sorry, he hasn’t won multiple championships there yet, but in my opinion, he is doing things the right way. Doesn’t mean it automatically works. Let’s set that aside for a second… We had Snyder for crying out loud. It can’t get worse, so why not give this guy a chance? Forward thinking roster building and analytics may not be your thing, but a lot of us think it’s the way to go.

Hi all. Can’t tell you how pleased I am with the last 24 hours. Picks and cap space! Yay! It’s been so long since this franchise actually made forward thinking moves. Harris so far has been exactly as advertised and I couldn’t be happier. The GM hire will be far and away the most important thing he does, and these moves are making it much more likely that he hits on a good one. I blame the Cardinals for this, for giving away Dobbs for a ham sandwich. Otherwise, I bet we would’ve been offered more. Personally, I would’ve taken the sixth, but your points are valid.

Well, we all know hindsight is 50-50, but I’m not sure how much hindsite is happening here. Three years in a row he reached with his first round pick for second round talent. And it wasn’t just us fans saying it, the experts all agreed. My hindsight is this… Ron hitting on a couple late round picks the first year turned out to be the worst thing that could happen. Made him think he knows what he’s doing. Reminds me of when Snyder hit on Larry Centers with his first attempt at playing GM. edit: I guess you could say Dotson was first round talent. But late first round, and was still considered a reach where we took him.

Well, we almost beat them at Philly, but this one is at home where we really suck. Phil 44 Wash 13

Sure that’s true, but it’s not a binary choice. Whatever they do to fix “winning” (which to me is hire a GM and get out of the way) can surely be done in conjunction with the rebrand. With the size and resources of this ownership group, and the amount of employees working for them, I just don’t buy this prioritization notion where they supposedly can’t work on ALL important items right away. It’s just an excuse to put off the rebrand because it’s uncomfortable. But for me, the longer they wait to address it, the more uncomfortable it’s going to be. and the less likely it’s going to be to happen at all. And I”d hate to see that, because I will never embrace the Snyder moniker.

Yikes! Couple less fumbles is nice, but… Howell has more turnovers per game, and less TDs per game, than those other guys that we couldn’t wait to get rid of.

Thanks for the reply. I would argue that Ballard was doing a great job as GM, until Irsay started butting in. Yes, we all know winning is priority one, there is zero disagreement on that point. There is no magic wand for that though, I agree with you on that point. All you can do is structure the organization the correct way, and hope for the best. That to me means hiring a GM and getting out of the way. That should be taken care of by February, if not sooner. Then what? Do you want the owners micromanaging everything the new GM does, or do you want them working on all the little stuff that needs to be fixed after the Snyder mess? We would probably prioritize the list of little stuff differently, but I know that’s what I would want them to be working on.

I would be with you 99% of the time on something like this. Like who cares about the name right? But this is different. This is about scrubbing the last vestiges of the scent of Snyder out of our hair. It’s important to get every bit of it to give us the best chance becoming a respected franchise again. So, even the little things that don’t matter on the field should be addressed. If you are going to prioritize the stadium experience for example then why not this? Having a name to be proud of or not is part of the “experience“. Having people want to buy, and wear, your jerseys and other merchandise is important. These are the things I want the ownership group most focused on. “Winning“ will take care of itself when you simply hire a good GM, and get out of his way.

It makes sense at this point to at least consider selling off some parts for future considerations. A competent GM would be doing that now. However, that will put GMRR in conflict with Coach RR, who needs to win as many games as possible to save both their jobs. Best solution for ownership would be to let Ron go at this point, and elevate one of the coordinators to interim HC. If you have your GM ready to go, great bring him in. If not find someone you can trust to run the ship until the end of the season. There are obvious moves that could possibly be made to improve the future outlook of the roster. On the field, the season is lost—time to move on to next year and beyond.

No, but they sometimes get toppled when they’ve outlasted their usefulness

No targets for Terry and predictable run on every 2nd and long—it’s like Scott Turner never left.

GM please. No rush, it has to be a good one. This will be by far the most important hire that Harris makes for the next 5–10 years.

As bad as our offensive line is, theirs is actually worse. And I dare say we may well have the better QB. Wash 24 NYG 19

Another potentially good coaching staff is drowning in a sea of incompetent roster building due to the lack of a legit GM in the building. Just as been the case since Snyder arrived. Time to relieve GM “Ron and co” of its duties and bring in an interim GM. Let Coach Ron focus on coaching while he plays out his final days here. Yay that we won, but it doesn’t really matter much because this team is going nowhere. I’m more focused on if/when we finally put a proper front office structure in place, because then, and only then will I feel like we have finally climbed out of the pit of despair that is the Snyder era. Would love to see the correct structure put in place now, even though significant changes won’t be able to be made until the off-season.

Sigh. Not sure how we talked ourselves into thinking a coach with no front office experience, and two former GM’s with track records of losing could combine to get the job done. There’s no way we can move on from the Snyder mess until we flush this whole coach centric nonsense down the toilet. I look forward to the day we get a legitimate GM for the first time since the 90s. Then, and only then, we will finally at least have a chance to return to respectability.

Even bottom feeders Arizona and Denver mostly marched up and down the field against our defense. I’m expecting more of the same. Atlanta has a very solid O-line. I think the players have lost some faith in this coaching staff, and realize that they are all lame duck at this point. I suspect we will start hearing that old cliché… ‘They’ve lost the locker room’. Howell will put up some yards in trash time again, but it won’t nearly be enough… 27-17 Atlanta

Coach as GM not working?? Shocker.