Cerrato vs. Mendes

[Murilo Bustamante]

How many Super Bowl teams has Cerrato been involved with?

One.

How many Super Bowl teams has Mendes been involved with?

I believe- NONE.

I'll take Cerrato over Mendes. Mendes should have gone hard after a DT and an OG this offseason, but refused to "overpay." This is what you get from someone who learned at Casserley's knee. Mendes was fine paying a lot for Trotter and Armstead, at positions where we had no need, because they were good values. But he left OG open, thinking he could get a cheap June pick-up, and he was dead wrong.

This kind of accountant-type thinking is what gets you in a bigger hole, because then you end up finally having to overpay at that position, the way CC finally overpaid in 1998 for Stubby and Big Daddy after years of trying to get "value" at DT.

Meanwhile, Cerrato and Snyder engineered a GREAT deal in 2000 to get Lavar and Samuels. This is a fact, and one that Cerrato bashers always ignore. We got Samuels because of a Cerrato trade of the 10th and 24th pick for the 3rd. Samuels was NOT an obvious pick at #3- some drafts had him going at 10 and he was not considered one of the "big three" with Warrick and Brown. Moreover, later in that draft, the Jets traded THREE first round picks to move up LESS than we did. In short, a brilliant trade.

As for the slams on Cerrato, both are false.

1) He blew up the cap. Baloney. We were way under the cap in 2000 because we had no high paid players except maybe Stubby (who was already like the #6 paid DT NFL-wide by that time because DT salaries had exploded). The cap info showed we were in the middle of the pack in 2001, cap-wise, and the same this year. So we had to make some cuts, LIKE EVERYBODY. We were NOT in the type of situation Jacksonville or the Ravens were. And it's not all because of Marty, either- we had that room in the first place because CC spent 1999 licking his wounds after he re-signed a bunch of bad players in 1998.

2) None of his (Cerrato's) players after round 1 stuck. This is true, but who were they? Mookie Moore- I liked this pick, and he was cut by a new coaching staff after Cerrato was gone. Husak- still cutting it in the NFL. The others were even lower round picks, so I think we're nitpicking if we go after him for that.

In short, it's good to have Mendes at the table negotiating contracts and being a voice, but Snyder needs to side a little more with Cerrato if he wants this team to win.

[G-Town]

I thought Casserly got the 1st rounds picks for us with the Williams trade (Saints). I could be wrong.

[SkinsThug]

I can't say with any certainty who is fighting with who.

It might be Mendes/Cerrato vs. elements on the coaching staff, and perhaps against each other on certain players.

It's unclear to me how the power is aligning within the FO.

[Murilo Bustamante]

G-town-

You are half right.

Casserley (in what was a good move) got us New Orleans' pick (#10) and Carolina's (#2), plus we had our own (#24). Having said that, Casserley was very lucky Carolina went into the tank that year, or he would have looked foolish for letting the Gilbert negotiations get out of hand.

But it was Snyder/Cerrato who traded the #10 and #24 to get the #3, which is how we got Samuels.

[Riggo-toni]

With all due respect, saying Cerrato is more qualified because he basically inherited a Super Bowl team, (and kept them at the top by breaking NFL cap rules), is like saying Barry Switzer is more qualified than Andy Reid or Steve Spurrier because at least he has won a SB.

I agree Mendes blew it when it came to addressing our lines this year, but Vin-man's picks both here and in SF are filled with busts. Maybe it's time to gie Ron Wolf a piece of the action and bring him in. I still wish Danny-boy had made a little more effort to reach out to Beathard.:gus:

[Murilo Bustamante]

Cerrato inherited a good team, yes. And Wolf is bar none, the best, yes. But Casserley inherited a good team in 89, and he still has his amen corner. My point is, even if you run down Cerrato's accomplishments like that (and I don't think it's entirely fair), he still has acheived more in the NFL than Mendes ever has, so IF there is a feud between them, I guess I would trust Cerrato more.

[2cents]

Can we PLEASE get over the notion that NOTHING was done to get guards. We had Brandt who suddenly retired, traded for Levorne and Stai, got Jones who got hurt, signed Vickers, drafted Sulfsted, and I believe we at least made resonable offers to Coleman and the ex KC guy who left whose name escapes me at the moment, plus the usual free agent signings off the street. Instead of asking why "nothing" was done, ask why all the guys we brought in suck.

[MRMADD]

Nothing was done to improve the interior OL. We just brought in some warm bodies that were, as Madden would say, "cheap and available." We didn't make a serious effort to strengthen a clear and unmistakeable weakness until it was way too late.

The guys we brought in suck -- but we knew they sucked before we brought them in. Yes, Jones was thought to be better than he was, and then he got injured, and that's not the FO's fault. But it is their fault that they ignored a very very obvious weakness until it was too late to do anything about it.

"We had Brandt who suddenly retired, traded for Levorne and Stai, got Jones who got hurt, signed Vickers, drafted Sulfsted, and I believe we at least made resonable offers to Coleman and the ex KC guy who left whose name escapes me at the moment" 2cents

Brandt retired suddenly, but it's not like he was stellar anyway. Stai was a good but late pickup. Vickers and Sulfsted are bums. Coleman is 100 years old and walks with two canes. That ex-KC guy was considered Marty's locker room spy. This is enough for you?

The better question to ask is, what would you have done differently? Personally, I think the Skins should have drafted an OG. Barring that, they should have -- very early -- traded for or signed a couple of OGs. I'm not talking vet-minimum, over-the-hill guards. I mean open the pocketbook and get some guys who can really play. I think that the game is always won or lost on the line -- and these guys seem to think it's won or lost a few feet behind the line, where the linebackers play. That's where we threw all our money.

Let me ask you this: would you trade Trotter for two good OGs? Would you trade Ramsey and Betts for two good OGs? Either of those are tough to do, but would certainly have helped us win this year, right? Tough questions.

[Zuskin]

Sulfsted was actually drafted by the Bungles and we picked him up off their practice squad. Sad but true.

The trade up for Samules also included some late picks, a fourth and a fifth, I believe. We ended up with seven picks that year. None of them our own.

[88Comrade2000]

You are deluding yourself about Cerrato.

Also, it was Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark who run the show in San Fran, not Vinnie boy.

I like Mendes as capoligist only. Vinnie can be Danny's lacky but I wouldn't give him any more say.

dan needs to hire a real gm or else we are going to have to pray that the coaching staff can overcome the weaknesses of the front office.

Forget about Ron Wolf. You think Ron Wolf is coming to a work for an owner who wants to draft the first pick or two? I don't think so. WE need someone who is far more qualified that Mendes but is also able to give Danny- I need to have fun enough of say to keep Danny happy. After all, if Danny isn't happy; then it won't mateter. He'd fire the guy the next year.

Right now the 2002 draft is going to be the worst draft ever under the Snyder era; unless Patrick Ramsey firmly grabs hold of the job and starts at least half the season.

In this era of free agency, you need to hit in the draft and have good depth. From 99 to 01 we did good with our early picks but failed in the rest of the draft. This year, we've seem to have just failed all around.

I look at the draft this way:

In rounds 1-3; you need to be able draft at least one player who can start from day one or soon after that. You'd also like to be able to draft another player who will be starting by the end of year. If you can get another player that becomes a solid starter eventually, that would be nice.

Rounds 4-7: A crap shoot. Get some depth and maybe on occasion you get a player like a Tom Brady, Terrill Davis,Stephen Davis?

2002 doesn't seem to me, we have broken our recent good luck streak in the early rounds.

[Murilo Bustamante]

"You are deluding yourself about Cerrato. "

I stated some facts about Cerrato. You didn't. I'll leave it at that.

I agree Ron Wolf isn't coming. And so, if your only two choices are Cerrato or Mendes, all I'm saying is that Cerrato is more accomplished than Mendes.

[TennesseeCarl]

I've never heard any S.F. fan say anything positive about Cerrato. His talent evaluation, as it's manifested in our drafts, has been wretched. We are among the bottom teams in percentage of draftees who are on the roster after 5 years.

The trade up for Chris Samuels required two first rounders and a 4th rounder. I like Chris Samuels, but he's no Jim Lachay. I'm o.k. with the pick, but it's hardly brilliant.

That's the same draft, btw, where we used the #64 pick on Loyd Harrison.

I'd like to have some accountability from the front office. Those guys seem to want the players to be accountable for their poor play, and that's fair. But I'd like to know who's making the decisions in the front office.

Maybe I'm unfairly critical of Cerrato. But if the team never lets us know who made the picks, I'll just have to look at the guy who's allegedly responsible for 'talent evaluation.'

[Murilo Bustamante]

It's tough to evaluate the 2000 draft since Marty came in and cut a lot of "non-Marty players," but...

Harrison...still in the league (at Miami)

Husak....still in the league

Moore...I liked this pick, but now out of the league. I would bring him back right now- a very good run blocker for Davis.

Two out of three lower round picks two years later still in the league is pretty good.

In our most recent draft, it is more difficult to say.

Did Lachey make the Pro Bowl in his second year? Samuels looks like a good pick to me, though I would be the first to say he had a bad game against the Whiners. And the fact is, Cerrato pulled off a trade to move up and get Samuels that was much, much better than a worse trade the Jets pulled off later in that draft. People forget our horrible LT problem in the 90s- Cerrato solved it.

I'm not making Cerrato out to be Ron Wolf. But the guy has contributed to the Skins, and to the Whiners when they won a Super Bowl, and that is more than Mendes has ever done.

[Dirk Diggler]

TC

The Samuels trade was brilliant. The guy isnt quite building off his Pro Bowl year because he's dinged up but I can only think of 1 or 2 LT's I would rather have. And with the offense we're running (if you want to even call it offense) I think it's safe to say that Left Tackle is the second most important position next to QB. If you think the line is bad now, I shudder to think what it would be like without it's best player.

[The Sisko]

Comparing Cerrato and Mendes is like trying to compare apples and oranges. Mendes is known primarily as a capologist while Cerrato is supposed to be a talent evaluator. While I'm not sure if it actually works this way, I envision it as Cerrato and/or Snyder selecting the players desired while Mendes applies the brakes when he perceives too much $$$ will be paid out. Of course, Snyder can overrule him but it's always at the risk of :shootinth again like with Peon/Carrier/Bruce.

Yes, Cerrato did make good picks by getting Samuels and Arrington. However, as I remember it, Samuels was in fact discussed as a potential top 3 pick along with Arrington, Brown and Warrick. However, I felt he (or perhaps others in the FO) blew it by letting it be so publicly known what exactly we wanted in the draft. Also, while I'm a huge Arrington fan I was looking for ways we could possibly trade down with that pick and get Urlacher instead of LaVar. BTW, that's not a knock on LaVar, it's just that I felt Urlacher would be almost as good and we (were and still are) weak in a lot of areas that could have been shored up in that draft. With other teams offering us the world for our spot, I think a more creative GM would have done a better job of putting us into position to get more than just the two players we did get. Also, though the Jets had 3 first round picks that year, all of them were late first round picks that weren't as valuable as our #10 .

With the way FA/the salary cap is you can't be satisfied that the players you pick in the middle rounds of the draft are "still in the league". Rather, the players you pick in rounds 3-6 should be solid middle of the road starters in a couple of seasons or at least decent role players. Later players really are a crap shoot, but you should still at least find some depth there as well as the occasional diamond in the rough/special teams players etc. there. If all you manage is to get guys who are "still in the league" your team is going to be in deep trouble both depth and salary cap wise.

As our F.O. stands, I see Snyder as having a lot of input into our first round picks with Cerrato being more responsible for the remainder of the draft. That's just scary to me. Why ? Two words......Ladell Betts.

[Murilo Bustamante]

I agree you can't be satisfied with "still in the league"- in general.

However, Marty fired Harrison, Moore, and Husak, and not necessarily because they were bad players per se but rather because he had his own guys (Greer and Rosenfels). Cerrato's

talent evaluation of those guys was solid, though, as evidenced by the fact they are still in the league. Now we need to keep the front office the same for a few years so that we can stop cutting players every year because they belonged to the previous administration.

My point with this thread is that everyone complains about Cerrato, but praises Mendes. I think it should be the other way around- Cerrato is underrated and Mendes is overrated.

(Right now they do have different roles, but part of being a capologist is deciding how much talent is worth, and I believe Mendes has been a talent evaluator here and elsewhere. Regardless, both are in the front office right now).

[joe]

Who is argueing with Whom. I like Mendes and I like Cerrato too. Hell, I liked Casserly. They have all had their "victories" and their "defeats" Although, I generally agreed with the things Casserly did at the time that he did them, like trading for Gilbert, holding the line against Gilbert, trading for Wilkenson, signing Stubblefield, I admit that some of the things that he did did not work out. Ditto Mendes and Cerrato (have you seen the San Fran drafts when he was director of player personnel?)

I think that this team as a whole, needs some time to come together and that Danny Boy, and the rest of us, need to ratchet down the heat to let that happen.

[Storm]

Im not even sure how Cerrato became a GM or personnel director. If you talk to 49er fans a lot of them had never even heard of the guy.

As far as Samuels and Arrington those choices were no-brainers. The whole league knew who the top four players in the draft were. Cleveland took one and there were three left, so we drafted for need.

Thats it. Most of us could have done as well. Chance of success were 66 percent.

The real talent comes when you consistantly make good choices deep in the draft where anything can happen (ie Stephen Davis in the fourth round).

[joe]

I don't know about Moore, but I think that both Husak and Harrison were among the final cuts of their respective teams.