In what way is Kyle Smith GM material

[Thinking Skins]

3 hours ago, Califan007 said:

I would say that for the overwhelming majority of us, we would have had a hard time telling ourselves what made any competent GM seem like "GM material" before they were first hired...so I'm not sure that should be considered a detriment against Kyle Smith. I do know that he's been given more responsibilities and has been promoted and our drafts seem to have noticeably improved right along with it. With his father being a former successful GM, he also has a pedigree and lineage that could offer him some valuable insights into the position. And I like seeing competence in the organization given a chance and rewarded. So if Smith is named GM, I'd be happy.

 

Honestly, I look at this and I don't ignore it. I don't want to act like its a pre-requisite for being a good GM, but having somebody like AJ Smith as your personal tutor isn't bad. He's honestly the reason I was so positive on Bruce Allen initially. But I look at Kyle Shanahan (son of Mike), McVay (grandon of a GM and coach), Rex Ryan (son of Buddy), Wade Phillips (son of Bum). There's a lot more to this list and its not always a sure thing, but i don't think it hurts. 

[RWJ]

4 hours ago, Califan007 said:

I would say that for the overwhelming majority of us, we would have had a hard time telling ourselves what made any competent GM seem like "GM material" before they were first hired...so I'm not sure that should be considered a detriment against Kyle Smith. I do know that he's been given more responsibilities and has been promoted and our drafts seem to have noticeably improved right along with it. With his father being a former successful GM, he also has a pedigree and lineage that could offer him some valuable insights into the position. And I like seeing competence in the organization given a chance and rewarded. So if Smith is named GM, I'd be happy.

Me as well.  Smith's last two drafts have been very good and we have a lot of good talent on this team and I give him the bulk of credit.  I'd like to see him named GM, be given the chance to select his own HC and roll from there.

[Skinsinparadise]

He's had good drafts.  It's been said to death by people close to the team (Shanny too who saw it up close) that Kyle is a workaholic and lives and breathes football.  He seems like a good guy, too. 

 

I've whined for years about not having a football guy running the football operation and the lack of class IMO of the operation at times.  Kyle to me embodies everything I've said I wanted in a GM.  So yeah I'd be more than on board with him elevated to GM. 

[Riggo#44]

2 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

He's had good drafts.  It's been said to death by people close to the team (Shanny too who saw it up close) that Kyle is a workaholic and lives and breathes football.  He seems like a good guy, too. 

 

I've whined for years about not having a football guy running the football operation and the lack of class IMO of the operation at times.  Kyle to me embodies everything I've said I wanted in a GM.  So yeah I'd be more than on board with him elevated to GM. 

 

Here is something nuts: He's 34

[Voice_of_Reason]

3 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

He's had good drafts.  It's been said to death by people close to the team (Shanny too who saw it up close) that Kyle is a workaholic and lives and breathes football.  He seems like a good guy, too. 

 

I've whined for years about not having a football guy running the football operation and the lack of class IMO of the operation at times.  Kyle to me embodies everything I've said I wanted in a GM.  So yeah I'd be more than on board with him elevated to GM. 

Here's my only concern with Kyle: The Peter Principal.  The Peter Principal states that you rise to the level of your incompetence.  In other words, you take somebody who's really good at doing one thing, and then you put him in charge, which takes an entirely different skill set, and he (or she) fails miserably. 

 

What we don't know is if Kyle is just a super scout, or if he really has the management and leadership skills to run the organization. He might.  He might not.  I don't know if anybody really knows that outside of the park.  

 

If he was promoted to GM, it would need to be ONLY GM, not some "President and GM" role.  In that scenario, I think you bring in another executive to take the top job. Kyle gets roster control and can run the scouting department, but somebody else does all of the other "stuff."  Kindof like the role Coughlin took in Jax.  

 

Another very likely scenario is Kyle stays as GM and the new splashy HC is given the bigger title.  Like Gibbs was given President and HC, and Shanahan was EVP and HC, or something like that.  

[Thinking Skins]

19 hours ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

Here's my only concern with Kyle: The Peter Principal.  The Peter Principal states that you rise to the level of your incompetence.  In other words, you take somebody who's really good at doing one thing, and then you put him in charge, which takes an entirely different skill set, and he (or she) fails miserably. 

 

 

This is entirely possible, or we could see this as just being a step along the staircase and his ultimate failure isn't until he becomes team president. Or we see the Peter Principal fail and Kyle is just great at his job - those cases do exist as well. 

 

But this is a league where everybody gets fired some time or another. The problem with this organizaiton (particularly the front office) is that they don't treat failure with the appropriate response and trim the fat and find somebody new. Instead they do the "everything's fine" routine and let the place burn. 

[OVCChairman]

22 hours ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

Here is something nuts: He's 34

 

 

Which means if youre right... youre set for a long long time

[Skinsinparadise]

21 hours ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

Here's my only concern with Kyle: The Peter Principal.  The Peter Principal states that you rise to the level of your incompetence.  In other words, you take somebody who's really good at doing one thing, and then you put him in charge, which takes an entirely different skill set, and he (or she) fails miserably. 

 

What we don't know is if Kyle is just a super scout, or if he really has the management and leadership skills to run the organization. He might.  He might not.  I don't know if anybody really knows that outside of the park.  

 

I'd start with the bar is low.  I'll take a dude that lives and breathes football and is a good scout over most profiles for the job.  A lot of GMs start off as scouts and ran a department whether its player personnel or college personnel.  Clearly even Bruce had to start somewhere before becoming GM. 😀  I am more interested in a top scout for the position, then a current out of work GM.  I guess some veteran GMs could be let go as HC's are let go but i don't think there will be a ton of them on the market.

[Voice_of_Reason]

3 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 

I'd start with the bar is low.  I'll take a dude that lives and breathes football and is a good scout over most profiles for the job.  A lot of GMs start off as scouts and ran a department whether its player personnel or college personnel.  Clearly even Bruce had to start somewhere before becoming GM. 😀  I am more interested in a top scout for the position, then a current out of work GM.  I guess some veteran GMs could be let go as HC's are let go but i don't think there will be a ton of them on the market.

I'd be fine with it if it happens.  And @Thinking Skins is exactly right, and which was the point of my post, is that you just don't know how well Kyle can basically run the entire player-personnel side.  Sure, he might be a great scout, and he runs part of the team now, however it's a big jump, and my point is we have no idea how he does in management.  Nobody outside the building knows that.  Ideally, he's fine at it, and GM is the next logical step. But if he's just a super smart scout who knows football but couldn't manage a dairy queen, then that's going to be a problem.  

 

That said, I would NOT give him control of who the coach would be, or anything more than roster control.  Which is why I think you need another senior executive who sits on top of the entire football ops and makes determination on the coaches, etc.  I just think it's too much responsibility to give somebody all at once.  If Eric Schaffer was President and Kyle was GM, and Coach X (I doubt it's O'Connell at this point) was head coach, that might work. With both Kyle and HCX working for Eric.  Or somebody else as the President.  In this scenario, I have no idea what you do with Doug Williams.  I doubt he would ever want to work for Kyle, I don't think you could elevate him to President, and I doubt Dan wants to fire him.  So, that would be something sticky which would have to get worked out.  

 

Honestly, if Bruce wasn't a bottom feeding scumbag power monger, he really had that setup with him as President, Scot McLoughan as GM, and Jay as HC, with both Scot and Jay working for Bruce.  The problem was Bruce still had final say, and Scot had demons that he couldn't overcome.   But the structure works pretty well.  

 

As an aside, I kinda like the idea of KO sticking around, under the right circumstances, as OC just so that Haskins doesn't have to learn a new offense between his first and second year.  But if you get a big-name coach and they want to put in their guy or run their offense, clearly you have to let them do it.  

[Thinking Skins]

16 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

 

That said, I would NOT give him control of who the coach would be, or anything more than roster control.  Which is why I think you need another senior executive who sits on top of the entire football ops and makes determination on the coaches, etc.  I just think it's too much responsibility to give somebody all at once.  If Eric Schaffer was President and Kyle was GM, and Coach X (I doubt it's O'Connell at this point) was head coach, that might work. With both Kyle and HCX working for Eric.  Or somebody else as the President.  In this scenario, I have no idea what you do with Doug Williams.  I doubt he would ever want to work for Kyle, I don't think you could elevate him to President, and I doubt Dan wants to fire him.  So, that would be something sticky which would have to get worked out.  

 

Honestly, if Bruce wasn't a bottom feeding scumbag power monger, he really had that setup with him as President, Scot McLoughan as GM, and Jay as HC, with both Scot and Jay working for Bruce.  The problem was Bruce still had final say, and Scot had demons that he couldn't overcome.   But the structure works pretty well.  

 

As an aside, I kinda like the idea of KO sticking around, under the right circumstances, as OC just so that Haskins doesn't have to learn a new offense between his first and second year.  But if you get a big-name coach and they want to put in their guy or run their offense, clearly you have to let them do it.  

 

I'm on board with all of this. And Doug could just get the "Senior Executive VP" title. 

 

The historical problem with this setup is that you get into the classic Schuler / Dilfer debates where coach wants one guy and GM wants another. And then there's the famous Parcells line about cooking in the kitchen and wanting to pick his own ingredients. Problem is that most coaches aren't good enough or have enough time to do scouting too. What we don't know is how Kyle would resolve these things. We know that Jay has liked certain players and the ones we drafted, Kyle has gone on Larry Michael's show and praised Jay for it. Hopefully that means he's not the jerk his dad was, but we really don't know. 

 

The other potential problem I can see coming from this is that if we keep KOC for continuity sake, then we run the risk of forcing both a QB and OC on a new coach. If that guy is somebody like Rex Ryan who already knows KOC and has a high opinion of him, that's one thing. But I have an eerie feeling like this is the Cleveland Browns situation from last year happening here. Gregg Williams took over as the interim head coach and let Freddie Kitchens be the OC, but it was really a tryout for Kitchens and Baker. Once they saw that the two worked well together, Cleveland front offices assumed that meant that the next hot thing would be Kitchens and Baker, but now with Kitchens as HC. But then we saw the Peter Principle as dude is in way over his head. 

 

I really just hope that if he gets the job, that he's given a real chance and its not a "you have the power except when I see a new toy". 

[Newera]

His last to drafts and free agent pick ups have been excellent.

[OVCChairman]

8 hours ago, Thinking Skins said:

 

 

 

The historical problem with this setup is that you get into the classic Schuler / Dilfer debates where coach wants one guy and GM wants another. And then there's the famous Parcells line about cooking in the kitchen and wanting to pick his own ingredients. Problem is that most coaches aren't good enough or have enough time to do scouting too. What we don't know is how Kyle would resolve these things. We know that Jay has liked certain players and the ones we drafted, Kyle has gone on Larry Michael's show and praised Jay for it. Hopefully that means he's not the jerk his dad was, but we really don't know. 

 

 

 

 

This is what we've needed for a long time though.  2 football people analyzing and having differing opinions.  Doug has come out and said it's a 'group' decision, yet Bruce traded for Alex Smith.  When prompted, the response was "he was on everyone's A list" or some variation of that.  It's rumored that Jay didnt want Haskins, but Dan did.  Rumor is the same about AP.  

 

The problem is that it SEEMS that Bruce / Dan always determine to THEIR choice when there is a disagreement.  I think a TRUE GM and HC working together get's a much more consistent split.... which is the better version of checks and balances.  Not the Bruce model of "it's a group decision, except when it's something I want to do" lol. 

[ThePackisback]

2 minutes ago, OVCChairman said:

 

 

This is what we've needed for a long time though.  2 football people analyzing and having differing opinions.  Doug has come out and said it's a 'group' decision, yet Bruce traded for Alex Smith.  When prompted, the response was "he was on everyone's A list" or some variation of that.  It's rumored that Jay didnt want Haskins, but Dan did.  Rumor is the same about AP.  

 

The problem is that it SEEMS that Bruce / Dan always determine to THEIR choice when there is a disagreement.  I think a TRUE GM and HC working together get's a much more consistent split.... which is the better version of checks and balances.  Not the Bruce model of "it's a group decision, except when it's something I want to do" lol. 

The Skins are a classy franchise. I rooted for them in 1991 to win it all. I hope they get back on top again soon.

[redskinss]

We don't  know what we have in kyle just as we didn't  know what we had in Gibbs when we took a chance on him.

 

 greatness has to be recognized and given a chance before it has proven itself. 

 

If kyle has shown a superior work ethic and a level of cognitive ability superior to most then he should be given a chance and allowed to grow into his talents.

 

That's the only way we'll ever achieve excellence, it certainly wont be by bringing in someone who has proven mediocrity or who is washed up.

[skinny21]

10 hours ago, Newera said:

His last to drafts and free agent pick ups have been excellent.

FYI, Smith is only over College Scouting, not Pro Personnel (that’s Alex Santos).  

 

 

Random, but Kyle Smith is the name of a longtime, close friend of mine who also happens to be a Cowboys fan.  Would be pretty sweet if our KSmith lead the Skins back to relevancy, lol.  

[Skinsinparadise]

Maybe this helps the cause?

 

Breer just now.

 

Redskins have put out feelers for coaches.  They are getting serious push back on Bruce and the FO structure.  Dan is  starting to realize that the feeling about anyone coming here is effected by the Bruce tenure, what's happened the last 10 years, and some candidates don't want to be part of something like that.

 

Breer said it should be interesting to see how far is Dan willing to go to keep Bruce Allen.  Because whomever they poked around with -- Breer said some of whom likely will have multiple possibilities, Bruce looks like a deal breaker. 

[Conn]

10 hours ago, Newera said:

His last to drafts and free agent pick ups have been excellent.

 

Unless something has changed, Kyle Smith is not the FA guy at all, he's mostly "just" college scouting (although I'm sure they use their in-house xollege scouting reports for long-term context on younger FAs that Kyle evaluated as prospects). 

 

I'd really like to see the roster Kyle would build with final say over both college and pro personnel, though. Our FA work in his time here has been scattershot at best, and I think he could do a better job given the chance.

[Thinking Skins]

31 minutes ago, ConnSKINS26 said:

Unless something has changed, Kyle Smith is not the FA guy at all, he's mostly "just" college scouting (although I'm sure they use their in-house xollege scouting reports for long-term context on younger FAs that Kyle evaluated as prospects). 

 

Yeah I think that Santos does the FAs. But being that most of the guys we're getting are very young, I'd think that Kyle and the scouts have done a scouting report on them from college, and with a guy like Odom or even Orhcid where they haven't seen much game time. So there I'd think that Santos is primarily going from Kyle's work. A guy like Collins is probably a Bruce& Dan move more than anything. So I think Santos and Schaffer and Doug really come into play with guys like Bostic or AP or Flowers who have game film and aren't these extremely young guys . 

[Skinsinparadise]

44 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

 So I think Santos and Schaffer and Doug really come into play with guys like Bostic or AP or Flowers who have game film and aren't these extremely young guys . 

 

I listened to an interview awhile ago (forgetting where) that gave the impression that pro personnel is all Santos.  On occasion, Bruce and Doug intervene.  Trades are all Bruce.

[Riggo#44]

While our drafts the last few years have been very promising, our free agent signings have been a crap fests. We've had two really good signings: Garcon and Jackson amid a sea of signings/trades like Shawn Lavauo, Donovan McNabb, Alex Smith, Paul Richardson, etc. etc. (while treating players like Trent Williams, Kirk Cousins, and others like complete ****).

 

If that's Santos too, he needs to follow Allen out the door.