A New Start! (the Reboot) The Front Office, Ownership, & Coaching Staff Thread

[Thinking Skins]

I can't help but think back to Scott Campbell and his tenure here. He was the guy I was often saying I wanted an opportunity to critique as he was the guy supposedly doing all the work behind Vinny. He stayed in powerful roles for a while, even during Bruce and Scot M's reign, ultimately losing his job to Kyle Smith. But there was a lot of talk about him being a potential GM candidate and I remember the praise media gave for "all of the draft picks making the roster". That was something that was debunked here but it was something that seemed so positive back then. I look back at those drafts and just shake my head. In 2008 we had 10 picks and the best player was Chad Reinhart with an AV of 22. In 2009 we got Orakpo and NOTHING else. In 2010, we got Trent Williams and Perry Riley. In 2011, we got a bunch of picks (I loved that draft because I thought we were actually manuvering and picking good players) but after Ryan Kerrigan the next best player was Jenkins with an AV of 23. 

 

I bring this up because we're talking about Kyle Smith right now and these last four drafts, but as of right now the only guys who have an AV above 20 are Payne, Allen and Roullier. Fabian Moreau started off well but faded. Same with Nicholson. Same with SDH. Settle and Christian have looked good last year but both are probably going to be backups for a while so I don't see them being seen as these cornerstone players. Sweat and TMac will probably go above 20, but who else from the 2019 draft? Young surely will, but Curl? Who else from the 2020 draft? 

 

I'm bringing this up because I think we're over-valuing Kyle Smith. We have a bunch of guys who can make a roster and serve as backups and maybe get some snaps here and there, but these aren't world beaters. I think a good team needs to be able to find these players so I don't want to undervalue them and say they don't matter. But drafting a Cole Holecomb who doesn't look lost at LB in the 5th is totally different from drafting a Roullier who is one of the top centers in the league or Matt Ioannidis who is one of the top pass rushing DTs in the league. 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

31 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

A couple of counterpoints:

1. I think the headbutting is the scarring of the Bruce Allen era--where he butted heads with anyone that threatened his power and any voice in Dan's ear: Shannahan, McCloughan, LaFemina, etc. It's possible, but less likely with this structure.

2. Hurney has been classed as a facilitator, Mayhew and Smith look like the evaluators. I think Rivera would establish clear roles and responsibilities.

3. No indication other than Russell's assumption that Smith is gone. Maybe, but he didn't receive a single interview for anything. I'll believe he's gone when he is. I still believe that Rivera let him know what his role is moving forward.

4. In most organizations, yes you'd want everyone reporting to the owner. But...do you want that in this organization? Really?

I agree that it's unfair to paint this picture anything like the org led by Bruce Allen.  It should go without saying that what we have today is an improvement over where we've been, without a shadow of doubt.  But even if you gave me 4 of the most selfless, diplomatic and accountable people around, I'd still be skeptical of how it all works together.  Because even if it's not drama filled in-fighting, there's just too many voices.  As for everyone reporting to the owner, I get your point - but I'm always going to believe it would be better with the coach reporting to the GM, who reports to the owner on his own.  That said, I don't really want a GM that Dan would select, so it's a catch 22. 

26 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

So, something I've been wondering and no one has addressed--why do we need a major FO overhaul? Our FO has been killing it the last couple of years. Our drafts have been spectacular, and, other than clear Allen moves (Smith trade, Collins contract, Norman contract), name a bad deal we've signed?

 

Bringing in a hot commodity like Cowden would require significant changes and he'd probably want his people, wouldn't he?

I personally don't think it needs overhauled, just made over.  For example, the idea that Hurney comes in and handles the stuff that is beyond Kyle right now and mentors him to take the reigns, that sounds good to me.  But with the addition of Mayhew, that seems unrealistic.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

30 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

I think its within the realm of possibility that we vastly overrate Kyle Smith’s standing in the league. He is NOT the FO version of Sean McVay who got scooped up as a Head Coach after barely a couple years as OC. 

I don't think anyone is overrating his standing in the league.  Otherwise, we'd be hearing about interviews for him.  To be fair, he's got a catch 22 going for him - he's got the pedigree, but his father's reputation as difficult to deal with also comes along with that.  Maybe he is, maybe he isn't - who knows.  But I think it's obvious that personnel is a strong suit for him.

21 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

We thought highly of Morocco Brown, Scott Campbell, and Alex Santos in previous regimes.

Hold on a second...we did?

 

Brown, maybe - as I remember his name coming up in chatter.  But Campbell was always a guy that we wondered what dirt he had on the org because he was winning Survivor: Ashburn season after season.  And Santos was kind of just there, I don't ever recall much praise for him.

[veteranskinsfan]

Just heard on Team 980 radio that Mayhew's picks in free agency were awful.

[RichmondRedskin88]

29 minutes ago, KDawg said:

Smith is a month younger than me and in a NFL front office. Therefore I am jealous of him. 
 

PS: Coach Rivera, I am available for interview. I can start the new position in about 12 minutes.

Screw you. I’ll start in 5.  😜

People posting stuff about awful FA and not picking good guys is making slowly nauseous and I just had a donut. 

[RedskininATL]

1 hour ago, veteranskinsfan said:

Just heard on the radio that Martin Mayhew missed on picking Rams star Aaron Darnold in the draft.  Ugh....

But the Lions reporter said that he was ok as a General Manager.

12 GM's missed on taking Aaron Donald in that draft.   Hard to fault a guy on missing on a player 6 years later.  How many teams missed on picking Tom Brady for 6 rounds.   I'm not saying Mayhew's got the golden touch either but I don't rely on one missed player as the standard for determining whether or not he's good

[Riggo#44]

13 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

That said, I don't really want a GM that Dan would select, so it's a catch 22. 

I think this is the one ray of hope I have. For the 1st time, Snyder isn't making the executive hires--he's leaving that to Rivera. Snyder's exec hires have been political, back-stabbing, sycophants. Rivera is not that, so maybe, this backwards hiring will work for this organization because it minimizes Snyder's influence.

 

13 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

I personally don't think it needs overhauled, just made over.  For example, the idea that Hurney comes in and handles the stuff that is beyond Kyle right now and mentors him to take the reigns, that sounds good to me.  But with the addition of Mayhew, that seems unrealistic.

I am curious to see how this all shakes out, wait-and-see what happens. I was not high on Mayhew to be honest--again, lets wait and see there. A lot of people fail in Detroit so I am not going to hold that against him--and he was a part of the 9ers organization that just made the Super Bowl.

 

10 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

Brown, maybe - as I remember his name coming up in chatter.  But Campbell was always a guy that we wondered what dirt he had on the org because he was winning Survivor: Ashburn season after season.  And Santos was kind of just there, I don't ever recall much praise for him.

Brown and Campbell were both touted as future GM candidates both here and nationally, as I recall. ThinkingSkins above said the same. Santos, probably not as much, as he was a pervy scumbag.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

5 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

I think this is the one ray of hope I have. For the 1st time, Snyder isn't making the executive hires--he's leaving that to Rivera. Snyder's exec hires have been political, back-stabbing, sycophants. Rivera is not that, so maybe, this backwards hiring will work for this organization because it minimizes Snyder's influence.

I agree on this, as I said early on - obviously this is progress and realistically the best progress we'll get because...Snyder. 

 

9 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

I am curious to see how this all shakes out, wait-and-see what happens. I was not high on Mayhew to be honest--again, lets wait and see there. A lot of people fail in Detroit so I am not going to hold that against him--and he was a part of the 9ers organization that just made the Super Bowl.

I really have no grudges against either Hurney or Mayhew, I'm really indifferent to the whole thing.  The moves just don't spell out what I'd like them to, which is 'we are going to get the best possible people available'.  But again, Snyder...handing the keys to the franchise to Rivera makes that impossible, because he's not going to hand the keys to somebody else, and is obviously going to want people he's comfortable with.

 

11 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

Brown and Campbell were both touted as future GM candidates both here and nationally, as I recall. ThinkingSkins above said the same. Santos, probably not as much, as he was a pervy scumbag.

That's news to me on Campbell.  I'm pretty sure he retired and these guys never retire when their services are desired.

[bakedtater1]

12 hours ago, bh32 said:

I just don't understand why everyone is up in arms over who was hired first..Are you guys just so paranoid that you think every move they make is gonna fail because it has in the past? Just let everything fall in place and see what happens.

Thank you...we still have the players and coaches that make up our favorite team right?..ron still the coach?..let go and let god.

[BurgundyBooger]

2 hours ago, veteranskinsfan said:

Just heard on the radio that Martin Mayhew missed on picking Rams star Aaron Darnold in the draft.  Ugh....

But the Lions reporter said that he was ok as a General Manager.

 

1 hour ago, veteranskinsfan said:

Just heard on Team 980 radio that Mayhew's picks in free agency were awful.

 

What were his top 5 draft and FA selections?

[Koolblue13]

I hope it doesn't mess with our personnel departments too much. I get that we wanted a guy to handle operational aspects of the FO and a guy to kind of be the glue for everyone all around the team, so hopefully we can keep the rest intact. 

[CobraCommander]

I was weary about having Rivera as de facto GM. Now I'm worried we have too many chefs. I just can't be happy, can I?

 

All I can do is take a wait and see approach as with every move this organization makes. Hope it works out for the best.

[RWJ]

1 hour ago, veteranskinsfan said:

Just heard on Team 980 radio that Mayhew's picks in free agency were awful.

Yep!  Go back and look at what he did when he was with the Lions.  

[Conn]

3 hours ago, Riggo#44 said:

We thought highly of Morocco Brown, Scott Campbell, and Alex Santos in previous regimes.

This is revisionist history, the case was this: they had inexplicably good reputations around the league according to the local media, and most people here didn’t understand why that kept being reported. Some figured they must be good sources getting kickbacks via positive buzz. There were some who assumed they must be competent but not being listened to by Vinny and then Allen—but really nobody valued these guys very highly when they were here, the way that some people love what they think Kyle Smith is. 

[joeken24]

7 hours ago, dckey said:

Question for the more informed posters?   Could we keep Kyle Smith as well as adding Hurney and Mayhew?  This seems like a better front office to me, with Hurney as the GM, doing all of the other responsibilities of a GM except player personnel.  Which would give Ron someone he trust in that regard.  Then by adding Mayhew with Kyle Smith to complete the roster rebuild with Kyle focusing on the draft and Mayhew focusing on trades and FA.  

Exactly. Ron already spoke about all the duties he had last year and how much work it was. Why would he bring in Hurney and fire Kyle? That's not gaining additional bodies to do the job. Mayhew is being brought in at the executive level, not a lateral move. So I'm not even sure if he'll be heavily involved in the day to day football operations. We'll see on that. I just think Hurney as GM and Kyle staying at VP of player personnel is a good way to go forward. Kyle just got promoted last year for god's sake. Who gets promoted after one year? As I look at front offices around the league, it's clear there is no standard way to structure it. But for certain, this front office needs work.  

 

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by joeken24
add

[Conn]

Edit: double post

Edited January 21, 2021 by ConnSKINS26

[CapsSkins]

3 hours ago, KDawg said:

Smith is a month younger than me and in a NFL front office. Therefore I am jealous of him. 
 

PS: Coach Rivera, I am available for interview. I can start the new position in about 12 minutes.

 

You have nobody to blame for this but yourself. You should have been smart like Kyle and been born Ozzie Newsome's kid.

[Going Commando]

3 hours ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

That said, I don't really want a GM that Dan would select, so it's a catch 22. 

 

This is why I figured Jason Wright should be the one to lead the GM hiring process.  We hired this super smart guy who is universally respected, kind of feels like he should be the one with the keys.

 

If not him, then the other way you get around the problem of a bad owner is to use an outside group of industry experts to consult on your management structure and give you the best people to interview and hire.

 

I just hope we bumbled our way into a workable structure.  We should let Hurney do the job he has been hired to do and give him GM power and duties.  Let him be the bridge between the coaching and training staffs, the players, the scouting departments, and the ownership group and upper management.  Let his vision be the one that unifies the rebuilding process and let him have the final call on free agency and draft picks.  He has a reputation as being a consensus builder, as such, he should be the one who gets to make the final calls.

[Thinking Skins]

3 hours ago, Riggo#44 said:

This is entirely possible too. I am a fan of Kyle Smith, based on the results of the past couple of off-seasons, but it's not solely his work. We thought highly of Morocco Brown, Scott Campbell, and Alex Santos in previous regimes. Brown is currently the Colts Director of College Scouting, and never really ascended past what he was here. He has gotten looks and interviews for GM roles, but nothing more. Campbell was easily replaced by Smith, and Santos...yeesh...was a total dirt bag.

4 hours ago, KDawg said:

The truth is there are only 32 GM positions across the league. There are a lot more scouting positions and assistant GM positions, and director of pro personnel positions and director of college personnel positions, so its hard to advance. Its kinda like the coaching side where there are 32 HCs but 64 coordinators and even more position coaches offering very limited ability to upgrade. 

 

But one thing that's been on my mind today is that we know that Santos was involved in this investigation. How much did Smith know? DId this information come out after his promotion? I don't want to accuse Smith of actually being involved, but the word was that the HR department was horrible in all of this. Who should be held responsible? How far up the chain does it go? 

 

This is unrelated to the quality of Kyle as a GM Candidate but more on the realm of somebody you can trust. One of the things about a culture is you don't want to say "eat healthy" and have the players catch you sneaking to McDonalds. If Kyle ignored these complaints or knew more than he was willing to take to the people that had power then it very well may be a legit reason for holding him back. 

[Riggo#44]

39 minutes ago, ConnSKINS26 said:

This is revisionist history, the case was this: they had inexplicably good reputations around the league according to the local media, and most people here didn’t understand why that kept being reported. Some figured they must be good sources getting kickbacks via positive buzz. There were some who assumed they must be competent but not being listened to by Vinny and then Allen—but really nobody valued these guys very highly when they were here, the way that some people love what they think Kyle Smith is. 

 

Maybe you're right--but as I recall, people were upset when Brown left. 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

18 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

This is why I figured Jason Wright should be the one to lead the GM hiring process.  We hired this super smart guy who is universally respected, kind of feels like he should be the one with the keys.

 

If not him, then the other way you get around the problem of a bad owner is to use an outside group of industry experts to consult on your management structure and give you the best people to interview and hire.

Agreed, however in typical Dan fashion, I doubt he would consult experts much less take their advice.  In fact, I'm not sure Wright would even be here without Ron, as he came afterwards.  But yes ideally, Jason Wright should have been hired before anyone to map out the org structure.

9 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

But one thing that's been on my mind today is that we know that Santos was involved in this investigation. How much did Smith know? DId this information come out after his promotion? I don't want to accuse Smith of actually being involved, but the word was that the HR department was horrible in all of this. Who should be held responsible? How far up the chain does it go? 

 

This is unrelated to the quality of Kyle as a GM Candidate but more on the realm of somebody you can trust. One of the things about a culture is you don't want to say "eat healthy" and have the players catch you sneaking to McDonalds. If Kyle ignored these complaints or knew more than he was willing to take to the people that had power then it very well may be a legit reason for holding him back. 

I would think Kyle would have been sent packing along with everyone else if he had anything to do with all that stuff.  Wouldn't say much about culture change if they knew he was a problem and held onto him because they felt they had to and then let him go once they found what they believe to be a qualified replacement.  

[Califan007 The Constipated]

5 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

Agreed, however in typical Dan fashion, I doubt he would consult experts much less take their advice.  In fact, I'm not sure Wright would even be here without Ron, as he came afterwards.  But yes ideally, Jason Wright should have been hired before anyone to map out the org structure.

 

I thought Wright dealt specifically with the business aspect of the franchise and not the football aspect?

 

Plus, can having a GM pick the coach and GM be considered "coach-centric"?

Edited January 21, 2021 by Califan007

[Riggo#44]

17 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

This is why I figured Jason Wright should be the one to lead the GM hiring process.  We hired this super smart guy who is universally respected, kind of feels like he should be the one with the keys.

 

Wright is the business side of the organization. We could say the same about Rivera though--a smart guy, universally respected. 

22 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

I just hope we bumbled our way into a workable structure.  We should let Hurney do the job he has been hired to do and give him GM power and duties.  Let him be the bridge between the coaching and training staffs, the players, the scouting departments, and the ownership group and upper management.  Let his vision be the one that unifies the rebuilding process and let him have the final call on free agency and draft picks.  He has a reputation as being a consensus builder, as such, he should be the one who gets to make the final calls.

 

Snyder bumbling his way into a workable situation is probably the only way he would get it right--sheer dumb luck. We'll see how this shakes out, but I think this is how it's going to work, with the exception that Rivera has final say over player personnel--which is fine, there are several successful organizations where this is the case. But we'll see.

12 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

somebody you can trust

This is the goal here--this is why Hurney was brought in, probably Mayhew too. Given the history of the chaos of this organization, this is critical to installing culture in my opinion. Under Allen and Cerrato, it was all politics, "don't answer your phone," back room bull****. Everyone on the same page, pulling in the same direction is more important right now than making some bold move in the front office.

[Est.1974]

Still no formal announcements yet? 
 

Are we waiting for a quiet news day, been busy over there, or still a move or two to finalise before announcing a full structure, or half in isolation re the COVID outbreak?

[Thinking Skins]

4 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

I would think Kyle would have been sent packing along with everyone else if he had anything to do with all that stuff.  Wouldn't say much about culture change if they knew he was a problem and held onto him because they felt they had to and then let him go once they found what they believe to be a qualified replacement.  

This is a sensitive subject and I can't really comment on this further without really getting into a bunch of what ifs and hypotheticals that aren't fair to sexual harrassment victims or to Kyle Smith and since I don't want to disrespect either side of this, I'm not going to say what should have happened. But I don't want to dismiss the possibility of there being more to this than we know.