bmags

Yeah I had no idea he wasn't the heir apparent, was reading the steelersdepot blog and it seems like their scouting coordinator is likely to take over. It mentioned Khan was nearly the Houston Texans GM last year which I did not remember. So it definitely seems real. Dodds Smith and Khan are my top 3 for sure. Really excited.

That honestly is a very weird situation with the owner having priorities in both opportunities for a coach. It definitely makes sense if Harbaugh is leaving that this owner would know. But Harbaugh is gonna get a blank check pretty much everywhere. That owner seems like such a pushover, I can't see him axing his bestie GM to install JH.

looking back at the interview lists in 2015 compared to now, I'm feeling very good.

Athletic skilled bigs kill everyone. There is no answer for Giannis on any team.

I mean yeah if they hire Leslie Frazier that is bad process but they do enough dumb stuff that I don't also get annoyed about dumb stuff they haven't done. A week ago this forum was all about their dumb process of how they'd keep pace. Then they fired him and everyone went seamlessly to their dumb process of whose hiring the next. ANd now how they are...um...interviewing candidates.

I can't wait to get Caruso back. This is going to be an intense stretch of basketball. Our last competitive run we still weren't sure what we had. Now we think we do so it's going to be nailbiting trying to hang on as long as possible. We were such a bad matchup with Embiid in November, I am not looking forward to Giannis.

This is getting mad just to be mad. These interviews are virtual, they can record them and pass them to the next GM. They can see which head coaches are looking for personnel power and make that decision. The actual list of HC and GMs to date has been excellent, with a diverse mix of scouts vs cap vs operations. Coaches have been mix of veterans, defensive coordinators and offensive guys.

We'll see if they get rebuffed by anyone, but the bears are asking all the right people. Now asking Omar Khan to interview, who I deem as low likelihood with Kevin Colbert retiring, but still would be great to hear from. On Khan's side, he may in fact interview just to try and force pitt into announcing him being placed in charge?

Rick Smith now confirmed via Dan Wiederer so ...yeah Dabearsblog is on top of this search and worth following.

If his agent wasn't trying to get him a raise with all this buzz he should fire him and go get Jimmy Sexton immediately. The guy is going to get paid a lot. But whatever decision he makes, he'll be both richer and have not made the decision based on money. Pretty sweet actually

I don't think you can completely discount Leftwich. For one, I like that he has had several years under him, not the third, one year iteration of his offensive coordinator. I also look at that AZ thing as a positive. They did modestly improve with him, he had a truly horrendous QB and awful offensive line. He had to simplify everything and get David Johnson involved. Then he goes and works in Tampa with much better skill positions and gets Watson to have a career year, and then he gets Tom Brady. That's a good amount of experience. I've also always liked him since Marshall. Not my top 3 choices though.

Man turning that dolphins team last year into a 10 win team was one of the more impressive coaching feats I've ever seen. That roster was just a collection of stuff from the previous year. With awful QB play the first half between Tua and then injury, they still got to a winning record this year. That's pretty damn good.

I don't know man this guy seems up your alley https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/barry-jackson/article256841207.html

Yeah I'm happy about that. I still am not totally sure the background but it sure seems like most are rallying to his side. Feels like in general when there is an organizational power struggle the guy pushed out has been the better one in the NFL (bill o'brien-rick smith, Harbaugh-Baalke). So, I only have two examples actually.

Harbaugh got a lot of credit for improving Alex Smith's play in San Fran, and hired Roman. Among the reason you hire Harbaugh is he should be able to put together a terrific staff. The idea that you are hiring a head coach to do a very specific job just seems flawed. And a lot of people have reminded people of McVay, including Nagy. It's not easy to recreate. Moore has an incredible offensive set of talent to work with. McVay and Shanahan were doing excellent stuff on a pretty crappy Redskins offense. It's really hard to parse that stuff. Not to say Moore will be bad, but it's not obvious that it all will translate.

I also have just heard good things about what Cleveland is doing in their front office. Baker's injuries and muted play have capped that team a bit when their defense can't dominate. But, it's a good exercise to look back and see that the late 90s, early 00s Chicago Bears front office somehow had a ton of great scouting and front office talent and yet we had garbage results. He definitely would need to pair himself with good talent scouts, but I wouldn't be surprised if even in our building there is plenty to work with.

Leftwich now too. Also enjoyed this. Basically no rhyme or reason to hiring, but as I said the college coaches bias is overblown. All coaches are terrible, we just remember college coaches more because they are novel and usually dominated their previous level: https://github.com/mnhardy-da/NFL-Head-Coach-Study/blob/main/2022 NFL Head Coaching Study v2.ipynb

More good stuff here re: GMs to keep in mind:

I will say re: Harbaugh I don't know if it's as much wanting absolute say in personnel like Gruden or making sure he doesn't get stabbed in the back like he was with Baalke.

The real, short answer is I liked this profile a lot, and before he was with the Browns he was coming through ops and analytics depts in San Francisco. https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/new-vp-of-football-ops-kwesi-adofo-mensah-knows-what-it-takes-to-win-ready-to-wo I also read this article, from a writer I often don't like because I think he's a front runner, but it was very persuasive https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/1/6/22869889/nfl-coaching-carousel-avoid-mistakes So I may be drawn more to non-scout hires. In Baseball, virtually every org now is pretty damn smart, and the GMs they hire vary in background from scouting to analytics, but a lot of Asst GMs have good experience running large organizations. In Basketball, they don't just hire good scouts to GMs but now people with good player relationships, or player development, cap management, etc. In football for GMs you target good scout dept leads from the teams that drafted well and hope to recreate that. For coaches you hire good offensive or defensive coordinators and hope they can recreate that in a higher role. That's it, and it seems a complete crapshoot. The article points out some of the top and longest lasting GMs now weren't scouts but came from cap management side and operations - Howie Roseman, Mickey Loomis, and Brandon Beane. The GM role means handling a large organization, needing to smartly handle the cap, and crucially unlike baseball where your talent pipelines are largely set each year (or basketball where it's basically one pick a year), in football that can change drastically based on decisions of the GM. So you can have someone who is a good scout, find great players, but not balance out what it takes to acquire those players vs the cap and depth needed. Hi Ryan Pace. And unless you are Ozzie Newsome, draft success ebbs and flows, and if the first few years miss, good luck. In short, I like his profile.

From the guy I called having a temper tantrum earlier

Happy about this

I read Bias in your post as being negative, not positive but yea I agree it helps. Would love Rick Smith. Would also really like Trace Armstrong

I don’t know man. If you aren’t a good coordinator I feel like you aren’t at bare minimum a good teacher and leader. And wow, he wasn’t really a good coordinator anywhere before Bills

Because they don’t want to appear to be leading the choices?