GM discussion: Are you happy with your teams current GM?

[vikingsrule]

1 hour ago, Ty21 said:

I still think it’s wild that you guys had 3 theoretically viable (at the time) starting QBs a few years ago in Bridge, Bradford, and Keenum and I was wondering which they would choose to keep on and they went with zero of them and won. 

Had they not traded for Bradford, they very well could have drafted Mahomes or Watson the following year. With Bradford, the Vikes had the 13th pick sent to Philly, probably would have been a few games worse if Shaun Hill started all year. 

They’ve managed through the Teddy injury, he honestly wasn’t all that great and Cousins is the better QB at the end of the day. 

[JAF-N72EX]

Some nice write-ups from everyone. It's always interesting to read how each fan views their FO. We always hear opinions about coaches and players so I think it's a good change of pace to hear about GM's and other pieces from the FO.  

A couple nice note-worthy quotes here.

16 hours ago, Jakuvious said:

We also whiff on one mid-round defensive lineman almost every draft. Kpassagnon, Speaks, and Saunders are all probably busts at this point. But that's getting more nitpicky. No GM will hit every draft pick. Almost every GM is going to whiff an entire draft at some point, honestly. Part of the deal.

This cannot be said enough. It also seems like some people have too high of expectation's when it comes to draft selections in general. To me, if you can find 2 or 3 contributors  in a single draft then you're doing very well. (they don't have to be all-pro). 

 

9 hours ago, Forge said:

Adam Peters has been a rising FO star since we snagged him from Denver, and there's a chance that he's a GM this off season. Martin Mayhew has GM experience and has been with the 49ers from the start and been considered a valuable asset. Hell, Demeco Ryans was the one who "discovered" Dre Greenlaw for the team. Paraag, who is our finances guy and cap wizard, is the guys who negotiated the trade with the bears to move down so they could trade Mitch Trubisky if I remember the article from Peter King right. 

I've never hated a guy I don't even know so much in my life as I do Parag right now. Thanks Forge.

 

 

[SteelKing728]

I think Spielman is good but not great.

He finally addressed the OL with high draft capital. Bradbury, Cleveland and O'Neill are all average-good players. We took a shot at Elflein but he just didn't work out for us. I give him credit for that.

We haven't drafted a first round DE in over a decade yet we still find a ton of success from mid to late round DEs. Robison, Edwards, Hunter, Griffen, Weatherly and Odenigbo have all been very good for us. DJ Wonnum is next. You can see it in him.

We just do well with the draft in general.

However...

The Bradford trade was such a joke. I get it, but he should have been more aggressive in getting Foles earlier that offseason instead of KC. I'll always hate Bradford but Spielman is the one to blame. We essentially got nothing out of our 2017 1st round pick except another 8-8 season that started off so hot.

Basically our first round picks from 16-18 were awful (Treadwell, Bradford and Hughes). We threw away the prime of our defense because of those moves.

He still doesn't care at all about the backup QB position.

The Ngakoue trade away was stupid. Just stupid.

again, good but not great. 

[KingOfNewYork]

Douglas looks good so far. No GM will hit on every move but he's laying a strong foundation. His rookie class looks legit so far. 

[Zalixar]

Not really.

 

Keim hit it off once when we were good back with Palmer, but overall he is pretty flawed.  He comes up big and buys some time, so a lot of issues kinda disappear for awhile. 

Then we do poor with the flaws all out on display and everyone wants his head and then when we think he may go, he goes bold and hits pretty well, but really has underlying issues with the roster that is ultimately on him.  Kyler is not getting enough help, and with his injury he is struggling and everything is on edge.  So the pressure is mounting on him and Kliff.  

Hopefully we turn it around this season, I would like us to see what we are like in the playoffs when we are going pretty smooth.  Chandler Jones gone has really hurt and Fitz being out the last 2 games really showed how impactful he is.  Hopefully Kyler's arm gets better soon.

He does his best with free agency and draft picks are eh a decent amount of the time.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Zalixar

[ronjon1990]

Some love Mayock for the random hits, but I cannot stand his draft and FA strategies. 

Dude came into 5 first round picks and 10 top-100 picks in his first 2 years and found us a franchise RB, a solid CB,  2 straight reaches with our first picks, an injury prone (and risk to our own players) S who draws penalties like crazy, a gadget player we cut, a WR coming off injury, a guy so bad at his position we make up reasons to keep him off the field, and gave up one of the picks for Antonio Brown's headache that was bound to be cut by Pittsburgh. 

Then, with good cap space, we spent like crazy to get an overpriced WR who barely plays, a T who barely plays or even gets in playing shape, a S we use as a Nickel CB despite repeatedly failing, 1 good and 1 decent but replaceable LB, a 100 year old 4th TE, the highest paid backup QB in the league who never played well in Tennessee and hasn't even been healthy enough to play here if needed,  an overpriced rotational DE, a useless DT, a solid WR, and 5 guys just this year who didn't even make the team's expanded practice squad. 

There's such a small smattering of good infused into the overal wtf? that some defend his every move. But we're hardly "improved" as a team, rather we just got better in some places (WR) but worse in others (Defense). We're still a team lucky to win 10 games, despite glimpses of hope, pounding the table week after week about the exact same issues, only to watch those issues be addressed with projects on draft day when objectively better talent is available. And we're in bad enough cap space that some of our fanbase is actually calling for us to move on from our near-MVP level playing QB to make room. 

I know we're all technically "amateurs" here, but I think at least some of us genuinely could've managed to do a better overall job than Mayock with what he was given. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by ronjon1990

[Apparition]

It's Belichick. 

Having Belichick as your GM is like having parents who do all their grocery shopping at Aldi, but are also somehow world-class chefs. They rarely buy you the stuff you're hoping for, but the older you get, the more you appreciate their cooking. 

[JAF-N72EX]

1 hour ago, Zalixar said:

Not really.

 

Keim hit it off once when we were good back with Palmer, but overall he is pretty flawed.  He comes up big and buys some time, so a lot of issues kinda disappear for awhile. 

Then we do poor with the flaws all out on display and everyone wants his head and then when we think he may go, he goes bold and hits pretty well, but really has underlying issues with the roster that is ultimately on him.  Kyler is not getting enough help, and with his injury he is struggling and everything is on edge.  So the pressure is mounting on him and Kliff.  

Hopefully we turn it around this season, I would like us to see what we are like in the playoffs when we are going pretty smooth.  Chandler Jones gone has really hurt and Fitz being out the last 2 games really showed how impactful he is.  Hopefully Kyler's arm gets better soon.

He does his best with free agency and draft picks are eh a decent amount of the time.

Would this be a fair assessment of his draft picks overall, in your opinion?

Steve Kiem

1st Round picks
2013: 1.07: OL Jonathan Cooper = BUST
2014: 1.27: DB Deone Bucannon = BUST
2015: 1.24: OL DJ Humphries = Good when healthy.
2016: 1.29: DL Robert Nkemdiche = BUST
2017: 1.13: LB Haason Reddick = BUST
2018: 1.10: QB Josh Rosen = BUST
2019: 1.01: QB Kyle Murray = Too early to tell but looks good so far.
2020: 1.08: LB Isaiah Simmons = Too early to tell but it doesn't look good so far.

Overall: 12.5% Success Rate -- 62.5% Bust rate. 8 picks, 1 good, 5 busts, 2 too early.

 

[JAF-N72EX]

6 minutes ago, Starless said:

It's Belichick. 

Having Belichick as your GM is like having parents who do all their grocery shopping at Aldi, but are also somehow world-class chefs. They rarely buy you the stuff you're hoping for, but the older you get, the more you appreciate their cooking. 

Belichick is tricky for sure. IMO, he's the greatest HC of all time but very average as a GM in comparison to the rest of the league. But then again he's also fighting Kraft too so...

[Wyld Stallyns]

My confidence in Chris Ballard lies not only in the moves he’s made, but in some part, to the moves he didn’t make 

G Andrew Norwell

LB CJ Mosley

S Landon Collins 

The Colts were rumored to be in discussion with all three of these players in free agency in 2018 and 2019 but wouldn’t budge on their price. (Instead drafting Nelson in 2018 and Okereke and Willis in 2019) 

Ballard insisted when he was hired that he wasn’t just going to throw money out there to players unless they proved it on the field and to the locker room. His first contract was extending TE Jack Doyle a player who was Frank Gore’s favorite teammate. Later trading TE Dwayne Allen to dump his contract. 

He also traded WR Phillip Dorsett, a first round bust, to acquire Jacoby Brissett after Andrew Luck was confirmed to miss the first half (and later all) of the 2017 season.

Ballard stressed competition at all positions and in most cases this bore out in training camp but in some cases this was not held to the standard one would expect. 
One instance would be the OL when Ballard arrived in 2017. He was very complimentary of the them pre draft, talking about how well they worked together and the camaraderie between the players. He drafted only 1 OL (Zach Banner) who didn’t make it to the 53 man roster. And ended up drafting Nelson and Smith in the first 37 picks of the next draft. (Also must be said that Grigson’s last draft in 2016 supplied 3 OL; C Ryan Kelly, T Le’Raven Clark and G/T Joe Haeg) 

[Apparition]

3 minutes ago, JAF-N72EX said:

Belichick is tricky for sure. IMO, he's the greatest HC of all time but very average as a GM in comparison to the rest of the league. But then again he's also fighting Kraft too so...

Any conflict he might have with Kraft is almost certainly overstated. 

Belichick is well above average as a GM because he recognizes value extremely well. His much maligned drafting ability is only one piece of the puzzle. And even that gets overstated because he has a lengthy track record of finding excellent undrafted players. If you can bring in guys like JC Jackson, David Andrews, Adam Butler, Jakobi Meyers and Jonathan Jones as UDFAs and have them play at the level they do, that absolutely mitigates any failures you may have in drafting players at those same positions.

Of course, I wish he'd change his approach to evaluating *cough* certain positions *cough* but there isn't a GM in the league who doesn't have a blind spot or two. 

[JAF-N72EX]

Just now, Starless said:

Any conflict he might have with Kraft is almost certainly overstated. 

Belichick is well above average as a GM because he recognizes value extremely well. His much maligned drafting ability is only one piece of the puzzle. And even that gets overstated because he has a lengthy track record of finding excellent undrafted players. If you can bring in guys like JC Jackson, David Andrews, Adam Butler, Jakobi Meyers and Jonathan Jones as UDFAs and have them play at the level they do, that absolutely mitigates any failures you may have in drafting players at those same positions.

Of course, I wish he'd change his approach to evaluating *cough* certain positions *cough* but there isn't a GM in the league who doesn't have a blind spot or two. 

That's fair. And you're right.  My opinion of him, as an outsider, is judging him based mostly on his drafts as a GM and that isn't right either because there are much more pieces to the puzzle to being a GM. 

[Apparition]

11 minutes ago, JAF-N72EX said:

That's fair. And you're right.  My opinion of him, as an outsider, is judging him based mostly on his drafts as a GM and that isn't right either because there are much more pieces to the puzzle to being a GM. 

Right. He's also brought in a bunch of veteran FAs on bargain contracts and gotten amazing production out of them. Mike Vrabel, Rodney Harrison, Rob Ninkovich, Rex Burkhead, Danny Amendola, Roman Phifer, David Patten... I could go on. And that's not even counting the one-year rentals like Revis, Bryan Cox and Brian Waters. 

But even more impressive is that in 20 years the only real high-profile free agent bust to his name was Adalius Thomas. 

 

Now, having said all that, his acuity as a GM is going to receive much greater scrutiny in the post-Brady era. If he can successfully rebuild this team into a contender within the next year or two, that should leave no doubt about his methodology. But if the team languishes in mediocrity for an extended period, that's going to hurt his reputation on several levels. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Starless

[Zalixar]

46 minutes ago, JAF-N72EX said:

Would this be a fair assessment of his draft picks overall, in your opinion?

Steve Kiem

1st Round picks
2013: 1.07: OL Jonathan Cooper = BUST
2014: 1.27: DB Deone Bucannon = BUST
2015: 1.24: OL DJ Humphries = Good when healthy.
2016: 1.29: DL Robert Nkemdiche = BUST
2017: 1.13: LB Haason Reddick = BUST
2018: 1.10: QB Josh Rosen = BUST
2019: 1.01: QB Kyle Murray = Too early to tell but looks good so far.
2020: 1.08: LB Isaiah Simmons = Too early to tell but it doesn't look good so far.

Overall: 12.5% Success Rate -- 62.5% Bust rate. 8 picks, 1 good, 5 busts, 2 too early.

 

Deone was actually serviceable for a year or two, but yeah, nothing after that.

 

DJ has been pretty good, took a few years to come into his own.

 

Reddick was terrible except for this year, when we finally put him back in his natural position he has actually done pretty okay.  Not 1st round status, but man, his growth was stunted.

Simmons has actually come on pretty strong the last few games.  He was awful early on and played very very limited.  Honestly, he is looking pretty good which is nice.

 

[JAF-N72EX]

20 minutes ago, Starless said:

Right. He's also brought in a bunch of veteran FAs on bargain contracts and gotten amazing production out of them. Mike Vrabel, Rodney Harrison, Rob Ninkovich, Rex Burkhead, Danny Amendola, Roman Phifer, David Patten... I could go on. And that's not even counting the one-year rentals like Revis, Bryan Cox and Brian Waters. 

But even more impressive is that in 20 years the only real high-profile free agent bust to his name was Adalius Thomas. 

 

Now, having said all that, his acuity as a GM is going to receive much greater scrutiny in the post-Brady era. If he can successfully rebuild this team into a contender within the next year or two, that should leave no doubt about his methodology. But if the team languishes in mediocrity for an extended period, that's going to hurt his reputation on several levels. 

Yes and no. IMO, Belichick's legacy is already set in stone. It doesn't matter what happens from this point forward.

But yes, there is something to say about him if he is able to lose a HOF QB and still build/maintain a competitive team afterwards. But even if he isn't able to do that, I don't think it's going to tarnish his legacy at all.