Jaguars interviewing former Texans GM Rick Smith for GM opening

[.Buzz]

I'd be A-Ok with this one.

[ET80]

I wrote this up earlier - think I even shared this with you, but it's a fair synopsis on Rick Smith:

On 12/8/2020 at 5:47 PM, ET80 said:

Rick Smith - there's a guy we haven't heard from in a while. You're right, he did leave to tend to his wife Tiffany (who did eventually pass away from breast cancer). However, there was a lot of friction between Smith and Bill O'Brien, so that played into it as well (but, EVERYONE didn't like O'Brien).

Strengths:

- GREAT talent evaluator in the first round. From 2007-2017, Smith only missed on two FRPs (DT Amobi Okoye and CB Kevin Johnson). Outside of that, he gets guys like Duane Brown, Brian Cushing, Kareem Jackson, JJ Watt, Whitney Mercilius, DeAndre Hopkins, Jadevion Clowney, Will Fuller, Deshaun Watson - he has an eye for talent in this round, he's hitting .800 in that respect.

- He can find some good UDFAs. Not just ST guys, but starters and borderline elite players such as Arian Foster, AJ Bouye, Case Keenum.

- Manages a cap as well as anyone else. Up until BoB's tenure, the Texans never had cap issues. They made some interesting decisions (more on that later) but the Texans always had a healthy cap situation on their hands. 

- He's very connected in the league. He's served on various diversity committees, and is always in good graces with the competetion committee and such. Very well respected as a GM, can pick up the phone and get to work with pretty much every GM in some capacity.

Weaknesses:

- His evaluation from rounds 2-7 is abysmal. In that same 07-17 range, he's only found guys such as Bernardrick McKinney, Zach Cunningham, Brandon Brooks, Glover Quin and Derek Netwon outside of the first; If he's hitting .800 in the first round, he's hitting .085 beyond the first round. 

- He lets key guys walk away for nothing. Brooks, Quin and Bouye were allowed to walk without a fight; These were home grown bodies you developed and when the time came to keep them, he let them walk away. Those were some key positions the Texans are still trying to resolve. (Maybe this is why the cap was so well managed?)

- His eye for FAs is hit or miss. He finds a few filler guys to fit into spots, and he had a huge coup when he opted to bring in Jonathan Joseph over Nnamdi Asomugha, but his other moves has been nothing special; Ed Reed, Ahman Green, Vince Wilfork - paying big money to aging vets isn't good business.

So, there's good - but there's bad too. Gotta take it all together. Maybe time off has cleared that up? Not sure, guess we'll find out.

Good luck!

So, not a horrible hire - not in the least. But not exactly a perfect hire either. Then again, who is?

I've softened my stance on Smith - I still think the tail end of his tenure was a mess, even before Bill O'Brien was in Houston. But, I can't ignore his management of the cap and his track record of FRPs. He's also a pretty good guy, he did a lot of things for the Houston medical community that never gets talked about - his wife Tiffany had breast cancer and unfortunately passed away. 

I'm really pulling for him, all things considered. There's an excellent piece on Smith in The Athletic - I suggest people read it, it's a great look into the road he traveled up to and following his wife's passing.

[Texansfan713]

One thing I want to add is I think Rick Smith's tenure as GM became bad when Schaub imploded.  When we had Schaub, Smith was in talks to becoming one of the top GM's in the league.  When Kubiak got fired I knew for a fact him and O'Brien wouldn't get along.

[Uncle Buck]

Sounds like a guy to keep on the "list of possibilities," but keep on looking for an even better candidate at the same time.