Vinny said:
I think the largest failure in the scouting department was in how we valued the vets. It is pretty clear that we just made tons of poor scouting decisions in scouting veteran players. We brought guys in to start who never panned out and had a hard time finding a job in the league once they were released. Guys like Stevens, Mitchell, Clemons, Mack, James Allen, Jay Foreman (although he was average...but still had problems sticking with a team once we released him) were all brought in to start. Young and Boselli had injury issues, so I won't crucify Casserly for those, but the Todd Wade and Morlon Greenwood signings were horrible as well as over-paying Walker (I think aj called this one right off the bat), and jumping to re-sign Dom Davis too soon is another poor judgment issue imo. Pbuc speaks for itself. I'm not a big fan of the Carr extension either, but I kind of view that as a McNair loyalty thing. The buck stops with the guy in charge...so I think that Casserly was a clear cut failure in his term here.
I can agree with all of those, and I would add to them releasing Sharper and Glenn before their time (though both seem okay decisions now, given that neither had a standout season, but IMO we completely cut out our leadership at the time with that manuever)
Does anyone know how much control the GM has in contract negotiations? E.g. Wade, Walker, Greenwood, to name a few. As far as overpaying these guys (once the decision was made to keep or acquire them in the first place) Does blame fall to Ferens, or is this Casserly, or both?
I'm not writing off Dom Davis yet, not even for the cheddar we gave him. He has shown injury tendencies, sure, but to my knowledge none of his injuries are threatening to his career nor are they necessarily expected to continuously reoccur. When he is healthy, he is an effective back and has been grossly overused in recent years, so I am hoping Kubiak's offense and our new players will lighten his load some.
My only point was that Casserly has made some good decisions in his time, and is hardly the outright villain everyone makes him out to be. I still stand by the Carr decision (though given what he had to work with, it might be viewed as poor), AJ, Dunta, and we have had some real deals in later and even the mid rounds (Mathis, despite reports of maturity issues), Davis, Chester Pitts, and Peek, to name the ones that immediately come to mind) and of course whatever role he played in this year's offseason acquisitions. I am not sure you can expect the GM to disavow outright personnel requests from the coaching staff, and would still like to know more on the explicit contractual obligations/roles, if anyone has that information.
As I said, I am curious what the expected hit/miss ratio is for upper echelon NFL GMs. Every team drafts a stinker from time to time, and every team has picks that just never really pan out, so I am curious as to what we can reasonably expect of Casserly (or any other GM). Doesn't take the sting out of some of his boneheaded moments, but might help to put them in perspective.
(Who doesn't get paid other than just with the satisfaction that a fan's point of view has a chance to get heard).
