Quite simply, Nancy Gay has it all wrong. Pioli for president? There are several problems with her reasoning. Sure, it sounds good on face but Gay seems more enamored with the Patriots and Head Coach Bill Belichick than with Pioli. Let's look at her reasoning:
According to Gay, Pioli would be great because he has been a part of the personnel department of 4 NFL franchises. Guess what, Scott McCloughan was with Green Bay under legendary personnel man Ron Wolf and then with Seattle. In fact, Wolf went so far as to say that McCloughan, "has an exceptional eye for talent." Quite simply, the number of franchises you work for has nothing to do with your success rate. It just goes to show you that the good ol' boy network still works.
Gay seems to be in love with Belichick throughout her article. She heaps praise on him with comments like, "detail oriented" and "meticulous." She notes his impressive lists of candidates that is 10-12 coaches deep and further lauds Belichick's "impressive group of protegés."
That's all well and good, but when did Pioli become Belichick? Belichick might be detail oriented, but does that mean that Pioli is too? In heaping all this praise on one man who leads a successful team she forgot that Pioli is a different person with perhaps a different organizational style.
Oh, and my favorite part: Pioli's father-in-law is Bill Parcells. Really. You can't even make the whole "football runs in his genes" argument here because it's his father-in-law. News flash, Dick Nolan was Mike Nolan's father. Fat lotta good that did the former head coach.
She doesn't even delve into the nitty gritty of what a hire like Pioli would mean for the 49ers. Where would GM Scott McCloughan fall on the organizational chart? Would Pioli keep Singletary? Would Pioli come to a team where the coaching staff was set?
Gay asserts that continuity in the coaching ranks has been a major problem for the 49ers and she is spot on. But Pioli would have no control over this. Coaches would still come and go and he would be stuck drafting for coaches with different philosophies. Does he draft for the Mike Martz offense or a ball-control run-based offense that Singletary seems to prefer? Consistency would not come from Scott Pioli, it would come from the Yorks getting their act together and hiring a coach that will succeed in implementing a vision and a consistent philosophy on offense and defense.
Pioli would have no control over coaching, that's Scott McCloughan's job. Wait...er, um...McCloughan would be fired. Wait, then would Pioli keep Singletary or some other Belichick protegé in his stead? Wouldn't hiring Pioli kind of go against that whole continuity argument?
Scott Pioli is a great talent evaluator for the Belichick system. Belichick is a great coach. Does that mean that Pioli would fix all of the 49ers wrongs? No. Might he be an improvement? Perhaps, but there are just too many gaps in the reasoning. The heart of the 49ers problems lie with coaching and consistency. Scott Pioli does not fix either one of those problems.
