So, I've been thinking about the situation we're in right now. We all know what's up, plenty of discussion about it. Singletary is not likely to be Head Coach next year... if he even makes it that far. If he doesn't make it until the end of the season, we all know the list of scenarios and the pros and cons of each. It's a bummer of a situation.
Anyway, this got me thinking about what we're going to do next season. I've read a bunch of articles, looked at the resumes of a bunch of candidates, etc....
Then I read Matt Maiocco's recent article about coaching issues and he brought up a good point about the possibility of a truncated 2011 offseason. This is a major concern of mine because I do not see the CBA situation being resolved quickly. If that is the case, Maiocco brought up another great point that a new coaching staff may only have a couple weeks to prepare for the regular season. This would obviously cause numerous problems, the largest of which is that it may be difficult to convince a new coach to take on that situation.
So, my question to everyone is this:
Why don't we hire a true General Manager now?
Here's my reasoning behind the query:
At the moment we have what is essentially an interim General Manager. Jed York obviously likes the structure that he has in place because it gives him power and makes every else in the front office his peons. The current front office is basically like a conglomerate of many individual positions each with one of the responsibilities that a full General Manager would have with Jed at the top as President & CEO. This basically makes Jed a useless waste of space in a suit who is pretending to be managing a football team, when in fact he is just making the stupid decisions about what Head Coach we hire while everyone else does all the actual work. So, that's the current system in as small a nutshell as I could fit it.
The current situation is similar to the one we had before Scott McCloughan and the organization had a "mutual parting". Scott's job seems to have just been split up between two other people as far as I can tell. I believe that this was announced as the permanent solution, but I still view it as a kind of "interim" GM... conglomerate thingy.
Paraag Marathe as we all know is supposed to be the "contract guy" and his position is "Executive Vice President, Football & Business Operations". I'm not so certain what his duties are... there are things that make you wonder how much power he actually has. I'll leave that for another discussion.
Trent Baalke is the "Vice President of Player Personnel", which is really just another way to say GM, as this is what the media and fans consider most important. The guy who decides what players are signed and drafted.
Lal Heneghan is the "Executive Vice President, Football Administration". Now, as I understand it, this is the guy who normally handles contract negotiations and salary cap. (So, what exactly does Paraag do again?) My understanding is that Lal and Trent basically split Scott's duties. I could be way off base on this, correct me if I'm wrong.
In my opinion, this structure is complete garbage. It needs to be tossed in the bin and taken to the landfill. If this organization is to thrive again, a real experienced football mind needs to be brought in and given control of all of these aspects of the front office. Jed needs to put his ego aside and bring in someone who actually knows what they are doing... because they've done it before with success. Who knows, maybe Jed will actually learn a thing or two and after Jed inherits the team, our ownership might actually be football Savvy.
So, that brings me back to the point that I wanted to make with this thread. Considering our current Head Coaching situation and the possibility of a truncated offseason, would it be a good idea to find the guy for the job right now?
My reasoning is that if we bring in someone who is experienced as a Head Coach, understands schemes on both sides of the ball, can analyze players and assistant coaches, and knows how to run a football organization, we can get a head start on the process of planning for next season. As far as I understand it, the GM at this point is mostly focused on contract negotiations and college scouting. We have the guys in place to do that already and they aren't bad at what they do, we just need someone to bring it all together to form the bigger picture. Right now, that guy is Jed York. He has no clue what he's doing. He needs to bring in help as soon as possible so that we are not left in the dust by all the other teams with established coaching staffs next season.
An experienced knowledgeable GM could figure out what players are worth keeping, what players to target in the offseason, what schemes fit our personnel best, and what coaches will be available to best implement those schemes.
So? Anyone think this is a viable option? Other than Jed's ego is there anything standing in the way of this idea being a good one?
If it sounds like a good idea, who might be a good candidate?
I'm at a loss there... I'm having a hard time remembering who's available. I'll do some more research on a candidate if anyone thinks it's a good idea.
Oh... and sorry for the length. My fingers don't know when to stop.
If you read it... thanks.
