Here is a "hidden problem" we haven't addressed yet...

The Goat:

I assume that Bruce Allen will assemble his own staff.

If we are to take some of the responses here, then there is no scouting problem because all of these folks are "highly regarded" and inline with other NFL teams and all that stuff. If Bruce Allen doesn't find out WHY his predecessor(s) made the decisions they did, it is possible he will make similar decisions in the future. That is what I was trying to point out by saying it was a "hidden problem".

The scouts may indeed be OUTSTANDING but the process of aggregating info may have been flawed - - or maybe with Vinny The Goofball in charge the quality of the info did not matter.

But IF - - I said IF - - the scouts are less than fully competent, that is a whole different problem... And simply declaring their competencies without investigating to see what they said about specific players that you know about now, you are making your judgments on the basis of faith alone.

To All:

It's been swell, but I have to go and tend to my grandson who just woke up and needs some comforting. Despite what you folks think about me, I will be able to get him back into a restful sleep.


Happy New Year everyone. I probably won't be checking in here for a few days.


Stay well.

Assessing the scouting department is much like assessing assistant coaches but with an even higher level of the "fog of war". At least with assistants, you can see their charges in action. With scouts, it's hard to say if they gave good info that was ignored by the GM or if they were giving bad info that was accepted or some level in between.

It's late so I am not going to try and do a player by player analysis. It seems to me, through several comparisons that have been done in other threads, that our drafts are not too far off from the norm when it comes to producing players. Further, when you are playing the back ups to back ups as starters, it seems to me that finding someone who "can play" is a shot in the dark for the best scouting dept.

Sorry, with the exception of Rinehart, you're examples just don't get me worked up about the scouting dept. Huntley? Batiste? Come on - it's not like someone was intending these guys to come in and be starters - may be there was a hope that one of them may be able to step up. Some scout saw a flash - who knows. And - on the other hand, what about Doughty? Horton? Chris Wilson? Sellers? Golston? Aren't these late round finds and UFA's indictative of competent scouting?

There are lots of front office issues and systemic flaws most of which, IMO, can be traced back to Vinny "Wormtongue" Cerrato. Allen is supposed to be a team builder and people person i.e. the Anti-VC (wait - does them make him ARVN?).

All in all, while everything must should be examined, the scouting dept. strikes me as an area that may actually function well given a little consistent direction and teamwork oriented oversight.

But, hell, the scouts could just be sitting in a back room with a dart board and "Blame Vinny" sign.

I can't speak for any other fans, but i expect this to be a long and painful rebuilding process. I'm tired of us signing big names without any winning seasons to show for it. I don't care if it takes 3 or 4 years before to get it right. As long as we get it right. I don't want us to go out and try to build a team in one off season, because obviously it's not working for us.

Dude, the scouts hit on a lot of good players actually. The problem is we traded away too many picks. I think that stops now and if we have all our picks, we should hit on even more players overall (but not a higher %).

I don't expect it to be too long of a rebuilding process. We actually have a lot of good pieces:

Fred Davis
Devin Thomas
Marko Mitchell (he will pan out just wait)
Deangelo Hall
Albert Haynesworth
Brian Orakpo
Jeremy Jarmon
Rocky McIntosh
Laron Landry (will be fine when they don't need to play him out of position anymore)


All we need a good linebacker or two, 3 new starters on O-Line, probably a new QB, and to address the running back position.


We will be alright! Next year might not be great, but then again I wouldn't be suprised if we were decent. The season after next, I definitely expect to be a contender. Turn-arounds don't take all that long in the NFL; there's such great parity. This is especially true for big market teams where money is not an issue. I just hope Snyder continues his new trend of only going after free agents who are entering their primes and are very young. I doubt we trade any picks away for aging veterans ever again. That we will soon see was Vinny's biggest failure as an executive.

I love how people pick players over looked by us then point to them as a problem with our scouting. Then they find the picks of ours who have not lived up to their billing to support their arguement. This is just so easy to look back and find mistakes but you can do the same thing with 31 other teams every year.

I seem to recall them saying that they had Jackson rated higher but saw great potential out of Thomas; I'm sure that they preferred his frame too.

Smootsmack:

Yeah, I realize that being a curmudgeon means pointing out the turds in the punchbowl more than once in a while. But at least this time I can say it was "before the fact" and not "after the fact".

Seems like you're complaining about things after the fact. We're not going crystal ball here are we?

I can't speak for any other fans, but i expect this to be a long and painful rebuilding process. I'm tired of us signing big names without any winning seasons to show for it. I don't care if it takes 3 or 4 years before to get it right. As long as we get it right. I don't want us to go out and try to build a team in one off season, because obviously it's not working for us.

:food-smil