What happens with Kyle Smith?

[Scalper]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Well I disagree about the "rarity" of him, because we have fed the league a dozen diamond in the roughs. But, no one in the league is seeing him as GM material so I don't want us promoting someone out of their ability. Mayhew has demonstrated that he can run professional football organizations, and that's what the WFT needs. I don't wish him ill, in fact I hope he succeeds. Just seems like this fanbase wants change but not THAT change.

You bring up an interesting point. Is the GM primarily administrator, or talent evaluator? Both. Skilled administrators are not hard to find. Skilled talent evaluators are. Mayhew's record of talent acquisition and evaluation is mediocre, neither great nor horrible. None of us were in the room, so we can't know how much Smith has ultimately been responsible for talent we have, but those who were in the building such as Shanny say he is very, very sharp.

I hate letting Smith walk and bringing in Hurney and Mayhew, but this is not as obvious as say the need to draft a QB and not trade for one. We had about a third of the young guru coaches in the league in our building, but didn't have the sense to keep any. Only time will tell if we made same mistake with Smith, but if Atlanta is stacked with talent in two years, and our drafts look mediocre, we'll know. It is telling that it took Smith less than a week to find a new job.

If we are evaluating Smith fairly, however, we must give him credit for our DL and gems like McLaurin, Gibson, Curl, etc., but also some of the gaping holes at WR, TE, etc. He gets a pass on QB because THE DAN meddled, forcing Haskins on him, as well as the albatross contract of Smith, who while a feel good story has never won anything. We can only wonder where we would be if Smith had been free to not trade for Smith nor draft Haskins, but rather had been allowed to pick the QBs he scouted as being the best. THE DAN'S meddling is just insane, burdens us with $20M+ Smith cap hit after trading our best young corner and a 3rd, plus wastes another 1st on Haskins. Plus if we had kept and resigned Fuller, we would have had an additional comp pick.

We can never know, but I think this hire comes down to two things: (1) Smith wanted to take a more long-term draft oriented approach, and Riviera like all coaches except a few has to be concerned about short-term production to keep his job. Developing a non-top-tier QB over 1-2 years is not how new coaches keep their job. Case study in why GM should be above coach in hierarchy. (2) Given THE DAN'S meddling and overall history of organization, RR wants people who are emphatically loyal to him.

It would have been interesting to see who Smith would have drafted for us at QB this year if given latitude to build the right way, but we'll never know. . .