Rotoworld ranks the NFL's best owners; Ross 29th

I think that approach would be at least as good as what most GMs do.

Where I think some teams are better than others is having a vision for how certain players may fit into their scheme and having a vision for that player. I think Wes Welker is an example. The Pats didn't evaluate his talent with any particular level of greatness -- they bypassed him in every round of the draft just like every other NFL team and then didn't bother to pick him up when he was released by SD. But after seeing a glimpse of what he did here, it seems like they had a vision for the slot receiver position and recognized that he fit into it perfectly. A lot of people viewed that slot role as a second-rate role that could be filled by just about anyone, but I think they recognized before most other teams that those short routes were so easy to compelte and so hard to stop and there was no good reason not to throw that pass 150+ times a year. Welker was a perfect fit. But they also realized that despite his great success, there are other guys who can do the same thing. And they have plugged in guys like Edelman and Amendola with similar results.

 

Presenting Football according to Stringer Bell:

 

Welcome to the ol' boys club. After that the poison pill died. NE and Miami made a trade just so they wouldn't have to use it.

A lot of ifs, maybes, ands and buts to support your argument there.

35 years? Again you keep moving the goalposts and focusing only on draft picks. Running an NFL is more than draft picks, and it includes front office, coaching, free agency, etc. etc. Nobody said Pit was infallible, but you want to narrow the argument enough where your position isn't so ridiculous.

You keep ducking the Lions organization and the missteps they've taken. I've asked twice at least, how "luck" is involved when you hold on to Matt Millen for so long. In order for your theory to hold, it was luck, and not bad decisions, that caused Millen's tenure with the Lions to be so disastrous.

It is luck that Millen decided to draft WR's in the first round 3 years in a row. HE was given 7 years. Let me guess, he needed 8 to find his good luck.

Until you can answer that, your position holds no water. Millen was a terrible GM, and he was given 7 years by the Fords. Explain how luck was the reason for that.

Also explain the Raiders under Davis' senile rule. If it's all a matter of luck you wouldn't see the obvious decline in the Raiders once Davis went senile.

Running a football team is more than just draft picks.

 

I have no idea why you are even posting on any football forum. You equate the game of football to a game of luck. You infer that ownership, personnel decisions, and even coaching has nothing to do with the outcome, but is merely nothing but roll of the dice as to who will win and lose on any given game day.

You can state all you want that it is primarily luck, but give me a great owner, a GM who knows talent and a top tier head coach and I'll beat your dumb luck, 9 out of 10 times. I'll give you one victory because we all know that on any given game day, even the worst team can rise up and beat the best team. Even in that one win, it isn't luck which allows the underdog to beat the favorite. It is usually the fact that the better team just doesn't get up to play the underdog on that particular day and luck has nothing to do with it.

 

nahhh, I'm not going there,it's too silly and unfounded..

 

Do you think NFL GMs are better and evaluating talent than posters on the forum?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

yes because they have access they we don't, but inherently no.

 

I agree. This article is saying all that matters is whose winning (while that's true for the HC and the players, its a lot harder to put wins and losses on an owner). Basically lets Irsay slide for making a public *** of himself this year. Irsay should be #32. If you yourself are the most embarrassing part of your own franchise, you don't deserve to be #12.

 

Still ducking the Lions question. Your silence is deafening.

Ok two expansion teams. I get John Schneider, and Pete Carroll. Recent success but not long term.

You get Matt Millen, 7 year GM veteran and Tony Sparano to coach them.

Luck will decide the more successful team right?

 

Its inevitable that in a game of luck, 1 out of 32 teams will be consistently bad. Thats how probabilities work. You can do the math and figure out the likelihood.

Yes, whoever ends up with the #1 pick when Andrew Luck is coming out will most likely be more successful.

EDIT: how do they decide draft position for expansion teams?

 

And who is the best at evaluating talent on this forum?

My guess is that out of the many people here who could do as well of a job evaluating talent as NFL GMs, you can't point to any single poster as being the best talent evaluator.

 

The name of the games to be a little better than the other guys, 1 player can change the dynamics of a team, over the course of a few years, that one player can turn into 3, 4, 5 players that you got ahead with because you used your individual talent to make a conscious intuitive decision instead of reading the stats of what the majority consensus was.

So basically, your theory is the perfect way to stay average, mine relies on skill.

 

So a guy like Bill Parcells who takes over in NE and gets them to the super bowl after being really bad, goes to the Jets who just went 3-13 and 1-15, take them to the playoffs. Go to Dallas where they were mired in 5-11 teams and take them to the playoffs, go to Miami after an obvious decline and a 1-15 season and take them to the playoffs. He never won a Superbowl outside of NYG but he obviously improved every single team he was somewhat in control over.

Anyway we're not going to change each others minds but I find it funny, you say it's the odds or luck of the draw that kept Lions so crappy for so long, and NOT the decision to keep Millen around for 7 years. You are actually arguing that keeping Millen as GM was not a bad decision. That's what you have to argue, in order to say it was luck that makes them consistently bad. So keeping Millen was not a bad decision?

 

On the Lions/Millen thing, the truth is you have no idea if the bad results were because Millen was stupid or because he was unlucky. Can 7 bad drafts be a result of bad luck? Absolutely. Just like one can flip 7 coins and have them all turn up tails (or heads). And let's not pretend that the bad Millen picks were considered crazy picks at the time. Those guys were generally taken right around where they were supposed to have been taken. Charles Rogers was considered an elite WR prospect. Mike Williams wasn't so elite, but wasn't a shock at 10. Harrington was a bit of a reach, but there has been so much sentiment around here that you need to fill the QB position and you have to take a chance on one when you can. There were no other first round-worthy QBs in that draft. Nor were there any in the following draft (Boller, Leftwich and Grossman were the 1st rounders that year -- were any of them notably better than Harrington?).

Of his 7 first round picks, CJ, Jeff Backus, Roy Williams, Ernie Sims and Gosder Cherilus were all decent picks (or better). Harrington is understandable for the reasons mentioned above. Rogers was a bust but everyone had him as a top 5 pick. Mike Williams was a bad pick. But overall, I think that 1st round record is better than most GMs. So no, he didn't need an 8th year to find his good luck. His last 2 first rounders in Detroit -- CJ and Gosder Cherilus -- were both very good picks.

 

The Parcells example makes little sense here because he wasn't the guy buying the groceries in NY (both) and NE. And when he did get to choose them here, the results were not that stellar. His teams in NY and NE were good because he was a good coach, not because he was some kind of genius talent evaluator.

 

Bill Parcells is a smart guy. Winning one game in the NFL is absolutely the result of very bad luck, most likely bad turnover luck or a rash of injuries. Taking over 1-3 win teams just means he's likely to get credit for their regression to the mean.

Both of his recent teams - Dallas and Miami - have both essentially performed the same since he left.

It was a very irrelevant decision. Matt Millen doesn't control which QBs are available to the Lions. The difference between the Lions under Millen and the Lions that are average is basically an average QB (Stafford). If Peyton Manning fell into the Lions lap, people likely would be giving Matt Millen credit for being a good GM.

You can look at this through the context of the Miami Dolphins, and find it very instructive as well. The most renowned and celebrated doctor in sports history, who performed surgery on Drew Brees, recommended the Dolphins don't sign him. That one decision made by Andrews completely changed the trajectory of the franchise. You believe this was somehow a reflection of an inherent skill of the Miami Dolphins?

 

That's why I left the Giants off. He was the guy buying the groceries in NE. Bledsoe was his pick. Kraft didn't buy the team until Parcells' second year, and only then he slowly started to take over the role of GM. Parcells mentioned "groceries" but it was really about being overruled on Terry Glenn. The first few years in NE it was all Parcells. Kraft had no experience in the NFL and only after he was comfortable did he start overruling Parcells.

And again, this is not just about talent acquisition I don't know why it keeps going back to that. Actually I do know why it's because Stringer keeps bringing it back there to help support his point. This is about ownership. That includes talent acquisition through draft and free agency, and coaching.

 

But you have provided no evidence to suggest that there is anyone who consistently shows greater skill than anyone else. Going with the consensus doesn't ensure mediocrity at all because luck is such a big part of it. Even if every team used that strategy -- the follow the consensus -- there would still be great teams and bad teams because they would all be getting different players. And the distribution of great teams and bad teams would look a lot like it does now. The herd mentality is alive and well in NFL draft rooms and always has been. there are few really surprising picks. Hell, if a guy goes 7 who people generally think is really the 20th best player in the draft it is considered a shock. And considering that we know only about 50% of first rounders will even pan out, that is pretty ridiculous. Remember none of the genius talent evaluators apparently thought Tom Brady was worth even a 5th round pick. Not one. None them thought Kurt Warner or Tony Romo were even worth drafting. None of them thought Cam Wake's absurd physical skillset was worth using even a 7th round pick on. All 32 teams felt Brent Grimes was essentially undraftable. Same with Arian Foster. Etc. Now, obviously, that shows that even following the consensus will result in mistakes, butover time it will likely be roughly the same percentage of
mistakes as the average team But they will not all make the same number of mistakes -- there will be a mostly random distribution with the lucky ones looking the best and the unlucky ones looking the worst.

 

So at most Parcells bought the groceries that first year in NE. And he had the No. 1 pick in a draft with an elite QB prospect, along with 3 second round picks ()one of which, No. 31, would be a first rounder today).

 

Let's not ignore he drafted WR 3 years in a row in the first round, and all 3 were busts (despite Roy's one year of good play). That's not bad luck. 7 drafts and all you can find are "decent" picks except Calvin Johnson (before a QB).

People were laughing when he went WR a second year in a row, by the 3rd people were falling out of their chairs. Of course they were crazy at the time.

Flip a coin 7 times sure. Now flip it 49 times. Instead of realizing Joey Harrington did not have it (two really really crappy) seasons he could have cut bait and taken Big Ben. Remember, you have to get that position right. Ok 2 seasons isn't enough? Ok Aaron Rodgers in 2005. Why did he take WRs 3 years in a row. Because they had their QB of the future Joey Harrington and all he needed were weapons right?

How is this sequence unlucky?

 

Its unlucky that Harrington wasn't as good as Big Rape.

There's no surefire formula for picking a great QB because luck is the biggest factor in getting a great QB.

 

If 50% of first rounders bust then being the GM who gets 60 to 70 % would be because of skill.

Of course sometimes your going to miss, but the objective is to miss less than the other guys, that separates you once you do that, puts your team ahead in terms of accumulating overall talent for the roster quicker.

Having a discussion about what's better, the average pick of a consensus over an individual team who might have the edge in talent evaluation is not something I can conceptualize, it's so flawed on so many levels I can't even wrap my head around it..

It's a competition of skills, best team wins, even if your winning by a small margin, that small victory could be the Qb of the future, a small school dominant pass rusher..

There is no evidence unless your ready to do a three year study, if y'all want to do that then lets do it, I'll pick my team and you choose yours.

 

He bought them the first year, and he bought them with Kraft the following years. When Parcells is overruled, he throws hissy fits. "The Player." "She." You think Kraft came in and started overruling Parcells right away? It was his overruling of a trade with Oakland and taking Terry Glenn that pissed him off. This is besides the point though. In every organization Parcells has been to, there has been marked improvement. 4 times in a row. He ain't perfect, but the improvement is obvious.

 

why is it lucky?

What did luck have to do with Russell Wilson..Kaepernik..Dalton..

All three did not go in the first round, all three so many were skeptical..

 

Winning in the NFL is very largely based upon how much contribution you're getting from players on rookie contracts. Those are the gold.

 

Because the same guy that chose Russell Wilson signed Matt Flynn. If these results were based upon skill, then you would see consistency. But there is no consistency in the results.

 

That's fine. What's not unlucky is sticking with Joey Harrington for four years. See what I'm saying? You're not going to hit on every decision. But the good ones cut the dead weight faster and move on. The bad ones stick with it too long.

In San Diego they took Drew Brees. In 3 years (sitting his rookie year) he played better than Harrington but not enough for San Diego, so they engineer a monster trade and still get their #1 target, Philip Rivers. They hedged their bets and set their team up for success no matter what, and ended up with two elite QBs on their roster. Matt Millen was drafting Roy Williams and Mike Williams. Big Ben and Aaron Rodgers both available both years. Unlucky is making the right moves with players just not performing well. Bad decisions is drafting WR 3 years in a row in the first round, after your QB of the future played like dung.

 

Ok, let's try this, can you guarantee me which QBs in this draft will be great (save injury)?

 

Exactly! He threw resources at the right position and it paid off. Handsomely.

 

I think you just canceled out your Harrington argument with your Chargers/Brees example.

 

The problem is that this doesn't mean San Diego possessed more skill. In fact, if you look at AJ Smith's record, he's pretty much an average GM. He is a perfect example here - he was an average GM but his successes all happened early so he was perceived as skillful rather than lucky.

 

Huh? Why would you say that. I just compared two organizations that had question marks with their QB and one team, did something about it, the other didn't. One sustained success for years, the other became the first 0-16 team in history.

 

Spending resources on QBs is not a skill. There are plenty of teams that spend more on QBs than the Seahawks did. Hell, the Miami Dolphins did that with Henne and Pat White.

 

I personally don't think luck has anything to do with football. In fact I don't even know if luck is a real thing. I believe in cause and effect. When someone claims that someone is lucky or a team is lucky, they completely ignore the skill aspect it takes to become the best or worst at any endeavor in life.

I have a friend I play golf with and he is always saying he would rather be lucky than good. Obviously he says this because he isn't very good and when he hits a wayward shot and gets a decent lie, he considers this a lucky break. Of course when he hits a wayward shot and he ends up in a bad lie, he thinks he is unlucky.

My view is that if you aren't very good and you keep hitting it off the fairway, you are eventually going to end up with some bad lies and some good lies. If you don't want to depend on this so called luck, stop hitting it off the fairway. I would rather be good, because I don't believe in luck, one way or the other.

Those who think that luck controls anything in life, really don't have any clue and therefore they find it easier to based results on something called LUCK.

 

Seriously, do you believe the lottery is a game of skill?

 

San Diego did not trade one great QB for another great QB. Rivers is not great, Brees is HOF material. Had San Diego been as patient with Brees as Detroit was with Harrington, San Diego might have had a trophy by now. So cutting and running too soon hurts as well. Again, I'm not sure how you consider San Diego a successful franchise or their front office smart for getting rid of Brees for Rivers....who has done nothing without LT & a passed his prime Gates.

 

We're talking ownership here. As soon as AJ Smith wore his welcome he was cut and this time they cleaned house with a new GM and new coach. Fluker and Keenan Allen had good/great rookie campaigns (Fluker until he moved to the left).

This is a specific example of a team doing it right, meanwhile the other didn't, and it led to success. It wasn't luck. Chargers made the right decision, and were left with two elite QBs on their team. The Lions didn't, and were left with none.

You guys are citing the lack of perfection as evidence success is mostly due to "luck." Hell I think the Chargers owners are one of the worst yet they finally had the foresight to clean house (2 years too late IMO). When will Ross get it is the question. His piecemeal approach has set this franchise back a few years now.

Nobody is arguing anyone in the NFL has the ability to be right 100% of the time.

 

Right, but you are arguing that someone in the NFL has the ability to be consistently right at a higher than average rate. The research contradicts that. The research available indicates that nobody is consistently right at a higher than average rate. The people that win are the ones that happened to be right on biggest choices.

I'm not citing a lack of perfection. What I'm citing is a lack of consistency. The more consistency that exists, the more skill factors into the results.

 

Lol. I actually thought they should have kept Brees too. I rub it in my friends faces all the time.

But San Diego got "stuck" with Rivers. A great QB. Lions had Harrington. How is this even the same. They did not cut and run. Lest you forget Brees had a catastrophic injury that all of our doctors thought were too risky as well as 3-5 outside experts. Let's not forget about that. After all it brought us Culpepper.

You've got a top 4 pick, and a QB that has been pretty good (89 QBR that year) that just tore his shoulder 360 degrees. They made the right decision at the time for their franchise.

Over their careers, their numbers are quite similar by the way. Rivers throws TDs and INTs 5.4%/2.5%, Brees 5.3%/2.5%. Completion % is 64.4% vs 65.9%. YPA is Rivers 7.9, Brees 7.5.

QBR 96 vs 95.3.

Quite uncanny the similarities in career numbers for the two, actually.

 

Rivers is not a great QB. Brees is a great QB. They are on two different planes.

The injury happened AFTER they drafted Rivers. So the lesson here is that San Diego reacted too soon and Detroit reacted too slow....the difference? Luck.