Welcome back Falcon fans it is I, your friendly internet blogger. Today I will be talking about, you guessed it coaches and front offices and how I think it works. Also why people should calm down and stop tripping over Dimitroff. It's not that I think our front office has done a stellar job so just hear me out before you roll your eyes.
Let's start by out with how I think a front office runs. First and foremost you have the G.M. his job is to handle the cap, sign free agents, and draft new players. At Least that's what most people think. His job really is to manage all of that. He is the face we put to those decision and he tends to be the final stamp of approval on those decision but he is not the one that comes up with all that info. There are a multitude of groups that compile that info and pass it along to him. such as scouts, cap guys, and then the coaches themselves. What I am trying to say is that it is easy and to be honest lazy to place all the blame at his feet, even if the buck stops with him.
Here are some of the hits and misses as I see it from Dimitroff tenure. Now mind after laying it out like I did above I will say that it's not all him but here we go anyway.
Hits
1. Matt Ryan
2. Micheal Turner
3. Trufant/Alford
4. Julio Jones
5. Tony G.
Misses
1. Ray Edwards
2. Peter Konz
3. Leonard Hankerson
4. Steven Jackson
5. Prince Shembo
Ok so these are just a few examples of each, I could have done more but I am just using these to make a point. With Matt Ryan and Michael Turner he had to the nail on the head. After the horrendous 07 season Dimitroff was tasked to rebuild the team with a new first time ever head coach and a high draft pick. So he choses a solid QB with a high floor and a higher ceiling. Then he supported that pick with a solid running to help his rookie QB. Now we move on to Julio Jones, it's 2011 the team is doing good but we need a spark after getting smoked by the Packers in our own building. Some would say we should have seen it as a defense meltdown to come and built that way to compensate, but instead we did the trendy thing and tried to build a high powered offense like most of the teams were shifting to. I will not argue these points here today all I will say is I am glad we got Jones.
Trufant and Alford were and are cornerstone cornerbacks and came at a time that they were needed. Tony G. well let's just say Tony G. speaks for himself. On to the misses, most of these speak for themselves as well. Edwards was rewarded for the play others much like Vernon and Malik Jackson was this year, happens every off season. Konz and Hankerson were plagued by injuries and ineffective play. Steven Jackson was done when he got here but I will get into that more when I get into the coach front office blance. Prince Shembo...I have thoughts on drafting players with that type of character issues and he showed the reason why.
Those illustrate some of the hits and misses that have happened since Dimitroff has been in charge. The only thing that we as fans can say for sure is Thoms approved all of these transactions, thats its thats all. We don't know how he felt about them if he laid awake at night thinking did he make a mistake by saying yes. All we know for sure is he said yes. He gets all the blame and not much of the praise. This brings me to how I believe and NFL front office works. Season ends your team did great ( hipp hipp hooray) ok now time to try to figure out how to keeps our guys and shore up some weakness. Season ends your team did horrible (boo fire everyone burn it to the ground) ok now time to figure who we need to keep and how can we get rides of the guys that sucked in such away without killing our cap while shoring up weaknesses. Scouts of all types start pouring over tape of potential F.A. from all of the league, oh yeah and let's not forget the college kids who are entering the draft.
Info has been gathered now its time to sit down with the coaches, but wait the coaches have there own list of free agents guys and draft guys the like. Thats cool now we sit down meeting after meeting pouring over this mountain of info and whittle it down to guys the coaches want to draft and free agents we can reasonable afford.
What most fans fail to see at this point is that this list of free agents and draft guys may not have a single name that the G.M. and his staff collected left on it. This example is purposely over blown but bear with me I am doing it to make a point. The coaching staff should have the most input, there the ones who have to use the players on a daily basis. They know their scheme and have a better idea of how that player should fit idealy. When your coaching staff doesn't know what it wants to be it, gets aimless or complicant then you start to get in trouble. This is what I believe happened to the Falcons in 2013 the coaching got lost didn't know what it wanted to be anymore. At the end of 2012 we got muscled by a physical 49ers team and that cost a trip to the super bowl. So the coaching staff wanted to get more physical but didn't know how they wanted to do it. They tried a hybrid defense, well they couldn't stop anything, run or the pass. So 2014 we sign run stoppers switch to a 3-4 and still can't stop a thing. During all of the Thomas does his job by getting the players that the coaching staff wants to use, this also applies to the o-line as well. Dimitroff did what he was tasked to do. He brought in the player that the coaching staff wanted at a price the team could stomach. I personally never care about a player's contract cause as the Saints have shown time again the cap really means nothing, if you want a guy you can figure it out so that doesn't even bother me. Fast Forward to 2015 new head coach same G.M.. If Dan Quinn didn't think he could work with Thomas do you think he would have taken the job. I say no because the is a big part of it, working together getting in lock step and if there is one thing TD has shown he can manage the cap and bring in player the coaching staff wants. I think this year you're going to see a even bigger step forward because now that have had a year to work together and get to know what the other one wants. If TD wasn't willing to work With Coach Quinn or vise verse he would have been gone end of story. Since he is not I have to assume there doing just fine and so far the offseason as shown that to me.
This just something to think about the next time you want to blast a front office or even a coach staff about the players they bring and how siad players perform. There are just too many variables on why it didn't work out. Maybe your coach likes veteran players and is not a fan of developing young players (reason why Steven Jackson didn't work) maybe you hire a new coordinator and have to switch schemes, that takes time and players. Maybe just Maybe it's a collective problem that can't be sholved by removing just one person. It's easy to lay the blame at the feet of one man cause that's the face we see but rarely is it just his fault. Mr. Blank didn't build Home Depot by himself and Thomas Dimitroff nor Dan Quinn are solely responsible for this team. Because it is a team that's what makes it awesome so as Falcons fans lets do our part and #Riseup.
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