Worried About the Scout Vacancies- Big Hole!

[BringBackOrton]

So the next answer Im going to provide, is do you 100% believe this decision was made in a vaccum without outside guidance?

 

I keep saying just because the random fan isnt saturated in the decision making process doesnt mean it lacked rational intelligent NFL thought (nfl advisory committee) or mean that it will lack effectiveness.

Marrones contract included a clause before Pegulas owned the team.

Whaley wasnt good at his job nor was Rex. The process wasnt flawed.

Giving Whaley a contract extension 1 year before firing him would seem to indicate long-term thinking has been flawed at best.

[Bill_with_it]

Giving Whaley a contract extension 1 year before firing him would seem to indicate long-term thinking has been flawed at best.

Not really. What if he wasnt given the contract and he truned the Bills around. Then what, fight with the ither teams that need a GM right now?

Whaley was fired based on his results as a GM. It was the correct decision.

[KRT88]

Well Indy fired their entire amateur scouting the staff the Minday after the draft so it done frontline time!

 

But if it makes you happy to win around screaming the sky is falling, go ahead.

[JohnC]

The thing he's arguing that you are missing is that he wants the GM to make that call and not the owner.

 

Is there a reason that you would rather have pegula make that call before interviewing any candidates?

The actual GM at the time did make the call: It was McDermott. Pegula has bought into the McDermott vision and blueprint. McDermott is unquestionably running the football operation. As soon as McDermott was hired he was elevated to the top of the football operation while the then GM publicly lost his authority. The owner would not have fired the entire scouting staff unless it was what the empowered coach wanted to happen.

 

I'm not arguing whether it was a wise or unwise approach to take because we simply won't know right away. The front office is now staffed and structured the way McDermott wanted. The Beane hiring certainly was mostly influenced by the HC.

 

Structurally, before the McDermott hire there was a glaring disjointedness between the front office and the coaching staff. Whaley can't be fully blamed for that lack of cohesiveness because too often he didn't have a meaningful say in the hiring of coaches. The incompatibility within the organization was caused by the owner's HCing hires.

 

The advantage to this unified organizational structure is that there is more clarity and less confusion in communication between the front office and coaching staff. The scouts, front office, which includes managing the cap, and the coaching staff are all tied together. Under this system there is more cohesion. There are also risks in such a tightly knitted system. The risk of group think instead of creative tension and challenging opinions is something to be aware of.

[jeffismagic]

The actual GM at the time did make the call: It was McDermott. Pegula has bought into the McDermott vision and blueprint. McDermott is unquestionably running the football operation. As soon as McDermott was hired he was elevated to the top of the football operation while the then GM publicly lost his authority. The owner would not have fired the entire scouting staff unless it was what the empowered coach wanted to happen.

 

I'm not arguing whether it was a wise or unwise approach to take because we simply won't know right away. The front office is now staffed and structured the way McDermott wanted. The Beane hiring certainly was mostly influenced by the HC.

 

Structurally, before the McDermott hire there was a glaring disjointedness between the front office and the coaching staff. Whaley can't be fully blamed for that lack of cohesiveness because too often he didn't have a meaningful say in the hiring of coaches. The incompatibility within the organization was caused by the owner's HCing hires.

 

The advantage to this unified organizational structure is that there is more clarity and less confusion in communication between the front office and coaching staff. The scouts, front office, which includes managing the cap, and the coaching staff are all tied together. Under this system there is more cohesion. There are also risks in such a tightly knitted system. The risk of group think instead of creative tension and challenging opinions is something to be aware of.

 

Great post. There are certainly ways this can work well but it comes down one man. Sean McDermott. If he wants to be a Chip Kelly coach/GM the Pegulas handed him the keys to his own destruction. If he wants to be a Pete Carroll and let his GM get the players with mild input that road is open as well. Time will tell.

[Guest NeckBeard]

 

Great post. There are certainly ways this can work well but it comes down one man. Sean McDermott. If he wants to be a Chip Kelly coach/GM the Pegulas handed him the keys to his own destruction. If he wants to be a Pete Carroll and let his GM get the players with mild input that road is open as well. Time will tell.

 

To be fair, Chip Kelly had way more flaws than picking his own players.

[JohnC]

 

Great post. There are certainly ways this can work well but it comes down one man. Sean McDermott. If he wants to be a Chip Kelly coach/GM the Pegulas handed him the keys to his own destruction. If he wants to be a Pete Carroll and let his GM get the players with mild input that road is open as well. Time will tell.

The Chip Kelly situation is different from the McDermott or Carroll approach in a major way that really makes it a bad comparison. Kelly brought in his revolutionary approach that he used in the college ranks and tried to apply it without much alteration to the pro ranks. That was the major flaw with his approach. The college and pro games are much different and the approach that is successful in one environment wasn't necessarily going to be the magical solution in another environment.

 

Without a doubt McDermott has his own favored football philosophy with respect to the roster and organizational structure. For the most part they fall within being considered conventional approaches. His challenge is going to be upgrading the talent to fit the schemes he favors. That's the same challenges that all teams and organizations have to face.

[YoloinOhio]

Its hard to believe that scouts are totally "plug and play" I think the lack of a group of scouts that have worked with the management will dog the Bills for several years. Fielding a capable team of scouts is also critical, as they set the table for the draft....and, I can hear the words now...." not bad for our first draft"///////ugh, been there done that.....heard that line before.

they aren't really plug and play in the way you think... they just want certain guys who didn't work for the previous regime. That is most important. Call it brainwashing or whatever but they want people who either know their way or they can teach their way without being loyal to the previous way. they need 4-6 guys who can scout for their systems. 4 college and 1 pro and maybe one national scout. They can't have anyone say "here's what we always do" " here is how we do it here" etc. there is no more "Bills way". It's over. It's really a new organization now. They cannot keep any of Whaley's guys.

 

The GM didn't want any of those guys if he did he would have told McD a long time ago. They were a package deal all along. It doesn't make them bad at their jobs, it's just the way it works when an external GM and HC come in. If you promote from within you probably keep some guys. Also I still can't believe they had 17 scouts. That was one bloated FO.

Edited May 14, 2017 by YoloinOhio

[jeffismagic]

The Chip Kelly situation is different from the McDermott or Carroll approach in a major way that really makes it a bad comparison. Kelly brought in his revolutionary approach that he used in the college ranks and tried to apply it without much alteration to the pro ranks. That was the major flaw with his approach. The college and pro games are much different and the approach that is successful in one environment wasn't necessarily going to be the magical solution in another environment.

 

Without a doubt McDermott has his own favored football philosophy with respect to the roster and organizational structure. For the most part they fall within being considered conventional approaches. His challenge is going to be upgrading the talent to fit the schemes he favors. That's the same challenges that all teams and organizations have to face.

 

Chip Kelly stripped his own roster of talent once he had control of the roster. That is the danger and it would play out differently in Buffalo. If Sean decided to be King and not listen to anyone else I would expect another coach draft and sticking with a veteran QB over drafting and developing one to be his downfall.

[BrooklynBills]

You aren't following the thread. They had control over whoever stayed and whoever went. They relinquished that control. It is as simple as that. It may not matter but in no world is giving up the power a good idea. You need to understand the situation.

It sounds like there was a Us vs. Them mentality within the scouting department and that there was zero chance that any of would be retained in any way and that is why they were all let go. As far as the upper level guys like Monos and Fischer, again I think there was zero chance that McDermott was going to accept and inherit anyone from the previous FO and, knowing what we know about him and Beane now, they likely had an extensive list of priority candidates for these jobs that in no way included anyone who was employed already.

[Kirby Jackson]

You seemed to be confused; thinking that a) they need fired employees back

Or

B) they mistakenly fired someone that they intended to keep

Its more likely you didn't want to see some of these people fired. Thats fine.

However, your opinion doesnt mean that Terry and Kim wanted to keep any of the people they fired.

To the contrary, these people are wealthy buisness owners, they know exactly who they intended to fire and did just that.

 

You are making a rather large commotion about nothing.

I didn't miss that at all. They are the owners of the team. They can and will make any decisions that they wish.

Just because the fans werent saturated with the thought process or privy as to why doesnt make it less of an intelligent decision that will payoff in the longrun.

I don't think that Terry and Kim Pegula are more capable of evaluating a scout than the GM. They should have allowed the GM to keep or fire anyone that they wanted. I'm not advocating for anyone in particular. I do not believe that ALL 17 people that they fired are worse than the people on the street. That's not the point though. I'm not trying to use "the Patriots" do things this way but this is something that they never would have done. It is an incompetent decision. Again, IT MAY NOT MATTER but there was absolutely no benefit to the way that they did it. That is the exact point. It only could hurt them. They didn't gain one single advantage by firing those people before a GM was hired. All that happened is they allowed some people that they may have wanted to become free agents. That's not a good decision. The only possible benefit that I can see is that they can push the narrative on WGR and such as "we are cleaning house." That is NOT a valid reason for making a decision.

 

I'll ask it another way, what were the advantages of how they did it? What did they gain? I'm not asking if it is their decision or not; I'm asking what they gained?

It sounds like there was a Us vs. Them mentality within the scouting department and that there was zero chance that any of would be retained in any way and that is why they were all let go. As far as the upper level guys like Monos and Fischer, again I think there was zero chance that McDermott was going to accept and inherit anyone from the previous FO and, knowing what we know about him and Beane now, they likely had an extensive list of priority candidates for these jobs that in no way included anyone who was employed already.

That's probably true. I am not advocating for anyone. I'm just advocating that they do their due dilligence. Edited May 14, 2017 by Kirby Jackson

[3rdand12]

Hopefully this example illustrates my point. It is a hypothetical but based on truth. Monos and Ryan Pace (Chicago) are VERY close. It's entirely possible that Pace calls Monos and asks him to come to Chicago. Monos could accept the job and say "you should bring these 5 guys too who were in Buffalo..." Now you have 6 of the best candidates, in an already diluted pool off the market. You controlled all 6 of them. Instead of the team electing who to keep they've relinquished the control to the scouts. If they held them through the Beane hiring he might have said "Jim, we'd love to keep you and any of the guys that you recommend."

Optics.

Fans wanted a house scrubbing Party.

 

i was surprise Monos and K. Fisher were let go.

 

I cannot see anyway Sean and Company did not plan ahead

[BuffaloBillsMagic1]

Isn't there national scouting services some teams use?

[3rdand12]

As far as hiring the new personnel, the most important thing right now is Director of College Scouting and Director of player personnel . if a personnel guy is under contract but offered a promotion, the teams can and will let them out of their contracts. It's bad business not to. I'm sure they will find a few guys who they know and are ready to move up. If the opportunity isn't available with their current team, the team will let them go.

 

College scouts are very easy to find. They don't need experience. Usually a player who won't have a shot in TE league or with a connection to them somehow. The Panthers have one out of the Scouting Academy. I think the Chargers gave at least one. Most teams only have about 4 or 5 area scouts. It's low paying, a ton of hours and travel and Beane and McD can tell them and teach them exactly what they want. They are scouting for the specific systems more than anything. Carucci talked about that as well:

 

http://buffalonews.com/2017/05/10/vic-caruccis-3-bills-thoughts-beane-hire-front-office-overhaul-isnt-finished/

 

Since Beane became official a couple names have emerged

 

@insidetheleague

2 names I'm hearing that could emerge as Dir of Player Personnel for #Bills: #Dolphins DPP Joe Schoen and #Panthers Pro Director Mark Koncz.

cool to see the link before it happened.

I am always reading from behind and try to catch up

[YoloinOhio]

Isn't there national scouting services some teams use?

yes and it assists the scouting dept but doesn't replace it. Some teams rely on it more than others. Seriously - Cincy has 1.5 college scouts a few years ago. They used online scouting reports. That's ridiculous. It should be 4-5 college and 1-2 pro. Imo

[3rdand12]

Yeah, I am harder on these decisions than most because it's incompetence. It probably won't matter but that doesn't mean that it's right (if that makes sense).

Makes perfect sense Kirby. That is why i have to believe this whole "rebuild" was plotted quite awhile ago. Hand shaking and unofficial innuendos even.

[PromoTheRobot]

As if the scouts were doing such a great job. 17 years and no playoffs? Of boy.. I'm really worried.

 

Like, we're gonna go from being good to sucking. We sucked with em, and we'll suck without em. Business as usual at One Bills Drive.

This is the oversimplified version of the last 17 seasons. "How good can our (insert whatever) can be if we missed the playoffs?" Too hard to think the process is more complicated.

[YoloinOhio]

This is the oversimplified version of the last 17 seasons. "How good can our (insert whatever) can be if we missed the playoffs?" Too hard to think the process is more complicated.

Ha, I agree. Not everything the Bills do is wrong because they are the Bills. Just like not everything the Pats do is right because they are the Pats. This is hard for people to accept. I get it, we are all 90% scar tissue as Bills fans. But it's important to remember imo.

 

And I don't know if this is "right" per se depending on how you look at it, it's just kind of how it goes. I have no doubt this was in the works for a long time. Leaks started in January about McD bringing in his own people.

Edited May 14, 2017 by YoloinOhio

[Hapless Bills Fan]

...or even better, wait until your new GM was hired, and then let him decide, who stays and who goes. Then again, why use common sense when making this decision. I am sure there were some good guys in that group of 17 that got flushed down the toilet by...Pegula, McD, Overdorf, ???

 

There were some good guys.

 

I think what this signaled is that McDermott and Beane want the scouts to scout players one way - their way. Beane doesn't want to waste time dealing with any "but this is how we've always done it" remnant. He wants everyone on board to be in lockstep about what scouting information they obtain, how they organize it, and how it's distilled for them. "My way or Highway" Sweeping the cupboard bare is drastic, but can assure that.

 

I don't know enough about the scout's life to know how available quality scouts are, what kind of contract scouts work under (ie is it year to year? several years?) and whether there are promotions which would force teams to release them.

[Domdab99]

Damn, I wonder if Beane and McCoach realize they need some scouts! I hope so. Maybe OP should send them an email just to make sure.