Jump to content

Whither Ralph....?


Recommended Posts

Because fellow GM's in the league grow up working in personnel. Whether it be pro or in amateur scouting, this is where GM's come from. Even Marty Hurney worked in personnel down in Carolina before ascending to GM.

 

Russ Brandon was groomed in the marketing arena, and has no real world experience in personnel. The people who most likely figured into the Stroud acquisition were Overdorf and Guy. The signing of Mitchell came about from research provided by Guy, and confirmed by football people.

 

It's like having your lawyer select stocks for you. You wouldn't give that responsibility to someone who is not experienced in the field.

 

While people like Pioli, Parcells, Polian, AJ Smith, Ted Thompson, Jerry Reese, Ozzie Newsome, Kevin Colbert, and Tom Dimitroff grew up working in personnel, Brandon was making marketing pitches. There's a distinct difference.

 

Agreed that those guys you listed are very good. But the bottomline results under Brandon should the team to be very pro active. Honest question: how much difference could any of those guys made last year? The bills addressed most of their needs: DT (Stroud, Johnson), OLB (Mitchell and thought Crowell was going to be a part of the team), tall receiver (Hardy and talked to Bryant Johnson who wasn't worth what he was asking), and tried to get a real TE (Tony G didn't want to come here).

 

The only real thing I could fault them is not having a good backup QB (though Losman knew the system and played well in coming in for short periods of time). Obviously, it would be nice to have one of those guys you named up there. Ralph, maybe because of getting burned by TD (who was a real personnel guy), sees things differently. But honestly, I can't find any real fault of the Brandon era with perhaps the keeping of Jauron (which is more of a Ralph move).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But the bottomline results under Brandon should the team to be very pro active. Honest question: how much difference could any of those guys made last year? The bills addressed most of their needs: DT (Stroud, Johnson), OLB (Mitchell and thought Crowell was going to be a part of the team), tall receiver (Hardy and talked to Bryant Johnson who wasn't worth what he was asking), and tried to get a real TE (Tony G didn't want to come here).

 

But honestly, I can't find any real fault of the Brandon era with perhaps the keeping of Jauron (which is more of a Ralph move).

 

The bottomline results are that Buffalo severely underachieved against the league's 2nd easiest schedule.

 

The fact that an "inner-circle" was convened to review the HC is an affront to Brandon if he is indeed handling personnel. This includes coaching, but it was Ralph and perhaps Littman who made the decision, not RB.

 

In essence, we don't know what Brandon has done, so it's non-sensical to give credit to him for anything. He isn't a personnel man, and running an organization by consensus is a big reason why this team is about the same as they were three years ago-adrift in a sea of mediocrity without much hope for a playoff team anytime soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...