"People want to give Snead all the credit for good picks like Gurley & Donald, but excuse him from all the bad ones?" Well, you certainly don't see me doing that. What you see me doing is saying that we as fans don't really know how involved Snead was in any particular pick. For all we know Snead may have advised against trading up for TA or picking GRob or picking Quick. I don't think there's anything in the public record one way or the other.
"And if not drafting players which is the main job of any GM, what exactly was Snead's role under Fisher?" This is all 'as I understand it' but Snead's job was to find players that fit Fisher's requirements and to participate in the draft and FA process to bring such players on. It was not Snead's job to decide who to pick, however: Fisher had final say. In the current org Snead has guys working for him such as Brian Xanders - Senior Personnel Executive, Taylor Morton - Senior Personnel Advisor, and Brad Holmes, Director of College Scouting. If the Rams blow a pick in the next draft would you or I know how much blame to place on Brian, Taylor, and/or Brad? I seriously doubt it. Snead now has final say and I don't think anyone is going to tell us exactly how a pick was made. That being said these guys all have important jobs to do in Snead's organization ... just like Snead had an important job (although not final say) in Fisher's organization.
"Fisher and Snead share the blame for the picks (good & bad)." That makes no sense to me. Snead worked for Fisher and Fisher had final say on personnel. Without knowing what Snead recommended there's no real basis for determining how much blame (or credit) he gets.
"The fact that Snead was not fired has nothing to do with who was making the call on the drafts. He was retained because Fisher HAD to be fired....Dickerson pretty much made that happen. Snead, I am guessing survived only because Demoff and Kroenke basically needed to retain some football guy, otherwise it was just bookworm Demoff and car salesman Stan." Why couldn't they have fired both Snead and Fisher and hired a new GM and a new coach after the 2016 season? Teams do that all the time!
AlbaNY_Ram
