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David Deacon
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Rams43
Agreed, Merlin.
No doubt in my mind, given the importance of the QB position.
That would make it 3 consecutive years of best player picks for Snead, no? Helluva thing.
This is minor historical footnotes stuff, but, it's not Snead, it's Snead and company. Snead insists on a collaborative process, and as one result, he can't be given unilateral credit for every pick. This is also why he shares criticism for the Robinson pick...a pick he has defended as recently as last year (the idea, he said, is with a high pick you swing for greatness).
This is all being said by a long time and big time Snead defender.
Anyway, collaboration. For example, we have articles about how the DL coach lobbied for Donald. So he was part of it.
In terms of picking Donald, then Gurley, then Goff, yeah it's very rare in NFL history you get 3 first rounders in adjacent drafts like that. One comparison I came up with was the Steelers in 69-72 when they picked Greene, Bradshaw, and Harris. Not that Goff is Bradshaw yet though Bradshaw wasn't Bradshaw at first either.
Rams get big credit for that and yeah, Snead was a big part of it.
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Snead is responsible for the drafting process and he is the leader and orchestrator of the process. He gets the credit or the heat for results of the process. Even GMs that make the decisions without input from the coaches have scouts that feed them information. Snead is responsible for roster construction and he manages that process with excellence and he should get credit for a great job. If you are the big boss and have great results you get the credit. That said the collaboration of GM/Head Coach/Scouts/Coaching Staff is a model others will look to follow and it goes beyond the draft filtering into FA/UDFA/Trades etc.
Certainly you could argue Goff was the best in his draft too. Snead hits some Home runs with players and not just in the first round. The home runs are much more important than the percentage of drafted players that make the roster IMO but still Snead does a very good job in terms of the percentage of picks that make the team. Many poster point to his stinkers and he has had a few super stinkers in GRob & Austin but look at the number of home run picks he has made. I also give him big credit for having the guts to make the Goff trade and his trades which he hedges with comp picks i.e. Watson.
If you ranked GM's Snead would be near the top and his stock will go up again if we have a good season.
I agree with a lot of that but I think you are arguing Snead should get credit and I never said he shouldn't. He does not however get exclusive credit--and that's because the system he works in and organizes is collaborative. BTW he is not responsible for roster construction...that's the coaches. Snead collaborates on selecting the 90 for the summer but he is at best just an advisor when it comes to cutting it down to the 53.
He is not a big boss though. The GM in this system is not a big boss type. He's more like the minister of personnel scouting, and belongs to a cabinet that makes group decisions. He is the organizer
of the process. The process ITSELF is built around collaborative input. His entire approach as a GM is to work with coaches to get them players that fit their respective systems. The board is ranked by means of group discussion, and the discussion involves the personnel execs, the scouts, and the coaches.
For example, the OL picks are all done in collaboration with Kromer. Snead's job is to organize the process and make sure that collaboration is working. If the Rams had a different OL coach, the OL picks would be different.
Same with skill players. Every skill player picked has a McVay stamp on him.
Same with defensive players. Wade has a lot of input on that. Imagine trying to tell Wade Phillips which players he should coach. He is in on it.
Goff was as much a Fisher pick as anyone else's. We know that because (among other things) the entire process of picking Goff was covered by an outside reporter. And that's all in addition to the fact that no GM in his right mind picks a qb FOR a head coach.
Snead is not an uber GM like Polian was who hands down unilateral decisions. He is a collaborative organizer of the personnel process, a point he stresses himself, He has his say and input but the picks simply are not his alone. He gets a LOT of credit for the results. But the system is not oriented around one guy pulling the strings for others.
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