Snead has always gone after the type of player that the coach wants - and in some cases, THE player the coach wants. Case in point: Bryan Quick.
Fisher flew Snead to Quick's campus to work him out, watch him catch a few balls, and then the dialogue must have gone, "I see what you mean about his potential - if you want him, we'll get him."
And Snead never pointed a finger afterward and said, "It's all coach's fault - he wanted this guy, and now look."
Gurley was whose top choice? I think Fisher wanted another Eddie George type, and saw that in Gurley - and was willing to risk Gurley's knee history to get him. Snead went along.
It's always been a collaborative effort with Snead, with the coach holding the trump card. McVay either approves Snead's choices, there is dialogue and mutual assent most of the time, and if the coaching staff wants players with X skills or capabilities, Snead defers and that's what Snead goes out and gets. Further, if the staff or a position coach wants a specific player, Snead has an uncanny record of making that happen. Two cases in point: Tutu and Bruss.
Left on his own, free to play the hand as he saw fit, would Snead have drafted a much-needed center instead of a speedy little wideout? We'll never know because Snead will never say.
McVay always seems to want Swiss Army Knife backs with a football brain - guys who can catch out of the backfield, run the patterns designed into this offense, guys who are shifty and small as opposed to big pile-pushers. McVay apparently thinks these guys are plenty available in the middle rounds, interchangeable, can function by committee rather than as every down backs, and he doesn't need a "star" running back to operate in his pass-oriented offense. Backs tend to have a shorter career life than any other position. For every Emmett Smith there are dozens of others who last maybe three or four years. No sense in wasting high draft capital on somebody who could blow a knee in their second or third year.
That's what Snead shops for and brings in. As many have said on this board many times, those types of backs are available in the middle rounds.
I woud imagine, given the genius Snead has displayed in rounding up the overall talent that brought this team a ring in short order, that if his mission was to go get a durable bruiser of a running back who could gain some spectacular yards for the Rams, he'd go get one.
But that's not his job. Team-building, according to the vision of the coach, is.
And he's done that remarkably well while remaining silent - for the team's benefit - when the flak or second-guessing comes his way. Despite our current difficulties, I'm not going to second-guess what he and McVay have collborativey put together now.
