Top 10: Regrettable NFL Offseason Decisions

[DaWolf]

Originally Posted by Mecca

Really, cause the NE assistants aren't arrogant?

The only one that has succeeded is the one who didn't trade for a QB or make his team switch to 3-4 or start talking about Patriot way bullshit.

Come on, Dimitrioff has talked about the "Patriot Way" a lot if you actually listen to him talking. For example:

And so I asked him this morning: What do you take from New England coach Bill Belichick and VP of player personnel Scott Pioli into your new job?

"Bill and Scott had this philosophy, and you've heard it,'' said Dimitroff, who seems to delight in walking the halls here very far under the radar. " 'Do your job.' It falls in line with their team concept, and I think it works very well as an organizational philosophy. If everybody does what they do to the best of their ability without worrying about anybody else, we're going to get the job done collectively.

"The second thing I take from New England is system-specific scouting. You grade players for your own team, not for the how others in the league might see them. It doesn't matter if we have a player graded as a first-rounder and some other team has him in the sixth. You have to have the courage of your convictions and know you might have different needs with different kinds of players than other teams.

"The thing about Bill and Scott that I admired about their relationship is how honest they could be in their discussions about players. If they were at loggerheads on a player, they'd move on to another player, because they trusted each other's opinion so much. And I appreciated how they'd use different ways to build their team. Just when you think you've got them figured out -- you know, the 'Patriot Way' -- they'd pull something you wouldn't expect.''

"Like the Randy Moss deal?'' I asked.

"Yeah,'' he said. "Like building their team whatever way it took to win. Being flexible. Being adaptable. There are some guys in the business who say, 'These are my draft picks, and we're staying right where we are and we're making the picks.' You might think that breeds confidence in the organization. But what I think it does is breed hesitation.''

Hesitation to change when change is the right thing, he meant.

You take that quote and match it up with anything Pioli has said and it's the same thing.

Second, as far as the QB, you can't compare Matt Ryan to Sanchez yet. Ryan was a senior starter and they had a lot more info on him at the time. Plus, the franchise had just been rocked by the Vick thing and they needed a new face of the franchise, and you'd be fooling yourself if you didn't think that Arthur Blank wasn't pushing them to pick the QB, especially after listening to Blank in the offseason...