(02-07-2025, 12:41 AM)NewJagsCity Wrote:

(01-30-2025, 10:27 PM)Jaguarmeister Wrote: Yeah that's my concern as I've stated before.  We've had bad drafters in that chair for a long time.  Baalke wasn't a bad talent evaluator.  He may not be exceptional at it, but there's no guarantee that whoever his replacement winds up being doesn't take us back to our historically bad drafting ways.  Coen said himself, this isn't a 4 win team.  If his intent was to suggest this is actually a 5 or 6 win team, why would you even bother going out of your way to say such a thing.  So, if you take him at his word on that, that's a statement of his opinion of the talent currently on the roster...  which by extension is a compliment to the person or persons responsible for assembling that talent.

Regarding the positional priorities, if there isn't guys worth going after at the positions highlighted when you are on the clock, you'd be foolish to force picks there and allow superior talent at other positions to fall to other teams.  So, it needs to be properly analyzed that such quality options were there and were rejected in favor of a different position and a different overall philosophy.  I know Torrence in Buffalo was one such highlighted instance of maybe passing on needed talent along the interior O-line, but is that the only example?  

Ultimately, I think the rabble rabble crowd coupled with the echo chamber of social media played a big part in shaping the league-wide narrative about Baalke.  The other part is if a potential HC candidate feels like Baalke may get fired in a year or two anyway, he may not like the prospect of having a front office in flux shortly after he gets here and the uncertainty that might present for the intermediate term and how that affects his ability to succeed here.  Unfortunately for Baalke, if potential coaching candidates didn't want to work with him in part or in whole because of the prevailing narrative or suspicions about his job security, then you pretty much have to let him go.  I was unfortunately listening to Rick Ballou in the car earlier this week (really don't care for him) and he was crediting Baalke for the new reports (I think he was quoting Albert Breer) that Baalke had told Shad at the end that he didn't want to be a distraction for this organization moving forward and wanted what was best for the team or something to that effect.  That doesn't sound very snake like to me.  Hopefully we'll get someone really good at talent evaluation and roster management as a replacement and it won't matter.

I think Baalke's tenure here could be a case study on Groupthink.  I mean, honestly, there wasn't nearly this much fervor in favor of getting rid of Shaq Harris, Gene Smith or David Caldwell and I think they were all observably worse at the job.  Just go look at the 1st round picks from like 2007 on.  Very few worthwhile selections until recently.  Granted we picked 1st overall twice, but you still have to hit.  We picked top 5 from 2012 thru 2017 and the only player worthy of being selected where we took him was Jalen Ramsey.

Baalke hit on Brian Thomas and maybe Josh Allen. We dont know yet about Lawrence or Walker.  I'd say he's a C+ to B- drafter.  Nothing better. Which was at least better than Gene Smith.