I'll say the hiring of Mularkey -- and by extension, promoting Gene Smith.


Any one single miss is understandable.  Wilson/Foles are hindsight choices, and who knows if they would've worked out here as well as they have in Seattle/Philadelphia.  Gabbert being a bust would have been okay if everything else hadn't went wrong too.  

 

The accumulation of mistakes by Gene Smith is ridiculous though.  The hire of Mike Mularkey was one of those decisions that made you ask "What was his thought process?"  I know people like to point to Khan approving the hire.  But let's not forget that Khan was a rookie owner, who didn't have time to surround himself with great football minds.  


The thing about the Mularkey hire is -- that it wasn't a pick in a lottery like the draft picks.  He was a choice that made no sense.  His record as head coach was poor -- and all but the most optimistic fans were saying "WHAT?!"  This wasn't a case of bad luck, like Gene Smith seems to have had in the draft over the course of 4 years. 

 

I know Coughlin spoke highly of Gene Smith when he was leaving and Gene may have been a good scout.  But making the decisions wasn't his strong suit.  And it's most clearly seen by his choice of Mike Mularkey as head coach.  Promoting from within wasn't a good choice after the Shack era.  I think we'd have done better to have armchair scouts doing the drafting for the first 3 rounds for those 4 years.  Which doesn't speak well of the armchair GM's so much as it speaks poorly of Gene Smith.

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