Quote:The thing about Gene is that he wasn't just bad.  I mean I'm sure he was a hard worker as everyone touted him to be. Thing is... he barely left us with a modicum of talent.  Of his four drafts, only 4 players are left on the team.  Of which: 1 is a punter, and 1 is suspended indefinitely.  So no, he wasn't just bad.  He was Chip Kelly 2015 "I traded Nick Foles and a 2nd and 4th rounder for Sam Bradford" bad.  History has yet to judge Chip Kelly, but I have a feeling he's going to show that he just thinks he's the smartest person in the room.  Unfortunately for him, that's because he's the only one in the room.  Everyone else had to excuse themselves to go laugh in private at how ridiculous of a trade he made.


Gene rebuilt the wrong way from the beginning.  Trading a future second for a present third.  That was in his very first draft, and it was a move I never thought made sense when we were trying to rebuild.  


He had unfortunate luck with drafting Blaine Gabbert (not just drafting him, but trading up for him) but that alone wouldn't have been such an issue.  If more of his picks worked out, I think we'd be able to 'get over' Gene much easier.  Of course that'd be in part because Caldwell would have an easier time rebuilding, and we'd not have seen the last three years be some of the worst years in Jags history.  His hiring of Mularkey was a bunch of Malarkey, and something that most fans questioned instantly.  And with good reason  -- his track record in Buffalo was subpar.  


Caldwell basically inherited a disaster zone.   I think people will move on from Gene once the team has risen from the ashes of the fire that was Gene Smith.  We've had one of the youngest rosters in the NFL over the past couple of years in no small part thanks to Gene's tenure as GM.  That has led to inexperience on the field, and has led to mistakes.


I think worst of all was the way some in the media would tout Gene Smith as 'doing it the right way'.  We were told he was the hardest worker, and that he picked guys like MJD when Shack was here.  That Coughlin and everyone in the league thought highly of him.  His reputation looked to be nothing more than a myth.  We expected The Beatles, but we got Justin Beiber.  

 

When we start winning, Gene will be nothing more than a bad memory.  We'll be able to look at the Ex, and not even think about her.  But right now we're still waiting for our car to get repaired from when she took a hammer to it after we told her that dress absolutely did not make her look fat, to replace all of our old video games that she threw away because she didn't like them,  and repair friendships with the friends she alienated.  

 

I agree with this.  The media tried to portray it like Gene was going to outwork everyone else because he spent so much time at the stadium.  The guy was a good scout.  That was never his issue.  Where he ran into trouble was he believed he was an exceptional scout who could identify talent that others missed, and he made it a point of emphasis to look at smaller schools.  That approach is fine if you're peppering your roster in the later rounds with these guys.  That wasn't the case with Smith.

 

In the end, he worked really hard.  He didn't work smart. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN4CQuKkr58

 

Caldwell spent the first  year he was here just digging the team out of a very deep hole that Gene Smith created.  The void of talent was incredible.  Granted, there were some quality players in the mix, but not enough to warrant retention.  I didn't envy the job Caldwell was tasked with, but I certainly respected the fact that he deserved our patience because he did indeed inherit a train wreck.  His approach to fixing this isn't orthodox, and it's certainly not what many fans here would have preferred.  It still hasn't shown results in more wins, but this is year 3 where we should expect to see him finally turn that piece around.  Let's hope he gets it right so we don't need to start over again in another year or two.

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