Quote:You guys act like his 3 year plan should have been without flaw. Sometimes things don't work and or go according to plan. Caldwell is likely going to be the GM for sometime and Bradley is the head coach next year so quit complaining. Their is a lot of positives to this team and with a another good draft and free agency we should be much better next year.

 

No GM is without flaw. Everyone will have their hits and their misses. The plus side is that Dave appears to have hit on the most difficult (and most important) position to hit on: quarterback. He also appears to have hit on some later round picks. However, he's definitely gotten a pass from a lot of people especially on this board (who has targeted Gus as PE#1). For me, the most crucial mistake that Dave has is he appears (to me) to overestimate his own evaluation of the team.

 

He gutted this team completely and ran with essentially rookies as starters, then supplemented them not with veterans, but bargain waiver free-agents and even undrafted free-agents. The roster that this team fielded, the first two seasons, quite frankly...was a joke from a competitive level. I would venture to guess, that Bradley's roster this season, is comparable to what most Head Coaches get on *their* first seasons.

 

Even he admitted that starting out that low in talent and experience was a bad combination, and would change things if he had a do over. Keep in mind that along with a young team, he coupled this with a first time HC and a relatively young staff along with it. Just a bad combination overall for immediate success.

 

This season, IMO, he overestimated on the defense with the belief that just the addition of Fowler along with the return of Clem/Branch was enough. It wasn't. He overestimated that getting Marks back was enough, that Hood/Bennett can fill that role. It wasn't. He was content in just adding one veteran LB in Skuta, and that his "waiver" LB guys from last season was enough. They weren't...and it became evident when we had injuries at the LB spot.

 

You can say maybe you can't fill every position on a team in 3 years. I argue, if that is the case, then he shouldn't have created additional holes by getting rid of productive, if not unspectacular veterans, on the roster.

 

As for those arguing that Dave hasn't made a move that we couldn't get out of...what's your point? Gone are the days of GMs not paying attention to the cap. Even Harris and Gene, as bad as they were, were more than aware and built contracts to protect the team should the investment fail. Even to this day, from a cap perspective, we haven't been "hurt" by Blackmon's off-field issues due to how his contract was worded.

 

Overall, Dave has done a good enough job and especially with the QB that he's likely earned enough good grace to outlast Bradley (barring some miraculous improvement). But I don't think he's without criticism in his start so far.

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