Sportingnews.com has Bruce Allen as the early favorite for Executive of the Year

[dalbuc]

Well and more to the point McNabb blocked any other trade destination. If the Eagles wanted to move him they had a market of one so assuming Bruce could outbid himself he was gonna be ok.

[Feel Real Good]

I agree, the problem is that the bad drafting wasn't exclusive to Gruden/Allen...it was equally as bad under Dungy/McKay. I posted this in a thread the other day but it was ignored (wonder why), Gruden and later Allen walked into a team with little depth, zero offensive talent, several missing premium draft picks, and no cap room. When the previous regime leaves you with that kind of mess, and you don't have the immediate resources to repair the situation then things aren't going to go well. Tell me, with all of the holes Dungy left when he was fired, and no money or premium picks to work with, how was Gruden supposed to restock this roster for the long haul? His only option up to and even after (since the Glazers went broke) Allen got here, was to take on low cost (which means old) vets and hope they worked out. Without the premium draft picks the first two years on the job, where was this young promising talent supposed to come from?

I get that they blew picks, who could expect otherwise when busts are taken by every team in every draft. If anyone believes Raheem won't blow his fair share as well they are just delusional. But there really was so much more to the situation than "Gruden/Allen just can't draft". People around here want to pinpoint that one thing as the reason we are where we are, and it's not remotely accurate. IMO it was just a perfect storm, a variety of factors that all tied into each other that made it very difficult for our team to consistently win. To honestly assess why things went the way they did people need to realize this mess started way back in the Dungy years and just carried over.

I have never ever ever ever ever ever ever excused the bad picks from the ends of the Dungy and McKay eras. Believe it or not I was a big Gruden apologist circa 2004-2005 because I realized the hand he was dealt and how little he could have done to remedy it. But you know what? Dungy and McKay are long gone. We can't fire them again or push them out the door again. The players they missed out on are almost all out of the league by now. It's as ancient of history as Ray Perkins' bad picks.

Gruden and Allen were brought in to fix things, and all they did was keep screwing up, too. The players they missed out on are most of the top performers and highest paid players in the league right now. It has a tremendous effect on the state of the team right now.

If Morris and Dominik start making the same mistakes, they'll be gone, too. I don't play favorites.

[escobar]

Funny, Allen is in Washington only a few months and he's already allowed to bring in a player far superior to any player the owners let him bring in the entire time he was here. Go figure. One day people around here will wake up and realize Gruden/Allen brought in players they COULD, not necessarily always the players they wanted.

[CurtR1995]

Reid isn't likely to upgrade the Redskins.  He just fleeced them because you know he knows something Allen doesn't.  

[Feel Real Good]

Funny, Allen is in Washington only a few months and he's already allowed to bring in a player far superior to any player the owners let him bring in the entire time he was here. Go figure. One day people around here will wake up and realize Gruden/Allen brought in players they COULD, not necessarily always the players they wanted.

Aqib Talib  
Dexter Jackson
Jeremy Zuttah    
Dre Moore
Josh Johnson
Geno Hayes
Cory Boyd
Gaines Adams
Arron Sears
Sabby Piscitelli
Quincy Black
Tanard Jackson
Greg Peterson    
Adam Hayward
Chris Denman    
Marcus Hamilton
Kenneth Darby
Davin Joseph
Jeremy Trueblood
Maurice Stovall
Alan Zemaitis
Julian Jenkins
Bruce Gradkowski
T.J. Williams
Justin Phinisee
Charles Bennett
Tim Massaquoi
Cadillac Williams
Barrett Ruud
Alex Smith
Chris Colmer
Dan Buenning    
Donte Nicholson
Larry Brackins
Anthony Bryant
Rick Razzano
Paris Warren
Hamza Abdullah
J.R. Russell
Michael Clayton
Marquis Cooper
Will Allen    
Jeb Terry    
Nate Lawrie    
Mark Jones    
Casey Cramer    
Lenny Williams

[escobar]

Funny, Allen is in Washington only a few months and he's already allowed to bring in a player far superior to any player the owners let him bring in the entire time he was here. Go figure. One day people around here will wake up and realize Gruden/Allen brought in players they COULD, not necessarily always the players they wanted.

Aqib Talib  
Dexter Jackson
Jeremy Zuttah    
Dre Moore
Josh Johnson
Geno Hayes
Cory Boyd
Gaines Adams
Arron Sears
Sabby Piscitelli
Quincy Black
Tanard Jackson
Greg Peterson    
Adam Hayward
Chris Denman    
Marcus Hamilton
Kenneth Darby
Davin Joseph
Jeremy Trueblood
Maurice Stovall
Alan Zemaitis
Julian Jenkins
Bruce Gradkowski
T.J. Williams
Justin Phinisee
Charles Bennett
Tim Massaquoi
Cadillac Williams
Barrett Ruud
Alex Smith
Chris Colmer
Dan Buenning    
Donte Nicholson
Larry Brackins
Anthony Bryant
Rick Razzano
Paris Warren
Hamza Abdullah
J.R. Russell
Michael Clayton
Marquis Cooper
Will Allen    
Jeb Terry    
Nate Lawrie    
Mark Jones    
Casey Cramer    
Lenny Williams

As usual your response is meaningless.

Then again, a list with many sixth and seventh rounders does prove a lot

You've convinced yourself that Gruden/Allen wanted every single player they ever brought in over every other player that was available. If you're going to believe such an absurd thing there really isn't much else I can say to you.

[Feel Real Good]

Who on that list did they not want?

[CyberDilemma]

Funny, Allen is in Washington only a few months and he's already allowed to bring in a player far superior to any player the owners let him bring in the entire time he was here. Go figure. One day people around here will wake up and realize Gruden/Allen brought in players they COULD, not necessarily always the players they wanted.

Umm, didn't he try to trade for Favre a couple of years ago and GB decided to deal with the Jets instead of the Bucs?

[CHRISHOVAN]

I'm extremely excited for Bruce Allen and the opportunity he has in Washington. He is a wonderful person and I'm sure he feels great now that the handcuffs are off of him. Allen is a great GM as far as free agency planning and execution, structuring the salary cap, and negotiating contracts are concerned, but his draft process needs a lot of work. You can't say that he's bad at evaluating talent in the draft, because he has rarely made any picks himself that were his personal choices, which makes it funny that some fans and the Glazers (a very convenient excuse for them) are putting all the blame on him for the mediocre selection of players. It's really his draft philosophy that needs work. Allen didn't have much of an opinion about players in the draft. He would listen to what his coaches wanted and agreed upon for most of the picks, and that's what hurt him. If he let his scouting department run the draft, like Dominik is doing, he probably wouldn't have been fired, although his dismissal didn't have a whole lot to do with his performance as GM. I'm sure the Glazers are really missing the excellent job he did of covering for them.

[Feel Real Good]

And that's why he never should have been given final say over personnel. The American business model is based around having one point of contact for certain tasks. The buck stops here. When you have one guy contractually responsible for a task but not personally invested, you get no accountability.

[Biggs3535]

Dungy/McKay > Gruden/Allen when it comes to talent evaluation and the draft. 

That's really, really debatable.

It's closer than both you and Escobar would like to admit, unfortunately.

[Biggs3535]

Funny, Allen is in Washington only a few months and he's already allowed to bring in a player far superior to any player the owners let him bring in the entire time he was here. Go figure. One day people around here will wake up and realize Gruden/Allen brought in players they COULD, not necessarily always the players they wanted.

So the owners allowed Dominik to bring in Winslow in a matter of months, but didn't allow Allen to do anything like that for the 5 years he was on the job?  Poor Allen.

[CHRISHOVAN]

And that's why he never should have been given final say over personnel. The American business model is based around having one point of contact for certain tasks. The buck stops here. When you have one guy contractually responsible for a task but not personally invested, you get no accountability.

I agree. Privately, the people responsible for the bad drafting were accountable, but publically, Allen would take the blame for the poor drafting, just like Hickey is doing now. The Bucs should have let someone more educated when it comes to the draft make the final selections after the coaches and scouts made and agreed upon their picks. One of the better selectors of players under Allen was Raheem Morris (Sabby Piscitelli, Tanard Jackson, and Aqib Talib). That's part of the reason why he's heavily involved with the draft selection process right now.

[escobar]

Who on that list did they not want?

If you want to list sixth and seventh round draft picks, most teams drafts would look horrendous. Then again you knew that, which is why you listed them. Very few teams consistently draft well. By your standards a new regime is in order for almost every single team in the NFL.

Also, you continue to ignore the trade and FA market, I realize you find those methods useless (unbelievably stupid opinion to have, but I guess it's your right), but as I've said many times not a single team in the NFL could compete on a regular basis without those types of players. The fact that only two teams (Indy, Pitt) are listed as counters to that argument proves the draft isn't a consistent source of quality talent. I have no clue how well the previous regime needed to draft to meet your ridiculous standards, but I'm positive practically every other team in the NFL would fail them as well.

[Feel Real Good]

If you want to list sixth and seventh round draft picks, most teams drafts would look horrendous. Then again you knew that, which is why you listed them. Very few teams consistently draft well. By your standards a new regime is in order for almost every single team in the NFL.

All I did was copy and paste. I've always admitted 6th and 7th round picks are longshots, and I really don't blame Gruden and Allen for getting as little as they did out of the back end of the draft. By far their biggest problem was the middle rounds, 2-4, where good teams consistently find good players while the Bucs always ended up with Colmers and Jacksons.

Also, you continue to ignore the trade and FA market, I realize you find those methods useless (unbelievably stupid opinion to have, but I guess it's your right), but as I've said many times not a single team in the NFL could compete on a regular basis without those types of players. The fact that only two teams (Indy, Pitt) are listed as counters to that argument proves the draft isn't a consistent source of quality talent. I have no clue how well the previous regime needed to draft to meet your ridiculous standards, but I'm positive practically every other team in the NFL would fail them as well.

The Bucs have almost always been active in free agency. But unfortunately all the bad drafting left so many holes it was difficult to put all the cash in one premium player. Without pulling all the numbers I'd wager they spent at least $20 million on new players in 2004 (Garner, Deese, Steussie, Stinchcomb, Brown, Comella, Edwards, Gold, Gooch, Schroeder), $20 million in 2007 (Petitgout, Plummer, Garcia, Carter, Askew, Michael Bennett, Buchanon, Chukwurah, Sammy Davis), and over $10 million in 2008 (Faine, Gilmore, Wilkerson, Douglas, Dunn). That's not pretend money. The checks cashed.