NFL's Best GMs 2016PATRICK DAUGHERTY Rotoworld.comWednesday, April 13, 2016 
bill by anti java, on FlickrLike anything else in the NFL, roster assembly is a fickle business. “Can’t miss” prospects miss all the time. Great players get old young. Coaches go rogue. General managers have all the power while at the same time having none of the power. They acquire the players, but rarely get to call the plays or design the schemes. All but a select few are ghostwriters. They come up with the notes, but it’s up to everyone else to make it a hit.For all that they can’t control, here’s what GMs can control: Who they hire, draft and sign, and for how much and how long. How they fare in these five areas are the basis for my 2016 ranks. This year’s four new hires are evaluated separately. For the sake of this list, if there’s ambiguity, I'll consider the “general manager” to be whomever is believed to have the biggest role in shaping a team’s 53-man roster. 1. Bill Belichick, PatriotsLast Year’s Ranking: 1The reputation of “Bill Belichick, coach” has typically outpaced that of “Bill Belichick, GM,” but just look at what he’s done this offseason. The Patriots needed a receiver. Badly. What they didn’t need to do was give Mohamed Sanu or Marvin Jones $35 million. So instead of overpaying mid-range talents who were available for a reason, Belichick looked for help where others rarely tread: The restricted free agent market. Chris Hogan is now a Patriot for the next three years at the bargain price of $12 million. As Belichick was bringing Hogan aboard he was shipping star Chandler Jones out. The master of “one year too early instead of one year too late,” Belichick knew he wouldn’t be re-signing Jones next offseason. In lieu of letting Jones walk for a compensatory pick, Belichick turned him into a second-rounder and first-round reclamation project, OG Jonathan Cooper. Hogan and Jones represent what Belichick has always been. A zigger in a group of zaggers, and a futurist who doesn’t look at this trophy case. Belichick is the greatest of all time because of the games he’s won in the fall and winter, but it’s the work he does in the spring and summer that sets the table. 2. John Elway, BroncosLast Year’s Ranking: 5The pressure to keep the band together is never greater than after winning a championship. Why let anyone slip away from a core that just lifted the Lombardi? Alas, that’s what John Elway did 31 days after Super Bowl 50, waving goodbye as Brock Osweiler departed for a ludicrous four-year, $72 million offer from the Texans. Not that Elway didn’t want to keep the player he made the No. 57 overall pick of the 2012 draft. He simply deduced a quarterback with 305 career attempts who got benched only two and a half months earlier probably didn’t deserve to be one of the highest paid players in the league. Broncos fans can be nervous about losing their quarterback of the future, but they can’t debate Elway’s golden touch. A general manager who’s almost never botched a big decision — Peyton Manning, Von Miller, Aqib Talib, DeMarcus Ware, etc. — Elway’s reputation is fortified by the gems he’s found under the radar. Derek Wolfe as a second-round bargain. Malik Jackson and Danny Trevathan as day-three picks. Chris Harris as an undrafted free agent. ILB Brandon Marshall as a scrap-heap afterthought. Emmanuel Sanders as a $15 million free agent who’s caught 177 passes in two years. Manning made Elway’s job easier, but Elway’s peerless player evaluation provided the Super Bowl sunset for Manning’s dead arm to ride off on. 3. John Schneider, SeahawksLast Year’s Ranking: 3John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll aren’t bound by convention. The duo may end up best remembered for pulling the plug on free agent signing Matt Flynn for third-round rookie Russell Wilson, but just look at how they handled their backfield in 2015. It started in March, when they agreed to a $5 million raise for Marshawn Lynch. Many teams won’t pay a running back $5 million period, let alone dole out that kind of increase for a runner headed into his age-29 season. This is where it gets interesting. The gamble failed. Spectacularly. Lynch broke down as he averaged a wheezing 3.75 yards per carry. He collected $12 million and literally went home, retiring in February. But instead of crippling the roster, Lynch’s disappearing act was a mere nuisance. That’s because the Seahawks signed rookie free agent Thomas Rawls after he was passed on 256 times in the draft. Rawls impressed all offseason before going on to average 5.6 yards per carry in Lynch’s absence. Every general manager makes mistakes every year. But when you compile the kind of depth Schneider and Carroll have, any strom can be weathered, from Flynn and Lynch to Percy Harvin and Jimmy Graham. When building an NFL roster, the key isn’t avoiding mistakes. It’s having the players to move past them. For the complete list... http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/nfl/61907/57/nfls-best-gms-2016?pg=1 22. Jason Licht, BucsLast Year’s Ranking: 23Jason Licht was hired 20 days after Lovie Smith in 2014. By all appearances, he was Smith’s hand-picked general manager. It didn’t take long for Licht to get the upper hand. Smith is now coaching at the University of Illinois after Licht fired him and promoted his top assistant, OC Dirk Koetter. Such treachery would have never occurred without ownership’s blessing, but it could have just as easily been Licht who was sent packing instead of Smith. Lovie at least has a track record. Licht has two draft picks. Licht has taken sure-things Mike Evans and Jameis Winston in the first round, but otherwise struggled to stock the roster with talent. His drafts have been shaky and his free agency track record spotty. In 2014, Licht spent big to sign Josh McCown, Michael Johnson, Alterraun Verner and Anthony Collins. Only Verner remains on the roster, with “remaining” being about all he’s doing. To his credit, Licht has since seemed to learn that one rarely “wins” free agency, but the bottom line is, the Bucs’ roster is scarcely better than the one Licht inherited in 2014. If Winston and Koetter don’t hit it big in 2016, Licht could be looking for a new job.
