Indeed!!
The SECOND thing I'm gonna do, after I make my Billions and buy out the Kraft family ~ ALSO just discussed with Brother Mayo!! ~ is POUR money into the Scouting Department!!
This missed Opportunities ~ that a few bucks spent on that Department go a long way towards solving ~ probably cost FAR more, due to overpaying for Free Agents, than the cost of investing in the Scouts, themselves.
Finding the right players on the front end makes your job a lot easier than trying to coach up the wrong ones on the back end. Ultimately, all this stuff starts at the top, if you have a nutjob like Al Davis running the organization than the people on the bottom won’t be in a position to succeed, no matter how good they are, with the right people on top the people on the bottom have much more opportunity to succeed, look at the dramatic difference in the 49ers from the change of head coach. Having a good OC/DC will amplify the effectiveness of a good HC.
I think in order for BB to be great he needs certain people around him, there was a certain chemistry with BB/RAC/Weiss and how they then interacted with Vrabel, Bruschi, ect, that just worked, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon series, try to replace either of those guys with anyone else and it’s just not there. While it’s possible that BB would work brilliantly great with Spags as his DC it’s also possible that they just don’t mesh, personally and professionally, you just don’t know. Since the golden era things just haven’t been the same with the replacements, if you can’t develop that coaching talent in house then it makes sense to look outside. I’d try to poach best linebacker coaches from the Steelers, they seem to know what they’re doing in that department, WR coaches from the Packers, etc. Genghis Khan wasn’t shy in the slightest about getting Chinese engineers to work for him, siege equipment tactics were not strong points of the Mongols so they brought in people from the outside who were expert in that, the Romans were never great archers so they hired Assyrian archers, who were the best, etc.
If I’m in charge of football operations I get the best coaches I can find, including position coaches, then I get the best trainers/therapists, the best scouts, etc. I’d also be more aggressive with contracts, if I’m certain I want to keep a guy I resign him sooner rather than later. Some people speculate that BB selected Brace as insurance/leverage in dealing with resigning Wilfork, if I know I want Wilfork long-term I wouldn’t wait till his contract is about to expire, I get that wrapped up beforehand, which insures better leverage for me and also doesn’t make me try force a fit with my drafting. Look at Green Bay, they extended Rodgers in the middle of the 08 season, when GB was losing a lot of games and Rodgers was heavily criticized even though the defense was non-existent, no matter, people always blame the QB and HC. So they locked up Rodgers and right now he’s relatively underpaid, he signed a 6yr $65 million deal. I think the Patriots would be in a better situation right now if they resigned Welker before this season, after he had a down year (by his standards). Resigning him now is going to cost a whole lot more.
If one continuously stacks the deck in one’s favor, at the top, the things at the bottom matter a whole lot less and success will be VASTLY more likely to be sustained.