SVN had put up a link to a good Tom Curran column on Pioli.
At the tail end he added this report ... which no one here remarked on.
Perhaps few dug down that far.
A.J. Smith, the San Diego Chargers GM, won’t have to dig deep to familiarize himself with Sunday’s AFC Divisional Playoff opponent, the Patriots. He’s an expert.
Every off-season, he studies how organizations operate: their philosophies in dealing with players, agents, roster depth, practice squads, salary structure, message -- everything.
"Two teams I zeroed in on were the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots for the past four or five years,” Smith explained. "It makes sense to study winning organizations and winning to me is the New England Patriots and Eagles and it still is. Look at both of them. With all New England’s been through, they are still very much alive and Philly -- with Donovan McNabb going down -- has (Jeff) Garcia to step in. That happens by structure."
....
"Depth is everything,” Smith said. "Success is always about the players. You get the best you can as quick as you can then you identify the players on your own team you want to build with and do deals to keep it going. But it’s so important to have depth that you need to look at your starters and then begin a ‘negative’ exercise. ‘What happens if someone gets hurt and is out for the year?’ ‘What happens if someone is not as good as we thought?’ Then you’re into your depth.”
A hallmark of the Patriots' success has been its ability to have the next man in line step up when a starter goes down or moves on. "They just keep the machine moving forward.”
How does Smith feel about the team he’s assembled taking on what he considers a model franchise?
"If you want to be the best, you should beat the best,” he said.
And he adds that some of the acquisitions he’s made came with high-stakes games like this in mind.
"Guys like Randall Godfrey, Marlon McCree, Roman Oben, Lorenzo Neal, Keenan McCardell have been in games like this. They have been spoken to about getting the message out this week. Guys who can put the hype aside and have mental discipline in a game like this will perform better. If you need a brown paper bag to stop you from hyperventilating, you will have quite a battle."
Tom Curran is the NFL columnist for NBCSports.com.
E-mail: [email protected].
- edited extract:
http://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/807425/detail.html
At the tail end he added this report ... which no one here remarked on.
Perhaps few dug down that far.
A.J. Smith, the San Diego Chargers GM, won’t have to dig deep to familiarize himself with Sunday’s AFC Divisional Playoff opponent, the Patriots. He’s an expert.
Every off-season, he studies how organizations operate: their philosophies in dealing with players, agents, roster depth, practice squads, salary structure, message -- everything.
"Two teams I zeroed in on were the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots for the past four or five years,” Smith explained. "It makes sense to study winning organizations and winning to me is the New England Patriots and Eagles and it still is. Look at both of them. With all New England’s been through, they are still very much alive and Philly -- with Donovan McNabb going down -- has (Jeff) Garcia to step in. That happens by structure."
....
"Depth is everything,” Smith said. "Success is always about the players. You get the best you can as quick as you can then you identify the players on your own team you want to build with and do deals to keep it going. But it’s so important to have depth that you need to look at your starters and then begin a ‘negative’ exercise. ‘What happens if someone gets hurt and is out for the year?’ ‘What happens if someone is not as good as we thought?’ Then you’re into your depth.”
A hallmark of the Patriots' success has been its ability to have the next man in line step up when a starter goes down or moves on. "They just keep the machine moving forward.”
How does Smith feel about the team he’s assembled taking on what he considers a model franchise?
"If you want to be the best, you should beat the best,” he said.
And he adds that some of the acquisitions he’s made came with high-stakes games like this in mind.
"Guys like Randall Godfrey, Marlon McCree, Roman Oben, Lorenzo Neal, Keenan McCardell have been in games like this. They have been spoken to about getting the message out this week. Guys who can put the hype aside and have mental discipline in a game like this will perform better. If you need a brown paper bag to stop you from hyperventilating, you will have quite a battle."
Tom Curran is the NFL columnist for NBCSports.com.
E-mail: [email protected].
- edited extract:
http://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/807425/detail.html
