Let's have a rational conversation about our GM

[Ricky Spanish]

Hello everyone. At this point in the season I'm willing to concede that Gettleman did a poor job replacing the departing vets from last season. While Allen didn't get many sacks, he still commanded attention. The veteran presence in the secondary is non existent and we are missing the experience something fierce. The idea was to go into this season with the parts from last year's Super Bowl mostly in tact, and that didn't work out so well so far. 

Having conceded this, I'm not on the fire Gettleman bandwagon, and I feel like others need to hop off of it as well. This is a lost season so it seems. While it's disappointing, I don't find myself in a sky is falling mindset like many on here for a number of reasons.

1. This is the first "Bad" season the team has had under Gettleman that can be directly linked to him being at fault. in 2013 we won 12 games which was a huge surprise due to the cap issues we were in. 2014 Gettleman had to cut a ton of fat with contracts and it left us strapped for cash with tons of holes to fill. Hats off to the coaching staff for pulling the division out of their asses and winning it that season because Gettleman even admitted there would be a step backwards that year, and those who didn't expect it obviously weren't paying attention. Anyone who says more should have been done never has an actual answer for what could have been done in place of the decisions Gettleman made. Still, they made the playoffs and set up the team well enough for the next season. 2015 happens and oh what a magical ride it was. Finally free from Cap Hell, Gettleman was able to reach long term contracts with two super stars in Cam and Luke, as well as add talent to the team with the likes of Oher, Tillman, Allen, and Ginn. While they weren't studs, they were upgrades. We lost KB for the season in TC and still managed to make it to the Super Bowl and lose due to poor execution and miscues. Now we have the debacle that is 2016 and all the wise old guys we had last year are gone and replaced with unproven young guys. That's on Gettleman. But it's still only his first year where I feel like he failed on his own, not due to extenuating circumstances. 1 bad year out of 4 does not make me want him gone. 
2. We are good Cap wise. It's not like we're the Saints and have mortgaged our future to be this bad. All the mistakes that Gettleman has made are not long term mistakes. That's something many on here don't seem to understand. While it sucks that we have fallen so far from last year, This isn't a Hurney run team where the shittiest of shitty players are locked up forever into the future with no end in sight to the shittyness. We have our core locked up for the future, and they are a damn good core in Cam, Luke, Olsen, etc. We have some young guys deserving of large paydays coming up in Norwell and Turner. Star will need a new contract too, as will Short. Good news is we will have the cap to do it, and then some. We have money to improve the team unlike seasons past. While this season is a disappointment, I don't foresee it being an issue long term. We're in a good position to be bad if that makes sense. 
3. We've been unlucky. Like it or not, we pulled some BS wins out of our asses last year, and it was friggin great. This year, we have lost every close game we've been in. Add onto that the injury bug has hit us hard compared to last year and we're just not getting the breaks we got a season ago. We aren't at full strength and we're still competing which is a silver lining in the crappy season that is 2016.
4. The team is constantly shooting itself in the foot. Penalties, Turnovers, and poor coaching have also played a large factor in the team's record this year. That's not on Gettleman. That's on the players and coaches on individual plays. I can't blame Gettleman when Cam throws a pick or fumbles, or when KB holds on a run play that goes for 50 on the opposite side of the field, or when Rivera calls a god damn timeout while the Bucs have the ball with under two minutes to go...These are things that are out of Gettleman's control, yet people seem to be forgetting about these huge momentum shifting plays in the games. 

So right now, I'm on the ride it out wagon. 1 year of poor personnel decisions does not make me hate the guy and want him gone. We made the playoffs each of the first 3 seasons he was our GM based largely around the rosters he was able to fill out at a discount price. There is plenty of room for improvements to be made this offseason. We have the money to do so. We need another OT, a pass rushing DE, a Vet presence in the Secondary, and possibly a new kicker. That's doable with the money we have at our disposal. I think it's very possible that Gettleman can address our needs in the offseason and draft. I'm willing to stick a fork in 2016, but not in our GM who put together a Super Bowl team a year ago. If we suck again next year, then yeah, I'll be more salty. But right now, I think cooler heads need to prevail and we just need to ride the storm out. 

[AceBoogie]

7-8-1 is good? Why do people give him a pass for that just because we were in a bad division and made the playoffs because of the NFL rule book. 

12-4 debatable how much credit he even deserves for this

7-8-1

15-1

1-5

good-bad-good-bad but hey at least we'll be good again next year. 

[Growl]

You wanna know a dirty little secret?

 

The 2013 team was more talented than the 2015 team, if you break it down group by group.

 

The only areas where the 2015 team was superior was excellence/experience at the QB position and the now self-imploded Secondary.

 

The overall talent on this roster has been downward trending since 2013.(and if you can't accept that, you couldn't dispute that it has simply idled)

[rhyslloyd]

That probably won't happen here.


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[Mr. Scot]

You're in the wrong forum for rational discussions, dude.

There's plenty of rational discussion going on in All Pro.

[AceBoogie]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

You're in the wrong forum for rational discussions, dude.

There's plenty of rational discussion going on in All Pro.

The top thread over there has 14 post in 18 hours. What riveting discussion that must be.

[tiger7_88]

17 minutes ago, Cracka McNasty said:

So right now, I'm on the ride it out wagon. 1 year of poor personnel decisions does not make me hate the guy and want him gone.

The unfortunate and questionable decisions by the Front Office in the last offseason are just the facade for the haters.

Because that's really not their core problem, way deep down in their souls.

If you dig way deep and take a peek, what you'll see as the real reason for the hate is the following:  cutting Steve Smith, not "standing up for" and resigning Greg Hardy, cutting Deangelo Williams, and not submitting to Josh Norman's and Josh Norman's agent's hard ball "give me what I want or I'll walk" negotiating tactics.

That's what 99% of it is all about.  Not a couple of rookie CBs.  

[countryboi]

Lets not forget the issue with the secondary happened once before with the wide receivers. were he cut capable players in the offseaon in a attempt to send a message. that didnt backfire nearly as bad as this incident.

I also dont think he does a great job of surrounding game with talent, Gman is always looking for the cheap way out. so if the panthers dont draft some super talented player.  Gman is going to go dumpster diving fill that gap with the lowest bidder. Do we always have to go FA shopping at goodwill?

[GoobyPls]

Put together a 15-1 team????

 

Cam played out of his mind last year and it had absolutely nothing to do with Gettleman. Our receivers were still awful last season and our Oline was top ten in sacks per attempt.

 

[Khyber53]

14 minutes ago, Cracka McNasty said:

But right now, I think cooler heads need to prevail and we just need to ride the storm out. 

Excellent post and sums up in the right way at the end.

Our GM held onto as many of the Super Bowl team players as possible and really gave Norman every chance to sign the one-year tender for a lot of money... it literally sat there on the table while Norman ran his mouth. Gettleman probably did retract it too quickly, but it also seems like Norman's agent was playing around and had ticked G-man off. 

And yes, there really is a Super Bowl hangover. And we are suffering from it. The guys we retained played three more games last year than half of the teams in the league and more games than anyone but the Broncos.. and let's face it, they had an easier game that night than we did. 

Three more games of punishment and pounding than the Saints, Falcons and Bucs took. Those guys also all got almost two more months of rest and recuperation than we did. They picked higher in the draft and all were retooling their teams while we were still grinding through the playoffs. The 49ers were in the same boat, but are an even bigger trainwreck without a decent QB to pick apart our secondary. Winston is going to be good, but Brees and Ryan are just the kind of guys who are experienced and skilled enough to pick us apart. And they did.

Denver, almost as worn out as we were, ground out a win on opening night. Barely. And they are struggling now, too.

This year probably won't be very good, unless the team, the entire team, makes some kind of Herculean effort to get over this hump. They almost showed us that it can be done yesterday.

But when we go back and look at the idea of last year's Super Bowl team, we need to look at it this way -- Gettleman hadn't finished building the team he wanted to design, we were still a work in progress. We might have peaked too quickly and hurt ourselves in the short term. But if we can stay the course and stick with the guy we were all praising like crazy last year, then we might see a team built for the long run.

 

[Moose87Banks]

All of you backed Gettleman when he did the things he did. Stop acting like you hate him because he had one bad off season


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[Kevin Greene]

16 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

You're in the wrong forum for rational discussions, dude.

There's plenty of rational discussion going on in All Pro.

Yeah I see your big thread is on a possible Coaching change that ain't gonna happen. So rational or ridiculous?

[Growl]

9 minutes ago, AceBoogie said:

The top thread over there has 14 post in 18 hours. What riveting discussion that must be.

maybe he's talking about his post and it's 4 replies

[Ricky Spanish]

24 minutes ago, AceBoogie said:

7-8-1 is good? Why do people give him a pass for that just because we were in a bad division and made the playoffs because of the NFL rule book. 

12-4 debatable how much credit he even deserves for this

7-8-1

15-1

1-5

good-bad-good-bad but hey at least we'll be good again next year. 

Because of the situation we were in with the Cap. His budget was cut significantly and we still managed to win the division and one playoff game with duct tape and clothes pins holding the team together. It's one of those extenuating circumstances you need to look at objectively. Yeah the team was worse overall but if we were going to get healthy financially we had to rip the band-aid off and deal with a less than stellar year - and we still made the playoffs.