Calling a GM Stupid Is Stupid!

Being an NFL fan is complex. In fact, I believe it is fair to say that being an NFL fan may be one of the most complex hobbies one could have.

First, the NFL, itself is incredibly complex, with an overwhelming array of data points available online. With 11 players on the field per play, for 20 games (3 Pre + 17 Reg Season) per team, for 32 teams, and an average 130-ish plays per game, that is 40,000+ snaps a year, or 900,000+ man/snaps in one NFL season.

If you have the money to pay them, PFF grades those 900,000+ man snaps and delivers dozens of data points each for all 35,200 players eligible to log a man/game, and therefore eligible to take at least one of those man/snaps.

All 40,000+ plays have stats: Down, Distance to gain for 1st, Play type, Play result, Yards gained or lost (x2, 1 for each side of the ball), Who made the tackle, not to mention Individual stats for all the skill positions for all those yards.

Here in the technical vastness of the future, we also have data points for 1st downs, TDs, Yards after catch or contact, and many stats so complex nobody knows the formula, and few understand what they are supposed to mean, beyond “bigger is better” and some arbitrary trigger level, past which we are supposed to worry. Plus, the internet offers us so much game film and so many highlight reels we could never watch it all.

Thus, it is clear to see, we NFL fans are armed with thousands, probably millions, maybe billions of data points (Does anybody really have that much energy?-) on which to base our opinions. And this is what leads us to the Dark Arts of the armchair GM.

Some of us don’t have the energy to second guess every call, and none of us has the time (or the ability?) to remember all 35,000+ rostered players, yet *most* of us are quite sure we couldn’t possibly do much worse.

The simple, cruel truth, Dear Reader, is that our “billion points of data” is just peanuts to what our GMs and HCs have!

They have the play book so they know whether the QB or WR was wrong. They have way more practice film than the few hundred hours of actual game film logged each year. But their biggest advantage is that they have literally dozens of people on staff to review not only that film, but hands-on, in-person, observations from practice. And those evaluations are tailored to their specified criteria, philosophy, scheme, etc.

How many people are on your staff? If it is more than zero, you’ve got me beat. Any way you shake it, even the laziest front office in the NFL has a hundred times more data points per player than even the best armed media pundits and a thousand times (or higher) more than the typical fan.

Think you know which player is the best fit for your team? How does he sound in meetings, or in the locker room? How quickly does he pick up new techniques? How well does he get along with the trainers? How does he look on the practice field, and how does that compare to how he looks on game day.

The list goes on and on, and it is never just one thing getting weighed in the decision making process. If we feel blindsided by a decision made by a GM or HC, it was most likely based on criteria we will never know about, because they will never tell us…partly because a lot of it is subliminal, they can’t tell us the bits of which they aren’t even aware.

Now this is not to say that the GM or HC is surely right and the fans surely wrong; it’s just to say don’t call the GM stupid. Given the variety of available opinions (nearly = to the number of people who *have* opinions to start with), somebody has to be wrong, and not just re: the big picture! But for every one of the billions of decisions made every season, many people will be wrong about it, while many others will be unaware of it.

Sometimes the decision maker and his supporters are wrong, sometimes the critics. Absolutely *ZERO* GMs or HCs are always right, and the same number are always wrong. Even having the highest percentage of “right” decisions (as if there was a reliable way to measure *that*) doesn’t guarantee a championship, though it may preclude “earning” a top 10 draft pick.

So, being the most right, weighted by the relative significance of each decision, and a high enough percentage of the mathematically guaranteed “odd bounces” the oddly shaped football will take each year going your way…we may be headed in the direction of a formula.

Through all of this, one bit of logic seems inescapable: If one of “us” were suddenly given the actual GM or HC data access and staff and responsibilities, there is no way on Earth we make all of the exact same choices as we would from the comfort of our armchairs! First, think of the alarmingly large number of decisions the job requires, but we never even consider from the armchair. Then, remember we just magically multiplied our knowledge by a few orders of magnitude. It is crazy to think that much additional knowledge would not change our thinking at all.

We may sign the guy he didn’t sign, but now we are dealing with consequences he wasn’t willing to deal with…might that affect some other decision with its own rat’s nest of complications?

Now, I’m not saying not to speak your mind, or not to have opinions. I’m never going to say one should always just say, “Oh, well, they know best!” I’m certainly not going to say you shouldn’t call for a Loser’s head on a platter (though his job on the bonfire should be plenty). But, is the GM stupid? Call him ineffective! All you need is the W/L record to make that an inescapable fact. But calling the GM stupid is sheer speculation. Ryan Pace, for example, was more likely too clever for his own good. Even if he just thought himself way more clever than he actually was, that is egotistical, which is still different than stupid.

All I’m saying is if you think it’s complicated running a team from your armchair, that’s just peanuts compared to the space where GMs and HCs work! They aren’t stupid people! Clearly, every year several are badly overwhelmed, but that doesn’t make them stupid. The fact is that a failed season is never caused by just one thing. That doesn’t make the GM stupid, just ineffective.

If the wheels fell off, they were wrong too often, or got blindsided by disaster and/or caught with a bargain-basement-contingency plan. If it happens year after year, one might begin to make a case for “GM Stupid”, but do you really think you can beat the obvious insanity plea? (God, forgive me, for defending Dave Gettleman!-)

If it just keeps happening GM after GM and HC after HC, the root cause may be the owners…but that is another story, altogether.

Can owners eventually “figure it out” and right the ship after decades of failure? We may see that in progress in Chicago right now.

I sure hope so.

Bear Down, and pass the Halas Hall Kool Aid!