Okay, so Parcells drafting Anthony Becht in the first round negates anything else he did, correct? Get serious. Bradway is a genius when it comes to scouting talent. He was just totally ineffectual as a GM, which is quite a different thing than scouting. No one is advocating him returning as a GM. All anyone is saying is that he obviously can scout talent, so keeping him as a scout with the organization is a good thing.
You're coming across as very foolish in this argument. Your original point was to denounce Bradway's ability to evaluate NFL talent, bringing to mind 6th and 7th round picks he made as Jets Gm. When good examples were given of some of those picks contributing to the jets roster as well as NFL teams..you convieniently switched to criticizing his early round picks. Making draft picks and evaluating talent are 2 very different things. When you're the acting GM you have to consider scheme, finances, character, and the overall make-up of the roster. When you're evaluating talent(like Bradway does in his current role) you worry about nothing but the film, workouts and long term player projections. Bradway has a great reputation league wide as being very good in this role. No one is arguing that he wasnt a great GM and franchise decision maker...all we're saying is that he has an eye for NFL talent..the numbers back up that very few of the players he drafted were out of the NFL within one year. They may not have been superstars..but they on some level contributed to an NFL team. Not alot of personnel guys can claim that. THAT is quality scouting/evaluation.
Dorian Boose, Rick Terry, Terry Day,David Loverne, Casey Dailey, Eric Bateman, Tony Dixon, Lamount Burns, Dustin Johnson...the list goes on and on. But no matter what examples are given...some people on here refuse to even CONSIDER comparing bradway's draft picks and Parcells.
your claim that "bradway is a genius" just totally ruined any credibility you ever had. No wonder your handle is "the fool."
You're a great poster...but c'mon.. you bash Bradway in every concieveable way on TGG on a daily basis. You arent exactly the best person to give an opinion on this subject. Although I will ask your opinion on Parcell's drafts compared to Bradways. If you look at things objectively..I think you'dbe shocked a the findings.
Bottom line Kurt: Terry Bradway's contribution to the 2008 Jets from the 2001 to 2005 drafts is Kerry Rhodes, Jerrico Cotchery, Chris Baker and Mike Nugent. Nobody else that he drafted is likely to make an impact for the Jets next season. In fact, there are so few people that he drafted still on the roster, numbering about 8 players from the 5 drafts, that the odds on him having any significant positive impact on the franchise moving forward are low. The reason the Jet's depth is so bad right now and their talent so depleted is that the 2001 to 2005 draft period essentially turned into a net loss for the Jets with repeated failures in the first round, couple with iffy tradeups to make the value at the top of the draft much less than it should have been. Then you get the terrible record at the bottom of the draft with zero contributing players for 2008 out of the 17 picks he made and it's just a nightmare for the franchise. I'm aware that I can make this argument until the cows come home, coupling it with the 6-10 of 2003 followed by the 4-12 of 2005, the worst Jet's performances since Rich Kotite was running the show and it won't matter. People will still see invisible gains that the Jets made under Bradway as opposed to the total collapse that I see. That's just the way of the world. It won't stop me from shinng the bright light on his failures at every point though. I saw him ruin the Jets, and I told you guys he was doing it as it happened and then it happened. That's not bad luck, that's foresight. When I was a younger fan I thought the Jets were just an unlucky franchise, but they're not, they're a horribly mismanaged franchise and this regime is making some doozies also.
There was a thread I started a while back asking who was making the football decisions in the FO, and some tried to downplay Bradway's involvement in the FO since the realignment. Tried to say that he was a 'team advisor' and nothing more. Poppycock. This says it all: I like Bradway's scouting ability, but I hate it when he is given more power to choose the players that he has scouted. The fact that the Jets are bringing in an 'Assistant GM' who is a football guy to help Tanny make football decisions tells me a lot. I like this move a lot. The negligence of the O-line last offseason stunk of Bradway.
But you're STILL furthering a point that truthfully no one is disputing. Bradway was NOT a good decision maker/GM/draft day dealer.The lack of playmakers drafted and depletion of a roster in solid shape upon his arrival is obvious. All many of us are trying to say is that solely as an EVALATOR...Bradway is highly skilled. There is a reason why he came so highly reccomended by Parcells. It's b/c league wide..he has a great reputation as having an eye for talent. Unfortunately he got alittle ahead of himself w/ some of the draft day moves he made and didnt work out as a salary cap manager or as a free agency salesman. But do realize that a GM is not the only person involved in evaluating talent, developing draft boards, and seeing how guys fit in a scheme. You need guys who can do the dirty work. Give the Gm's the neccessary data needed to HELP them w/ the final decisions. That's where Bradway is good. AGAIN...he's NOT good as a GM. All people are saying is that he does in fact bring value to this franchise as a scout/evaluator. And the current title he holds, lets him concentrate on solely that.
You're not a good talent evaluator if the majority of your picks stink. Unless you are picking people somebody else evaluated instead of the people you evaluated. A really good sniper is somebody who hits the target. Being a really good evaluator of sniping opportunities but consistently missing your targets makes you a lousy sniper. This is not hard to understand. How has Bradway's supposedly great talent evaluation helped the Jets? If it hasn't then he's not a great talent evaluator because he has not provided talent as a result of it. Terry Bradway is as good as a talent evaluator as Matthew Hatchette and Justin McCareins were as wide recievers.
What Kurt was saying is that there is a difference between the picks that he made as the GM and the ones made the last two drafts where all he was doing was evaluating talent. It looks like the last draft will be a good one as well. If you make a comparison, the last two drafts have been better than his drafts as the GM where he had to rely on the word of other scouts. But he still drafted some good players as the GM that had to be let go because of the salary cap like Kareem McKenzie, Erik Coleman, Santana Moss who was traded to get Coles back. Not every player is going to work out like DRob, Schegel. What team doesn't have bad picks?
I gotta say that I don't see a huge improvement in the picks the last few years and the picks during Bradway's tenure as GM. We're all pretty high on Mangold and Revis and Harris and Gholston at the moment, however the 2001, 2003 and 2004 picks looked very solid after they were made too and those guys were just dust on the wind. I can make a really good case for the Jet's drafts in the last 3 years turning into just Mangold, Revis and Washington by 2010 and the Jet's talent and depth continuing to suffer as a result. Given the track record of the last 8 years I think that case is more likely than assuming these guys are all going to be healthy and productive in 2 years time. You have to step back from immediate expectations and remember what has always worked in the draft for the best teams out there: best player available in your slot, trade down when you can for depth, stockpile picks as a currency of continous value. The Jet's strategy of the last 8 years has been virtually the opposite: reach for need, trade up at all costs, fritter away draft picks to trade up and to acquire short term veterans who are quickly cut. Realistically if you look at the optimum scenario for utilizing the draft to acquire talent and then you look at what the Jets have done, and continue to do, you have to believe the downside is going to be a rolling talent deficit and poor performance on the field. That's what I see, based on the evidence before us, and I believe the current regime is no more likely to succeed than the past regime that has kind of lingered on. It's depressing but it's also reality. Fairy tales don't happen in the NFL.
This may be a very good signing, because I noted earlier that Tannenbaum needs some help with team talent evaluation. Tannenbaum is suited for the financial end of football. This Cohen guy was the pro personnel director. We all know that the Eagles got hard-nosed players. I see that the Jets' are strengthening up there coaching staff with the addition of Callahan, the new special-teams coach in O'Dea & now the very important front-office with Cohen. I see & smell progress here. These are very fruitful signs here. Now let's see who & the type of ....the next 5-10 F.A.'s the Jets bring into camp are. I'm very interested to see this. Hey don't the Eagles have a CB that they were dangling for a draft pick. I believe that Lito Shepard is worth a 3rd or 4th rounder in "09" to play opposite Revis !!! ??? :wink:
I just wonder why it is that Bradway was solely responsible for every one of the picks made during his tenure as GM, but Tannenbaum is not during his. Oh, wait, because then it would invalidate the arguments against him. Got it.
Bradway didn't make terrible draft picks to begin with. People seem to harp on the McGraw and Thomas picks a little too much. His problem as a GM was making trades, signing free agents and keeping the correct players currently on the roster. That unfortunately was his true downfall. tomdeb, Vilma was a Pro Bowler as a Jets player and so was Justin Miller. Kerry Rhodes should have been one 2 years in a row.
Everyone should note that one a top 5 safety, one is our best young WR, another is a solid all around TE, and the other should be our kicker for a long time. This isn't even going into the fact that he's drafted tons of guys who've been really, really good/useful for us. Hobson...McKenzie...Thomas...Robertson...Askew...Moss...Vilma...Jones...Coleman... Jets fans really have no clue how to appreciate anything but the obvious. I have no idea why.
Easy answer actually. The typical New York sports fan, widely regarded as "the most knowledgable fan in sports" is actually a puppet of the NY media. People regurgitate the garbage they read in the local papers, and swear that it's gospel.
As has already been evidenced, Bradway made many solid picks as GM, about as good as you could hope for. Did he get good players? Yes. Did he get them for good value, not usually. Now compound that with the known fact that Herm had absolutely no idea how to use his roster. Young players never got much of a chance, and left after their rookie contracts were up. Many are now starters on other teams. It's not so much that Bradway let them walk, part of it is they would be crazy to stay as long as Herm was here. You can evaluate and draft the talent, but the coach decides if they play or not.
That's not good enough for some people unfortunately. If a GM doesn't pick probowlers with just about every pick, some fans run to a message board and create a username with some witty spelling of the GM's name, including that he SUX. It just comes back to sports fans thinking they know it all. It's really as simple as that.
