Can You Out-Draft Andy Reid?

If you haven't noticed, lately there's been a bit of contempt amongst Eagles fans over the fate of Andy Reid. Most notably, the fire Andy Reid movements have driven up a lot of interest, especially after last Sunday's debacle to the Bungles.

Out of this came a debate between myself, some friends and a resulting message board conversation amongst some Eagles fans. Many of them believe Andy Reid should be fired. I'm not an apologist, but amongst the reasons for firing him: He can't draft, he's a terrible game day coach, his game plan sucks and he cannot adjust. This may or may not be true, but if he can't do any of those, then I fail to understand how he's a mediocre coach (his record is 1 game above .500 since the Super Bowl run of 2004). Assuming that between the seasons of 1999 (his first year) and 2004 (his best year) he was only partially responsible (between the Ray Rhodes Era and the Tom Modrak era, the latter of which ended in 2001 and left Reid essentially in total control) for the quality of players on his team.

Now the debate has shifted to Donovan McNabb, who didn't know you could tie an NFL game. The Eagles front office appears to be exacting revenge on McNabb and setting him up as the scape goat and even some fans have turned on him. But who's really to blame? After all, Reid called the plays, kept his quarterback in, prepared the game plan, so on and so forth.

So after much debate, I'm curious as to how good of a drafter Andy Reid and Company really is. And while its easy to point strike down the drafting of the likes of Quinton Caver or Jerome McDougal, its unfair to say that he missed without comparing it to the hit rates of other long term, successful head coaches.

So over the next week or so, BNB will be examining the drafts of certain comparable NFL regimes over the last decade or so. We will be scoring them based on quality of player, hit rate of draft position and value. We're still considering certain NFL regimes to compare but the following could be considered an incomplete list:

• New England Patriots
• Denver Broncos
• Jacksonville Jaguars
• Dallas Cowboys
• Chicago Bears
• Atlanta Falcons
  

I'm still tweaking a scoring system, so your input is appreciated if you'd like to have a say (Justin@badnewsbloggers.com). We'll try to score one draft per day and provide a composite comparison sometime next week. Who knows, maybe we can even discover the true "Gold Standard" of draft experts.

Hammerin' Hank's Daily "Linkin' Logs" (11/21/08)

If you didn't already know, Hammerin' Hank...wait, no Hal Steinbrenner will be taking (officially) the place of George (or perhaps simply Larry David) as Yankees Chairman (and partial owner).

Hal has actually been more involved with the team, namely from a financial aspect (he's got the brains), while brother Hank has been more focused on the baseball side of things. There's no doubt that Hank will take the place as family "Boss" when his father passes.

And it's almost a sad day for baseball. And in a Charles Wilson-esque utterence (former GM CEO), George once declared "What's good for the Yankees is good for baseball." And to some extent that's true (and perhaps the Red Sox too). George hasn't passed yet, but you can sense, between Hank and Hal, that his fate is sealed and Baseball will lose another figure. But what Steinbrenner has done, overseen baseball's most powerful franchise reach a climax in popularity, both in the city and the game, is something that may in fact be "Hall of Fame" worthy.

And it didn't take Hal long to act. After offering C.C. Sabathia a contract (projected to be upwards of $137.5 million), Hal threatened not to take flack from anyone:

"We've made him an offer. It's not going to be there forever," - Hal Steinbrenner

And with that, the new Yankees era seems an awful lot like the old one. The Yankees won't play second fiddle (or 2nd choice) to the Dodgers or anybody.

• Another ding in the Dallas armor, Felix Jones is done for the year. All of the sudden, letting Julius walk doesn't seem so smart and I really can't see Marion Barber III capably handling (his style of play and) a full load through the playoffs. Of course Dallas has to get there first...
• After the "Bunk at the Bank," Allen Huber "Bud" Selig has moved to change the rule. All World Series games will soon be required to go the full 9. I can't imagine a scenario where this doesn't get approved.
• Was Bill Simmons flying your plane? Seriously, how does this happen?
• Tracer Bullet of EC wants the McNabb hating to stop.
• So? Should the Pistons have also tried to get KG suspended?
• The whole Chad Johnson (Ocho Cinco...whatever) thing has really gotten out of hand and overblown. The Orlando Sentinal's blog has the scoop. Apparently Cinco was late to a meeting, and when he finally came, he was very "laid back" to say the least. The result was arguments between him, a staffer and eventually Marvin Lewis. Chad was punished by not playing last night...end of story
• Miami pwned on almost 500 yard of rushing by GT...wow
• And finally, at this point, if you're a Lions fan, is this what you're thinking...really? Well, if you need something, I guess this is it...