One of the sneakiest RB pickups of the year
Plus trade talk, and what to do about bench points
I know I said I’d run back the livestream this week, but I mentioned in the Stealing Signals intros this week that all I wanted to do was write intros this week. There’s just so much fun stuff I wanted to write about, and while my whole thing about Arthur Smith this Monday got perhaps more of a reaction than anything I’ve written this year, it kind of got in the way of better topics. There are so many other things that could be added to that, but I’ve been making these points about Smith since the middle of last season, and it’s just kind of boring at this point. To the extent I was able to give a decent accounting of who he is, it is in part because my take has just built with time as he keeps giving more and more examples of being exactly who he is.
Smith, whose quotes in pressers this week have made the rounds on social and couldn’t be bigger hits of confirmation bias for me. I’ve also gotten some commentary that amounts to me being unfair on Smith. And I won’t deny that’s possible, but I will just say that there are other coaches I’ve criticized and then needed to walk back because of their ability to grow and improve. I think that’s what tilts me the most about Smith — I actually started the rant Monday walking back my Twitter criticism from Sunday because of Bijan Robinson’s comments, but then everything Smith has said this week has been the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist madman. I’ve never heard someone unnecessarily invoke so many brain rot buzzwords. He talks about drama and sensationalism, but he handles things in the worst ways possible, and creates more stories as a result.
Anyway, one point I want to add real quick before we move on from Smith because it is truly boring at this point, isn’t really about Smith. I was dead wrong on Nick Sirianni after his opening presser was a total disaster. I was convinced he was screwed, and didn’t have the necessary makeup to handle the job. You have to be a leader. One point I made is there are only 32 of these jobs in the world. (Another piece of feedback I got is I’m also average and boring, which, yeah! I’m also not in one of these 32 highly-prestigious jobs. I’m just a random guy who constantly says he doesn’t know why anyone reads his ramblings.)
But among other things, the skill set required to do this highly prestigious job includes what has been called a growth mindset. The humility and willingness to self-analyze and improve. A Twitter reply brought up Dan Campbell as a great juxtaposition, and I’d absolutely agree. That’s another guy who when hired I know I argued somewhere that his resume wasn’t strong enough and his hiring was probably a good example of why there’s a representation problem in coaching. I would absolutely walk that back, because Campbell has shown the traits necessary to do the job well. My initial criticism was without merit.
In fairness, I’m obviously not an insider. I didn’t interview Campbell. So yes, my criticism was inaccurate and I need to admit that now, but at the same time I don’t regret it. Many want to talk about the representation problem without highlighting specifics, because it’s easier to talk about broad trends. But again, 32 jobs. You gotta tell me where we make improvements. And not every white hire is a bad one. But part of the issue with representation is white coaches get longer leashes. I called for Arthur Smith’s firing after last season, and I think everything to this point confirms that was correct. I would argue that based on the data, a Black coach probably wouldn’t have gotten the leash he’s gotten. There was outrage about it, but David Culley (Texans) and Steve Wilks (Panthers interim) are two who didn’t get the longer leashes after overperforming low expectations, like Smith has. These are real examples of why the data shows what it shows.
But Campbell was, again, a good hire. And I’ve also argued for a long time that hiring decisions need to think outside the box and the best hires are younger first-time coaches with new ideas. What I love about Campbell, though, isn’t necessarily the innovation of a Mike McDaniel, but it’s his willingness to take accountability. That’s real leadership. Guy is constantly trying to improve, while at the same time asking that of his players.
And that was the point of the Sirianni example. As the guy in the top job, there’s no one who is going to protect you from your own worst impulses, and Smith is so clearly a slave to his. Sirianni by comparison wasn’t good enough in his opening press conference, got a lot of criticism, and owned it. It wasn’t until much later, on the other side of things, that he acknowledged what a disaster that was, and specifically how he worked to get better at that part of the job, which is the only reason we even know he self-analyzed and quietly tried to improve (I can’t remember enough details to save my Google searches from all just pulling up that initial press conference and the coverage of it, so I can’t find the specifics of him more recently reflecting on that, but you’ll have to trust me that it was refreshing).
Smith so clearly doesn’t self reflect. He battens down the hatches, and mumbles through nonsense about how a reporter asking a reasonable question must not understand how things really are. Anyway, we need to move on from Smith. I do want to say real quick that through this conversation of Sirianni and Campbell, I guess I’m coming to realize that those types of first-time hires probably aren’t the best examples of why there is a representation problem, because again NFL teams should be expanding the pool of potential coaching candidates. It’s the retread hires, especially the ones that cost a ton of money because they generate headlines — Jon Gruden and Urban Meyer flamed out massively, but even Sean Payton types. That’s not to say Payton’s a bad coach and will definitely fail, but trading draft capital for him and signing him to a big deal when the best coaches around the league right now are all young, first-time hires — that doesn’t seem like the optimal investment. At the cost they paid to bring him in, Payton essentially needs to be Hall of Fame level.