For years we accepted that Bill Belichick was a football genius. The guy just never made a wrong move.
Pick a guard in the first round (Logan Mankins) and it will work out. Grab second and fourth round picks and turn them into secondary stalwarts Eugene Wilson and Asante Samuel. Then, every year, turn out the accomplished veterans and replace them with youngsters who fill the role better.
Belichick, it seemed, simply had the Midas Touch when it came to football talent; every decision was pure gold. But this year New England has not looked like its dominant self, as many of its recent moves (and picks) don't look quite so good.
The lesson here is that general managers (or coaches who fill the role of general manager, in Belichick's case), who are praised as all but infallible are much like gamblers on a hot streak. The streak will eventually end proving that no GM can always make the right move and over the long term, will usually make a few of the wrong ones.
Look at the likes of Red Auerbach, Jerry West, Billy Beane and Brian Sabean. All were seen as being one step ahead of opponents, and all succumbed to the law of averages.
Auerbach built 16 championship teams in the NBA, but in the end selected Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, both players whose deaths contributed to the malaise of a title drought of over two decades.
Although salary concerns and the propagation of his methods played a role in Beane's fall from genius to merely good GM, his trades, the biggest key to his success, took a sharp drop in quality. Across the league former Athletics like Andre Ethier, Carlos Peña and Dan Haren are succeeding while Beane's moves are netting less and less.
Sabean had his run from 1997 to 2004, when he built strong teams with acquisitions like Robb Nen, Jason Schmidt and Jeff Kent. Now he is thought of as the man who gave up Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser and Francisco Liriano for one mediocre season of A.J. Pierzynski.
He even argued that there was some benefit in giving up a first round draft pick to sign a 33-year-old Michael Tucker (career average .256).
West was the architect of the Shaq-Kobe Laker three-peat and turned the Memphis Grizzlies into a playoff team. His last team went 22-60.
These men were acclaimed as the best tricksters and team builders in their respective businesses, but they show that the myth of a GM who is always a step ahead is just that, a myth. Whether their methods grow tired and conventional (Beane and Belichick) or they just plain start outthinking themselves (Sabean), no general managers can continue a long run without eventually making one glaring mistake.
Even Ron Wolf, the man who acquired Brett Favre, Reggie White and made the Packers relevant again, watched the team slide to near the .500 level before leaving in June of 2008. His run is as close to perfect as any, and it still ended in a flawed fashion.
This is not to say that a general manager can't be good or great or construct consistently strong teams. This is to show that every time someone explains that executive's decisions are always right, it's not true.
There are smart individuals who have successful runs, but the threat of a bad move and coming misfortune is always present, even for someone pundits treat as an infallible genius like Belichick once was.
Think Ted Thompson might be the exact opposite of a genius GM? Share that and other stories of bad moves your team made with Ben at breiner@wisc.edu.
