Steve Wilks lawsuit against NFL

BritCard

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We’ll, I mean Rod Graves drafted multiple hall of famers (Fitz and Peterson), several more RoH candidates (Campbell, Dockett, Wilson, Dansby), and shepherded the Cards to the super bowl. Three years after that, he was in the garbage can.

He also had a 65-95 win loss record and only 2 winning seasons in 10.

Does it matter if you have good draft picks if they don't help you win games?
 

kerouac9

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He also had a 65-95 win loss record and only 2 winning seasons in 10.

Does it matter if you have good draft picks if they don't help you win games?
A lot of that is back-loaded when the team bottomed out under Dave McGinnis, whom Graves didn't hire. :shrug:
 

Shane

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A lot of that is back-loaded when the team bottomed out under Dave McGinnis, whom Graves didn't hire. :shrug:
Just curious? Are you hinting that Rod Graves probably should’ve been retained? And ithe only reason he was fired is because he’s black? I mean since most of the issues were during his Dave McGinnis years according to you. Obviously he flipped it around and should not have been fired right? But we know that this organization couldn’t help themselves due to the color of his skin?
 

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Of Graves 10 years McGinnis was HC for 1 of them.
Hysterical at this point how a few posters are trying help float a narrative about the Cards around here. With literally zero evidence of any kind to support said narrative.
 

BritCard

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Hysterical at this point how a few posters are trying help float a narrative about the Cards around here. With literally zero evidence of any kind to support said narrative.

A lot of people are REALLY angry about how the season ended apparently.
 

Cheesebeef

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Just curious? Are you hinting that Rod Graves probably should’ve been retained? And ithe only reason he was fired is because he’s black? I mean since most of the issues were during his Dave McGinnis years according to you. Obviously he flipped it around and should not have been fired right? But we know that this organization couldn’t help themselves due to the color of his skin?
I can’t imagine how you came to the above.
 

Shane

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I assume all the excuse making (He drafted these good players, it was McGinnis, he took us to the SB but was fired 3 years later)
I mean it’s really pretty clear. K9 is clearly defending Graves of sorts now. I bet that wasn’t so back in the day though if we went and checked.
 

Cheesebeef

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I mean it’s really pretty clear. K9 is clearly defending Graves of sorts now. I bet that wasn’t so back in the day though if we went and checked.
I think he’s saying that the team prob gave Graves a mulligan for his first year since Dave Mac wasn’t his coach. Deserved a healthy skepticism and criticism for the Denny years but then had really good success with his second coach where the team was .500, Super Bowl loser and Conference Semi loser with 5 playoff wins and then stunk on ice for the next three years where he got canned.

I woulda gotten rid of graves after his first 2022-esque off-season in 2003 and then done the same after the Denny years.
 

kerouac9

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He also had a 65-95 win loss record and only 2 winning seasons in 10.

Does it matter if you have good draft picks if they don't help you win games?

I'm not sure Graves keeping the cabinets stocked with good players was the problem. He can't coach the team on the field. Rod Graves couldn't keep Ken Whisenhunt from benching/cutting Matt Leinart and replacing him with Max Hall.

If the argument is who drafted better between Graves and Keim (which IMO is the most important job of a GM), I think the winner is Graves. It seems very strange to argue (as you seem to be) that you don't care whether or not a GM drafts good players.

Just curious? Are you hinting that Rod Graves probably should’ve been retained? And ithe only reason he was fired is because he’s black? I mean since most of the issues were during his Dave McGinnis years according to you. Obviously he flipped it around and should not have been fired right? But we know that this organization couldn’t help themselves due to the color of his skin?

I dunno. Ultimately, the measure of a GM is whether you can get a quarterback — then, once you have a quarterback, whether you can surround him with the pieces needed to consistently contend for a championship.

Graves was fired because he went all in on Kevin Kolb and that didn't work out. Rolling snake eyes on Leinart and Kolb probably doomed him despite pretty good draft classes. You can see why the team thought the next step was to promote Super Scout Steve Keim, but it hasn't worked out that way.
 

AZCB34

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What was his record as a GM? Who was the number one target on this board as public enemy number 1 that needed to be fired almost every single year? Had a nickname as the snail? And yet was black and maintained his position as GM for a decade.

Anyone even hinting that had Keim been black he would be fired by now? Clearly truly believes the Cardinals organization is racist at its core. They are part of the problem not the Cards. An organization that has clearly shown they are one of the better if not the best organization at giving minorities opportunities at pretty much every level.

It’s literal Horse manure at the highest level.
What was his record as a GM? Who was the number one target on this board as public enemy number 1 that needed to be fired almost every single year? Had a nickname as the snail? And yet was black and maintained his position as GM for a decade.

Anyone even hinting that had Keim been black he would be fired by now? Clearly truly believes the Cardinals organization is racist at its core. They are part of the problem not the Cards. An organization that has clearly shown they are one of the better if not the best organization at giving minorities opportunities at pretty much every level.

It’s literal Horse manure at the highest level.
You do realize the organization doesn’t have to be racist to its core to give a white guy more latitude/opportunity than a black guy right?
 

BritCard

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If the argument is who drafted better between Graves and Keim (which IMO is the most important job of a GM), I think the winner is Graves. It seems very strange to argue (as you seem to be) that you don't care whether or not a GM drafts good players.

The most important job of a GM is to construct a roster and team of coaches that can win games. Preferably consistently over a number of years.

Drafting is an important part of that but its only part.

Keim has a far better winning record than Graves despite Graves having better drafts. What use are good drafts with wins?
 

BritCard

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You do realize the organization doesn’t have to be racist to its core to give a white guy more latitude/opportunity than a black guy right?

Graves had 2 winning seasons in 10. That's more latitude than most GMs in history.
 

Ronin

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The most important job of a GM is to construct a roster and team of coaches that can win games. Preferably consistently over a number of years.

Drafting is an important part of that but its only part.

Keim has a far better winning record than Graves despite Graves having better drafts. What use are good drafts with wins?
Exhibit A: Mike Nolan.
 

football karma

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You do realize the organization doesn’t have to be racist to its core to give a white guy more latitude/opportunity than a black guy right?


the same situation can also be described as: Person with a far longer track record in the organization is given more latitude than guy who just joined the organization. That dynamic is super common.
 

daves

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We’ll, I mean Rod Graves drafted multiple hall of famers (Fitz and Peterson), several more RoH candidates (Campbell, Dockett, Wilson, Dansby), and shepherded the Cards to the super bowl. Three years after that, he was in the garbage can.
Hmmm....
Since people are putting together their offseason plans, I thought I'd put mine out there before we find out what are the initial dominoes to fall. This is a reasonable expectation of what the Cards should do, without (too many?) flights of fancy of what I hope they do.

1. Move Rod Graves to Asst. VP Football Operations. It's a lateral move/demotion that gives Graves a role in the organization on the business side, but removes him from input on the on-field product.

2. Promote Steve Keim to General Manager. I don't think there's anyone outside the organization that I'd want to bring in right now. Reportedly, Keim was a voice in the wilderness calling for Jay Cutler ahead of Matt Leinart, and for Adrian Peterson ahead of Levi Brown. Mike Jurecki says that Keim is firmly committed to BPA uber alles in the draft, which means that it's more important than ever that we hit good single and doubles in free agnec
...dbs
 

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I think if you looked at the last 2 GMs, Graves and Keim, it's not a race thing. I believe it's more of a Bidwill thing. For some reason the Cards like to hold on the GM and promote within, even to a fault.
 

daves

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If the argument is who drafted better between Graves and Keim (which IMO is the most important job of a GM), I think the winner is Graves.
I thought Denny Green was almost universally credited on this board for the Cards draft success while he was the HC. Not sure whether you specifically espoused that position but I sure don't remember you arguing against it. Someone with more time can probably dig up the evidence.

...dbs
 

kerouac9

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The most important job of a GM is to construct a roster and team of coaches that can win games. Preferably consistently over a number of years.

Drafting is an important part of that but its only part.

Keim has a far better winning record than Graves despite Graves having better drafts. What use are good drafts with wins?

It's very strange that you think that a GM constructs the "team of coaches." Generally, coaches are responsible for their own staffs -- it's usually part of the recruiting/interview process to discuss the staff that you would and can bring with you to create your team.

You could easily argue that the WORST part of Keim's job is his ability to build coaching staffs.

I'd say that drafting is the MOST important part (especially post the last CBA that capped rookie deals) because it creates so much flexibility along the rest of your roster.

Here we are in mid-April and we need at least 4-6 starting players because we failed to draft or retain home-grown talent; we'll definitionally have to pay more for veterans at those positions, and have them on shorter-term contracts.

That means will have to play the lottery again next year and hope that we don't roll snake eyes on another position that we need to sign a veteran at because we couldn't retain someone.

I'd argue that Keim's record is better because Bruce Arians excels at getting the most out of a roster from the W-L perspective, and it had little to do with the rosters that Keim placed in front of Arians. The evidence for this is how Arians managed to go 7-9 with a Bucs roster with Jameis Winston passing 30 and 30 TDs and INTs plus the 29th-ranked scoring defense in the NFL. Add a respectable QB to that roster and Arians is lifting the Lombardi trophy.

With another head coach, those last two Arians seasons probably look more like the last two Whisenhunt seasons and the one Wilks season, and you have extremely similar records for both GMs.

Hmmm....

...dbs

I feel like this take aligns exactly with the logic I posted above. :shrug:
 

kerouac9

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I thought Denny Green was almost universally credited on this board for the Cards draft success while he was the HC. Not sure whether you specifically espoused that position but I sure don't remember you arguing against it. Someone with more time can probably dig up the evidence.

...dbs
I think my argument was that Whis won with Denny's players and was getting too much credit.

Denny Green had very little interest in coaching and I dunno what happened with his staff here, but the stories from Urban and others about his leadership are pretty dark, TBH.

On a separate topic, it's really weird to me that Early Doucet never got a shot on another NFL team. He seemed perfectly fine.
 

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I think my argument was that Whis won with Denny's players and was getting too much credit.

Denny Green had very little interest in coaching and I dunno what happened with his staff here, but the stories from Urban and others about his leadership are pretty dark, TBH.

On a separate topic, it's really weird to me that Early Doucet never got a shot on another NFL team. He seemed perfectly fine.
I believe he had some chronic injury his last year here and concussion issues as well. Signed with Seattle and they cut him almost immediately because he didn't disclose some physical problem. Never saw the field again. He was a 4th receiver at best, small, slow and fragile.
 

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