I guess we're just going to have disagree. You can take a couple snippets from All or Nothing and romanticize McDomough's influence in the FO. I'll go with reports from people that have actually worked with him on a professional level. Let's face it, the ninernation article didn't come out of thin air and what would the author have to gain by it if it did? Maybe the author talked to Trent Baalke, who I know is not a fan of McDonough. Or a guy with the Giants or a guy with the Jags or other members of the Cards . That makes more sense to me then seeing him on the phone with Abdullah during an edited version of All or Nothin and coming to a conclusion.
And, btw, these same people think Keim is great so they don't just go around saying un-flattering things about people. Keim may like McDonough, obviously does, but that doesn't mean the rest of the FO holds him in the same regard.
How often do we get an inside glimpse at the Cardinals draft room? I wasn't romanticizing what i saw -- it was plain and clear that BA & SK put a lot of faith and trust in TMcD. Keim has said so repeatedly and that he appreciates McDonough for being the voice of dissension at times.
I do not doubt your sources in the Jags' organization or what they said---but I wonder if some football people resent TMcD because they feel he got his foot in the door in the NFL because of his dad, long-time NBC NFL reporter and Boston Globe columnist, Will McDonough. It could be too that it was a result of egos clashing amongst alpha types.
Anyway, here's what was reported on the Cards' Wire:
After the San Francisco 49ers hired John Lynch to be their general manager, it meant Arizona Cardinals vice president of player personnel Terry McDonough returned to the team. By all accounts, this is a good thing. However, a report came up leading up to last weekend when McDonough interviewed for the GM job for the second time, and it suggests the Cardinals perhaps wanted him gone.
Reporter Jennifer Lee Chan, writing for SB Nation’s Niners Nation, wrote how McDonough
isn’t well liked within the organization.
There has only been positive press about both 49ers general manager candidates McDonough and George Paton who is currently assistant general manger of the Minnesota Vikings. While my personal research has turned up only positive opinions of Paton, what I am hearing from multiple sources is that McDonough is not well liked in Arizona. In fact, there were no positive reports about McDonough at all.
McDonough has been called “hard to deal with” and “not a good guy.” So much so that Arizona started a positive campaign for him over the last season just to get him out of the building.
This is completely out of left field for people in the Cardinals’ market. There has been nothing of the sort mentioned or even whispered locally. Everything suggests the Cardinals are very happy with McDonough.
Larry Fitzgerald went out of his way to tweet his support for him.
Local reporter and radio host John Gambadoro says the report is absurd. He tweeted that the Cardinals' brass are laughing about this and that the Niners writers must be trying to conjure up some dirt to make the out-of-left-field hiring of John Lynch seem more attractive.
Perhaps Chan’s sources were not within the Cardinals organization, but within the 49ers, who were slinging a little mud to make the hiring of John Lynch look better. Perhaps there is much more to the story than we know here in Arizona.
Cardinals GM Steve Keim has had nothing but praise publicly for McDonough’s work. Fitzgerald certainly makes it seem like he is well-liked. A local reporter has information suggesting the opposite.
It would appear the report is as off-base as it feels.
