Bye week assessment

[barrett]

Originally Posted by Warren

Smith wasn’t in on the Kubiak hiring since he himself wasn’t hired until several months later.

He deserves credit for picking JJ, but I don’t buy that he believed that JJ would turn into the dominant player he has. The Texans had a deal in place to trade up with the 49ers (#7) for Patrick Peterson. The Cardinals took Peterson at #5 so the Texans stayed put at #10 and “settled” for JJ.

Same for Foster – if Smith had a strong belief that Arian could become a franchise back, he would have drafted him instead of hoping that he’d be able to sign him as an undrafted free agent. And he wouldn’t have exposed him to waivers by cutting him at the end of that training camp, or kept him on the practice squad for most the season where someone could have signed him away.

I get what you're saying about JJ and Arian, but the same can be said of any draft pick. The Patriots passed on Brady 5 times. And they never would have played him if Mo Lewis hadn't put a hole in Bledsoe's chest.

Part of being a GM is luck, just like part of being a GM is bad luck (like making great picks that get derailed by injuries when there was no injury history, or having a RB with no history of trouble miss a season to child abuse).

I have no idea how much of the JJ pick was Smith and how much was Wade. I know we had other targets we wanted even more. The fact that Peterson was one of them actually reflects well on Smith since he might be the 2nd best player in that draft. But the bottom line is the card the Texans turned in said JJ Watt. Probably one of the best picks any GM has made the whole decade (Russell Wilson is the only one I can think of that comes close). So I will give Smith credit for that pick just like I'll blame him for any unlucky ones.