JOEinPHX

True. But on the other hand, Carson Palmer flourished under Arians without being that guy.

An excerpt from that conversation - Dimitroff said on the radio. “We did make a big-time move for Julio way back when. I’ve always been taught through my years of growing in this business that the General Manager and the head coach know the team better than anyone. The core of where you are, team-building, how you project moving forward. We spent a lot of time back in 11 analyzing our situation and knowing where the organization was, of course. Knowing the talent we had. Knowing where the contracts were and the length of contracts. It takes a lot of research in that way to decide whether if you’re going to make a once-in-a-career type move. Now, as we can say, when that was made, that was in ’11. That was 23 years into a career. Careers can be 10 years, three years, four years, who knows. Organizationally speaking, you don’t make those moves all of the time. They are really thought-out decisions. When you find someone that can be a massive difference-maker within the league and within the team, and you feel like your roster is in the right place that you can potentially give up some of the so-called booty that you need to give up to make these plays or making a trade up. You have to be very, very comfortable with where your team is as far as the roster and such. That’s what you have to be very comfortable with and you have to be very strong understanding of where your team is going into the future.” Translation: "If you think you're just one piece away, you go for it." He was dead wrong back then, and he completely ignored the part about the head coach being one of the two guys who understood the team best. It appears he understands that the Falcons aren't one piece away right now. One hopes that 'smartest-guy-in-the-room' syndrome doesn't rear its ugly head again.

What's not to like about a rags-to-maybe-almost-someday-riches story? We should all pull for this guy - reminds me of the Will Svitek saga from a few years back. And who'da thunk that Jon Carney and Matt Bryant were a couple of nearly-identical looking, perpetually-angry looking NFL kickers. Finally, if the guy who made the video was ever forced to speak without using hand gestures, he'd probably explode.

I'm happy for Ben - he's a family friend and we all want the best for him. But Dirk does have a disturbing tendency to hire or promote guys who won't rock the boat. In Tampa, when it came time in 2018 to name a new receivers coach, he passed over Andrew Weidinger because Andrew did something Dirk considered disloyal - specifically, he acknowledged an interest in a job opportunity with a college team. He passed on Terry Robiskie, who had made his interest in the position very clear - but Terry is the ultimate boat rocker. Instead, he promoted this guy from within, a guy with whom he had a long-standing relationship - https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/09/18/nfl-domestic-violence-coach-hiring-red-flags/2215153001/ Here are some pertinent excerpts: In 2017, then-Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter hired Skyler Fulton out of the junior college coaching ranks to be an offensive assistant. Fulton’s big opportunity, which included a promotion to receivers coach a year later, came despite a troubling history that includes an arrest on a domestic violence charge and multiple women alleging threatening behavior – the type of red flags that would have subjected him to additional scrutiny if he’d joined the NFL as a player instead of a coach. Koetter and Bucs officials never called relevant parties, including Fulton’s employer at California’s Citrus College, where Fulton had again been accused of violence against another woman three months before leaving for his NFL job. “No, I’ve never talked with Dirk [Koetter] or anybody. Nobody,” said Citrus College football coach Ron Ponciano, who described Fulton’s tenure as “brief and rocky.” The Bucs hired Fulton to serve as an offensive assistant in February 2017 and promoted him to receivers coach in January 2018.Fulton’s criminal history, which is available in a standard background report, shows that in 2010, he was arrested in Washington and charged with assault and malicious mischief. Public records obtained from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office state that Fulton grabbed a woman by the neck, shoved her to the ground, backhanded her across the face and “made a comment that he should just ‘kill both of them.' ” (Unless otherwise noted, the women involved in the cases detailed in this story declined to be interviewed. USA TODAY typically does not name victims of domestic violence, and to further protect the identities of the women involved, USA TODAY is not describing their relationship to the men in this story.) Fulton completed a pretrial diversion in the 2010 case, and prosecutors dismissed the charges. Other public records from the case include the witness statement of another woman, who told law enforcement of threats Fulton made against the woman he was accused of assaulting and her mother. That second woman told an officer that Fulton "threatened suicide and killing people” during the entire time she’d known him. She sought an order of protection from an Arizona judge, though records were purged this year after USA TODAY obtained them. Six years later, another woman alerted Fulton’s bosses at Citrus College about Fulton’s behavior toward her friend. In an email that is available in California court records and via a public records request to the school, the woman wrote that Fulton “has physically assaulted the parties involved" and harassed "any family and friends associated with the victims.” Several people involved “are fearful for their life and deathly afraid of Mr. Fulton,” the email states. Two women named in public records concerning Fulton told USA TODAY that officials with the Bucs or the NFL never contacted them about his behavior. Todd Marks, Fulton’s attorney, did not answer written questions from USA TODAY. In an email, he wrote, “Any and all allegations were appropriately addressed and our system of justice found in my client’s favor in each instance.” Fulton, who left the Bucs when Koetter was fired after the 2018 season, is an assistant coach at Portland State in Oregon.

Did you really just say 'roll' model?

I feel like an idiot. I always thought that making more money was the main focus of changes like this.

Sometimes its just time.

He left TB with the Koetter staff firing and opted out of football altogether - decided it was time to focus on being a husband, dad to my two grandkids, and having a job where an axe wasn't hanging over his head every day. Moved the family out here to Phoenix where family and friends reside. Oddly enough, the Arizona Hotshots of the AAF heard about him and asked him to be their RBs coach. He accepted since it was a four-month-per-year gig with a six figure salary, but of course that league folded. So now he's just a regular guy and perfectly happy with that.

My second is Tampa Bay. They were my first for a while, but I'm back where I belong now.

The meme in Tampa when Howard was drafted was 'weapons for Winston', at a time when he already had weapons enough. But 'weapons for Winston' became reality, the OL and DB corps was largely ignored, and the continued to Bucs flounder. The takeaway - there are more and better ways to help your QB than loading up at offensive skill positions.

Time for Dirked to take its place right next to Troffed.

I agree completely. I would only point out that Smitty's reasons for admitting complacency and TD's are polar opposites. Smitty always was and always will be a team player. TD, not so much.

That's just TD doing a passive-aggressive blame shift. He might have said 'they' or 'we', but he meant everyone except himself. What really happened after the 2012 season was a slew of roster changes, not for the better, and a slew of injuries, with certain position groups decimated. TD might have passively placed himself among those responsible - he couldn't really dodge it, could he - but his goal was always self preservation.

Thank you. You'd think folks could at least get that much right.

I tried it. Grew hair on my palms and went blind.