What the worst move/ transaction during the Pete/John era?

[LickMyNuts]

It was trading for Whitepurse. When they did that I started to really doubt the ability of the front office to assess QB talent.

But I think they made up for it?

 

[hawknation2014]

O
3. Russell Okung (he's a good player when healthy but he's missed more games (20) than Carpenter(16) although Okung does have one more year of experience. However, Carpenter did not sign a contract worth 58 million over 6 years. Okung has NOT played 10 mil per year football. The sad thing is though Okung probably will make more in his first contract than Walter Jones did for much of his entire career. 6 years, 58 million.

We do not get the Super Bowl without Russell Okung, our 2012 Pro Bowl LT. To call that a bad pick, simply because he's missed some games due to injury, is ridiculous.

 

[kearly]

Unless a draft pick was an obvious mistake at the time it was made (Christian Ponder, etc), I don't think a draft pick should every really be nominated as "biggest mistake" because the draft is so unpredictable and can only be judged in hindsight.

The Whitehurst trade was dumb, but it never really bothered me. They overpaid to get him, but it wasn't like the price tag was huge and more importantly, they did not over-commit to him when it was apparent that he sucked as a QB. They moved on quickly.

What's cool about our FO is that because they build around making a ton of micro-transactions to build a team, no one mistake ever hurts them too much. This is why people have focused way too much on the Harvin trade, because it's pretty much the only really big move these guys have yet made.

I don't think these guys have ever made any "big" mistakes, though last season they had a lot of headscratching roster decisions. Like keeping Alvin Bailey on the bench while McQuistan and Bowie were getting Wilson killed. Or cutting some of their most impressive preseason performers to make room for crappy players like Mike Person and John Lotulelei. Or benching their future star RB for Robert Turbin. I know pass protection is important in that role, but our running game struggled on a per carry basis most of last season and Turbin's ineffectiveness was a part of that.

But for the most part, I like the moves these guys make, even the seemingly crazy ones like trading for Terrelle Pryor.

 

[checkdanews]

Who cares about our failures?

Superbowl Champs. Just remember some of you guys been here for all 38 years waiting for that Lombardi.

Edit: Also, just to "add" something to thread the first two examples you used were STARTERS in 2013 and in the Superbowl. They contributed to a Championship season.

Out everyone you could have named you couldn't have chose Charlie Whitehurst or the trade to Tennessee where we got Lendale White + Kevin Vickerson and the Seahawks cut both with Vickerson becoming a starter for the Broncos the last couple of years.

He was just trying to spark a discussion during the boring offseason...absolutely no need to be a rude. So tired of the fun police on this forum.

Anyway, Clipboard Jesus is def the first one that came to my mind

 

[Happy]

whitehurst acquitted himself in the rams game that led to the beastquake game. i'm going against the grain and saying he wasn't a total waste.

my pick would be trading rob sims away to the lions. didn't like it then, don't like it now. you don't trade away good young o-linemen like that.

it's a long offseason, found something to complain about.

 

[MidwestHawker]

whitehurst acquitted himself in the rams game that led to the beastquake game. i'm going against the grain and saying he wasn't a total waste.

The TD pass in the Meadowlands after all of the Giants randomly stopped playing was pretty solid too. Helped us establish our dominance in our home away from home.

 

[razgriz737]

Letting Atari Bigby go. What a legendary name.

 

[Hawkfan77]

Charlie W...and I dont even blame Pete and John very much for it. The guy had all the tools, just no drive whatsoever

 

[MeanBlueGreen]

With all the great moves by or FO the last 4 years it's not that easy picking one that was considered the worst. I personally at the time and somewhat still now hated taking Irvin. Obviously the Carp pick is not looking not stellar either. As far as recent moves I hope letting Tate walk does not come back to haunt us. His after the catch ability (breaking tackles) and punt return abilitiy was quite impressive. Lastly, I don't remember (but think yes) if Sims was traded on their watch. He has turned in a decent career.

Wondering what everyone else thinks the worst move(s) have been since the Pete/John arrival?

Whitehurst

 

[dino26]

For me the Whitehurst trade !

 

[v1rotv2]

All I can say is I am damn glad you don't have the be perfect to win a Super Bowl. But you obviously have to be perfect to please this crowd.

 

[themunn]

It HAS to be Sidney Rice.

Don't get me wrong, I like the guy and think he is a capable player when healthy, but since we have the benefit of looking at it retrospectively, we have paid over 20 million for him over 3 seasons for 1,463 regular season yards, i.e. less than 500 yards a season.

At least with Flynn and Whitehurst we were able to get rid of them sharpish

 

[brimsalabim]

The Harvin trade is still up in the air but the chances of it paying off appear to be much greater at the moment. He could still top this list or the greatest hawk ever list.

I think having Flynn in the pocket allowed JS to take the chances in the draft that allowed us to net extra players who had impact on our super owl.

That leaves Carp and Whitehurst.
Carp could still potentially work out and just maybe giving clipboard Jesus a shot netted us some brownie points with the big man up stairs?

So ..... No bad moves.

 

[Jac]

Definitely nothing wrong with criticizing what has gone wrong; certainly you would think and expect that Pete and John do so to themselves, and don't feel that they should be immune.

Thankfully you have to nitpick pretty hard, since we've pretty obviously fallen within the acceptable error rate by a personnel team. I'd be shocked if another franchise out there had fewer missteps during the past four years than PCJS.

I agree. I love almost everything about the Whitehurst saga. After years of neglect (i.e., failing to plan for succession or attempting to build a pipeline), we had a front office that made an aggressive move for a QB. And when he didn't work out, they shoved him out the door fast and didn't keep beating their head against a brickwall trying to make it work in order to recoup credibility. If our front office didn't have that mentality, we wouldn't have acquired Flynn and Wilson in the same offseason, nor given Wilson the start. It's tough (or not fair) to look at transactions in isolation and not the bigger picture of how they do business.

 

[MidwestHawker]

Definitely nothing wrong with criticizing what has gone wrong; certainly you would think and expect that Pete and John do so to themselves, and don't feel that they should be immune.

Thankfully you have to nitpick pretty hard, since we've pretty obviously fallen within the acceptable error rate by a personnel team. I'd be shocked if another franchise out there had fewer missteps during the past four years than PCJS.

I agree. I love almost everything about the Whitehurst saga. After years of neglect (i.e., failing to plan for succession or attempting to build a pipeline), we had a front office that made an aggressive move for a QB. And when he didn't work out, they shoved him out the door fast and didn't keep beating their head against a brickwall trying to make it work in order to recoup credibility. If our front office didn't have that mentality, we wouldn't have acquired Flynn and Wilson in the same offseason, nor given Wilson the start. It's tough (or not fair) to look at transactions in isolation and not the bigger picture of how they do business.

Yup, exactly. They've explicitly taken the approach of "leave no stone unturned, give every plausible option a chance, and compete." Well...when you give everyone a chance, it's all but statistically certain that some of them are going to suck. If you do it in a cost-efficient way and don't get too emotionally tied to things like "potential," it's obviously a pretty great method of doing business.

 

[Hawks46]

I'd say Whitehurst. It's not the actual trade for him, as we were taking a chance on a QB. We just over paid for him when we could've gotten him for cheaper.

Carpenter isn't a big deal to me, as you can move most Tackles inside to play Guard and get something from the deal. Robert Gallery was a high 1st round pick as a Tackle, but ended up making the Pro bowl at Guard.

Okung doesn't bother me as he's got all the tools and the attitude. He was also never injury prone in college, so it's impossible to call all his injuries. He's not living up to his draft cost, but that's not the FO's fault. They got the player they wanted, he just can't stay on the field

I honestly don't understand why people think Flynn is that bad of a deal. We didn't really pay him much more than a quality backup, and having him in our pocket actually got us Bobby Wagner. If we didn't have Flynn, Schneider probably would've drafted him in the 2nd, but we already figured we had our starting QB (or at the least we had Tarvaris Jackson who's a .500 QB on this team) so we were able to get Wagner and Wilson. I also still think Flynn would've been better than Jackson. You honestly can't blame him for being bad in Oakland: they had the worst OL in the NFL, no skill position help, and they got rid of Flynn be cause he had a bad start and the crowd boo'ed him. Seriously, what FO drops a guy because he got boo'ed ??

Sims and Vickerson both bother me slightly as we got rid of them for almost nothing and they've both had good careers. In Sim's case, better than most of the Guards we've trotted through in his absence. Getting rid of a guy is one thing, but not being able to find guys to replace him at that level means you messed up a bit. I'm not sure I blame the FO as that was most likely a Cable decision because he didn't fit the system (or was that Solari?).

 

[brimsalabim]

Definitely nothing wrong with criticizing what has gone wrong; certainly you would think and expect that Pete and John do so to themselves, and don't feel that they should be immune.

Thankfully you have to nitpick pretty hard, since we've pretty obviously fallen within the acceptable error rate by a personnel team. I'd be shocked if another franchise out there had fewer missteps during the past four years than PCJS.

I agree. I love almost everything about the Whitehurst saga. After years of neglect (i.e., failing to plan for succession or attempting to build a pipeline), we had a front office that made an aggressive move for a QB. And when he didn't work out, they shoved him out the door fast and didn't keep beating their head against a brickwall trying to make it work in order to recoup credibility. If our front office didn't have that mentality, we wouldn't have acquired Flynn and Wilson in the same offseason, nor given Wilson the start. It's tough (or not fair) to look at transactions in isolation and not the bigger picture of how they do business.

I agree. This is hallmark of successful business strategy:
Educate your self
Make your decisions
Assess the outcome
Learn from mistakes when you make them
And do not hesitate to correct them.

A mistake if you recognize it in time gets you one step closer to your true answer.

 

[dumbrabbit]

My vote goes for the drafting of James Carpenter and signing LenDale white. Charlie Whitehurst could have been great if he had last year's 2014 but unfortunately they traded for him at the wrong time.

 

[drdiags]

Lendale White wasn't signed, he was part of a draft day deal and thrown in along with Vickerson as players to take a flyer on. Didn't work out and he was cut. EJ Wilson was the bigger waste.

And for the poster saying there was no competition for Whitehurst, maybe the Cardinals having an offer as well for Charlie had something to do with the FO sweetening the pot. Schneider had a warm and fuzzy for the guy, turns out he was an expensive fallback, just like Flynn. As Wilson showed, you have to do what you need to get a QB. Whitehurst, Flynn and TJack were early attempts at it.

Anyway, I vote Moffitt. Cable can get the lower or undrafted guys going, but it would help if Britt makes a big impact.

 

[jlwaters1]

It's hard to criticize particular draft picks when Pete and John's success rate dwarfs the misses.

So if I HAD to pick something, I'd go with the Whitehurst and Flynn signings. We gave up a 3rd rounder and 10M for Whitehurst and 26M/10M guaranteed for Flynn.

I get the Flynn signing, but the Whitehurst trade was about as big of a reach as you can make in this league.......especially giving up a 3rd rounder.

I definately forgot to mention both Charlie (the worst move by far) and Flynn. I think both were so bad that I erased them from my memory.

I don't think the Flynn move was all that bad. It only looks bad in retrospect because of how well Russell worked out. If we hadn't gotten the chance to draft Russ, we'd still have needed a potential starter; at the time, Flynn looked like he might have been one.

I agree, I don't understand how anyone could say the Flynn move was bad-- A) It costs us only money, no picks, B) He served as a capable backup while T-Jack was shipped to Buffalo. C) We Actually got a draft pick in this last draft in trading Flynn, so how exactly was that a bad move? We got a 2014 5th round pick (a conditional 2015- doubt that comes to fruition) - which after several trades amounts to WR-Kevin Norwood and T- Garrett Scott.

So again, how was that a bad move, was able to bolster the WR group from renting Flynn for a year.