The Washington Redskins need a General Manager. Fans agree. Wilbon agrees. I agree. And there's little argument against it: given last year's personnel fiasco -- which was really an object lesson in bad decision making, from top to bottom -- I think most would agree that the Redskins are lacking something in this front office. A personnel man, perhaps?
Why not former Titans' GM Floyd Reese?
[Under Reese's tenure the Titans] won an NFL-best 56 games from 1999-2003 and was just one yard short of possibly winning Super Bowl XXXIV. Nearly half of the players Reese drafted from 1999-2006 finished the season with the team, third only to Cincinnati and Baltimore. Twenty-seven of 43 picks are still on the team.
Free agency? Tennessee safety Chris Hope, center Kevin Mawae and linebacker David Thornton were sharp 2006 signings. The Redskins? For every decent player they overpaid, two more failed.
None of this is to say that Reese is without criticism. The Titans clearly think they can live without his services, and under his watch they did experience a salary cap nightmare that ultimately brought the team to its knees (which really just means they had to suffer the horrible indignity of two losing seasons -- we had 3 of those under Turner, 2 under Spurrier, and 2 under Coach Gibbs).
I don't want to spend too much time dwelling on this because I really think we're past the point of hiring a GM, so discussing it largely depresses me. But reader(s), if you could have any available GM who would it be? Are there additional criticisms of Reese I'm leaving out? Do you even want a GM?