I had resigned myself to the fact that whoever was chosen to replace Eric Tillman would likely be a downgrade at the GM position. But I was hoping for a small downgrade as opposed to a monumental step back. Seriously it’s not a good sign when on day 1 you are already less popular than the guy who had to resign because he pled guilty to sexual assault.
Tillman led this team to levels of success not seen in these parts in decades. In just 3 years he delivered 3 winning seasons; 3 home playoff games; 1 first place finish; an MOP, Rookie, Defensive Player and Coach of the Year, 2 Grey Cup appearances and 1 Championship. Obviously his philosophies on building a successful team worked extremely well. So you’d think the logical thing to do to ensure we continue our successful ways would be to hire a GM who had similar philosophies to Tillman. Instead the Riders have hired a GM who is essentially the polar opposite of ET.
ET’s philosophy involved hiring great coaches, placing a premium on Canadian talent, constantly replacing aging veterans with young up and comers that he scouts relentlessly, emphasis on depth at every position (especially QB) and using draft picks to actually draft quality players or trading them away for quality Canadians.
Taman’s philosophy involves hiring the likes of Jim Daley as a coach, placing absolutely zero emphasis on Canadians, keeping aging veterans well past their best before date and signing others teams aging vets as well as he’s too lazy to bother with much scouting, no emphasis on depth (especially at QB where he never had a viable back-up) and trading away any and all drafts picks for Americans of varying quality.
That said the Riders threw a curve ball and changed the structure so that Taman now reports to Ken Miller (the new VP of Football Operations). Though I’m decidedly anti-Taman, if we are stuck with him, this new structure at least a decent compromise and shows that, despite the fact that they hired Taman, Hopson and the Board still have some brains.
Basically Ken Miller is in charge but since he can’t do everything (what with his requirements for a daily nap, Matlock fix and early morning mall-walking), Taman will handle scouting, recruiting, contract negotiations and the salary cap... which I guess means he’ll have a lot of time to negotiated and manage the cap since he’s not big on scouting.
I, for one, welcome our new aged overlord. While I have big concerns with Taman’s abilities, I’m hoping that with Ken Miller calling the shots and Womack (hopefully) still scouting for us that most of that can be mitigated. I have every reason to trust in Ken Miller so I just have to hope that under his guidance Taman won’t revert back to his old habits.
I just hope is that Miller doesn’t awake from one of his naps to find that Taman has traded away both our 1st round picks for James Johnson and the neg rights to that guy from the movie Blindside. Actually given the likelihood of that actually happening I suggest that Miller lock all important documents, cell phones and writing utensils in his office while he naps, just to be safe.
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