Dave In Champaign wrote:
Remember when Bill Barnwell called Emery "GM of the Future" because he gave really long pressers (or something?). Those were the days.
http://grantland.com/features/bill-barn ... hilosophy/Quote:
That word “process” keeps coming up a lot. It’s another one of those important tenets of the modern GM …
2. A hyper-focus on process.
If you listen to Emery in press conferences or talk to him, you’ll hear the word “process” come up so many times that you’ll lose count. That’s a good thing. You can phrase it however you want — “process” often means the same thing as “the plan” in this context — but it’s essential for an NFL general manager to have a clear idea of his long-term process and stick with it regardless of short-term outcomes. That thought came up again and again when I looked at Ted Thompson’s history earlier this week.
To Emery, focusing on the process not only provides a better chance of building a winner, it performs the perhaps more-meaningful role of preventing you from overreacting to fleeting streaks of success or failure. “Some of those bumps along the way are like hitting a tree; losses are very tough, particularly ones that have more impact than others [at the end of the season]. They’re tough to work through, but you have to believe in the process and the talents of the people you work with. If you let outcome drive you, you’ll be all over the place and never develop the process to get to the final goal.” And to Emery, the final goal isn’t simply winning a Super Bowl, which itself usually requires some incredible luck along the way. It’s “to be a consistent winner, to consistently be in the championship mix, and win championships.”
In terms of these Bears, it’s pretty clear that process involves focusing on drafting and developing young talent. Emery’s NFL background is as a scout with the Bears and as the director of college scouting for the Falcons and, more recently, the Chiefs, so it seems natural that he would have a passion for identifying emerging college talent and using that to build the organization. The changes to rookie contracts in the new CBA and the stagnant post-CBA growth of the salary cap make building through the draft more essential than ever before. Emery hasn’t put a Thompson-esque focus on stockpiling draft picks, having made minor moves to trade up in each of his first two drafts, but his one notable draft pick trade appears to be a huge success: The Bears would happily trade two third-round picks for Brandon Marshall again.
DID NOT AGE WELL.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.