Ravens Victory Delays Potential Kokinis Hiring
by Chris Pokorny on Jan 11, 2009 1:55 PM EST
in General News
42 comments
By virtue of the Baltimore Ravens upsetting the Tennessee Titans in what ended up being a heck of a football game, Randy Lerner will at least have to wait another full week to hire George Kokinis. For Lerner's sake, hopefully the interview with him goes extremely well today: with the hiring of Kokinis seemingly inevitable and the fact that Eric Mangini has already been named the head coach, candidates such as Rich McKay of the Atlanta Falcons and Tom Heckert of the Philadelphia Eagles have withdrawn themselves from consideration.
This morning, Tony Grossi of the Cleveland Plain Dealer questioned the possibility of Kokinis having second thoughts:
"...there is a feeling gaining steam that Kokinis may develop a case of cold feet and stay with the Ravens"
Rumors have been reported that former Denver Broncos GM Ted Sundquist and Indianapolis Colts VP of football operations Chris Polian are alternate candidates. Either way, I don't buy into the fact that Kokinis will develop a case of cold feet. Mangini/Kokinis seemed like a package deal almost, and I don't think Lerner would've acted so quickly on hiring Mangini if he wasn't confident he could hire Kokinis.
My guess is that the media is trying to create more out of the situation than there really is, for several reasons...
- The Mangini hiring has already drawn criticism from football analysts.
- The Ravens initially blocked Kokinis from interviewing with the team.
- With Baltimore headed to the AFC Championship and possibly the Super Bowl, there could be another three weeks of a vacant general manager position.
The ultimate goal of the new regime is to have more chemistry between the general manager and the head coach. With Mangini already on bored, Kokinis completes that relationship. It's hard to say if the same could be said for other candidates.
As Grossi points out, the more likely possibility could be the following:
The total authority designation is a tool to protect an organization from losing a key executive. For instance, in the example of Kokinis, the Ravens may block him from going to Cleveland unless the Browns designate him the No. 1 guy in his contract.
Either way, I want the Ravens to lose next week: not so we can hire a GM already, but because I hate the Baltimore Ravens.
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I wouldn’t know who to root for if the Ravens and the Steelers met for the AFC Championship. That would be my worst nightmare. I’m rooting hard for the Chargers today. I can’t believe how the Titans blew that game with their turnovers (give credit to the Ravens for forcing those turnovers, though).
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
I hate the Steelers 10x more than the Ravens – I know the Ravens stole our franchise and all … but can you really blame them? But really what it comes down to is that I cant stand Heinz Ward and cockyness of the Steelers. I keep hoping Ward gets lit up, broken jaw, rib, femur style. Go Chargers!
As a side, why cant our players ever light guys up?
It really takes a special person to hire a Patriots defensive coordinator and a Ravens personnel guy, have things not work out and fire both of them, then go ahead and decide that who you want to run your team is a different Patriots defensive coordinator and Ravens personnel guy.
I can see Ozzie Newsome looking for a new director of pro personnel right now, saying “and, after about four years or so, you can go ahead and be General Manager of the Cleveland Browns.”
by math_geek on Jan 11, 2009 7:13 PM EST reply actions 3 recs
That’s just a matter of perspective and not considering who Mangini and Kokinis are as individual talents. You look at Mangini as a Patriots DC (not sure if you’ve been watching NFC East football for the past 3 years or not) and someone else looks at him as a coordinator turned HC who cut his teeth with one franchise, learned from those mistakes, and is primed to succeed in his second go-round…. like that fella up in New England.
You know Selig? Ombudsman.
fair enough. I was honestly just poking a little fun. Even though Mangini was the HC of the Jets, he’s still a defensive coach from the Bellichek tree, so there are a lot of similarities.
No reason to believe he’ll be the same coach as Crennel though. I just think most owners would have done something different. There’s no reliable method of knowing the best choice. Even hindsight only provides one snapshot.
There’s no reliable method of knowing the best choice. Even hindsight only provides one snapshot.
That’s a key statement. It bothers me when people pigeonhole a particular person into a group. The Browns fans who were clamoring for Cowher or Shanahan see the success they had and assume those guys would replicate that here. After going through Chris Palmer and Romeo, fans have soured on the “hire a coordinator” route, unfairly.
For every coordinator hire that people complain about, there’s a Holmgren who became a HC and in his second year began a string of 6 straight playoff appearances that included two Super Bowl appearances and one title. For every Mangini hire that people complain about, there’s a Bill Belichick or Mike Shanahan who were fired from their first HC jobs only to move on elsewhere and win multiple Super Bowls.
Look at the individual hires themselves, not the arbitrary group they come from.
You know Selig? Ombudsman.
isn’t that the same generic group twice (head coach with success somewhere, goes somewhere else and disappoints)?
I want the Ravens to lose so we can hurry up and get a GM. I am confident we will hire Kokinis if we want to (and we should want to at this point).
Lerner has 3 major bargaining chips:
-Kokinis’ Cleveland history
-An instant career upgrade to GM with ultimate roster control
-Lots and lots and lots of money
This just reeks of typical Browns history since 1999. Trying to run before we learn to walk. Almost every analyst is scratching there heads on hiring a coach before a GM, Sure there are analysts who’s opinions I disagree with and am sure the same for everyone else. But there are some who’s work I do appreciate ( Mortenson and Glazer) But everyone I talk to in my life say" what are the Browns doing?"
What if the Ravens win the Super Bowl ( could very well happen) and Kokinis wants to stay with a winner. Money is not the answer for everything.
I don’t know I just have an uneasy feeling, but what the hell, this is the norm for this franchise.
"Have You heard of the Boom on Mizar 5?"
I’m hoping for the best from Mangini/Kokinis, but probably the reason other GM’s have backed away from interviewing is that the hiring of the head coach by the owner, instead of waiting, raised a red flag. The perception, fair or not, is that management positions in Cleveland are volatile.
Having said all that, if both Kokinis and Mangini have spoken to each other and to Lerner off the record, and expressed a willingness to work together in Cleveland, it could be a matter of crossing t’s and dotting i’s.
i think it’s less to do with some perception of volatility in positions in Cleveland, or meddling from the owner, and more to do with the likelihood that most GMs would want to hire their own coach…they want to pick who they go to bed with.
by DontCallMeJoey on Jan 13, 2009 2:40 PM EST up reply actions
The Broncos just did the same thing. Who wants to bet they don’t get the same media criticism that the Browns did?
by Roger Dorn on Jan 12, 2009 2:29 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs
The Broncos have won two Super Bowls and for the most part make the playoffs, Um the Browns, well..
"Have You heard of the Boom on Mizar 5?"
Not sure what the difference is. The bottom line is that there is another team willing to hire a coach and then find a GM. The fact that they are a successful franchise only further supports the idea that this is not an unusual move.
The casual sports fan assumes that a GM should be hired first. Implicit in that team building model is the idea that the GM is the more important of the two positions. This is certainly true in baseball and, to a slightly lesser extent, basketball, but in the NFL … not so much.
For one, the head coach is much more important in football than in other major sports. Any idiot can make out a lineup card or execute the double switch. But few fans would even know where to stand on an NFL sideline. As I see it, Lerner correctly saw the thin crop of available coaches and jumped to take the best one available.
I doubt if most fans even realize that many teams don’t have a GM, aside from the coach or owner. Can anyone even name five NFL GM’s who aren’t either the Head Coach or the owner?
Bill Polian – Indy
Ozzie Newsome – Ravens
Scott Pioli – Chiefs (well he is NOW)
Jeff Ireland – Dolphins (although everyone thinks it’s Bill Parcells)
Mike Tanenbaum – Jets
Phil Savage – Browns (before he got fired)
Jerry Reese – Giants
AJ Smith – Chargers
Marty Mayhew – Lions
Ted Thompson – Packers
Jerry Angelo – Bears
Thomas “Comrade” Dimitroff – Falcons
Those are the ones I can name from memory. I’m sure there are some more.
As I said in the previous post, I think the Browns should have kept Savage. Chris said that there was concern about the bad chemistry that would result from keeping Savage and hiring a coach that wanted more personnel control. Like you, I think that they went about it the wrong way.
Savage was a decent talent evaluator. He brought in alot of the Brown’s current talent. There are MANY general managers that have made worse decisions and are still considered in good standing with their organization. Crennel needed to be fired, but Savage needed to stay. They should have given him the opportunity to relinquish total authority on personnel decisions and work with the head coach. If he was unwilling to do so, then he needed to go.
It just seems like they jumped the gun.
how do you know they didn’t give him that opportunity?
i don’t mean to jump into this discussion again, so let’s just say there’s some disagreement around here (and i’d say in the larger football world) about just how good savage was at the talent evaluation portion of his job. you shouldn’t take it as pre-supposed fact that he “needed to stay”
by DontCallMeJoey on Jan 12, 2009 5:54 PM EST up reply actions
He “needed” to stay in the sense that with was the correct way to do things. This was the point that Grockcubs was making and I was agreeing with him. “Trying to run before we learn to walk.” There are just too many what-ifs right now, and it seems like the Browns took an unnecessary risk.
I don’t know if they gave Savage “the opportunity to relinquish total authority on personnel decisions and work with the head coach,” but neither do you. No one knows what happened when Savage was fired, but since they fired Crennel and Savage as soon as the season ended, it leads you to believe that they had decided to fire them both before the season was over.
A good buddy of mine with connections to Browns media told me that Savage refused to cede power. Savage would not allow a new head coach to hire his own assistants. This type of inflexible attitude put Phil in an untenable position because it limited the number of candidates willing to accept the head coach job in Cleveland. It appears that the decision to move on had more to do with failure to cede control than Phil’s ability to evaluate talent.
I ask myself why Phil would willingly hamstring his own org? The only reason I think is that Phil is not mature enough to see the bigger picture.
Your last sentence is the key to why Savage is no longet around. It is not specifically his talent evaluation or his willingness to cede control. It is his immaturity and lack of leadership.
If that’s true… then Savage isn’t as smart as I gave him credit for. He had a good job in Cleveland, and now that he’s been fired after a bad season, it looks like it was his fault. He probably won’t get another GM opportunity.
I’d be interest to here more about this in the media. This is the first I’ve heard of it.
Grock’s point seems to be that the Browns should have hired a GM before a coach, and has nothing to do with keeping Savage. That is actually a discussion that can be had, with sides that can be argued.
Talk of the “correct way to do things” is all fabricated, though. How in the world does keeping an employee with whom you are dissatisfied pass any test of the proper way to do business? You can argue whether or not Savage was worthy of retaining his position based on his performance, but your assertion about the correct way to do things is silly.
by DontCallMeJoey on Jan 13, 2009 2:37 PM EST up reply actions
uggghhh… Typically, I will not respond to this type of banter. I hate discussion battles. I always feel the need to respond when someone treats me like an idiot or in this case, refers to my logic as “silly.” On the other hand, I hate going back and forth over stupid misinterpretations and meaningless topics. On that note, I’ll take one final stab and try not to stir up any more controversy.
As you stated yourself, “Grock’s point seems to be that the Browns should have hired a GM before a coach.” When I was talking about the “correct way to do things,” I was referring to Grock’s assertion that, in your own paraphrasing, “the Browns should have hired a GM before a coach.” As you can see, I was just agreeing with Grock. I’m sorry for the redundancy, but I’m tired of being misinterpreted.
I added my opinion to Grock’s argument by saying that the Browns should have kept Savage or “given him the opportunity to relinquish total authority on personnel decisions and work with the head coach.” I simply thought that Savage “was a decent talent evaluator” and the Browns should have done everything possible to keep him. You said yourself that you “can argue whether or not Savage was worthy of retaining his position based on his performance.” That was my only real point!
fair enough. misconception cleared up. i was just responding to the idea that savage needed to stay b/c it was the right way to do things. i understand you better now, though.
separately, and more importantly, i’m hearing that kokinis’ interview was good, but that the ravens might stand in the way of his being hired by the browns. what are you hearing in raven-land?
by DontCallMeJoey on Jan 13, 2009 4:33 PM EST up reply actions
I can answer this. We’ve heard that Kokinis might decide to stay with the Ravens, but not that the Ravens would block him from leaving. It would not surprise me if the Ravens blocked him from leaving however, as who wants to lose a good staff person to a division rival. Indeed, we lost Savage to you a while back, and he spent the next four years picking through players on our team that he liked and signing them. Dave Zastudil, Derek Anderson, Jamal Lewis, Gary Baxter, Darnell Dinkins, Chester Taylor (although the Ravens matched tender) all were players brought in by the Savage era from the Ravens. In addition, it’s well known that Savage tried to sign Bart Scott. It’s safe to say that Savage used insider information collected while with the Ravens against us. Can’t really blame the Ravens for not wanting to let that happen again. Of course, this is all dependent on whether or not the Browns find a way to make it look like they are offering Kokinis a “final say” on all transactions. This could be difficult because they hired Mangini first, but they managed to pull that off with Crennel and Savage, so they should be able to do it again.
As for Kokinis and his ability… He has been really impressive the past year, basically restocking the entire organization with solid depth guys and contributors at various positions. We’ve generally been really good at free agent signing. He’s also our Director of Pro Personnel, so he hasn’t been looking at scouting nearly as much. I’d say he’s a good hire, although like BAL_Hawk said, DeCosta is considered the gem of our front office (besides Ozzie of course).
I don’t think the Ravens have the power to block him from taking the Browns job, as long as the Browns job is a better job (i.e. more power), the NFL says you can’t force the guy to stay. So unless the Ravens were going to promote Kokinis to GM, they have no power to keep him from the Browns.
Am I wrong?
I believe Kokonis’ contract states that to leave the Ravens he must receive the “final decision” over the roster of his new team. Presumably, we would give him that at least in his contract and he and Mangini would work together to build the roster.
So its not just that he needs “more” power, he needs that specific power.
But I do not believe they can do more than that to block him from coming here, aside from winning more playoff games and delaying his potential hire.
i’m hearing that the ravens could argue (not saying it’s a fool-proof case) that koko b. ware wouldn’t technically have “full control” if he doesn’t have final say in coaching matters, in addition to the roster, and therefore block the hire. but i guess the browns’ counter would be that having control over the 53 is an undisputed increase in responsibility over his balt position.
this is all hearsay i’m getting from friends in and around the nfl. should be interesting.
by DontCallMeJoey on Jan 15, 2009 1:49 PM EST up reply actions
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