Evaluating Beane vs other past and present GM's?

[Matt_In_NH]

There are lots of complaints about Beane on this and other Bills forums.  It is easy to point at a player drafted like Bookie Basham as evidence a GM is a poor evaluator.   However, I can easily do this with any GM so you cannot cherry pick,  you have to have some comprehensive grading system to compare GM's and truly evaluate Brandon Bane.  When I did a google search what I found were opinions mostly called GM power rankings, Brandon Beane show up top 5 routinely in those. Below are links to a few.  What are the metrics one should use to evaluate a GM?  The point of this thread is to discuss how a GM should be evaluated and does anyone have a source of an objective comprehensive way to do this?

 

This is a list off the top of my head that might be helpful

 

1.   Team success?  How many playoff games played/won, championships, etc.

2.  Draft evaluations.  For this you don't want to use draft grades from the time of the draft, rather how the players actually performed  n the NFL.

2a:  How many player starts per draft pick

2b:  How many Pro Bowls/AllPro per draft pick

2c:  How many years are picks retained

2d:  Other contributors in other ways such as special teams, etc.

3.  Dead cap per year.  Dead cap is bad
4.  FA evaluations - similar to draft picks maybe but somehow evaluate the dollars spent vs production gained.

4a:  How many FA's dont see the end of their contract

5.  Coach evaluations

 

 

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-gm-power-rankings-eagles-howie-roseman-reigns-while-brad-holmes-makes-his-ma

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-general-manager-rankings-2023-eagles-howie-roseman-chiefs-brett-veach

https://www.nbcsports.com/fantasy/football/news/article-goal-line-stand-nfls-best-gms-2022

 

If anyone has an account for AAF, this looks interesting

https://www.allaccessfootball.com/p/draftmetrics-grading-the-general

 

[YattaOkasan]

Great exercise, and is tricky.  Some of these things are tough cause they are intertwined or may not the responsibility of the current GM.  For example is the Marcel Dareus dead cap a negative on Beane when it was Whaley that signed him (this is less of a problem for Beane cause of the sample size but could be an issue for other GMs that youre comparing Beane too). 

 

Pro Bowls are a bit tricky cause they are so perception based.  Starts also gets weird cause a GM in a rebuild will get a boost by starting late draft picks that arent really good. 

 

I do really like the idea of % non-rookies that see the end of their contract (if signed by current GM).  Rather than starts per draft pick you could also do rookies that see end of contract (though you may need to normalize by round somehow).  I think team success is pretty good metric.  Ultimately, the job is a resource allocation position and you are on the right path in thinking about resources (draft and FA), but the metrics are a bit tricky.  

 

I really like this discussion youve started.