AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > December > 21 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USAn odd year for Atlanta GMs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
When Falcons owner Arthur Blank released a statement this week, confirming in a “by the way” manner that Rich McKay was out as the team’s general manager, it punctuated a peculiar year for Atlanta’s sports’ GMs.
McKay likely will leave — unless he believes finding a new stadium and filing paper clips will be stimulating work.
The Braves’ John Schuerholz slipped into unofficial semi-retirement as team president, resigning his GM duties to clear the way for assistant Frank Wren.
Six days after Schuerholz’s exit, the Thrashers’ Don Waddell fired coach Bob Hartley following a 0-6 start and went behind the bench. He is attempting not only to save the season, but also his paycheck.
Finally, there is the Hawks’ Billy Knight. In his first four seasons as GM, the team lost more than 70 percent of its games (231 of 328). On Wednesday, the Hawks defeated Miami in overtime, leaving them at 13-12 — over .500. This might be the strangest occurrence of all.
DATA
Rich McKay: 48. Born: Eugene, Ore. Sign: Pisces. Ruling planet: Neptune, which explains the drafting of Jimmy Williams.
John Schuerholz: 67. Born: Baltimore. Sign: Libra. Ruling planet: Venus, also named for the goddess of beauty, but unfortunately few recent closers, of late.
Don Waddell: 49. Born: Detroit. Sign: Leo. Ruling planet: The Sun, which we’ve been assured will come out tomorrow, though tomorrow remains undefined.
Billy Knight: 55. Born: Braddock, Pa. Sign: Gemini. Ruling planet: Mercury, who in Greek mythology was a fleet-footed messenger who could dart across the heavens but couldn’t play the point.
READING THE OUIJA
Rich McKay: Finding another GM’s job right now will be difficult, but he’ll have no trouble getting work with the league — somewhere south of Goodell.
John Schuerholz: He’ll oversee Wren with one eye and golf with the other. And he’ll take breaks with both eyes to gaze at Bud Selig’s soon-to-be-vacant office.
Don Waddell: After last year’s quick playoff exit, the Thrashers need a strong a showing to prove to ownership that Waddell has made the right decisions.
Billy Knight: Logic screams he should be gone if the Hawks’ don’t make the playoffs for the fifth time during his tenure. But owners could allow him to use coach Mike Woodson as the scapegoat.
OH, THE MEMORIES
Rich McKay: Immediately following his hiring in 2003, the 3-11 Falcons finished the season with wins over Tampa Bay (his former team) and Jacksonville, then reached the NFC title game the following season.
John Schuerholz: Took over before the 1991 season. The Braves won the first of 14 straight division titles, five pennants and one World Series.
Don Waddell: After six mostly miserable seasons, the Thrashers started last season 23-10-6 and then scrambled at the end to win the Southeast Division and make the playoffs.
Billy Knight: He didn’t shake Steve Belkin’s hand.
OY, THE MEMORIES
Rich McKay: Jimmy Williams, Michael Jenkins, Jason Webster, Ike Reese, Jim Mora, Ed Hartwell, Jordan Beck, Joe Horn, Roddy White, Ovie Mughelli, Bobby Petrino …
John Schuerholz: For all of those division flags, only one World Series. And, of course, Dan Kolb.
Don Waddell: One playoff berth. Zero playoff wins. Player development has been mediocre to average, particularly on defense.
Billy Knight: Chris Paul, Deron Williams, last, last, last, seventh (out of eight in the old Central).
BEST LAID PLANS
Rich McKay: With a Super Bowl win with Tampa Bay, an NFC title game appearance in his first year with the Falcons and his perceived strong ties to NFL powerbrokers, McKay figured to be a top candidate when commissioner Paul Tagliabue retired. But the job went to Roger Goodell. McKay didn’t even make it to the final cut of interviews.
John Schuerholz: As a sort of memoir about the Braves’ success during his watch, he authored, “Built To Win. Inside Stories and Leadership Strategies from Baseball’s Winningest GM.” The Braves missed the playoffs the next two years.
Don Waddell: The first player he signed for the franchise was goalie Damien Rhodes, who flopped. Asked years later if he attended Rhodes’ wedding, Waddell remarked, “No, but I paid for it.”
Billy Knight: Signed Speedy Claxton as a free agent last year to be his point guard. Revelation: He’s not Speedy Recovery. Claxton has yet to play this season and has missed 66 games (so far) with injuries.
CHALLENGE FOR REPLACEMENT/INCUMBENT
Rich McKay: (Your Name Here) Find a coach, turn over the roster, make the playoffs, split the atom, solve time travel.
John Schuerholz: Frank Wren doesn’t have to do much — just replace Andruw Jones and make the playoffs (which suddenly would be a significant step forward).
Don Waddell: Settle the mystery of Kari Lehtonen, build the blueline, win a playoff game.
Billy Knight: Find a point guard, a center, a coach and the third week of April.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Post your comment | Categories: Braves / MLB, Falcons / NFL, Hawks / NBA, Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
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Comments
By George Holman
December 21, 2007 9:40 PM | Link to this
Of all you described, Billy Knight seems to know what he is doing. Marvin Williams is a star in the making, and the Hawks are on their way. Patience………
By Dawgs2007
December 21, 2007 10:12 PM | Link to this
Before everyone starts clamoring for Dan Reeves to be the new GM……let me remind you about the 1999 draft. He traded our 1st round pick to move up in the second round to select Reggie Kelly.
That 1st round pick that he gave up turned out to be the #5 pick in the 2000 draft(Jamal Lewis).
In 2002, he selected T.J.Duckett when we needed a WR. Not a bad players for the Falcons, but a stud lineman would be in his prime right now.
In 2003, the 1st round pick was traded for Peerless Price…..another bust. We selected Byron Scott in the 2nd round….another waste. If we selected linemen at our original positions, we would be in great shape right now.
Does anyone see where I am going with this. You need linemen in the early rounds to build a team. Who knows what would have happened the past two years if Dan Reeves had selected more linemen in the early rounds?
By The old days
December 21, 2007 10:17 PM | Link to this
Jeff- Remember the old days when journalists actually did research and wrote insightful articles instead of sitting on their a** and complaining. WHY DON’T YOU TRY THAT.
By Rawhide
December 21, 2007 10:20 PM | Link to this
When you consider the fact that The GMs of the Falcons and Thrashers and AD at Tech have dealt the firings of Bob Heartley, Jim Mora and Chan Gailey in the past 12 months….then the quitting of the gutless wonder that is Bobby Patrino…it has been a odd year indeed.
This time last year, who would have bet that Billy Knight would still be around? Now, after Bobby Cox, he has the second longest tenure of all head coaches/managers in the city.
As for Mr. Waddell…while I still feel as though he needs to reconsider the hiring of a full time coach, I believe that ASG are happy to allow him to sink or swim with the product that DW has assembled….The problem is, who knows what team is gonna show up from one week to the next…the one that went 0-6 to start the year…the one that went 11-4 just after that…the one that lost 4 in a row a couple weeks ago or the one that has beaten the likes of Tampa Bay and Ottawa this week?
John Schuerholtz? Well, if Frank Wren can’t put something in center field to replace Aundrew Jones….Glavin, Smoltz and Hudson are gonna see alot more runners on base to contend with.
But I think the Falcons are the biggest mess right now….in 10 days time, they were abandoned by a punk named Patrino…dissed by Cower and then stood up by The Tuna. Arther Blank deserves better.
By Keith Strawn
December 21, 2007 10:43 PM | Link to this
I can just see Jeff Shultz hunched over his computer in the newsroom, giggling to himself while he writes these awful columns.
By Tom Glavine
December 21, 2007 10:45 PM | Link to this
Suckers.
By JSS
December 21, 2007 10:51 PM | Link to this
“Old Days,” you are my hero!
Schultz is a fraud without peer!!! Only John Kincade comes close… He is the Michael Milliken of sports opinion writers… Junk in junk out, over and over again…
By Robert
December 21, 2007 11:45 PM | Link to this
Schuerholz, for all the good moves he made , and all the savvy he has in certain areas, has one glaring weakness.
He is absolutely blind to the fact that he has the worst in-game manager of all time leading his team
Year after year the Braves make moves trying to get over the hump - and year after year the one assumption they make - that Cox is the right man to be manager - is in reality the one thing that desperately needs to be changed
Donkey in the Dugout - The Bobby Cox Braves - coming soon to a theatre near you (rumor has it that DOB is gonna play Cox)
By Anthony
December 22, 2007 1:34 AM | Link to this
Robert, Go find a manager who’s done what Cox has. Your not gonna find one. I’ll take the one we have. You forget you have to have someone to get you through those 162 games just to get you to the playoffs. I’ll still take my chances with Cox. Just because you change managers doesn’t mean your going to the playoffs.
By trois3
December 22, 2007 2:30 AM | Link to this
You’d think someone that has covered Atlanta sports for so many years would actually know how to spell Andruw Jones’ name.
By Brendan
December 22, 2007 2:59 AM | Link to this
This is a most thought-provoking column. I agree that the Falcons are the biggest and most immediate mess in Atlanta Sports. But the problem is ownership. Just once, I’d like to see Arthur Blank give a press conference where he states, “Right now, the biggest impediment to the advancement of our football team … is me. I’m hereby announcing the selling of the Falcons.”
Tell me you wouldn’t cheer, and then praise that man with utmost sincerity, while wishing him well with his other business ventures?
The next biggest mess is the Hawks. Though there’s room for optimism, if you’re the “patient” sort. But again, the biggest problem … is OWNERSHIP. And that’s the Atlanta Spirit Group, a group of overzealous investors who swooped in at the 11th hour to claim two teams from the clutches of Texas-based Auto dealer David McDavid. Well, kudos to you, fellas. But “too many chefs SPOIL the soup.” Maryland courts thank you for clogging their docket.
Segue to the Thrashers. Truthfully, the Thrashers are the best sports product in Atlanta right now. But the issue at the forefront is the Atlanta Spirit Group’s unwillingness to spend closer to the cap in October compared to February’s trade deadline. Don Waddell, while hardly the best GM in hockey, is far from the very worst. Trouble is, he’s got a budget $8 million LESS than what the cap allows. So, are the Thrashers really “competing fairly” and on a “level ice surface” with the rest of the teams in the NHL? Still digesting that one? Let’s ask pending FREE AGENT Superstar Marian Hossa what he thinks of the team’s finance’s and philosophical direction? But BETTER ASK HIM QUICK, he may be leaving town whenever the Thrashers’ season ends.
That leads us to the Braves. More stellar ownership, huh? For all their GLORY, the Braves were always one hitter and one pitcher short of turning the corner to being a true “dynasty.” It always struck me as odd that Schuerholz never took that final plunge, say the way Steinbrenner would. In the end, it cost them. They needed a Mariano Rivera-like closer when Smoltz was a starter. When Smoltz was a closer, they needed a Curt Schilling-like starter. Maddux and Glavine were “control” specialists. But who did they ever OVERPOWER? And in the end, it did cost the Braves at least one, perhaps two, World Series victories. The strike-shortened season of 1995 continues to be the lone Major Professional Sports Championship in recent Atlanta history. I think division titles are nice. But the Florida Marlins have never won one. And yet, they boast more World Series victories than Atlanta. And as a point of fact, the Florida Marlins have never lost a playoff series. Who owns the better history in baseball?
By Najeh Davenpoop
December 22, 2007 4:13 AM | Link to this
Great timing, let’s all hate on Billy Knight just as the Hawks move up to 5th in the conference, a half a game away from 4th.
Sure, he’s deserved a lot of the hatin’ he has gotten over the last few years (some of that has come from me too), but you gotta admit that a) the Joe Johnson trade looks pretty good right about now, b) the Anthony Johnson trade looks pretty good right about now, c) he really struck gold in this year’s draft, d) picking Josh Smith at #17 was probably the steal of the 2004 draft, and e) Marvin may not be Chris Paul or Deron Williams but he certainly ain’t no bust either. BK still is not a great GM but I can easily name at least 10 GMs in the league who have done a worse job with their current teams than him.
By Najeh Davenpoop
December 22, 2007 4:15 AM | Link to this
Oh yeah, and everyone who has tried to suggest that firing Dan Reeves was a bad idea needs to scroll up and read Dawgs2007’s post.
By KrisG
December 22, 2007 5:25 AM | Link to this
It’s SOOOOOO easy to blame Bobby Cox, isn’t it? How many times have we made the playoffs with Jones, Jones, Smoltz, and 6 guys who won contests on 790?
By KrisG
December 22, 2007 7:17 AM | Link to this
Firing Dan Reeves was still a bad move. If you want to bring in a GM, and Reeves won’t budge, you let him know what you’re thinking… you try to give a guy like that a shot to improve that area of his game or to acquiesce…
Blank wanted McKay so badly, he couldn’t wait… how’d that work out? And Peerless was, as I understand, an Arthur Blank thing. Yeah, Reggie Kelly was not a good move, I think that pick became … The Vick/Tomlinson trade, in my opinion still holds up, because despite the crazy stories about him, only the dogfighting stands up… and that was NOT predictable. If you told me last year that Vick would be in jail, I would have gone through about a hundred possible reasons I could imagine, wouldn’t have figured freaking DOGFIGHTING. And if we hadn’t made the trade, think about it: hindsight is 20/20, would we really draft Tomlinson? 5 guys passed on him, and we had Jamal Anderson, who was getting back to his old ways before his second ACL tear.
Reeves strength was a true high-character individual, who was good for Vick’s game, and also for his character. The ways he pushed his star player, unlike Mora (who I also wish we hadn’t fired) who basked in his star’s talent. Reeves wanted better mechanics, had coaches to help him get better with the media, and pushed him to be more involved with the team off the field… I really think that dogfighting thing would have fallen apart if Reeves had stayed here. It would have become incompatible (as it should have been all along) with Vick’s role on the Falcons, and even Vick would have realized it.
By Robert
December 22, 2007 7:26 AM | Link to this
“Robert, Go find a manager who’s done what Cox has. Your not gonna find one”
Now I agree wholeheartedly. The thing is, most managers that habitually turn should-be WS winners into division champions get fired
By Robert
December 22, 2007 7:29 AM | Link to this
“It’s SOOOOOO easy to blame Bobby Cox, isn’t it? How many times have we made the playoffs with Jones, Jones, Smoltz, and 6 guys who won contests on 790?”
Um, I see it more like - How many times have we had a team with a half dozen or more future HOFers, and led by the greatest starting trio of the past half century and gotten nothing more than a Division Title out of it
Cox is a retard. A beloved retard. A revered retard. But after all the adulation and ridiculous awards, he is still just a retard
By Robert
December 22, 2007 7:30 AM | Link to this
“It’s SOOOOOO easy to blame Bobby Cox, isn’t it? How many times have we made the playoffs with Jones, Jones, Smoltz, and 6 guys who won contests on 790?”
Um, I see it more like - How many times have we had a team with a half dozen or more future HOFers, and led by the greatest starting trio of the past half century and gotten nothing more than a Division Title out of it
Cox is a retard. A beloved retard. A revered retard. But after all the adulation and ridiculous awards, he is still just a retard
By Richard Cory
December 22, 2007 7:33 AM | Link to this
The 1995 baseball season was not ‘strike shortened’ -that was the 94 season. We were in 2nd place when they ended the season on strike. In 95 we won the whole kit’n kabuddle fair and square, without blemish. Championships are hard enough to come by, around here—let’s not shortchange ourselves.
By Robert
December 22, 2007 7:37 AM | Link to this
” You forget you have to have someone to get you through those 162 games just to get you to the playoffs”
Tell something. Exactly how mentally challenging is it to strategize for 162 game season when for ten years running you can pencil in “Maddux, Glavine, or Smoltz” as the starter for fully 100 of them 162 games?
I mean, it’s not like three HOF starters widely regarded as constituting the greastest starting trio of the past half century aint gonna be near enuff to beat four other teams for a division title most years.
No, you need a real frickin genius manager under those circumstances.
By Robert
December 22, 2007 7:39 AM | Link to this
95 was strike shortened. ST started late, and as a consequance, the regular season was not a full 162
By Nikki
December 22, 2007 7:46 AM | Link to this
Funny stuff as usual, Jeff. Whoever comes in here for the falcons will have a huge task of fixing that team. I don’t envy the new GM —- well, maybe the salary. ;)
By jonathan friedman
December 22, 2007 9:11 AM | Link to this
This is such a stupid piece.You can’t find anything more to write about, you must be hanging out to much with Terrance Moore!
By DC
December 22, 2007 9:24 AM | Link to this
Back off on the Hawks will ya. They are really fun to watch.
By Jay
December 22, 2007 10:18 AM | Link to this
Newsflash: Roddy White doesnt suck. But I know, youre too busy trying to be funny but failing to pay attention to actual statistics.
By Chris
December 22, 2007 10:53 AM | Link to this
I want to find the fountain of youth. Would it be in Atlanta?
By UGAdawg
December 22, 2007 11:04 AM | Link to this
Let’s just face it. Atlanta is the comlete opposite from Boston right now when it comes to sports
By Paul
December 22, 2007 11:22 AM | Link to this
Falcons really have to nail it and land a quality GM. If I’m Arthur Blank, I’m getting on the horn with Norm Van Brocklin ASAP. He has been around the block as a player, head coach, and analyst, and he would add a wise, veteran, stabilizing presence that the Falcons need badly. So, I cast my vote for Falcon GM for the Dutchman, Norm Van Brocklin.
By sooperman
December 22, 2007 1:01 PM | Link to this
Why is Roddy White on the list? Have you actually watched the Falcons this year? Oh I forgot the AJC policy for it’s journalist is to not watch the teams they report on… just as long as they criticize them about something.
By MBrizzle
December 22, 2007 1:38 PM | Link to this
Dan Reeves in 2003 without Michael Vick = Worse than Petrino in 2007 without Michael Vick.
So let’s not get all crazy here.