If Fisher makes all the draft and roster choices then you have to credit him for Donald, Gurley, Brockers, Ogletree, ect. My point is you can't blame Fisher for the draft misses and praise Snead for the successes. Either Fisher gets credited for both, Snead gets credited for both, or both get credited for both. Since I do not know who makes the picks I place blame/credit on both Fisher and Snead and believe they both should go.
And inadvertently, you have just made my point.
I will certainly give Fisher credit for those draft choices, particularly the defensive ones who have virtually all lived up to their draft status. And no, nobody is crediting Snead for hits and blaming Fisher for misses. Rather, we are blaming Fisher for the absolutely abysmal coaching job done on the offensive side of the ball, as evidenced by the Rams O being at or near the bottom of the league in virtually every meaningful offensive statistic. And they are in that sorry state
with the players that Fisher wanted.
So how the hell is that Snead's fault? What has happened on the defensive side of the ball has proven that he and the scouting department can scout players according to the philosophy of the head coach, bring them in and turn them over to coaches who make the most of them. So why isn't that happening with the players on the offensive side of the ball? Because the coaching on that side of the ball sucks, and because the overarching philosophy of our head coach with regard to offense is not working.
And what of some of the non-premium draft picks? EJ Gaines ... 6th round. Mo Alexander ... 4th round. TruJo ... 3rd round. TJ McDonald ... 3rd round. All starters, all scouted by Snead and Co. Some of the backups ... Ethan Westbrooks, UDFA ... Josh Forrest, 6th round ... and so on. Fisher doesn't do the scouting during the season, he simply doesn't have time. Snead and his scouting department do that, and they are the ones that do that, and I just listed 4 defensive starters. Fisher may make the final call, but Snead is the one who finds the players and tells Fisher who's available. Given what we see on the defense, it's hard to argue that he hasn't done a good job, but the catch is, as always,
our defense is extremely well coached. The polar opposite is true for the offense.
I'll give you one more example to illustrate the point - Sam Bradford. Snead had absolutely nothing to do with the acquisition of Sam. Fisher had plenty to do with how Sam was coached while he was still here. And was he coached to push the ball down the field, was he coached to take chances with the ball to try to make things happen? No. He was coached to check down, he was coached to play it safe, he was coached to minimize mistakes at the expense of taking a chance to make a play. Not one iota of the way Sam was coached in the time he was here can be laid at Snead's feet. And yet, under Fisher, Sam underperformed prior to his ACL making his tenure here moot.
If you want to know what a mediocre GM looks like, one who deserved to get fired, just look at Snead's predecessor, Bill Devaney. He rarely hit on any draft pick after the second round, and hit on virtually nobody, save for Eugene Sims (2010, 6th round) after the 3rd.
You can say Snead is not blameless, fine, but the lions share of the blame for the offensive failures on this team goes to Fisher and the offensive staff that he's hired. They have been given the players that Fisher wanted - including a marquee RB in Todd Gurley - and they are failing miserably.
I don't know what Stan's plans are with regard to those two, but getting rid of Snead along with Fisher is, IMO, just throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
