New GM Search

[Eagle60]

Eagles GM search: Why Giants' Marc Ross would be the perfect fit




Marc Ross
Giants vice president of player evaluation Marc Ross would be the perfect complement to Eagles head coach Chip Kelly.



There will be plenty of good choices for the Eagles in their search for a personnel man to work at the right hand of new football czar Chip Kelly.

Sunday, this space mentioned five of them and anyone of those five — Marc Ross, Alonzo Highsmith, Todd Brunner, Brandon Hunt and Will McClay — would be an excellent choice.

Which one would be the best choice?

Let's go over what the job will entail.

Kelly, still a newcomer to the NFL and its ways, needs an experienced personnel man, one who has been through it all, worked for a couple of teams, has run a scouting department, knows the ins and outs of the draft and most important of all has a keen eye for talent.

This offseason couldn't be more important for the Eagles' future. There are decisions to be made at every position on the team, with the exception of tight end, and the defensive line.

And none are going to be easy to make. Kelly needs a right-hand man with the knowledge and experience to guide him through whether or not to re-sign wide receiver Jeremy Maclin and at what cost. What to do with LeSean McCoy's $10 million contract? Do you keep Trent Cole? What about Todd Herremans? Who are the top free agents and which ones fit what you want to do? How do you fix the secondary?

And we haven't even gotten to the quarterback situation.

Ross, the Giants' No. 2 man to GM Jerry Reese, fits all the criteria. And it doesn't hurt that he's a Princeton graduate and a Philadelphia native.

Would Ross, the one-time Tigers' speedy wide receiver and a kid who grew up in Sharon Hill,Pa., come home? That's up to the Eagles to find out.

If he did, Kelly would have a guy who once was the Eagles director of college scouting after being a top area scout under both Ray Rhodes and Andy Reid.

It was Ross who Reid once trusted to oversee the selection of future Pro Bowl defensive tackle Corey Simon in 2000. Reid should have listened to him in 2003 when he suggested Reggie Wayne over Freddie Mitchell when the team needed a wide receiver.

And in 2002 with Ross now having Reid's ear, the team selected cornerbacks Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown, safety Mike Lewis and running back Brian Westbrook in the first three rounds of the draft. Three of the four went to the Pro Bowl and Brown should have.

In Buffalo, as the Bills' director of college scouting, he added some of the best players to the Bills' roster — running back Marshawn Lynch, linebacker Paul Poluzsny, safety Donte Whitner and defensive tackle Kyle Williams.

If you want to know how involved he is with his current team, the Giants, go back and watch the NFL Network's "Finding Giants." Ross helped the team net tackle Justin Pugh, defensive linemen Jon Hankins and Damonte Moore, offensive lineman Weston Richburg, running back Andre Williams and oh yeah that Odell Beckham guy.

The guy can run a draft, which the Eagles need, and he's been involved in the game now for close to 20 years.

Knowledge, intelligence, experience, great talent evaluator. Maybe this choice isn't so tough after all.

[stocknowledge]

Sounds like Marc Ross would be a great pick for GM!

[Vet Turf]

Naming the hits is one thing, what about the misses?

[Eagle60]

Naming the hits is one thing, what about the misses?

Kind of like watching guy's highlight films. My favorite line is when a basketball player hits a few shots "when he gets hot he can't miss". I mean who the hell misses when they're hot?

[NoDakIggle]

He was highly regarded and it pissed me off when he left Philly. I would be surprised he would return after having left but I would love to see it

[Eagle60]

He was highly regarded and it pissed me off when he left Philly. I would be surprised he would return after having left but I would love to see it

I was thinking the same thing. Impossible now though. It will be tough enough with Chip and Howie in the same building.

[WCPhan]

Wow, awesome resume, works for me.

I was never impressed with Heckert when he was here. Grigson, on the other hand.....

Chip needs his Ryan Grigson- former player, cut his teeth in scouting, has had success in player evaluation.

What's nice is that there are lot of candidates out there.

[NoDakIggle]

I won't be at all surprised to see him go to someone at Oregon

[YourPalChrisMal]

It will be tough enough with Chip and Howie in the same building.

I just talked to Chip and Howie this morning, and it's true. They can't stand each other. Neither one will speak when the other is in the room. 2 people have never hated each other as much as those two.

[FRESH]

LOL! Chris!

I know you are trying to be funny, but it is real hard to pretend that chip and Howie were co existing well in their relationship. If so, this restructuring wouldn't have been necessary. Howie would still be the GM.....just as Lurie said he would days previous.

Nah, Lurie just decided to shake things up. Nothing to see here.

[ThoughtProcess]

Here's a name that popped up that comes with a (greater) degree of risk:
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...bout-comeback/

Good Article (kinda long)

EXCERPT--
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/stor...ed-living-farm

THERE'S AN OLD JOKE in the NFL that everyone is either born-again or alcoholic. Scot McCloughan isn't born-again. And if the former 49ers general manager and onetime senior personnel executive with the Seahawks wants another shot at a front-office job, he is going to have to prove to NFL owners that he doesn't still have a drinking problem. They will be intrigued by McCloughan because he has all but mastered the ability to determine whether and how a college football player will fit into the NFL. They will have serious questions, too. His battles with alcohol are known in league circles, but it's an issue he has never discussed publicly. Now, considering a return to the game, he has me up to the farmhouse to spend a few days. "Write the truth," he says....

....
JUST BEFORE 9 O'CLOCK the next morning, McCloughan is checking out college football players on video. He runs his own scouting business and says a handful of NFL teams pay him $75,000 each to evaluate players. He moved to Ferndale from Seattle because the open space reminded him of his hometown of Loveland, Colorado, but his farmhouse has the feel of a temporary residence, the marks of someone straddling worlds. Rented furniture, no pictures on the walls. On the floor are framed photos of his three children from a marriage that began to collapse when his life did. In one, son Caden, 15, leans into his dad's chest as confetti falls after last season's Super Bowl; in another, twin daughters Adison and Avery, 11. They live in Northern California with their mother, Scot's ex, Kelli. He talks to them every day, and before they hang up he asks them to pray.

He has two Super Bowl rings locked in a safe. Each of the three teams for which he has worked in his 20 years in the NFL -- the Packers, two stints with the Seahawks, and the 49ers -- has reached the Super Bowl during his tenure or shortly afterward. McCloughan had a part in drafting six players who were on the Pro Bowl roster last season, including Patrick Willis and Vernon Davis. His report on Russell Wilson for the Seahawks a few years ago read: "Obviously we are really interested in passers with better height, but this guy may just be the exception to the rule. He has the 'it' factor."

So does McCloughan. He has an "exceptional ... uncanny" gift, in the words of his mentor and former boss Ron Wolf. It's why he named his business Instinctive Scouting. This morning, he is consumed with an FBS middle linebacker projected by many to be a sixth- or seventh-rounder. But on a play in which the linebacker sprints to the sideline to make a tackle on a bubble screen, McCloughan sees something others might miss. The linebacker smelled a screen before anyone else and was just fast enough to get to the receiver. "You can't teach that," McCloughan says. He leans forward, quietly rewinding split seconds of the clip again and again.

McCloughan admits he misses on players more often than he hits. But to sit next to him is to be in the company of a kind of football savant, deftly mixing technical observations with X-rated yarns about players and coaches he's met through the years. There is something deeply personal about the way he works, and he often inserts himself into the process, fully aware the NFL isn't a home for the well-adjusted. A few years ago, at the combine, he interviewed a player who had repeatedly tested positive for marijuana. "OK," McCloughan said. "I like to drink beer. You like to smoke weed. Where'd it start?" Disarmed by McCloughan's openness, the player explained that, when he was 5 years old, he had a headache and his mother gave him a joint. It became a way to cope. "That's all he knew," McCloughan says. "It wasn't like he asked for the joint. But you do something long enough, your body acclimates to it and wants it."

In McCloughan's eyes, forthright is more important than letter-perfect. "I'm not sure that people can change from the way they were raised," he says....
HE WAS RAISED to work hard and play hard and, when in doubt, work harder and play harder. His father, Kent, a former Pro Bowler, played cornerback for the Raiders and was later such a valuable scout for the team that Al Davis wouldn't let him retire. The youngest of three brothers, Scot would join Kent in the basement, where the film projector was set near a bar. Father and son would scout players, sometimes until 2 a.m. When Kent was on the road, Scot would watch film alone and write reports. He'd even skip school to watch the draft, back when it was a weekday nonevent. They had a special bond, but to this day Kent has never told Scot he loved him. "Tough guy," Scot says. "Old-school."

The McCloughans are proudly Irish, and alcohol was part of their weekends. When Scot was 14, he tore up his left knee, ending his football career, which to this day brings him to tears. It was around that time that he first remembers drinking beer...

Sometime in 2008, McCloughan stopped hitting the bars. I assumed he was busy, which he was, and thought maybe he was working out a lot, which was true. But he also was drinking. Alone. The 49ers were losing, and although he was slowly building what many would later consider the league's most talented roster -- spotting middle-round gems such as Frank Gore -- he knew he might have to fire coach Mike Nolan, which he eventually did. It tore him up. He'd see the wives and kids of coaches and feel the weight of their lives, the silent pain of a cutthroat business.

He tried to deaden the pain by logging more hours, refusing to delegate. At Christmas, he watched his kids open presents, then left to go to the office, even though he had nothing to do. He ended up turning back home, but a dull guilt remained. When he was at work he should be at home; when he was at home he should be at work. And he kept drinking, which made him feel guiltiest of all. Work and life "became too much for him," Kent says. His marriage started crumbling. Kelli, who declined to speak for this story, told Kent, "We have to do something." Scot checked into a Betty Ford clinic, hoping to save his marriage. "It worked," McCloughan says. "For a while."

Those who've worked with McCloughan all privately say the same thing: They love him and love working with him, and they also worry they might get a call saying he's in real trouble. His departure from the Seahawks brought another round of concern. As in 2010, McCloughan said he was fine. He had thought for years about starting his own business, a chance to scout without the hassles of a staff job. He remembered a two-week scouting trip he took a few years ago with his dad. As soon as they'd get in the car, Kent would fall asleep in the passenger seat, 69 years old at the time and exhausted from the grind. "That's not who I want to be," McCloughan says. He registered an LLC, got a new cellphone number, bought $10,000 worth of equipment and software, relocated to the farm -- and immediately began to wonder whether the world he had set up for himself was enough.

EIGHT MONTHS LATER, McCloughan sits in his chair, a dip in his lip, grading players, imagining what's next. "Do I want to be a GM?" he says. "An area scout? Run my scouting service? A director of player personnel? A lot of options."
He truly doesn't know. On one hand, he has found a way to scout while living a balanced life, doing the things an NFL job simply wouldn't allow. The flights he catches now are not for scouting trips but to Northern California to watch Caden's football games. He proposed to Jess in a rental car -- typical scout -- and she said yes. He can earn six figures and sleep without losses swirling in his head and drink a beer without judgment. It would be hard to give that up. "One day I love it, love the free time," he says wistfully. "But the next day..."
The next day he feels almost biologically compelled to work for a team, as if he owes it to his family and to his talent. His father, for one, wanted him to stay with an organization rather than run his own business. It's a longing McCloughan struggles to articulate, which is probably why his farmhouse is livable but temporary. He wants to win another Super Bowl, and he wants to learn whether he can do so and still be his best self. The pressure, internal and external, is slowly creeping up. His name has been floated for expected openings in Oakland and elsewhere. Some scouts, eager to climb on board, have visited him in Ferndale for face time. McCloughan has mapped out potential hires for key positions, a support system of people who accept him, faults and all.

[Eagle60]

Here's a name that popped up that comes with a (greater) degree of risk:
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...bout-comeback/

Good Article (kinda long)

EXCERPT--
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/stor...ed-living-farm

Interesting guy TP. But don't you think our FO is screwed up enough already without throwing this wingnut into the mix?

[Jukin]

I tend to agree with 60. If he had stopped drinking completely I'd want him as the new GM, but the fact that he wants to"drink a beer without judgment" makes me want to steer clear of him. I think if I were Lurie I'd approach McCloughan with the idea that he would become an adviser to us - exclusively. I'd pay him what he wants, give him an office but tell him he can work out of the farmhouse if he wants too. Give us the scouting info on the top 250 players and we're good. That's it. Keep scouting and do it from your home. Want to come in for a change of scenery? That's fine too. But I certainly wouldn't trust him to put the whole thing together and be responsible for holding the FO together. It sounds to me like he is a good guy who probably shouldn't be in a position of responsibility where he has to let people go. He sounds like he might just crack at some point if things go wrong.

[FRESH]

I'd be cool with that , Juk. Cheers!

[Eagle60]

That's basically what a few teams are doing with him now. The guy has no idea what he wants to do, so how are you going to hire him. No thanks.