O'Brien - Staying or Going?

[barrett]

Originally Posted by HPF Bob

After my post, I went to look. Unfortunately, my credibility in the Bleacher Report is minimal. I had a friend who wrote for them and all they wanted was click-bait articles, not anything researched or thoughtout.

Still, I'll concede the point. Seems like a damn waste of money though. Cut the GM's salary in half and maybe then we can afford a decent left guard.

That article was just one of many from a google search. They were all old and they all said basically the same thing, that GMs make $1-3 million but exact salaries are hard to come by. Plus the article I linked is almost 5 years old and a guy like AJ Smith got almost $3 million a year when he extended with a cheap organization like the Chargers in 2008. There is no way Rick Smith's 4 year extension wasn't worth at least $10 million and I wouldn't be shocked if it was double that.

I don't get why you don't think the GM (who is ahead of the coach in most organization's power structures) should get so much less than the coaches do. Whoever your top football guy is (GM/VP/Jerry Jones/etc...) should get paid like the top man at a $Billion company. Compensation should be at least in the millions or you are begging for shenanigans. These guys deal regularly in 8 and 9 figures and if they made less than $1 million it would be an invitation for an agent to get cute. Why wouldn't an agent offer an under the table 5% on a $50 million deal ($2.5 million) to a guy who is making $500K but has the authority to increase the value of the deal $5-10 million without anyone really noticing?

Rick Smith is getting paid and I don't begrudge him for it. Even with his worst mistakes he is at least league average at his job and has longer than league average tenure and league average results. It's not his fault there aren't 32 better GMs then him. He's like the Andy Dalton of GMs.