It was Jim calling the shot

[Racehorse]

Originally Posted by MeSayDayo

I agree. But in the NFL, any GM has to get a little lucky to bring a Lombardi to their franchise. You either have to shit the bed enough to land a Manning, Luck or Burrow- and the difference between the worst team in the league every year and 3rd or 4th worst team in the league is very minimal.
The other option, which also requires a perfect storm, is landing a savvy veteran whose team is ready to rebuild ala Manning, Brady, Ryan, Rivers, Wilson, etc. Your team has to have the roster AND cap room to bring in a guy like this or it isn't worth the effort. In our case, we may be close to having both so making the move for Ryan made sense. I also agree that if we didn't, Ballard and Reich's seat might both be very warm next offseason.

Of all the top guys, I think Reich's seat is unquestionably the warmest and if he doesn't have a good season- he's gone. I like him, I think he motivates decently- but also has shown BIG flags in this regard and how our team showed up to the most important 2 games of the season last year.
Reich coached some great games but for the most part had all of us scratching our head about personnel utilization and gameflow/aggression decisions. If he wants to cool his seat, he should have someone else calling his plays so he can blame them if it doesn't go well.
Most importantly, Reich became the poster boy for the Wentz' debacle. This alone was enough to make his seat hot (how could Reich's love for Jesus completely overshadow the red flags regarding Wentz' leadership inability to be coached?)
Reich and Ryan will have a good season together and I think that will settle this narrative down plenty anyway.

Ultimately, I think Ballard has done so admirably with his damage control job this offseason, he is more than safe in his role. At least straight through the swing at a new young franchise QB- and if he fails, I suppose all bets are off- but that won't be until around 5 years down the road.

I would venture to offer that the right QB would be able to know which of the two called plays would work best. If Ryan has success with the same playbook, then we know the problem was not the coach, but the guy who took the snap.