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Uh Oh! ...Worst Case Scenarios and the Consrquences of Organizational Success

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Word is surfacing this morning that Gator DC Todd Grantham is about to interview for a similar position with the Cincinatti Bengals.
Although this would be a job fraught with immediate danger (odds are that is one lacking much longterm security: without a wholesale, across-the-board upgrade in onfield personnel, a total topdown house cleaning may soon follow there in "The Queen City" (no idea why that's Cincy's apparent longtime nickname).
But offer a man bigtime, NFL-level money in a guaranteed contract and he might well jump at it--if only for the sake of his family and future.
I have been concerned about exactly this loss, in just this fashion, threatening, perhaps even reversing what has been otherwise more and more a gathering surge upwards in our fortunes. At this point, I'm not sure if I should be holding my breath or simply resigning myself to another fact-of-life inevitability.
Sigh...
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
It is a good sign when the NFL tries to poach your coaches. This means your coaching staff is full of NFL-quality talent. The good news is that Todd Grantham is one of the top-10 highest paid college football assistants at $1.39M per year, with an automatic $100k bump each year [link]. The average NFL defensive coordinator makes between $800k and $1.5M per year, so an NFL team would likely need to offer more than $1.5M to a coach like Grantham, who does have some NFL coaching experience.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
I hear all you say, E--, and hope to HELL those facts indeed make a difference. Frankly, I don't KNOW how highly-sought Coordinators/"assistant" Coaches' contracts tend to be scaled currently in the NFL, but Grantham is being touted as the Bengals' "prime target" at the position, and even though already well aware of his being held in high regard by pro GMs.
"EVERYONE" seemed to be aware of it, more and more so as the 2018 season wore on: Heck, his skill and knowledge didn't just show on the field: His growing reputation, and buzz regarding pro-pursuit, only HELPED our recruiting on that side as the season culminated and attention turned to Early Signing, etc. By NSD I was down to relief he was still with us, and the HOPE that we could keep him for at least one more season--for the sake of our continued practical benefit onfield, AND for smooth continuity in finding and phasing IN a suitably fitting, talented and developmentally appropriate replacement.
So far, Mullen and his braintrust have managed to make most "change", always a reality at this level, a potential "plus" that promises more in the way of "evolutionary improvement" than "scrambling desperation". One way or another, though I was hoping for some good fortune in terms of timing with this particular pending loss, I expect them to likewise manage this one with similar positive aplomb, regardless.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
GREAT NEWS!
Today was an early day for me—rolled outta bed, morning guy-routine and on set at 5am—so I only JUST got a chance to check my “gator news feed” for the first time today...and discovered an item that came in just before midnight last night:
“Todd Grantham Spurns Bengals’ Offer”.
This is an enormous relief—and a big break for US: I was doing my best to accept the likely need to roll with it, hoping we’d somehow bring in someone who’d ADD to our overall steady move forward—“turn a negative into a positive” once again. But Grantham simply staying put was and IS the best “development” of all I could envision, if I’m being honest.
One more way we are starting to catch the breaks (ALONG with “making the moves) that the current “elite teams” above us on the road to The Top are starting to falter in themselves of late, it seems.
Being an “experienced pessimist” and cynic, a classic “half empty” sorta guy, I do tend to see and expect MORE of the dark, the selfish and less-than-noble in the world around me...So naturally, rather than simply enliven and encourage me, for the most part this kind of rising trend towards the positive in so many crucial areas does tend to CONCERN me at some point:
“What’s the CATCH?” “What are we missing here?”
Except I also see in Mullen and the people around him (including the kind of TEAM he is building, and the growing feeling around them OFF the field as well) is in general an overall plan and aim to PREPARE FOR just this kind of upward move, to set the scene for just this success.
It is happening a little sooner and faster than anyone expected perhaps (and of course THAT worries a guy like me!), so I can’t, WON’T start any crowing...Much to be done, much (good AND bad) can still happen, but GEEZ—who among us can complain about the current trend?
These are the “GOOD times” my friends!
This seems the start of exactly the time we will one day look back on with hope and happiness, “when we began to see and realize that it WAS HAPPENING—that we were ‘on our way’ and ‘the wild ride’ had begun...”
There’ll be downs as well as ups from here—questions and uncertainties that will put our dreams in question again and again. There’s no great triumph without great risk. But we are back IN The Game. This the part where we elbow our way into that acknowledged “group at the front of the pack”; but INSIDE the program, thanks to this Coach, staff and growing “team CULTURE”, we already KNOW “who we are and where we’re going”. And that is HUGE.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Apparently Dan Mullen foresaw the possibility of the NFL coming for Todd Grantham, so he gave him a raise last month. I was not aware of that raise when I posted earlier in this thread. His salary is now $1.8M per year, and his buy-out is now 50% of the remaining contract through 2022. Grantham has a kid playing two sports as a junior in high school, so my guess is Grantham is safe until his son graduates or another NFL team ups the ante with a $2M salary + $3.6M buyout in 2019, or $2M + $2.7M buyout in 2020, or $2M + 900k buyout in 2021.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Apparently Dan Mullen foresaw the possibility of the NFL coming for Todd Grantham, so he gave him a raise last month. I was not aware of that raise when I posted earlier in this thread. His salary is now $1.8M per year, and his buy-out is now 50% of the remaining contract through 2022. Grantham has a kid playing two sports as a junior in high school, so my guess is Grantham is safe until his son graduates or another NFL team ups the ante with a $2M salary + $3.6M buyout in 2019, or $2M + $2.7M buyout in 2020, or $2M + 900k buyout in 2021.
Yes--Even BEFORE the Bengals' courtship (which to me seemed just the first of what I anticipated would be a slew of at least "back channel interest" from NFL teams in this off-season)...I just HOPED Mullen and his people would be able to hold onto him another season or two: Depending on the dreams and goals of Grantham himself, I expect he'll more and more have opportunity to move up to "even BIGGER money" as a DC in the NFL, or as a Head Coach in the college game.
For whatever "back-channel" reasons (and the MONEY--important here of course, but I sense NOT the deciding factor in and of itself), "so far so good" it seems. I'm not sure we'll be as fortunate about a year from now. IDEALLY he'd stay through 2121 before leaving for his CHOICE of plum jobs, but hard to count on. However, Mullen sees all this and more: In this, as in seemingly all things, we can be confident our Coach has alternate "plans WITHIN plans" in that event. If the best we could hope for here was "at least one more season" with Grantham in charge of our D, then Coach Dan's head wasn't "in the sand" and, having been granted the necessary "reprieve", he'll not put it there now.
Meanwhile, plenty of OTHER things ahead to worry about!
 

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