Yeah I don't really care about lists, just the rationale that was dumb. Unless you are arguing he has created an environment that leads to those injuries.
I mean, fair or unfair, GM's are essentially graded just like coaches, which is based on winning and losing.
Objectively, without the purple shades on, I'd say he's been largely "average" since he was given the full reigns, which I guess would be from 2019 forward. We all know he's been involved heavily long before that, but I don't think its fair to just grade him in totality over years where he wasn't the actual GM.
Excluding 2022 draft, since we know nothing about that group, where are the "star" players from the last three drafts? It's still early to evaluate potentially, but basically Hollywood is his prize draft pick at the moment, and we just traded him. The rest of the 2019 draft class was basically total ass, 2020 produced some depth and role players, but seemingly no "stars" at this point (with Dobbins maybe being that guy, but too early to tell). 2021 is early, and there's hope that Bateman and Oweh will be special, but they weren't in year 1. And so if you're in the business of making lists like this, you can't go by what you don't know. You have to go by what you know.
Trades have been fine. Peters was a good acquisition, but Yannick wasn't. I think he even gets props for the Hollywood and Orlando Brown trades, largely because most people think he got great value from those deals, though that's still sort of TBD.
In FA, its kind of "meh". A lot of cheap veteran acquisitions like normal, such as Zeitler, Houston, etc., but ultimately, he's kind of living or dying by Earl Thomas at this point, since he was the "big splash" and failed miserably. We've got Williams this year, but he hasn't played yet.
Contract wise, there's good and bad. He extended Marlon, which looks pretty good. He extended Stanley, who then abruptly got injured and has missed a ton of time. Like it or not, the public views that as a negative, not a positive. I agree that he shouldn't be expected to predict injuries, but it's still not a good thing in any scenario where you extend an All-Pro LT and then he doesn't play. It's bad for everybody, including the GM.
That being said, he couldn't get Hollywood to stay, he gave ET a bad contract, and he couldn't close the ZaDarius deal this offseason, and perhaps most importantly, he hasn't signed his franchise QB to a lucrative extension.
Again, not all of that falls on him, but if you were evaluating a GM of another team, you'd evaluate them on those things, as well as W/L record. Ability to extend homegrown players, ability to draft well, ability to get good value in FA and trade market. I think Eric has been largely "average" in totality in those areas over the course of 3-4 years.
The one thing I'd give him credit for is the team has remained highly competitive despite some of the issues, which is a testament to roster construction and coaching.
