Paraag Marathe Thread

Originally posted by boast:
it's funny that Paraag was one of the first to develop these "equations" and are basically the same thing most everyone posts to show how players are performing these days....PFF numbers.

PFF = good
Paraag = bad

If you want to know what's wrong with the 49ers, don't look at the roster or the coaching staff. Look at the organizational chart.

According to their staff directory, the 49ers now have six vice presidents. But they don't have a team president or a general manager. Just one person with any significant NFL background is listed in the management section -- Scot McCloughan, vice president of player personnel.

Paraag Marathe and Terry Tumey, neither of whom are among the half-dozen vice presidents, have the titles of director of football operations and director of football administration, respectively, but they are not real football people.

Marathe and Tumey both have MBA degrees and business backgrounds. They are both bright and very nice men, as far as anyone can tell. But they are part of the problem that York has created. The 49ers have more people in their front office with MBA degrees than NFL degrees.

There are vice presidents for operations, business affairs, finances, sales and marketing, and now, communications. You might have thought that on a football team the title, "vice president of operations" would refer to football operations, but that's not the case in the NFL.

Mo Fowell, who holds that title, actually is responsible for overseeing the team's facilities. Fowell is the 49ers' only management official remaining from DeBartolo's ownership years.

Lisa Lang, the newest vice president, has worked for Intuit and Pacific Bell. The team's announcement said she would oversee "public affairs, community outreach, employee communications and the 49ers Foundation," and mentioned relationships "with the community, fans, season ticket holders, corporate sponsors, government officials and employees."

Football is a business, yes. But York and the 49ers have stood that on its head, because the business is supposed to be football. The greatest communications, sponsorships, relationships and marketing in the world don't mean much if the team is lousy, and the 49ers are.

And if they are ever to get better, it will be because they have a front office capable of supporting a coaching staff and finding players who belong in the NFL. That -- not "Monster Fun Packs," not more vice presidents -- is what the 49ers need.

There are loads of knowledgeable and capable front-office football people available, men who either retired from previous jobs, like Ron Wolf, the former Green Bay general manager, or lost out in power struggles, like Jeff Diamond, the former Minnesota and Tennessee club president, or were forced out by new management teams, like Ron Hill, the former Atlanta personnel boss, or would be available with a promotion, like Mike Reinfeldt, who has been a steadying influence in Seattle's front office.

Because of free agency, the salary cap, larger rosters, larger coaching staffs and other factors, the NFL is more complex now than it was the last time the 49ers hit bottom, in the late '70s. So it's inexplicable that they give coach Mike Nolan so little management help. Bill Walsh, who came to the 49ers in 1979, hired two former NFL head coaches, John Ralston and John McVay, to head up his administrative team.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

But you knew it was a parody issue from the cover story about Paraag Marathe, one of the MBA's running the 49ers, saying he was made a "scapegoat" and is "really the future of the NFL." The piece claims "football guys no longer drive the league," which would surprise Bill Polian and Tony Dungy, Tim Ruskell and Mike Holmgren, Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith, Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli and Mike Shanahan, to name some of the people running the NFL's best teams.

It also says that, because of the salary cap, "the importance of signing and retaining stars (is) greatly diminished." Right. That must be why Irsay went into personal debt to re-sign Peyton Manning and Harrison.

One part of the piece is right. Don't blame Marathe. Blame ownership for giving him power. That helps explain why the 49ers have the worst record in the league over the last three seasons and so little talent on the roster.



http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/FIRST-DOWNS-2544318.php

Nolan, though, has been hinting gently but clearly that he now understands the full depth and breadth of the 49ers' dysfunctionality, even the parts for which he must take direct responsibility. And if he has been given the control John York promised he would have that day at the Mark Hopkins, we'll know quickly enough.

He has already said he intends to get a veteran football man inside the building, a failing that showed itself most clearly in September, when Nolan basically sucked all the trade value out of linebacker Jamie Winborn, and then traded him for what is essentially a copy machine.

And it can't be just a pipe-smoking brainiac sitting near the mail room thinking about concepts and theories, but a full-blown expert of current league personnel, college talent, and their migraine-carrying agents. Nolan needs a general manager who knows what Nolan wants, which players can serve that need, and what is required to make those things happen.

It needs to be someone who, in concert with Nolan, can tell York and his adjutants Paraag Marathe and Terry Tumey what is to be done, and leave them to figure out the financial math. You know, make it a football organization, rather than an organization that does football.

If Nolan can make that happen, he'll at least succeed or fail with his own best judgment. If not, he may as well start looking for his next gig, because this one will offer nothing for him. He won't be the face of the franchise after all, but merely a talking head, and that's not what he, and the customers, were promised that shiny day last January, when all but York's most aggressive critics started to see signs that he could be taught.

This move with take considerable political skill, given that Nolan will (or at least should) be challenging York's judgment of the way a football franchise should be run. York has placed the business department ahead of the football operation, and the proof of that is actually a pull-out quote from the SF Weekly cover story/panegyric of Marathe:

"The name of the game is not finding the best players, as conventional wisdom says," Marathe is quoted as saying. "The name of the game is finding the best possible players for the lowest price. It's just being smart about managing your money."

Well, no it isn't. The NFL has set up a salary system so structured and management-friendly that the name of the game actually is finding the best players and then making the money fit the talent. Contracts are not guaranteed, and players are released before their sell-by date routinely. The "salary-cap hell," which so colors each of the 49ers' decisions, is not only easily avoidable, but is done so routinely every year by every good football team in the league. Each of those teams has football people making the decisions and business people making those decisions fit -- not the other way around.

York, Marathe and Tumey reject this simple notion because it works against their top-down, we've-got-the-spreadsheets-and-we'll-tell-you-what-you-need management instincts. They claim that it is really just misunderstanding their clever postmodern precepts, and Marathe also throws in a gratuitous claim in the SF Weekly piece that the abuse he takes in the media and in the stands would be 85 percent lower if he were white, older, and had an Anglicized name.

Not a lot of business or mathematical expertise in that characterization.

In fact, the real problem is not that he is too young, too dark, or too adept with PowerPoint. It isn't even about him. It's about two conflicting philosophies of how to run an NFL team. Is it business first, then football, or is it football first, then business? And given that you make a lot more money and win a lot more credit and customers with a winning team than with a losing one, the answer should be even more obvious.

Or does going 3-13 (or best case scenario, 4-12) seem like a good use of the franchise's name to you?

In short, Nolan has to get a contemporary football expert in the building, in a place of both influence and control, and soon. Otherwise, there's really no point in him being here, because there is no future in being the face of the franchise when other people have control of the strings.

http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Time-for-Nolan-to-put-on-a-good-face-2524613.php




A decade later, this franchise remains in the same exact place, different HC, same issue. With the same people in charge who are driving this team into the ground.

Originally posted by jimmythegreekjr:

I just had a nightmare thought: Paraag Marathe's evil plan to manipulate his way into owning the 49ers. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:

Originally posted by blunt_probe:

Originally posted by Niners816:

Originally posted by blunt_probe:

Originally posted by boast:

it's funny that Paraag was one of the first to develop these "equations" and are basically the same thing most everyone posts to show how players are performing these days....PFF numbers.

PFF = good
Paraag = bad

What PFF numbers have ever said that Mike Nolan is a better coaching candidate than Mike Holmgren?

Supposedly, there was mounds of data presented by him favoring Nolan over Holmgren in 2004-05. He really needs to work on his coaching hiring equations, because starting with Nolan we are 1 for 4 in that department.

Paraag: "According to these numbers, winning a super bowl is worse than having no experience as a HC at all. Welp, better give this Nolan character GM powers too."

Harbaugh inherited veteran pro-bowlers from Nolan.

Nolan and Co did get rid of the trash and bring in solid players, he just whiffed on QB

Originally posted by Afrikan:
Does anyone have a pic of Paarag when he was on the Webzone on his computer?

I doubt he participates....but as someone mentioned a few pages back, I wouldn't be suprised if he has his intern working as shills on this board.

I just wonder if they are stupid enough to use similar work email addresses.

Originally posted by luv49rs:

Originally posted by Afrikan:
Does anyone have a pic of Paarag when he was on the Webzone on his computer?

I doubt he participates....but as someone mentioned a few pages back, I wouldn't be suprised if he has his intern working as shills on this board.

I just wonder if they are stupid enough to use similar work email addresses.

paraag has shills on webzone?

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by jimmythegreekjr:
I just had a nightmare thought: Paraag Marathe's evil plan to manipulate his way into owning the 49ers. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

No. Unless he robs a few banks and has some incriminating photos of Denise.

http://www.bayareasportsguy.com/49ers-demise-not-just-the-fault-of-jed-trent-jimmy-tom-and-kap/

Good article. Could the next GM be... (drumroll) Paraag?

Originally posted by 49ersGiants7:

http://www.bayareasportsguy.com/49ers-demise-not-just-the-fault-of-jed-trent-jimmy-tom-and-kap/

Good article. Could the next GM be... (drumroll) Paraag?

Originally posted by TheWooLick:

Originally posted by 49ersGiants7:

http://www.bayareasportsguy.com/49ers-demise-not-just-the-fault-of-jed-trent-jimmy-tom-and-kap/

Good article. Could the next GM be... (drumroll) Paraag?

That would be a demotion but not the kind I would want to see for him. I would rather see him less involved in football operations. It seems like he has been performing some GM duties off and on for 10+ years.
The man has hit on 25% of his head coaching hires.

Originally posted by NorthBay49er:

Does anyone own a gabbert jersey?