Tim Ruskell’s talent evaluation (draft) was hit and miss, and the only real strength I’d put him down for was his ability to manage cap space and sign big free agents. To me, the areas Tim Ruskell looked the best were things that are only applicable if he’s a GM. I do think he deserves 1 more shot at a GM job somewhere- he’s human, and humans make mistakes and learn from them.

That said, he might want to tweak his draft philosophy a little bit. His mindlessly filtering out underclassmen and small school players was controversial at the time, and looks worse in retrospect. His almost paranoid obsession with making “safe” picks in the first round proved anything but. In the end, Ruskell was kind of the anti-Holmgren, he almost refused to make big bets on talent alone, and that is why his roster was so devoid of it by the time he tendered his resignation. Smart man, but he would definitely need to make some revisions to his process to justify another top level hiring.

And hiring an inept coach.