This was a while back but I think still holds true
Jimmy Johnson:
"I think the No. 1, most important person in your entire organization is your talent evaluator, whoever that guy is," Johnson said. "And when I say talent, not necessarily just the players. Talent evaluator as far as your coaches, your assistant coaches, the people in your organization.
"Your talent evaluator is the most important person there. Now it might be your general manager, it might be your director of player personnel, it might be your head coach. That was my responsibility when I was back in coaching. I think he is more important actually than your head coach."
Johnson had total control over football personnel in both Dallas and Miami, but he suggested the modern NFL has become so complex, so all-consuming, that model no longer is feasible. And he's not the first to come to that determination.
"Some people have a dual role," Johnson said. "More times than not it's your general manager. In New England, right now it's [Bill] Belichick. He does both. But there's very few in the NFL right now that's doing both. Â… Really it's an overwhelming job with the salary cap and free agency. You really need to separate.
"Bill does it now and he's got some assistants with some people there in the front office, but I mean he's got no life. That's all he does. And it's an overwhelming job. And I think because it is such an overwhelming job, he's probably missed on some of them and he's starting to miss more than what he did in previous years when he had Scott Pioli."
To hear Johnson tell it, the Dolphins would be foolish to hand total control to one of those superstar head coaches like Bill Cowher, Jon Gruden or Jeff Fisher. Better to find the person who can see through the muck and find the right people who should play, coach and scout for the franchise.
"It's really too much of a job," Johnson said. "Even if you hire one of these guys that say, 'Hey, I want control,' they're really not going to do it. They're going to be the head coach and maybe they're got the final say, but the nuts and bolts of it, 80 percent of the work will be done by somebody else.
"So he's going to have to have him somebody really good as a talent evaluator to do the job. Even if you give that guy the title, he better have somebody with him that's doing it really good. Pete Carroll is trying to do some of this [in Seattle]. It's swallowing him up. He can't do it."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...talent-evaluation-berardino-110811-story.html
