Randy Mueller Bio: Hopefully a Little Better Than Wikipedia (But Not Much)

Despite the fact that Mike Florio's rumor about the Bengals not only considering hiring a GM, but specifically hiring Randy Mueller, is both:

a) dangerously encouraging despite being wildly improbable based on all past evidence, and

b) might be the greatest example of putting the cart before the horse (I mean, we're talking about specific GM names when we do not even know if the Bengals will ever hire a GM),

I will nevertheless delve a little deeper into Mueller's past to see if indeed he might be a decent hire (in this fantasy world where someone not in the Brown Family has authority over personnel).

So what has Randy done in his career?  Well, I did literally HOURS of research on the internet last night, and here, free of charge, is my complete and authoritative take on Mueller.

(this is long, so feel free to skip to my summary at the end)

Seattle Seahawks

Mueller got his first major personnel related position with the Seattle Seahawks.  He had various titles but basically it seemed to me like he was a major, if not the major, influence in personnel decisions in Seattle from roughly 1995 to 1999.  Of note, I saw that he drafted OT Walter Jones with the 6th pick of the 1997 draft.  Given the emphasis we at WDR place on line play on both sides of the ball this is encouraging.  Especially since there appears to be two (and perhaps three) potential franchise tackles waiting to be had in this year's draft.

New Orleans Saints

In 2000, Mueller left the Seahawks to take over as GM of the Saints.  In what becomes a theme of Mueller's career, the circumstances under which he took over a new position was kind of weird.  You'll recall that in 1999, Mike Ditka traded away the entire Saints draft plus their 1st and 3rd round 2000 picks to get Ricky Williams (guess who didn't take Ditka up on that historically ridiculous offer?...Mike Brown...and we ended up with Akili Smith, whose name should officially be changed to Opportunity Cost).  So Mueller did his wheeling and dealing that offseason with free agency.  And he did pretty well, bringing in Jeff Blake (hooray!), Joe Horn, Norman Hand, and others.  The result:  the Saints won their division, got their first ever playoff win over the Rams, and Mueller was named the Executive of the Year (note that Blake broke his foot and Aaron Brooks ended up being the QB in that playoff win...Aaron Brooks!).  

He did trade away Ricky Williams to Miami after drafting Deuce McAlister only to see Ricky run for 1800 yards in his first season.  However, Deuce proved to be a solid RB throughout his career.  And he was around when the Saints threw away their 2002 season by losing to the 1-14 Bengals in the last game of the year to be eliminated from playoff contention.  Not good.

Mueller was fired by Saints owner Tom Benson without, allegedly, much of an explanation in 2002.  He then worked at ESPN as an analyst for awhile but I was in college and too drunk to remember anything he might have told me on Sportscenter.

Miami Dolphins

The Dolphins hired him as GM in 2005 but again, Mueller faced a weird situation where Nick Saban had final say on everything.  Saban's tenure ended in an ugly, unsuccessful manner and Mueller finally had full control though he was saddled with the players Saban had mostly left him.  His first draft was definitely not well received at the time in 2007 as he passed on Brady Quinn (hilariously captured on video) in the first round in favor of Ted Ginn.  Of note he took a center from Hawaii named Samson Satele who performed excellently as a rookie.  Given our lack of center since Richie Braham retired, this is encouraging.  He also brought in Joey Porter instead of Adalius Thomas (which has turned out to be the wiser free agent selection).  Though he did let the Patriots snag Wes Welker away from them albeit for a 2nd round pick (not a bad price for a slot receiver).

However, the 2007 Dolphins season was an unmitigated disaster.  Overwhelmed first time head coach Cam Camerson (who Mueller brought in), un-led the team to a 1-15 record.  Capricious owner Wayne Huizenga brought in Bill Parcells who subsequently fired both Mueller and Cameron and the Dolphins immediately turned things around in 2008.  I read some of the Dolphins blog coverage of these events leading up to the 2007, they were generally supportive of Mueller's moves.  They had brought in veteran QB Trent Green to lead the Dolphins and thought that would provide enough juice to help what had been one of the NFL's top defenses the year before.  Anyway, regardless of the wisdom of all the moves he made, 1 year is not much time to evaluate a GM.

Conclusion

Randy actually seems to be competent.   Most encouraging to me is that he appears to have made some very savvy line moves at all his previous jobs (Walter Jones, Norman Hand, Satele).  Also, he has both free agent and draft moves to his credit (meaning he knows both pro and college personnel).  His stints with the Saints and Dolphins both seem to have ended prematurely without evidence of failure totally attributable to him, so that is at least not a red flag.  He was also saddled with considerable baggage from previous managers in both of his formal GM roles.  Of course, as Who Dey NYC rightly points out, a more thorough search for the best candidate is needed before any decision should be made about who to hire as our (fictional) GM.  However, in the event the Bengals really are considering Mueller, I can confidently say that we can do worse.

To close:  Here's a quick summary of Randy Mueller's major moves that I saw (surely I am leaving tons out...for all his past picks, see here). 

On the plus side:

• Drafting of OT Walter Jones in 1997
• Acquisition of Joey Porter over Adalius Thomas 
• Free agent moves in first season with Saints 
• Named Executive of the Year with Saints 
• Drafting of C Samson Satele in 2007 

On the minus side:

• Hired Cam Cameron as head coach of Dolphins 
• Oversaw 1-15 season of Dolphins in 2007 
• Let Wes Welker go to division rival Patriots 
• Chose QB John Beck as future franchise QB...Parcells and company saw it necessary to bring in Pennington as a free agent this year over starting him 
• Fired abruptly twice (potential issues with his bosses?) 
• Worked for ESPN 

Comments

[Puffy]

I'm not thrilled about the idea...but you did help to put my mind to ease about Randy (somewhat). I wish we could look at some proven coaches as well...such as Shottenheimer, Dick Vermiel (however you spell em), or should I even think (gulp) Cower?! I mean hell....we F'n need someone with some brains that have proven it somewhere along the line!

[Scott Ricketts]

This is a much better assessment than I'd heard previously. Again, if it gets player personnel decisions out of the hands of Mike Brown, I am all in favor of it. We can't do any worse than we've done for the last 18 years.

[ItmightbeJB]

I doubt MikeyBoy will hire any GM. After all he's got John Cooper in the war room with him (I expect another 1st round OSU pick in 2009.) IF he were to hire a GM the guy would be on a shorter leash than Triumph the Insult Dog, although both would have the owners hand up their butts. He would be told about all the pre-conditions of his employment, e.g.; You must keep Marvin... You must keep Bratkowski... You must keep Chris Henry... you get the idea. The first time he walks into MikeyBoys office to ask about hiring more scouts he'll get the ol' Sam Wyche treatment (sliding out of the room on his backside.)

[Flash]

I'm curious about how much blame Mueller deserves for Miami choosing Culpepper over Brees...as the article mentions, Saban had final say back then...but you have to wonder which way Meuller was leaning.

[gil]

Would is surprise anybody if Mike Brown or someone from the Brown Family is capitalizing on the Bengal's 18-years of misfortunes by being the driving foruce behind the whodeyrevolution website.

Just a crazy thought, but I would not put it past those greedy bastards............