Grüße und Vorstellung » what he says or does

SAN DIEGO (AP) Bobby Beathard loathed first-round draft picks and reveled in taking chances on players from out-of-the-way colleges.

It was a formula that paid off with two victories in four trips to the Super Bowl as general manager of the Washington Redskins and San Diego Chargers.

He also loathes dressing up Casey Cizikas Jersey , meaning the gold blazer he’ll wear when he’s inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame won’t get much use after Saturday night’s ceremony.

”I don’t think I’ll be wearing it many places except there,” Beathard said. ”I don’t think I’ll be going out to dinner with that coat on.”

That’s Beathard, 81, who always was more comfortable dressed as a Southern California beach bum. In jobs ranging from scout to general manager, he helped build seven Super Bowl teams for four franchises, including four winners, during a career lasting nearly four decades.

Beathard was so low-key that when Kevin Gilbride was hired as Chargers coach in 1997 and insisted that everyone wear a coat and tie on road trips, even the GM, Beathard reached into his pocket on one trip and found an NFL schedule from 1989. That had been the last time he wore a blazer, when he worked on NBC’s pregame show.

Beathard certainly didn’t need a blazer for scouting trips to small colleges, or to bodysurf in his beloved Pacific Ocean, run the Boston Marathon or have a few beers once a week with his buddies in Franklin, Tennessee, where he’s lived for several years.

But he’ll have to wear one Saturday night.

His presenter will be Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, hired by Beathard with Washington before the 1981 season.

”I would have had one of my sons but I think it was more appropriate to have Joe,” Beathard said. ”We spent a long time together.”

Gibbs, inducted in 1996, coached the Redskins to victory in two of the three Super Bowls the Redskins reached in the 1980s. Those are the teams Beathard is best-remembered for building.

He also built the San Diego Chargers’ only Super Bowl team, which was routed by San Francisco in the 1995 game.

He began his career as a part-time scout for the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963 before leaving to scout in the AFL. He returned to the Chiefs in 1966 Calvin de Haan Jersey Kids , when they played in the first Super Bowl. In 1972, Beathard was hired as director of player personnel for the Miami Dolphins, who won consecutive Super Bowls.

The Redskins hired him as GM in 1978 and he began doing things his way. He viewed first-round draft picks a commodity to be traded away to stockpile lower picks. He also worked the free agent market. In 1982, the Redskins team that won the Super Bowl included 27 free agents signed by Beathard since he was hired. In his 11 years in Washington, the Redskins used their first-round pick only three times.

In 1988, Sports Illustrated called him ”The Smartest Man in the NFL.”

Beathard didn’t like the title.

”That was kind of embarrassing,” Beathard said. ”Whoever put that in there, I told them when it first came out, `Well, you better go back and ask my high school and college teachers if that’s true, and I don’t think they’d agree with that.’ ”

Taking Beathard’s entire career as a whole, the label certainly fit.

”If I ever got into that position, I had a plan how I wanted to do it and it wasn’t that the No. 1 draft pick was the most important thing,” Beathard said about becoming a GM. ”Every year we’d go out all year to all the colleges, scouting and looking at the players. And if it was a draft that was deep in talent I thought it was more valuable to get some of the later picks, because there were real good players down there, not only in the first round. If you had a high pick in the first round, trade that and get multiple picks where all the other players were. Fortunately it worked out for us. The only grief I got from it was from Darrell Green.”

Of all his draft picks and free agent signings, Beathard said his favorite was Green Dmitry Kulikov Jersey , the 5-foot-8 defensive back from Texas A&I who was taken with the 28th pick overall – the last pick in the first round – of the 1983 draft. Green went on to a Hall of Fame career.

”That doesn’t mean the other guys, the Art Monks, the Russ Grimms and the Jeff Bostics, all those other guys, it doesn’t mean those weren’t just as important,” Beathard said. ”When we took Darrell Green, I’ll never forget the phone call. When I called Darrell he was down at Texas A&I and I called Darrell and said, `Hey Darrell, it’s Bobby; we took you.’ He got mad at me and said, `Why did you wait until last pick to take me?’ And I said, `The way the draft works, we won the Super Bowl so we had the last pick, so blame the other (27) teams that didn’t take you. Don’t blame us.”’

Beathard left the Redskins in May 1989 and was out of the NFL only one season before being hired by the Chargers. His first draft pick was Junior Seau and the Chargers reached the Super Bowl five seasons later. Seau was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015.

When he scouted colleges, Beathard, who retired in April 2000, said he’d look beyond the players recommended by coaches.

”I traveled the whole country to every school that played football to look for players. I got to see the players personally, besides the scouting staff. I just had a lot of confidence in my evaluation. I wasn’t afraid to take players from small schools, or small players.

”I think of Darrell Green, we had a little receiver Niklas Hjalmarsson Jersey , Alvin Garrett, guys that some teams thought we were crazy to take them because they were so small, but t Raised in upstate New York, Chad Brown didn't root for the Bills, the Giants or the Jets when it came to football.

The 39-year-old from Mechanicville was a San Francisco 49ers fan. It was simple. He liked future Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, although football didn't turn out to be Brown's sport.

Brown has become one of thoroughbred racing's top trainers, and his favorite football team now is the New England Patriots. It has nothing to do with Tom Brady.

It's all about Gronkowski, both of them. He likes tight end Rob and the 3-year-old colt named after him who will be a fan favorite Saturday in the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes.

Whether Gronkowski can challenge Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Justify and prevent him from becoming the sport's 13th Triple Crown winner remains to be seen.

The name of the horse adds interest to the final jewel of the Triple Crown, of course.

"It works for him," Brown said of the name. "He is going to pick up a few extra fans and that feels good. I am happy people are rooting for him because of his name."

The Kentucky-bred colt has never raced in North America. He has had six starts in England, winning four races and finishing second once. An illness forced him to skip the Kentucky Derby.

Phoenix Thoroughbred Limited, the owners of Gronkowski, decided after the Derby to move the colt out of the barn of Jeremy Noseda in mid-May. Brown has spent the last three-plus weeks getting the colt ready to run again.

While Gronkowski arrived in good condition and has trained extremely well, Brown would have preferred a little more training time.

"If the horse has enough foundation behind him, he is the kind of a horse that can run a mile and a half on the dirt," Brown said Thursday after Gronkowski galloped. "Is he ready for Saturday? We'll see."

Brown said the owners of Gronkowski gave him the option of skipping the Belmont if he felt the colt was not ready. He elected to run.

Brown has an idea what will happen in the race. Gronkowski will run a little behind the leaders and grind out the first 1录 miles. It's the last quarter that's a concern for a colt that has never run longer than a mile in a race.

"This was a very unique situation," Brown said. "This was a horse that was on the Derby trail and then off, and now here on short notice. It really takes a special horse to be able to catch up to speed and be able to run in a race like Saturday. Based on what I have seen so far, I do feel like he is up to it."

Rob Gronkowski http://www.officialwild.com/authentic-adidas-matt-dumba-jersey , who is a part owner of the colt, is expected to attend. He's also excited.

"It's pretty wild," Gronkowski said Tuesday after a Patriots practice. "I heard about the horse like a year ago and I saw it, and I was like 'that's cool,' you know? Then all of a sudden it's like the horse is in the Kentucky Derby a year later. So it's pretty wild. It's a pretty cool scenario. Pretty cool situation. It just shows, name the horse my name and it's going to make it, baby."

Besides Gronkowski the horse, Brown also had another runner in his barn partially owned by three former or current Patriots. He has gotten the chance to sit down with Patriots coach Bill Belichick to discuss how their jobs are similar and how they manage elite athletes and people on their staffs.

"I have asked him for advice, particularly on leadership, winning, and how to get the most out of people," said Brown, who has 165 employees and 230 horses in his barn. "I find him to be and (have) great admiration for him now that I have had a couple of chances to really sit down with coach and pick his brain. I find him to be really brilliant, a deep thinker and very reserved and calculated about what he says or does. He has enormous experience how to get the most out of people."

For Brown, this is a week in which he will discover just how much he got out of Gronkowski. At worst, it will be a learning experience. At best, Gronk scores big and upsets Justify's Triple Crown hopes.


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