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
Authentic Oren Burks 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
Authentic Marquis Haynes Jersey , 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, 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
Cardinals Christian Kirk Jersey , 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, 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
Josh Jackson Jersey , 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, Alvin Garrett, guys that some teams thought we were crazy to take them because they were so small, but
they were great players. I guess I was lucky to have a feel for some of these
guys and had coaches who were willing to coach them."
His greatest influences were Don Shula and Al Davis.
Beathard said his best memory is of the Dolphins' undefeated 1972 season, "but they were all memorable. Any time we made it to that last game, it meant
that we were going to the Supe
CLEVELAND — LeBron James has been Mr. Everything for the Cleveland Cavaliers for much of the 2018 postseason.
Yet, coach Tyronn Lue said Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals — won 116-86 by the Cavs — was James’ best “in a long time.”
Because James really defended.
“As far as helping, closing out to Jaylen Brown’s chest, making him put it on the floor,” Lue explained. “Closing out to (Marcus) Morris. Closing out to
(Marcus) Smart, so he did a really good job of just setting the tone of multiple
effort and that was good for us.”
James scored 27 points to go with 12 assists on 8-of-12 shooting. But, according to ESPN’s research Authentic Jason McCourty Jersey , Saturday was his best game on defense this postseason.
The Cavs put him on Brown — the Celtics‘ best player in the first two games of this series — and Brown didn’t even score until there was 8:20 left in the
second quarter.
The Celtics shot 2 of 10 and committed four turnovers when their ballhandler was guarded by James. Brown was 3-of-8 shooting for 10 points.
“Just tried to put myself in position to help our team,” James said. “I think tonight as a group, even when things broke down, we just covered for one
another.”
The Celtics lead this series 2-1, and Game 4 is Monday in Cleveland. Boston has never blown a 2-0 lead in 37 tries. But they were startled by how well the
Cavs played Saturday and how poorly things went for them.
Cleveland had a 2018 playoffs-high six players score in double figures and connected on 17 3s.
Morris, who forced James into 5-of-16 shooting in Game 1 and scored 21 points himself, struggled in Game 3.
“Personally, I think I did a (poor) job defensively with LeBron,” Morris said. “He was too comfortable when I was guarding him. I made myself very
vulnerable on screens and wasn’t disciplined. We can’t have that in a game of
this magnitude, and it showed.”
The Cavs gave Al Horford little room to move and it stifled the Celtics’ offense. Boston coach Brad Stevens said the Celtics would have to consider
lineup changes “because of the way (Cleveland is) playing.” Tristan Thompson is
guarding Horford and Kevin Love is on Morris. The Celtics want to force Love to
guard Horford.
“I just didn’t think our offense in general was very good,” Stevens said. “Our defense wasn’t much better. We got thoroughly outplayed on both ends.
Obviously we’re going to need to play through him more than that.”
George Hill scored eight points in the first two games of the series, and exploded for 11 in the first quarter of Game 3. JR Smith shot 0-for-7 for no
points in Game 2, and recovered with 11 points in Game 3. Kyle Korver connected
on all four 3s and finished with 14 points.
The Celtics have been bad on the road all postseason and fell to 1-5 with Saturday’s loss. But never in these playoffs had they been clobbered quite like
the clobbering the Cavs laid upon them.
Yet, the Celtics could move to within a game of closing out the Cavs and stopping James’ consecutive NBA Finals streak at seven with a win in Game 4.
“This is the way we have to play,” Lue said. “I think bringing the physicality to start.”
.
