Billy Devaney is Really Bad At His Job

A quick rundown of major moves by the St. Louis Rams during the Billy Devaney era:

• Hired Steve Spagnuolo as head coach.  I'm really not going to get too intense about whether this was the right move or not, since in general, it's argued by Rams fans that Spags should be fired due to the Rams poor performance so far in 2011.  Since the whole point of this post is essentially comparing Spagnuolo and Devaney, I think it's best that we stick to the task at hand.
• Drafted Jason Smith with the #2 overall pick.  Hilariously, some in the St. Louis media will try to justify this move on the grounds that the 2009 draft class was quite weak.  Which it was.  But let's consider the guys we could have had instead of Jason Smith.  This may not be selecting Carriker over Revis or Chris Long (a decent player) over a ton of far better players but it's still guys who aren't, you know, really fucking terrible at football.  The following guys were first round picks the year we threw money at the walking tub of goo known as Jason Smith: Brian Orakpo, Brian Cushing, Alex Mack, Sandra Bullock's retarded friend from The Blind Side, Jeremy Maclin, Percy Harvin, Hakeem Nicks, and CLAY FUCKING MATTHEWS.  These guys were a little bit later and you could argue it's too revisionist to argue we should have taken guys who fell into the twenties over Smith, but what basis did anyone in the Rams organization have to believe Jason Smith would be any good?  He hardly ever run blocked and gave up 3 1/2 sacks his last season (by comparison, Bryant McKinnie gave up zero sacks IN HIS ENTIRE COLLEGE CAREER).  Devaney doesn't deserve a free pass here--the hype behind Aaron Curry could have warranted a trade down.  And frankly, no matter who the Rams pick, merely having traded down and paying less money to a player who, by definition, couldn't be worse than Jason Smith would be an improvement.
• We released such competents as Orlando Pace and Torry Holt.  Now, these guys were getting old and inevitably were going to decline, but perhaps finding replacements would have been preferable to "Let's get fat, lazy guys to fill in."
• The big move that everyone praises Billy Devaney for--drafting Sam Bradford #1 overall.  Uh.  The #2 and #5 picks are Pro Bowlers already.  I'm not saying it was the wrong pick, but can we stop pretending there was some kind of divine genius to drafting the Heisman winning quarterback with the first overall pick?
• The secondary continues to be pourous.  We replaced Todd Lyght the year after he won us the Super Bowl--Justin King still has a job in the NFL.
• The receivers remain atrocious.  Mike Sims-Walker just can't be the best receiver of the last five years for a successful NFL team.  He's a second or third receiver at the absolute best.  No particular effort has been given to actually make a move for a receiver.

Billy Devaney has a job and Terry Francona doesn't.  If you can explain that one, you deserve to be given an automatic passing of the Bar exam.