Best GM's..... JS

John Schneider and Ryan Grigson have a lot in common. Both are gladly overshadowed by their head coaches, both spent years on the road paying their dues, both stay well wide of the media spotlight, putting the team before everything else, both are willing to go bold and make trades, and they are clearly two of the brightest young executives in the NFL.

In fact, I'm having such a difficult time separating the outstanding jobs they did in 2012, I'm inclined to name them co-executives of the year. We'll go ahead and split the award, and give it to Grigson, the Colts GM, in the AFC and Schneider, GM of the Seahawks, in the NFC.

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In Seattle, head coach Pete Carroll is the rock star, and the face of the franchise, but Schneider is the one doing the heavy lifting on personnel behind the scenes. His background runs deep in college scouting, and Seattle has absolutely killed it in the draft. No one made any pick in 2012 as superb as Schneider taking quarterback Russell Wilson in the third round (and then they had the organizational cojones to start him from the get-go despite having just paid Matt Flynn to a fairly hefty free-agent contract).

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Soon enough, other teams will probably come calling for some of the men who work under them, and both Schneider and Grigson have already proven to be fairly fearless leaders who are not afraid to break from the pack and groupthink of the NFL.

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