Disagree with only the bolded, especially as it pertains to the points you acknowledged above. The team is now set up (or rather, would be if ownership was invested in any meaningful way...but that's a different topic) for a long run because of how well they executed the fundamentals and not just because of the specific plan that they chose to implement. Like you said above, there are many ways they could've gone about this, including not completely punting from 2019-2022 (the 2022 punt attempt was blocked by the players and coaches). The reason we're so well set up is primarily because of them kicking ass at the things that would've been a part of all of those reasonable plans, and not because the plan that they did choose gave them significantly greater opportunities for future (now present) improvement than the others did.
Holliday will end up being basically the one unique thing (as dude likes to describe it) that will have come out from the years of tanking that we couldn't have gotten if we'd tried to be not quite as embarrassing. I think he's a big part of the future picture, so its not meaningless, but he hasn't been any part of getting to this point and nearly everything else we've got we could've also had in a non-tank model over those seasons.
I think the manner they choose to build (coupled with their execution) is why they have an extended window in-front of them.
The plan(s) dude advocated for much of that run was to try and build a .500 team, with the chance of playing up.
(Dude's alternative plans of course are not the only other possible variants of how the team could have been built.)
The plans he presented would have A) Taken from a developing system to try and obtain better players for 'now' (most likely in years you really couldn't contend), and B) Had they resulted in 'better' teams, would have reduced the draft cap dollars.
I guess C) is they would have resulted in more watchable teams in those years, and I understand that mattered to you and others.
There is nothing magical or surprising about what Elias has accomplished.
He just systematically operated a plan.
"This is how we are going to build. We are going to start with a,b,c, and it will result with z."
It was a brutal stretch of irrelevance, and hard to watch for anyone who cares about the O's.
But if operated effectively, the process was always going to end with a winning team, home grown core, with a system capable of replenishing itself... and the minimal / non-existent obligations to extend (at-least try to extend) your own talent, or augment from outside.
If anyone believes that there was no plan from Ownership other than saving money, I'm not going to convince you otherwise.
I think, and said at that time, that I don't believe Peter would have ever hired Elias.
I think John gets credit for the Elias hire, and allowing Elias the runway to operate his plan.
Similarly, I'll think John gets rightful blame if Elias wants to extend existing players, or bring in external difference makers; and doesn't get that ownership support.
Anyone who wants to say it wasn't rebuilding that has the O's in the position they are in... or wants to say the O's could have built differently and won more games / been more competitive in those years... and can't forgive the organization (Ownership) for allowing that product to be on the field.... that's fine.
For me, the O's operated a real plan (whatever we want to call that plan) for the first time in my lifetime, and they are going to be a force the remainder of this decade because of that plan.
