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Fluffing Philbin

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by Pandarilla, May 23, 2015.

  1. Pandarilla

    Pandarilla Purist Emeritus

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    He's become our Andre from "The League." Painful to watch a head coach learning on the job, but he does have his positive attributes.

    First and foremost, I see Philbin as very well organized. A sort of orchestral production is on display with Philbin as the composer.

    ...that's all I got, take it from here.
     
  2. PhinFan1968

    PhinFan1968 To 2020, and BEYOND! Club Member

    Until the queasy sneaks in.
     
  3. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    He's Andre from The League. Bah hahaha! That's not really a good person be compared to.
     
  4. smahtaz

    smahtaz Pimpin Ain't Easy

    I think Philbin will be fine. He has a pretty good QB.
     
  5. Piston Honda

    Piston Honda Well-Known Member

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    At the very least give him some credit for Tannehill's development. He got killed after week 3 for not playing ball with the media and all RT did was play the best ball of his career afterwards.
     
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  6. Pandarilla

    Pandarilla Purist Emeritus

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    Ironically, this thread is making me feel like "The League" episode where they try and boost Andre's confidence in style...



    [​IMG]
     
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  7. Rocky Raccoon

    Rocky Raccoon Greasepaint Ghost Staff Member

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    Well this thread should be about 100 pages by the morning.
     
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  8. PhinFan1968

    PhinFan1968 To 2020, and BEYOND! Club Member

    I don't really credit him for that part...except to the extent he put a chip on RT's shoulders that week. RT's play wasn't THAT bad in the first 3 games...if you take all the dropped, bread-basket, gimme TDs into account. Those were big time, DEEP throws. That was more reason, than RT's play, for Lazor to scale back the deep game early on.

    I remember looking at the numbers and adding in if they'd caught just 3 of the TDs, his rating over the first 3 woulda been slightly over 100...but that's not the narrative.

    What I credit him with is his consistency (save a few really head-scratching situations last year, that I believe he learned from), organizational skills (could be my head custodial manager any day), stoicism with the press. But I also credit him with inability to understand calling the offense and fixing O line problems...particularly considering he was a career O line guy before the faux OC position at Green Bay.

    I was big time on his side his first year or two...last year I fell out pretty hard, and that's not like me, so he pissed me off THAT much. I haven't written him off, he's still the Dolphins HC, so I'm hoping for the best possible performance from him, just like every other person on the team. I DO think he can be a successful playoff coach...I'm just not sure he's ready in 2015.
     
  9. LBsFinest

    LBsFinest Banned

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  10. jw3102

    jw3102 season ticket holder

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    I have no idea how he became the Dolphins HC in the first place. I have no idea how he kept his job after three years of no winning seasons.

    I just wonder if the Packers will find a spot for him after he is finally fired after the 2015 season. There is a reason he is viewed as the worst HC in the NFL, because he is.

    The 2016 season, with hopefully a new and improved HC can't get here fast enough for me.
     
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  11. jason8er

    jason8er Luxury Box Luxury Box

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    Philbin has baffled me a time or two but, I can understand the rationale in giving him time to see results. He at least now has a team full of his kind of players. Guys who absolutely don't need motivation or coaches speak to get up for a game.
     
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  12. Fin D

    Fin D Sigh

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    That is absurd.
     
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  13. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I don't think a HC should be graded the same way players are so that's what I sometimes take issue with. I think it's fair to watch players on Sunday and grade them based on what you see. I don't see the logic in grading a HC that way. You have to look at the general trends of the team and how it progresses season-by-season.

    It's not that you can't grade on a game-by-game basis but you'll never fully understand what was happening, there's not enough information, so assessments can be way off.

    I think right now most fans are happy with where the team is, which speaks positively to how the HC has organized and planed its evolution, yet they put all that on other guys because they seem to have concluded a long time ago that Philbin wasn't worthy and that they won't root for his success. It's Hickey's drafting or it's Tannenbaum's entrance into the picture this year. Tannehill figured it out himself. The defense collapsed and so the DC must be horrible and therefore the HC should bear the blame.

    This forum is 95% slanted against Philbin so...what do you expect to read in a thread like this?
     
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  14. Disgustipate

    Disgustipate Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Here's the phenomenal coaches ranking from Yahoo again:

    http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfls-best-coaches-2015-012800823--nfl.html
     
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  15. invid

    invid Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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  16. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Right, right, right....the Incognito-Martin thing was Philbin's fault. Let's not hold the guilty parties responsible for their actions, huh?!

    Not to mention that it was just nonsense ridiculously overblown by the media to begin with.

    It's just the ultimate in hypocrisy that something so out in left field can be directly blamed on Philbin while the most important thing Philbin was brought here to do, develop a QB and an offense, is something some fans won't even begin to credit Philbin with despite the obvious progress.

    This is why so many of you hate him and consider even somewhat neutral opinions to be so offensive, because you're not fair in your assessment...and yet you expect to be taken seriously?!

    Maybe Philbin isn't a great HC, but he's nowhere near as bad as some of you make him out.
     
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  17. Brasfin

    Brasfin Well-Known Member

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    Both those things are on Lazor and we have plenty of evidence for it. Our offense only started producing like it has after the arrival of Lazor. Greg Jennings himself stated on his Finsiders interview that one of the things that changed from GB to Miami regarding Philbin is that he barely sees him now.

    I don't think Philbin is as bad as some make him out to be, but he is not a good traditional HC right now... he is a good organizer and planner, maybe, but not HC. But hey, maybe that's the organizational structure they opted for, a HC who is more responsible for organizing and planning the day-to-day operations, while his coordinators and position coaches are responsible for more of the "real coaching"... maybe it'll work, we don't know yet, we just know that in 3 years it has produced a 7-9, 8-8 and 8-8 records, and that's where the criticism stems from.
     
  18. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Who brought in Lazor? Philbin did. Who sits in meetings with Lazor, lays out the plan, shares ideas and ultimately signs off on Lazor's directives? Philbin does. Because the OC and the HC are confounded there is no way of criticizing one without criticizing the other, nor is there a way of complimenting one without complimenting the other.

    While your instinct might be to praise Lazor, that might be wrong. How do you know it's Lazor who deserves the credit and not Philbin for any of what goes right? You don't because the two are confounded. Even play-calling is confounded because Philbin has input during the week on what the game-plan is going to be and hence what plays will be run in what situations and what the playbook will look like in general.

    Fans can argue as strongly as they like and yet their words won't rise above mere conjecture.

    The role Philbin plays seems to be almost entirely involved with organizing the coaching staff. He's not here to develop players directly. He's here to make sure players get developed. All the evidence says that Philbin is here to manage the coaching staff and the team decisions but that knowledge doesn't offer near the clarity necessary to untangle the offense and in particular the decisions of the HC, OC and QB.

    It just seems weird that this forum looks at a views like yours or mine, and concludes that we're morons...and that seems to go unchecked and unpunished.

    I haven't come across another forum where so many people are so negative about the HC to the point that anything not crucifying him is considered blashpemy. Ironic yes. Frustrating yes.
     
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  19. Brasfin

    Brasfin Well-Known Member

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    I think it's something that CAN work, even though it's not very conventional. The one thing that worries me is that, let's say we start having some success the next few seasons, and even start making the playoffs and actually competing consistently. As a consequence, our coordinators will be more coveted for head coaching jobs, and if they leave the organization, who will be there to make sure the offensive/defensive systems continue running efficiently? Will it be Philbin? Evidence doesn't point that way... with the departure of Sherman, the offensive system changed completely.

    In other words, is this type of structure sustainable, or will it fade out as more people start to leave the organization?
     
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  20. Brasfin

    Brasfin Well-Known Member

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    I recall there were reports that Ben McAdoo was Philbin's first choice... while there's no way of knowing if that's true, conversely we also can't conclude that Lazor was Philbin's primary choice. You can argue that Philbin was equally responsible for the offensive production in 2014, but I'd consider that thinking a little naive. If Philbin couldn't produce a good offensive output in his first two seasons with Sherman (hence the firing of Sherman), what makes you think he would be equally important in optimizing the offense as Lazor, the guy who was brought in specifically to take on that role? The variable here was the change in the offensive coordinator, not Philbin.
     
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  21. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I understand what you're saying but that is a problem we want to have, right?

    What happens if Philbin and his staff are successful? Well...if it's successful we'll worry about the consequences of sustaining that success but I'll settle for that kind of problem any day because for one, it indicates you have a good HC! ;)


    And to you second post, the one above, it's the confidence with which people attack Philbin that bothers me, not necessarily the criticism being negative in nature. When you can't directly trace the line of cause back to the QB or the OC or the HC, how can these anti-Philbin arguments be put forth with such conviction and confidence as though there isn't a big chance all these assumptions are wrong?

    Hasn't Tannehill supposedly progressed each year? That's been the biggest defense for his big contract so far, the apparent 'upward trend' that has occurred over the last 3 years.

    Point blank, I wouldn't say Tannehill has really fixed any of his major issues. I think he's simply gotten more comfortable playing against the increased speed and better defenses he's now facing. So he's improving in the same way any inexperienced QB would improve over the short term. You give any QB 3 years and they're going to show some improvement here and there. However, the major issues involve bigger things like accuracy. We still see the same issues in terms of throwing behind the receivers on a regular basis as well as some real bad attempts at long range. We still see a lot of sacks that the QB could probably avoid if he were better. We still see a major ceiling being put on his game because he doesn't seem to make a lot of plays with his legs.

    Evidently we disagree because your argument seems to say that Tannehill took a big jump last year under Lazor and that's what I just don't see. If the QB still has the same fundamental issues, where's the major, undeniable improvement that forms part of the basis for your argument? The yardage and TD totals between 2013 and 2014 were well within the variation one would expect between two seasons. Going from 3900 yards to 4000 is not an improvement, it's a small variation. Same thing with 24 versus 27 TDs. Just as going from 27 down to 24 wouldn't be considered a substantial regression, the opposite shouldn't hold true either.

    That Philbin and Lazor chose to scale back the more risky portions of the offense definitely helped the completion percentage and the INT totals but why so many fans seems to think that equates to long-term fixes I don't know.

    And why would it matter if Lazor wasn't Philbin's first choice? Does that somehow undermine the facts pertaining to what has actually transpired in Miami over the last year? Who's to say that maybe some other OC wouldn't have been better? Who's to say that the inexperience of Bill Lazor wasn't a huge detriment that Philbin has had to overcome and that Philbin's experience and wisdom hasn't been the thing that's made Lazor a success? There are simply a million stories that all fit the evidence because the evidence is system-level and we're talking component level. There's not sufficient resolution in the data to attribute the system success to any of the individual components. And for that matter, it's not as though Lazor has been this overwhelming success. It's not as though there hasn't been serious debate about his worth.

    It just seems to me that what you're saying could be true but it's not the most honest evaluation. It seems to express a point of view that is against Philbin from the onset. How would I tell the story if I wanted it to prove Philbin was in the wrong? That's no different from me or anyone else painting the picture to make Philbin a hero--which I have never done btw.

    Both are extreme, and therefore unlikely, candidates to explain the real truth is all I'm saying.



    Again, it's the confidence of the anti-Philbin argument that bothers me, not the logic. Yes, there's logic, but the assumptions are rampant and substantial, and you can use the same logic to get to a completely different outcome that is very pro-Philbin.

    I would not want to condemn a single component when the evidence is only given in the form of metrics that speak to the system which is an order or magnitude more complex.

    It's fine to dislike Philbin. It just doesn't make sense to be very confident in that.
     
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  22. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    He develops talent, lacks the ability to motivate players.
     
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  23. Piston Honda

    Piston Honda Well-Known Member

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    Maybe maybe not. DGreg is correct, There's no way to do anything but assume.
     
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  24. Piston Honda

    Piston Honda Well-Known Member

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    Which coaches have the ability to motivate players and how do we measure it?
     
  25. Brasfin

    Brasfin Well-Known Member

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    It's a good problem to have, but it's something that can happen as early as 2016 or 2017, IMO... unless we win the Super Bowl, what good would one or two seasons worth of playoff success do if we can't sustain it? Like I said, it's something that can work, I just don't know for how long.

    And as for the second part of your post, it's certainly possible that Philbin played a big role in Tannehill's and the offense's success, but I just see stronger evidence that points in the other direction. Sherman was Tannehill's college coach, I think most people would agree that, chances are, he had the biggest influence on Tannehill in his first two seasons and not Philbin. 2015, I addressed in post #21 as to why I think Lazor was the biggest factor in the offense's improvement. There's also the fact that in many press conferences Lazor mentioned Tannehill and specfically what he needed to do to improve while Philbin rarely went into the details, which again points to Lazor being the one who had a bigger influence on Tannehill's improvement. As I said before, you can certainly argue that Philbin is equally responsible for those things, I just don't see the evidence to support it.
     
  26. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Yeah, honestly, I think it's just a mess when you try to decipher it all so as with the conversations that argue O-line versus QB in regards to sacks and pressure, I think we've all just heard enough of the conjecture at this point.

    Have you given any thought to how things might go down if Miami doesn't do well this season and Philbin is given the boot? I ask because I think it might surprise fans how little there is to gain by removing Philbin. Take a look at the chain of command that leads down to the premier offensive player (QB):

    Owner: Ross
    VP/DM: Tannenbaum
    GM: Hickey
    HC: Philbin
    OC: Lazor
    QB: Tannehill

    Clearly, HC is the most insulated in that system and therefore the least influential in it's possible downfall. To put it bluntly, with a good VP/GM and a good QB, it's going to be highly unlikely that a HC is so bad that the system is unworkable. Logic would also say that the HC in that structure is probably the most replaceable component. I think most people would agree when I say that the evidence does support that. I'm referring to Tannehill's performance and the roster that Hickey and Tannenbaum have produced.

    However, would any HC that is valuable enough to be seen as an improvement over Philbin actually be willing to accept the job in Miami knowing that all the other components (some of which have authority over him) are already in place? The increasing demands of HCs on the open market do not bode well for Miami.

    So if Philbin is fired, the team is faced with the huge challenge of finding a HC that is not only better than what they had but also one which is willing to give up all roster authority knowing that Tannenbaum (as well as whoever he selects as GM) is already in place and will have that authority.

    Thirdly, this new coach will also have to submit to Tannehill as his QB because the team has now given this extension to Tannehill and will certainly want him to prove successful.

    All those constraints and conflicting objectives hint that this problem of replacing Philbin if the team is around 8-8 and misses the Play-offs again may not have a real solution. The team may not find any HC that is all of the above: (1) appreciably better than Philbin, (2) willing to give up roster authority, (3) willing to accept that he has no power to go away from a QB that as of 2016 has had 4 years to put together a winning season and make the Play-offs and yet hasn't and (4) willing to work for an organization that has proven to be less than loyal to the HC to the extent that the last HC was the first guy fired when things went awry!!!

    The point is that Philbin getting fired would be a nasty scenario which may have no actual solution.

    So you can very easily see why I get the feeling that the whole thing is so spread out between the QB, OC, HC, GM, the VP/DM and Owner that replacing the most insignificant and subordinate component in that system while expecting to see major changes for the better has a probability that is comically small, if not altogether zero.




    So there are really two ways of disagreeing with the view that Philbin should be fired. One view says that Philbin is actually a good HC. I'm not saying that. However, the second is really important to consider. It says that Miami is simply not going to get much better by replacing such an insignificant piece of the puzzle and that the current organizational structure to which Miami is now attached long-term may in fact make it impossible altogether to find a coach willing to accept all the constraints of the job who is good enough to be considered an upgrade.


    You can see why what I'm saying here, when combined with the ideas I expressed above in regardless to the confounded system in which we can't determined who to blame and who to credit, there's really very little if any confidence that we can have in this idea that the next objective should be to fire Philbin.


    It's not like I haven't understood all of this from day 1 yet people seem to think I'm sitting here saying Philbin is awesome.
     
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  27. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Don't agree at all. If the Dolphins have a bad record, someone has to be held accountable, and it's not going to be Tannenbaum or Hickey (no reason to place blame on those based on what we've seen). People will say Philbin's had enough time and he should go, especially if it looks like his game management was a reason we lost a few games.

    And with the roster we have, I bet there will be many willing coaching candidates. There are definitely guys who are better at getting more out of the players they have, so I think we'll be better off with Philbin's replacement. Of course, I do hope we do really well this year, and if that means keeping Philbin so be it.
     
  28. Piston Honda

    Piston Honda Well-Known Member

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    The key is "based on what we've seen". What we've seen will never be enough to make more than assumptions and frankly people tend to see whatever they're looking for. Because Philbin is already viewed widely as the weak link fans will naturally look for reasons to pin the blame on him. I Don't say that to defend Philbin, it's the nature of the business and he was the beneficiary of it when Ireland and Sherman took the fall after 2013.
     
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  29. Brasfin

    Brasfin Well-Known Member

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    Agreed. If things went wrong in 2015, we'd have dug ourselves in a hole too deep to get out, may as well keep digging to the other side of the world. Unless we have a sub .500 season (which would be extremely surprising, IMO), firing Philbin after 2015 may set us back even more.
     
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  30. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    What you're proposing is exactly what would happen if 2015 went badly--people would blame it all on Philbin. The extent to which they'd be correct is not the question.

    The scenario coming off a bad 2015 would look like this to a coach considering the job:

    (1) An owner who hasn't had success building a winning team and who has gone through 2 head coaches (Sparano & Philbin) in a way that does not make him appear patient and loyal.

    (2) A VP/DM that has the owner in his pocket and who seems to be inclined to make splash FA moves and who has not yet proven successful having been linked to the Jets and Dolphins.

    (3) A GM, possibly Hickey, who is in the pocket of the VP/DM and will work with the VP/DM to control the roster and the FA moves.

    (4) A QB that despite his upside and draft position, will have gone 4 seasons without a winning record or a Play-off appearance all the while hand-cuffing the team to a long-term contract which the owner will probably use as leverage to force the QB on the HC.


    If 2015 goes well and the offense works and Tannehill looks great and the team has a winning record and they make the Play-offs all of what I mentioned above will either disappear or will appear in a positive light as something that equates to stability within the organization. But in that scenario it's highly unlikely that Philbin would be fired and thus the team wouldn't be searching for a new HC.

    However, if 2015 went badly, which is the scenario that involves Miami firing Philbin and looking for a new HC, all of the negative things I said above will be true in the eyes of an outsider and the Dolphins head coaching vacancy will look like a prison to most HC candidates. Thus the likelihood of getting an upgrade in whatever new HC is hired will be small. The irony is that as Philbin's firing become more likely, it becomes more unlikely that the team will be able to find a good replacement.

    The only real win-win for fans is if somehow Miami ends up with a winning record in 2015 and makes the Play-offs and yet still fires Philbin. To me, that appears unlikely. I think that situation will be viewed as evidence the team and it's HC have turned things around. The correctness of that is unknown. It could be true. It could be false. If 2015 goes well though, I highly doubt Philbin gets fired. That just doesn't make a lot of sense from a management perspective. That would only make sense in a sort of conspiracy theory in which Ross and Tannenbaum have had everything planned out years in advance. That wouldn't be true of any owner, let alone one like Ross.


    I believe Brasfin is correct in his analogy. Miami has dug themselves into a pit. They have essentially strapped the team's wagon to the horses of Tannenbaum and Tannehill. It could go really well and make the organization and the owner look smart or it could be a gigantic blunder that backfires and sets the team back years.


    As I have said before, I think 2015 will really tell us whether we have our QB and our front office. If 2015 is mediocre, and I'm not necessarily talking about the W/L record, I think Miami might be proven to be a paper Tiger. It really rests on Tannehill. He either becomes an elite offensive weapon that makes a big difference for the Dolphins or he doesn't. He won't have to put up gawdy numbers every week like Peyton or Rodgers but he better become the reason the team is winning as opposed to a neutral observer.
     
  31. CrunchTime

    CrunchTime Administrator Retired Administrator

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    Philbin is getting a chance this year not many coaches get after so many mediocre seasons.Another season where in the name of continuity the owner,the GM and the FO are supporting him by opening the check book,giving him an extension and adquiring some pretty good players in the process.

    In addition this is the easiEst schedule Philbin has experienced since he was hired.

    Its tough to think of a scenario where the Dolphins dont make the playoffs IMO.

    The fear I have is that we barely make the playoffs and we have an early exit from the playoffs and then Philbin gets extended another mediocre 3 yrs.
     
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  32. DolphinGreg

    DolphinGreg Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    If the seasons goes well and therefore we have evidence that our VP/DM, our GM, our OC and our QB are good long-term investments...how much does it really matter who's managing the coaching meetings?

    If the Dolphins make the Play-offs in any capacity it will be evidence that enough things are working for the whole system to be retained.
     
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  33. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Well.. I guess you care about this discussion so let's go through the those 4 points with a tad more scrutiny:

    1) IF 2015 is bad and Philbin is fired, who would blame Ross? I think he would seem no less loyal than almost every owner out there. And I think people can see that Ross today isn't the same as Ross when he chased after Harbaugh.

    2) Reports are that Ross wanted some of those flashy moves, like the Suh signing. We did sign Albert the year before too. And Ross has shown he's willing to spend money for this team, like those stadium upgrades, which have at least landed us now in the discussion for hosting another SB. At the end of the day, the owner owns the team and I don't quite see the evidence Tannenbaum, who was just hired, has Ross "in his pocket".

    3) It's a bit of an open question as to exactly what the division of labor is for Hickey and Tannenbaum. A lot of people didn't believe it when reports came out saying Hickey would be in control of the draft. But the draft itself suggests that version was likely more accurate than the competing one, which is that Tannenbaum would also control the draft and that Hickey was just being sidelined. We didn't trade up and didn't trade future picks, both things Tannenbaum was known for doing. I'm starting to think what's been actually said by the people in the organization is closer to the truth than the "interpretation" of it by others who thought this is all Tannenbaum's show.

    4) I think a lot of people in the NFL put Tannehill in the average-to-slightly above average category, with demonstrated improvement from year to year, and with no sign he's actually reached his ceiling. I cannot see any way Tannehill hinders the hiring of a new coach.

    So, simply put I disagree with all four of those points as reasons why a potential HC would not choose us.

    More importantly, there are many HC's in the NFL that are not also GM's, so it's not unprecedented by any means to hire just a HC. Also, consider the strength of our roster. This is a team that at worst should be going 8-8 on talent alone. That's a great situation for a new HC. The ONLY potential deal-breaker IMO would be if we said the HC cannot choose his assistants, but I'm pretty sure no one with power in our FO is that dumb.

    No, I think if Philbin is fired because the Dolphins were thought to underperform relative to our talent, we'd be a highly sought after place for a new HC. Of course, none of us know and hopefully we don't find out because I want the playoffs now!
     
  34. smahtaz

    smahtaz Pimpin Ain't Easy

    I think Philbin was responsible for Tannehill being drafted. The only reason Philbin is still around is because he was right.
     
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  35. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    December collapses speak volumes
     
  36. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Don't forget Ireland. As much as I dislike what Ireland did in the end, he deserves as much or more credit for this move than anyone, but yes Philbin deserves partial credit.
     
  37. cuchulainn

    cuchulainn Táin Bó Cúailnge Club Member

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    Ireland was quoted as saying he was at TAM with scouts watching Tannehill play in 2011.

    Thankfully, the browns made their usual draft blunders and took Richardson before Tannehill, then Weeden later on. They blew it on both Tannehill and Wilson and blew both of their 1st round picks that draft.
     
  38. smahtaz

    smahtaz Pimpin Ain't Easy

    Please give me a more plausible explanation as to why Philbin is still a HC.
     
  39. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Not all inexperienced QBs progress like Tannehill. In fact let's examine Henne, Chad and Beck, John for two recent examples.
     
  40. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Well, first of all I'm not saying you're wrong, just not saying you're right IMO because I really don't know. But Ross does seem like a guy that has a bit more patience than some of us would have. He's frustrated we didn't get into the playoffs in the first 3 years with Philbin, but I think he meant it when he said he wants stability.

    So, while "stability" might not seem very plausible to you, I'd say it's in the same range as rewarding a guy for finding a good enough QB for the franchise.
     
    smahtaz likes this.

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