So you also think Donald Thomas will be cut by the Pats rather than remain there as a backup and the same with Frank Kearse in Carolina? You believe Spitler makes Miami's roster again this season? If we do cut Garner, you don't see him going to another team as at least a backup?
Seems a little silly and contradictory. First, it doesn't make sense to do an evaluation of a rookie class after 2 preseason games AND simultaneously exclude the first round QB who has already won the starting job from that evaluation. Tannehill has shown at least the potential to make singlehandedly make this draft class a good one. As you acknowledge, Martin was good value where we got him and, although he has struggled, it is his first time playing on the right side and he missed much of the early camps due to the Stanford's academic calendar. He'll get it eventually. Vernon has been s oldi run stuffer, as you say, and Egnew may or may not come on. Again, we are only halfway through the preseason. Miller has vast potential. Randall and Matthews may well make the roster as 7th rounders. The criticism of last year's class also seems off-base. Pouncey was a Pro Bowl alternate as a rookie. DThomas had some injury issues that ultimately saw him fall behind Bush, but Bush played very well. I appreciate that you are now willing to give "plenty of credit" for the Bush signing, but you were loudly critical of it a year ago. And DThomas averaged over 100 ypg and around 5 ypc in his first two games before getting hurt. He showed some promise when healthy. Clay made some big plays last year and should be a significant contributor this year. Jimmy Wilson was taken in the 7th round and may be a starter this year. The QB they brought in last year (Moore) to be a backup proved to be a very good one, as he came in when Henne went down and ended up the team's MVP last year. What more can you expect from a backup QB? If we need to go to Moore, I am confident that he will play competently, which is more than most teams can say about their backup QBs.
That's also a really problematic standard. You picked up a second year street FA, he's a top back-up. He performs quite well as a back-up Guard and then poorly as a Tackle, and he's considered a net negative? That at worst evens out, and even then, you rarely have back-ups or street free agents who perform as well as he did in 2009.
Fringe backups on their 2nd team tend to qualify as washouts to me. I think it's a very small and pointless distinction to be arguing, to be honest.
Who said he's a net negative? I would argue that he's just not a positive. I put "bust" tags on the guys that I think significantly under played expectations for the area they were drafted. Notice I did not apply that tag to anyone 5th round or lower.
SOME PEOPLE were advocating for a trade down to get Weeden. Those people shall remain nameless, but there was plenty of criticism of the Tannehill pick, so you those people weren't alone in thinking Tannehill might not have been the best choice there. So how was that a "pretty easy decision to make?" Again, not everyone felt Long was the right choice, as you very well know. . . Without naming names, some people around here said we should have taken Glenn Dorsey, who has been a big-time bust. Gholston was another possible choice and he busted too. So there were other choices in 2008 that absolutely did bust. Which is what made it a smart choice. A pick doesn't have to be risky to be good. In fact, the safe picks are often the best ones. The risky pick there would have been Mallett, who certain people around here were pushing for. Mallett was a 3rd stringer last year and has a 59.1 passer rating this preseason. From what I've seen, I'd much rather have Tannehill than Mallett. I guess you are saying the people who thought the Dolphins should have done something different with their first round pick have no brain. I find that extraordinary, for obvious reasons. Hmm. I don't think there is any real empirical support for this assertion. The teams that have been the most consistently successful have generally been conservative in the draft. You don't see a lot of boom-or-bust picks from teams like the Patriots, Packers, Steelers, etc. Sure, every team takes a flier every once in a while. Many would say that is what the Dolphins did with Tannehill (notwithstanding your current position that it was a no-brainer pick).
Well I don't think he could have easily signed either player , but if so then he chose to not sign a truly elite DE and an very good WR who is a deep threat , that would have ensured Miami won at least 10 games and then still drafted the QB of the future and you can win now and in years to come. He chose to not be a playoff team for years to come because? He prefers a losing record , or the fans prefer ,or Ross prefers? How this team performs this year should be the defining point imo , real positive changes , progression and production from the entire team but specifically from Irelands draft classes ...all of them ... the performances will have to change from pas tones to merit being kept imho ... so far I fail to see how he has moved this team forward so the players , fans and owner can entrust him to continue if that doesn't . Just my opinion and I hope Ireland proves his detractors wrong , but I am not betting he does.
It wouldn't have necessarily meant winning in the years to come. If you sign Mario Williams to a $100M contract, you need him to play at a historically elite level for 5 more years. Vincent Jackson needs to play at an elite level for 3-4 more years. If they don't live up to those expectations, then its a big time miss. Not to mention that in order to sign those guys, you would have to restructure contracts, which would entail giving guys more guaranteed money. Karlos Dansby isn't a bad contract now, but would you give him more guaranteed money, which would assure you're paying him big money until he is 35? So you certainly could fit all those guys under the salary cap today, but you're sacrificing salary cap space in the future. My point here is that there are plenty of teams that will mortgage the future in order to win today. Jeff Ireland hasn't done that, which I think needs to be considered, and is a plus in my book. How this team performs this year, and its outlook financially going forward needs to be considered. Certainly when you look at a team like the Jets that has a lot of money commited to bad players, it doesn't inspire any confidence for future seasons.
In other news Derek Dennis builds a HoF career in New England.... This has the stink of Wes Welker all over it... we are going to pay i just know it.
Being in a positive position financially is a plus , a big plus , no disagreement on my part. However being sound financially and losing doesn't cut it for me personally , I don't care if we have money to utilize if we never win. At some point we have to win and show we have developed this franchise in to an upper tier team that will be a strong , realistic , perennial contender that has a legitimate chance to win a Super Bowl (s) . How long do you give Ireland to get that done? IMO he hasn't done that at all ,and once again this team has more questions than answers. As I have said this is a big year , I don't expect or anticipate making the playoffs , and that isn't the fail/pass grade for me personally , but progression , production and realistic expectations that the playoffs and playoff wins and sustained long term success are not a hope but that they are about to happen ....consistently... is. From what has transpired to date I don't envison that , but this year will clarify that . Not sugesting Ireland be fired mid term , but unless it unfolds in that way , at the end of this season I would cut the ties.
My math says: Miami's average result: 5.5 NY's average result: 5.05 Both suck, IMO. Of course, this raw result oriented data does not factor in round expectation.
Really? I think the Welker fiasco has had permanent effects on the Dolphin fanbase. Remember when everyone knew that Ronnie Brown would go to the Patriots and would crush us twice a year forever?
The Jets' drafting is certainly NOT any model of success I would hold up for the rest of the league to learn off. I've been very critical of their overboard "quality versus quantity" approach in some years which puts all the eggs in only a few baskets. Their picks haven't been stellar either. All that said, Miami averaged that 5.5 or whatever while having 10 picks in the 1st and 2nd rounds, and 17 picks in the 1st thru 4th rounds (widely considered to be the significant rounds). The Jets had 6 picks in the 1st and 2nd rounds, and 11 picks in the 1st thru 4th.
Yeah but Ronnie Brown never made it to the Patriots. Do you know why? Because Belichick could smell the mediocracy from a mile away. Say what you want about the Patriots and Belichick but the man has an eye for talent.
What? You mean Derrick Denniss being their 7th OG right now doesn't mean he's going to be a HOF player? I could've swore we'd rue the day that we lost him, and that day would be immediately upon us.
Belichick is pretty good but he's nowhere close to the grand puppet master you've somehow got in your head. I doubt anyone- Belichick included- expected Wes Welker to be as good as he has been.
It would be great if we could compare drafting performance of various teams and GMs using some kind of quantitative criteria and I think there is. Pro-football-reference.com has a metric called Approximate Value, which is a fairly complex metric they use to try to show the approximate value of an NFL player. It is described in detail here and in the links here: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?page_id=518 On each team's draft history page, like the Dolphins' here: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/mia/draft.htm, they show the CarAV, which is the Weighted Career Approximate Value. I'm hoping someone here is nerdy enough (with spreadsheet use skills) and has enough time on his hands to take this data from each team's draft page and simply add up the total CarAV of each team's draftees over some specified period of time (for current purposes of comparing Ireland's performance, since 2008). It probably then makes sense to divide that total CarAV by the total number of drafted player years (e.g., guys drafted 3 years ago would have 3 years, while the ones drafted last year would have 1). That would give an average AV per drafted player over the applicable time period, which would be a pretty decent and objective measure of how well the team did in the draft. Unfortunately, there may be some data glitches, as it looks like Odrick has a CarAV of 0, which simply can't be correct. Nonetheless, it would be fun to see how that type of analysis turned out and someone who is good with spreadsheets could probably do it pretty quickly and easily (if you click the CSV or PRE links I think it can be easily imported into a spreadsheet). If one were to try to take this kind of analysis to the next level, they would try the amount of draft resources used. In other words, if two teams both got an average AV of 8 per drafted player but one team did it with 5 high first rounders and the other did it with 3 low rounders, the latter would reflect better drafting. Fortunately, the standard draft trade value charts provide a reasonable measure of the "value" (in draft currency) of each pick. One such chart is here: http://www.draftcountdown.com/features/Value-Chart.php. It would be great to see AV divided by units of "draft currency" to see which teams got the most out of what they had to work with in the draft. Not that it would end these kind of arguments, but it would at least put into perspective how the Dolphins/Ireland have drafted as compared to other teams. Anyone up for the job?
Not to dismiss that , but sometimes it is more like Philbin has been fond of saying , you watch and you get a gut feeling.
It is for the most part, a gut feeling. If stats and metrics and formulas and recipes worked, Henne would have been a great QB in the pros, for example.
