How can this even be expected? Jerry Reese isn't leaving NY. Ted Thompson isn't leaving GB. Etc. The only way we can know if we believe a guy is better than Jeff Ireland would be if we had the ability to helicopter around and pick up promising Front Office Prospects for weekend long interviews. Fans do not have this luxury. But owners do. Stephen Ross does. He probably has access to the information around the league on what teams have successfull front offices and who works in those front offices. He has the contacts and information to get a hold of these people and interview them to get an intimate knowledge on what they think it takes to build a winning football team in this era. Just because a fan can't provide a specific list of Front Office personnel who we think could be better than Jeff Ireland doesn't mean that person doesn't exist. The person in charge of this team (Ross) has that information at his disposal. Let's hope he chooses to use it at the end of what will seemingly be a pretty rough year.
Actually, he's played pretty well in Jacksonville this preseason. He's behind a young QB of the future, with all the hope and financial entanglement that entails so who knows if he'll get his shot there, but he's played well.
That's an awful long way from what Matt Ryan's doing, and what the Falcons are doing in support of him.
i resent your last paragraph if u include me with the ireland haters. i haven't said anything about his draft choices, in fact i think he does a pretty good job for the years that everyone agrees he is responsible for. my problem is ireland getting rid of talent without replacing it the same year. read my last 2 posts in this thread if you want examples. there is a lot i like about ireland but theres also things like this i can't get over. even when i agree that those talented players he let go should have been let go. in some cases i am happy with the compensation, in other cases i am not happy but also not pissed abouyt the compensation. even when i like the compensation it is still a chance to get better in a future draft(not this season) while not replacing the talent for this year. in other words he thinks its ok to make the team worse with the hope of making it better in the future. like i said read my last 2 posts. i am tired of explaining that without anyone saying anything about it. on the contrary you group people like me into ridiculous paragraphs like the last paragraph in this post i qouted you in. by the way my response to you is only about that last paragraph, for the most part i agree with everything else you had to say. i don't know if i am classified as an ireland hater or an ireland lover. i love some things he has done and i also hate some things he has done. i don't fit in either category. i have even said that i am willing to give ireland more time than the majority of the ireland haters are willing to give him, simply because he inherited a mess that takes several years to fix. but the problem i speak of makes me wonder if he is the right man for the job.
Shocking, you mean that a good QB who has been in a system for four years and is surrounded by many playmakers is doing well?
No, you don't need to evaluate potential hires. Just evaluate past hires. Analyze every GM that has been hired over the past 10 years, and compare their performance to Jeff Ireland's. That will give you the context you need for an analysis of the probability that another GM you hire would be better than Ireland. Everyone wants to make this into a binary choice. Either Jeff Ireland is winning the team SBs, or he's a bum. Thats not how it works in practice. There is a spectrum of performance from NFL GMs. On one end you have guys like Jerry Reese, on the other end guys like Randy Mueller. Somewhere in the middle is Jeff Ireland. What needs to be established is where in between Ireland fits. Would you trade Ireland for Rick Spielman, Bruce Allen, Mike Tannenbaum, etc. What are the odds you get the next Randy Mueller compared to the odds you get the next Jerry Reese?
This is just nonsense. There were no complaints about Henning when Pennington was the QB and the Wildcat was all the rage. Not saying he was the greatest OC in the league but to suggest that he was so bad that he held back this incredibly talented team is the biggest load of horse manure I've ever heard. Daboll did no better, outside of 2 or 3 games where Moore put up some numbers. There is no evidence for the statement that we would have been better had somebody else been the OC.
Ireland was hired as GM in January 2008. He officially has had final say on personnel since then. Any suggestions or assertions that Parcells actually made the final call while he was still here, is really not provable and therefore amounts to supposition or conjecture.
Your talking about the same Philbin that just came from Green Bay's offense? 15 / 1 record last season. Correct? Exactly my point and why he is no longer on Irelands menu. Thank you dinosaur Parcells but we are moving on.
Not shocking at all, but the contrast is between what Ryan's doing and what Henne's doing. Henne's holding a clipboard. It's not like he's nipping at Ryan's heels.
Really and you believe Parcells wasn't calling the shots I had more faith in your knowledge. Edit: If I read correctly Ireland starts from day one with Parcells picking even his coach. By who's rules?
Under this scenario you should never fire a coach either, because most of the new guys fail. Jerry Reese wasn't Jerry Reese until somebody gave him a chance. Jeff Ireland has had his chance and failed. I've seen enough. I'm willing to give another young guy a chance. I have no idea if Eric DeCosta will end up being a good GM. He could prove to be terrible. But I do know for a fact that Ireland has been average at best. I would hope our franchise aspires highger than average.
That's the one saving grace for Ireland IMO. If you can attribute the miss on Ryan to Parcells and not to Ireland, THEN everything Fineas posted makes sense.
Well that's my point. Ross has the ability to explore options and interview potential GMs to gain intimate knowledge of what that person believes wins. It's his responsibility to get the guy that close resembles Jerry Reese than Randy Mueller. But I think it's totally reasonable to want to upgrade from a middle of the pack GM in Ireland. And I'm willing to take the risk of possibly getting a worse GM. Same way I wanted to roll the dice with Tannehill rather than move along with a guy like Garrard, Moore, Orton, etc. I wanted to roll the dice with Brees instead of continuing with Feidler. For the most part this franchise has been taking the safe route in just about every respect for the past 15 years. And its results are apparent. We finally took a risk with Tannehill and I'm willing to see how it plays out. But the lack of talent around him is alarming, and you absolutely cannot deny that that is on Jeff Ireland.
I get what you're trying to do, I just don't agree with it. I cannot give Ireland good or bad credit for the time Parcells was here because we don't which moves Parcells made directly or not and we do know Ireland had to follow Parcells blueprint. People seem to forget that Ireland worked for Parcells. Parcells was in charge. Everyone is revisiting the Long vs Ryan decision. Lets remember it accurately. Many people wanted J.Long. Many people wanted M.Ryan. Many people wanted C.Long. When J.Long was the pick the people that wanted the other two were not happy. Practically none of those people blamed Ireland...instead they blamed Parcells. Everyone at the time knew that was Parcells call and no one questioned it. In fact, i'm quite sure if anyone had suggested it was an Ireland move they would have been laughed at. Fast forward to now, and many of those same people have forgotten their history.
Stop it. He didn't have control and he had to follow Parcells blueprint. These are known, lets stop pretending it wasn't like that.
I don't really agree with this rationale. If, for instance, I come to the conclusion that my cashier's work is below standard (my standard, anyway), then I'm not going to do research on all cashiers employed nationwide in the past decade; I'm just going to hire a new one whom I believe will do a better job (especially after I pointed out what the predecessor did wrong). I don't have to prove that the new one will have a better than 50% chance of being better; I just have to know that it's actually possible to do better. By the way, I don't think Jeff Ireland is a bum. I think he's average. I also think that "average" isn't enough to turn a perennial loser (and thus talent depleted team) into a winner. If you're batting average, like Jeff Ireland, you'll remain a perennial loser. To get out of the talent mess Wannstedt, Saban and Mueller left us with, you need to hit hard on at least one class, quite possibly two. Ireland hasn't done that, and I've got no reason to believe that he will. Like Tony Sparano, I think Ireland is a decent enough hire if you're already good. He's a poor one if you're not.
Cashier doesn't equal GM. If your Regional Manager needed to be replaced you'd do research. I bet Ross already has a researched list anyway.
I'd do research on potential regional manager hires. I wouldn't do a comperative study on the success chance of regional managers nationwide in the past decade - like Stringer proposed.
Because you couldn't. With the NFL GMs the info is there to do that research, and you'd be foolish not to do it.
No, you'd be foolish to believe that the intel is there to begin with. You're not going to get a Jerry Reese or Ted Thompson anyway; you're going to get a young guy without a proven track record. He might come with the the best references (like, say, George Kokinis), but he'll still be an unproven commodity. The whole talk about "would you trade Ireland for Tennenbaum" is completely academic.
And don't forget Parcells other guide lines while he is in charge. Tannehill fails if Parcells is still around.
Because you're not getting a proven GM anyway; you'll get a failed one at best, which turns this discussion into a classical false dilemma.
Ok, fine, then your argument remains that you wouldn't research the track record for a potential GM hire.
I posted several very valid critiques of the metric you're using to rank Ireland. You haven't addressed them here or anywhere else. Post #110, 117, and 129.
l As already pointed out, Brady's injury did not cause the Dolphins to win any more games. The most can that even be argued for is 1 and it is unlikely that even Brady would have overcome the Dolphins 38 points in the "Wildcat" game. But if the Dolphins record was "propped up" by an injury to a QB on another team, don't you think it is reasonable to conclude that it was "propped down" by early season injuries to its own starting QBs in 2 of the last 4 seasons? Nobody is saying Sparano was the worst coach of all time, but I don't think he was very good. And nobody is saying he had an overflow of talent. He had good talent to work with, but the cupboard was bare when Ireland got here and Rome wasn't built in a day. The stat is relevant. It is the only one that I am aware of that attempts to place a value on all NFL players' performance and it does a reasonably good job of it. One can argue that it is off by a little on some players, but it generally does a good job of reflecting the value of such players' performance. If the Dolphins CarAV is too propped up by one guy, then so is every other team's. Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Ray Rice, LeSean McCoy, Chris Johnson, Gronkowsi, etc. all have simuilar CarAVs to Jake Long's. The fact is that the difference between the best drafts (over a 4 year period) and mediocre ones comes down to one player. Take away Ryan, Flacco, CJ, McCoy, etc. from those teams' CarAV and Ireland's numbers will look even better. I disagree, as do many others. But it is debateable. One can argue that Ryan would have been a better choice, but you simply cannot argue that Long was a bad choice. Simply not possible. And no GM should be fired for taking a 4 time All Pro (in 4 years). Once again, Ireland can't be judged on one pick, especially when it is a guy who was bypassed twice by every NFL team. Hindsight is nice, but Jimmy Graham was absolutely not a sure thing. But if we want to focus on Jimmy Graham, that's fine. Let's see what the other "Top GMs" did with regard to Graham: Baltimore needed a TE. They drafted two that year. They apparently thought Ed Dickson was better than Jimmy Graham. In addition, they also took a flawed tranch player (Sergio Kindle) over a raw playmaker. Pittsburgh could have used a Jimmy Graham. Instead, they took a C in the first round and a flawed trench player (Jason Worilds) in the second. They took a skill position guy in the third (Emmanuel Sanders), but took the wrong one, as Graham would have been the better pick. Philly could have used Jimmy Graham too. But they took the wrong Graham, flawed trench player Brandon Graham, and a DB instead. NE was in the market for another TE. After all they took one in the 4th round. Hernandez is a very good player, but in hindsight the Pats would have been better off with Graham. In the 3rd round, with Jimmy Graham on the board, they took WR Taylor Price. Who? Taylor Price? Who? Taylor Price. Don't remember him? Maybe that's because he played in only 3 games for the Pats before being waived. Jimmy Graham would have been a nice fit in Atlanta. They use the TE a lot and Tony Gonzalez is 107 years old. What better place to pick a young, developmental TE who may need some seasoning? But they passed on Graham too. A few times. In favor of an LB and a flawed trench player. Graham also would have been a nice fit with the Giants. But they passed on him 3 times, twice for defensive trench players despite the fact that the DL was probably the strongest part of that team. They also picked DB Chad Jones instead of Graham. Jones never really played and is now out of football.
It will most likely be someone who worked in a successful front office. Whether it be the scouting department, salary cap department, whatever. But that's what the interview process is for. These guys will probably be speaking to Ross for about 10-20 hours before being hired. They'll probably put in another 10-20 hours speaking with other high-ranking staff that Ross has in place too. Job interview processes are long. And succesfull companies make you interview with upwards of 10 different people at times. Those 10 people then all give their collective feedback to the hiring manager on the candidates and a decision is then made. I like that a lot better than.......Hey Bill Parcells! You're hired. Bring in your own guys. Don't care who they are. Sparano was only an Oline coach? Eh, who cares, I trust whatever you say.
How do you know which guys to bring in for interviews, if you can't research track records like Vendigo said? And for the record, if Ireland hadn't been our GM and was still lead scout for Dallas he'd be at the top of our list.
CarAv measures what the player has done, not who he is. It reflects the value that the player has made and the more the guy plays, the more value he gives. JPP didn't play that much as a rookie and Misi played more and did more as a rookie. So JPP's rookie CarAv was 2 and Misi's was 6. Last year, Misi again got a 6 and JPP got a 14. Sure, you could argue that Misi should have been a 4-5 last year and JPP should have been a 16 (and therefore 3-4 times as good as Misi), but quibbling over a few points on individual players misses the point completely. Since I am adding up CarAvs for all of these teams over the same time period, it does make sense to use that figure to determine which teams have gotten the most out of their draft picks over the same time period. Unless you think PFF has created this system in order to try to make Jeff Ireland look good, it is still a fair and objective measure to use. If you've got a better one, then I'm all ears.
Logic and situation tells me Parcells made the pick, whether Ireland agreed with it, only the higher ups know, First time greenhorn Gm hired by first time hall of fame prescense, hired to rebuild a down stricken franchise coming off a 1 and 15 season, saddled with the first pick and a 50 million dollar contract..it's about a lock as it gets for me who made the final decision. How many Gm's can we think of who did not have the power to hire or fire their head coach?
I think Vendigo was stating that they won't have had a track record of being a GM. Doesn't mean they have no track record of decisions inside a Front Office and ringing endorsements from those they worked for. And Ireland had a good track record as a scout. Doesn't mean no one else does. Doesn't mean he'd interview well. Doesn't mean he'd be the best for the job. So no, that does not mean he'd be at the top of the list.
You identify the qualities you're looking for in a GM, and then you go ahead and hire the guy that fits those criteria. I don't believe you can quantify GM success with a number, and Fineas did well to point out that even the ostensibly great GMs missfire way more often than most people think. But I believe you can identify a potential hire based on your needs, the direction of your program, the personality you're looking for in a leader, and the professional skills you value the most. Teams do that once a year in the draft. They don't say, okay, history shows that a 1st round WR is just as likely to bust as he is to be better than the two average dudes we got, so let's never draft a 1st round WR. They identify what, in their mind, makes for a successful 1st round WR and draft accordingly.
He didn't make that distinction. He said you wouldn't compare all GMs to see how they did. He'd be high on the list of the guys you'd bring in, which was my point.
