POLL: Genuine question for everyone who doesn't like Jeff Ireland:

If Philbin & Sherman were hired instead of Sparano & Henning in 2008, do you believe the team would look exactly the same today considering the difference in coaches & schemes. If you feel it would look different, then how so?

 

No it's an honest question b/c of how many people seem to think this team has looked the way it does solely b/c of Jeff Ireland, as if no one else factored into it.

 

..... but it is a thread to display that the team you're complaining about wouldn't have been the same team if it weren't done Parcells' way back in '08. It's a thread that puts the horse back before the cart the way it should be.

If fans are going to point fingers at the way the roster looks, then they have to first point it at the coaching staff/scheme that these players were drafted/signed to fit. Ireland had 3 years of having to bring in guys to fit Henning's offense and 4 years for a failed HC, but you don't see that as an inherent problem capable of significantly handcuffing anyone trying to roster a team for them?

 

How is it not genuine? It was completely straight forward. Whom do you feel it's baiting towards? Yourself?..... and why would you feel it's baiting?

 

That's not the point. The point is that neither you know who Ireland would've found or not found b/c the team would look different right now had it been set up under Philbin and Sherman from day 1 rather than Sparano & Henning.

BTW, Mike Nolan wasn't a failure of a DC, and the players Ireland helped bring for his defense seemed to be ok. Perhaps the problem was more with the offensive scheme that the players had to fit into rather than Ireland's inability to bring in quality players. Now with this being Ireland's hired coaching staff and scheme, we'll begin to see if the initial problem had more to do with Sparano & Henning than it did Ireland's inability to get them the right players to make them successful.

 

It's not just speculation.
Respectfully, it's not rocket science to know there's a big difference between Sparano & Philbin's style of play and between being a Henning run-oriented offense in a man blocking scheme vs a Sherman WCO in a zone blocking scheme. The players needed are quite different, and this year's draft is a distinct indication of such.

 

I didn't say it's proof to show Ireland is a victim. It's proof to show you can't say for certainty whether Ireland would've been the villain had the team been set up the right way back in '08 with Philbin & Sherman rather than the wrong way with a HC & OC who proved unworthy. Seriously, what's supposed to happen when you give a 1st time GM [in training under Parcells no less] a sour HC and an old outdated OC and ask him to turn the team under them into lemonade?

Seriously, let's pretend it's '08 again knowing what we know now about Henning & Sparano. Honestly, how would you expect the team to look with any GM being told to staff a team around those 2 failures, especially when the guy responsible for hiring them has even more control than the GM does?

 

I completely agree with that, but I also feel like he or any other GM would've been thrust into a position conducive to failure when tasked with drafting and building a team around Sparano & Henning, especially with a significant Henning & Sparano birdie in his ear influencing decisions.

I get that people are afraid of history repeating itself simply b/c Ireland was associated with the team then, but I don't feel it's fair to say this team under Ireland built around Philbin & Sherman will fail just b/c the previous one under Sparano, Henning, and Parcells did. People are saying that if we get a new GM to use all those draft picks and $40 million in cap space on we can build a great team around Philbin & Tannehill. To which I reply, where did all these picks and future cap space come from to provide us the freedom to properly build around Tanny & Philbin? It seems to me Ireland has put us in a favorable position, one that provides a great deal of freedom & flexibility to build around our franchise QB & HC and to wisely do so one year after allowing the team to settle in under such extreme coaching/scheme change. It could be argued that it took a great deal of foresight on Ireland's part to put us in this advantageous position. Honestly, I don't see how it's a bad thing to create $40.0M in cap space plus have 5 picks in the top 75 to build this team up around Philbin & Tannehill, and do so exactly the way the GM wants and with the players who best fit the direction he and the coach want the team to go. What we were doing before under Parcells obviously wasn't working, hence serious changes had to be made, but then people get mad when we do make those changes [like trading Marshall & Vontae]. If we had to take a temporary step backward to be able to create a situation more conducive toward winning in the future, then so be it IMO.

 

apology accepted.