The Jeff Ireland Discussion Thread

You could say that about Pittsburgh or New England and I'd agree. Maybe Green Bay overall, defensively yes, offensively, probably not. I'd disagree on San Francisco, Baltimore, and Houston though. Strongly.

 

14 weeks until he's gone guys!

 

Well, what concerns me is that he is not the right guy to pick a great CB or Safety, nor a great WR IMO.

His strengths lie elsewhere.

It is imperative that we retain Long and Bush though, so we don't have more holes to fill. Better to pay those guys than new FreeAgents, since most free agents we sign underperform expectations.

 

Well, I think we can now say that trading up for Daniel Thomas was a big mistake. Clear he will never be the back we need him to be.

 

I think Ireland has had a rockstar draft.. We are seeing contributions on offense and D already this year. Carey is becoming an all pro center and our DL/OL play may be top 5 in the NFL.

One more year of picking skill position players may have this team headed to the promised land. I'm not ready to get rid of him just yet.

 

Problem is, he has yet top pick any great skill position players. Why do you think that would change?

Long story short, we are a very mediocre football team, with major deficiencies at WR, CB and S, not to mention pass rush as well.

 

Well yes, it's been discussed pretty heavily.

The Dolphins got a pretty good pass rush. There's been a couple of big plays every week for whatever reason that there is limited to no pass rush on a play-action or catching the Dolphins in a not particularly advantageous substitute(Wake/Starks for Randall/Shelby this week for example), but under normal circumstances the rush is pretty good and Kevin Coyle has done a quite good job with blitz packages.

 

Put a gun to my head on this 2012 Draft and ask me which players we got out of it that people around the NFL are going to know in four years, I'd say Ryan Tannehill and Lamar Miller. Right now we can't be sure Jon Martin will even be a mediocre right tackle. We have no idea what to expect of Egnew. The minute Vernon shows anything in pass rush whatsoever, then I'll open him up for discussion whether he's going to be known around the league. Kheeston Randall has been promising but has a tough climb with guys like Starks, Soliai and Odrick ahead of him. Rishard Matthews, I guess we'll know when he's able to get active and play.

 

I'd say Ryan Tannehill and Lamar Miller are both great skill position players.

 

Let's not call either great yet.

 

Not to bring up old **** or beat a dead horse or anything but on the way down for the game I was listening to Channing Crowder on WQAM and he shared a couple of stories that were pretty relevant to Ireland's little slip up where he found himself calling a Miami fan an a-hole.

First off he confirmed my suspicion. He said he knows that concourse and it's loud as hell in there, nobody would have heard Ireland call the guy an a-hole if he really turned his back to him and said it under his breath like Ireland insists. He said Ireland called that man an a-hole to his face and made sure he heard it. I think there's about a 95% chance Crowder is correct on this.

Second, he said that Ireland once fined him for cursing out a Cincinnati fan in warm-ups (in Cincinnati) when that fan called Channing Crowder a "half-breed". After Crowder cursed him out the fan wrote an email to Jeff Ireland and Ireland asked Channing and he admitted to it, told Jeff that the guy used a racial slur at him, but Ireland fined him anyway and gave him a speech about how unprofessional it was. Later during the year, Channing found himself in that same situation again with Jets fans in their stadium. He said they crossed the line and insulted him personally and so he cursed the guy out. This drew an even bigger fine from Ireland. Then there was another incident after the Saints game where during his press availability at his locker Channing used the word "balls" about the Saints, something to the effect of "they can sit over there and rub each others' balls because they won but ... (etc etc)". Jeff fined Channing I believe it was over $10,000 for this.

So I mean, say what you want about the fairness of this fish bowl they all live in where they can't react to things as a normal person would, but Jeff Ireland is a straight up hypocrite if he didn't fine himself for his own slip. If he did though, he forced himself to give X amount to a charity or something like that as punishment for his transgression, kudos to him. But I doubt he did that.

 

Tannehill is dead last in QBR, 28th in completion percentage, with 1 TD and 4 INT's while Lamar has 19 career rushes. Slow down on this great nonsense. It amazes me how easily people throw around the terms "great" and "elite" as if they have no idea what they mean.

 

I brought up before how there seems to be a conflict in ideals between Jeff Ireland and Joe Philbin. Philbin came in talking about passing the football and stopping the pass. He talked about offensive minus defensive passer ratings. He even admitted one reason he was drawn toward Coyle was because he was a secondary coach and it's important in this passing league to have your coverage right on defense.

But the slate of players Jeff Ireland has handed him...is a run the football/stop the run team.

I said before this could be a good marriage, where Ireland is sort of the yin to Philbin's yang. One focuses more on the run game and the lines, the other is more concerned with the pass and stopping it, thus you get a balanced football team. I think last week pointed toward the potential harmony of that relationship.

But the flip side is it could also be dysfunctional, where you're just never connecting and the coaching ends up out of whack with the players.

Armando Salguero has a good blog post which raise some questions about the Miami-New York game that may point toward the latter. Even though Philbin admits they have to be a run/stop the run team...there are moments when it seems like old tendencies come back and that's not REALLY what they want to do, isn't REALLY where their priorities lay.

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolp...l-you-need-to-know-on-a-monday-afternoon.html

 

With what you are saying, I don't see why it would be a waste to look at any promising receiver on any practice squad. I do realize they have to be on the roster for a minimum time. But you have to weigh their potential against Naanee and Armstrong, who really shouldn't be on this roster. Then I would put Matthews to the fire a little. Armstrong's issues may be of a timing nature with his qb. Naanee simply isn't going to create separation. Matthews is the better route runner among the three. Moore I believe may be injured at this point, because if he is your best special teams player and he is inactive why carry him?

 

Ireland really fails on the wr situation this year. His job addressing that issue was negligent. No other way to call it. Marshall is an ok get. Obviously no one else he signed in free agency this year is on the team (remember Naanee no where to be seen). I think his draft has potential, but he needed more immediate contribution this year in terms of his own job secruity.


And think about it. Two views here: If he knew he had to hit on the draft, he drafted believing these guys would immediately contribute. Most of us speak of this draft as potential for the most part. If he didn't see the need to hit immediately, he may inaccurately view his job as safe. Disillusioned in finding good personnel, or in his own safety as the gm? You call it?

 

I think Anthony Armstrong has upside from where he's at right now. It's all about upside. Armstrong only JUST got here. Is he not making those plays because he's not capable, or is he not making those plays because he's just got to tighten things up with Tannehill? I think to the first week how Tannehill missed Hartline pretty wide on a back shoulder, clear chemistry issue owing to how much time Hartline missed, and then the next week Hartline goes H.A.M. on the Raiders' soft coverage and that includes a great back shoulder strike. In a few weeks, you could see Armstrong making that slant catch and taking it to the house (missed opportunity from the Jets game). Or not. It's tough to say. I don't like that we're put in this position of guessing like that. You don't acquire a starter on waivers a week before the season starts. It shows poor planning by the GM.

But anyway if you're getting at the issue of upside and how things can get better, I think Legedu is just in the way, but that because of his unusual circumstances Armstrong could still get it and start contributing...eventually.

 

I agree that Armstrong's issues are of the timing nature and not knowing his qb and vice versa. You know what I think about Naanee. I am conflicted about Moore. I want to see more of Matthews. But if he isnt' earning time in practice it is obvious he needs development. I found it interesting today that Omar finally threw his boy under the bus when asked who was not contributing. His answer on twitter was Clay and Naanee.

And in a previous thread I mentioned getting rid of Armstrong and Naanee. They are actually very close in age, but Armstrong hasn't had the opportunities to show his potential. I guess I wanted to give younger guys that potential and was probably over focused on Armstrong's age.

 

I think Marlon Moore was only out of this game because of injury. They missed him a little bit as a gunner. He might be one of the best gunners I've personally ever witnessed. He can get open on the routes you want him to, he has the speed.

But ultimately it's a guy like Anthony Armstrong that has the potential to take a slant to the house like you saw (or rather what you could have seen if he caught the ball) yesterday.

They're just stuck in a bad situation needing to see if it irons itself out. But I don't see what the harm is in seeing some younger guys (e.g. RISHARD MATTHEWS!!!) get some opportunities while you wait for Armstrong to get a little chemistry in the offense. I guess they're just pretty big on sitting guys until they show mastery of the playbook, which guys like Charles Clay, Lamar Miller, Michael Egnew and Rishard Matthews are currently not.

 

That is odd. Why is that Moore hasn't gotten much of a shot? Good route runner, athletic, and can deep.

 

http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/

 

Thanks, I thought I linked the subpage.


Yeah, it's my little joke....

 

PFW: Ireland one of 8-10 GMs on shaky ground

http://www.profootballweekly.com/2012/10/01/up-to-8-10-gms-could-be-on-shaky-ground

 

No wayzzzzz

 

There are some who are going to hate to hear this but if we keep improving and playing hard and especially the kids - ie Ireland's picks - he will be back, and as he should be. I've been very skeptical of his work but I do seeing it starting to pay off and we ain't that far off.

 

All the Jeff Ireland garbage was nothing but preseason "theory" and scapegoating anyway.

Next time people ought to wait until the games start being played before they're so "convinced" of something.

 

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Less than .500 he's toast.

 

Hard to take that seriously when it says part of being a GM is knowing how to put fans in the seats. That isn't his job. He doesnt need to make the "popular" pick

 

7 of jeffy's 9 veteran FAs didn't make the team(unheard of). The eighth didn't last week five. The ninth is struggling and didn't play today. You think the owner's hand picked coach will continue to hitch his wagon to those type of results?

 

Here is a dose of reality. If he had added talent, forget playmakers, just some talent at WR and added some depth in the secondary we are at least .500 right now. The mediocrity of the NFL is evident and someone who doesn't draft like it's a fantasy football draft would have enough players on this team that Philbin would be in the mix for coach of the year and the pubescent love fest posting about playoffs could be a legitiamate discussion. Mediocrity: a 10 year and running standard of the Phins front office.

 

You don't know this, no one does. That said I don't see how we don't at least finish .500. We have been in every game minus 6 mins in Houston.

 

I'll admit that this team is performing better than I expected. And I'm going from wanting Ireland canned to hmmm, now let's hold on a minute. There are still areas I feel he could've done better, but that's for other threads.

But let's not act as if a lot of the arguments were pure conjecture and baseless. The team performed badly for 3 seasons in a row, and was looking horrendous in the preseason under a 2nd coach. The theories had legs to stand on there.

 

You realize that based on your logic we would be better last year too, maybe even enough to keep the fist pumper, hence no Philbin. Be careful what you wish for.

Also most things that involved the word "if" tend not to be a dose of reality.

 

You would be wrong because Sparano was and is not HC material and nowhere. Philibin is helping Ireland more than the other way around. Of course that is an opinion but it is what I believe.

 

I didn't think it was likely Ireland would be fired before this season given the moves he made, but it's even less likely now.

It looks like he got his quarterback, and several guys considered bust or marginal players need to be re-evaluated upwards.