The Jeff Ireland Discussion Thread

Ah, but if you "adjust" what you said before to be that Ireland made a mistake by not replacing Marshall with an adequate third receiver, well then you're still correct, right?

 

oh so we've gone back to giving him credit for the pre-2011 drafts? Sorry, all this flip flopping is really confusing...just looking for some clarification.

 

I'd say more like two solid starting receivers, but as for league leading, I don't think anyone is going to mistake them for Victor Cruz, Roddy White, AJ Green, any of the big 3, etc. What is Bess leading the league in, btw? He is a good starting receiver, but league leading? Not in any statistical category. Hartline is leading in yards by 1 yard, but I really doubt you'd make a wager that he'll end the season as the league leader. I'm glad they are doing as well as they are, but to call them league leading looks like excessive praise to me.

There hasn't been shifting focus. The thing all along has been you need at least 3 viable NFL quality WRs to have extended success. I get it, that you feel signing Naanee and Chad was a reasonable attempt to fill the vacancy in the WR corps. Not everyone agrees with that opinion.

 

Well if your problem is that Ireland is content going into this season with those players, why does it matter who drafted them?

If you believe he's a screw-up because he's willing to go into the season with Davone Bess and Brian Hartline instead of better players, you're making an assessment of what Jeff Ireland is doing TODAY, not what he did years ago.

 

And I'm sure everyone who thought Jeff Ireland was an idiot for going into a season with them as starters figured on them doing this well.

What's more "excessive" -- thinking Jeff Ireland should be fired for going into a season with starting wide receivers who later prove to play as well as these are, or thinking Davone Bess and Brian Hartline are indeed league leaders.

 

Thinking Ireland should be fired is an opinion. Thinking Bess and Hartline are league leaders is just not true. They are doing well, but not to the level at which you choose to praise them.

I don't think anyone honestly expected them to be doing this well, even you. Let's see how the year plays out to get a more complete picture.

 

Actually it is true. Hartline is leading the league in yards, and Bess is leading the league in win probability added.

As for what I expected before the season, I left room for Hartline's developing into a Jordy Nelson-type player (and was laughed at, BTW), which he is largely doing.

 

No. Those guys contributing the way they have is a bigger positive for Ireland than not finding an NFL worthy #3 WR is a negative. I have not once disagreed with that.

My only point was that that does not absolve him from failing to find a 3rd option. And just a little bit of admittance from some would be nice (not completely directed at you because at least you admitted it is a small mistake.)

 

No, the "realists" have been posting for the past 24 hours about how surprised they are by this team, and how they may have jumped the gun on the talent thing, and praising players like Reshad Jones and Koa Misi who were once whipping boys.

The realists are manning up and admitting fault. That's my point. But where there are still clear mistakes by Ireland, you're having trouble getting those that defended Ireland to even admit any of those.

 

I think his bases were pretty much covered in terms of finding some sort of adequate #3 in terms of Michael Egnew, Charles Clay, and Chad Johnson. None of those have panned out so far, so I think he did a good job in ending up with Jabar Gaffney.

 

I'm not trying to paint myself as any sort of visionary here, but I don't really think it's a tremendous shock that Koa Misi, Reshad Jones, John Jerry, etc. have turned around. Reshad Jones as a potential Pro Bowl quality player is a sunrise, but him performing well? I don't think it really is.

 

And I disagree with that. Those guys should never have been viewed as adequate #3s. Egnew and Clay are young, unproven, and TE types. Chad Johnson just failed miserably with Tom Brady as his QB, and was picked up by us because no other team wanted him. Relying on him to contribute was a mistake.

I'm hoping Gafney can contribue and I don't see why he can't. Here's to hoping it's now resolved. Better late than never

 

No, I can't say I'm completely shocked either. Well, with Jerry I am.

But I am surprised how this team as a whole has performed. I keep thinking back to the preseason and how putrid they looked. It's a complete 180 in comparison. Certainly shame on me for putting too much stock in the pre-season. That's for sure

 

I've been saying we have a problem at WR since the first day of training camp, even before Nannee was exposed or Chad Johnson was released. Obviously that's a failure on Ireland's part but it's not a fierable offense to have a weak spot at one position.

 

I sincerely don't understand what you're trying to say.

 

Awesome. Now I'll go:

I thought John Jerry was cut and a failure of a pick
I thought Reshad Jones was Gibril Wilson part deux
I thought Jonathin Martin wasn't worthy of lining up against NFL caliber DE's yet

All looking WRONG

 

That is not a statistic that the NFL recognizes. If you really think they are the league's leading WRs does that mean you wouldn't trade them for Nicks and Cruz? White and Jones? Wallace and Brown? Boldin and Smith?

 

I feel that way about many of his posts. Like what planet are these transmissions being received from? Mars? Venus? Uranus?

 

I was same as you on all 3 of them.

 

I admit I was wrong about Jerry and Jones, but not Misi. I've been solidly pro Misi from the day he was drafted. Never a doubt to me that he is a viable solid starting quality NFL LB.

 

I thought Ryan Tannehill needed at least a year before he could be trusted as the starter, I thought Reggie Bush would flop last year, and I thought Vontae would be better than Sean Smith. I think all kinds of things that turn about to be dead wrong, its the main reason I'm not as quick to call Irish an idiot as some of our fellow posters.

 

My disdain for John Jerry was more of who the Dolphins passed on. I wanted Aaron Hernandez or Jimmy Graham, so admittedly I was probably rougher on that pick than most. Nice to see he's turned it around though.

 

That's fair. But the Jerry pick was consistent with the type of team Tony Sparano wanted. As were Fasano and Mastrud. Sparano wanted big, physical OL who could mash more than move, and TEs who could block first and foremost. He's gone, and so is the blueprint he came in with.

 

Tremendous shock, no. But when you've gone through 4 years of fairly minute development and have a new, untested head coach, it does register as a bit of a surprise. But a very pleasant one.

 

as I've been reading through all the post the day after the Cincy game and the amazement of how some players have been playing as of late a quote from bi gone years came to me. A quote fro Coach Bum Philips in response to what he thought of our very own Coach Shula he said.."he can take his'n and beat your'n and take your'n and beat his'n".

now I relate that to our current situation and apply the idea behind that quote to the difference between Sporano's staff and abilities and Philbin's staff and abilities. it seems to me that with the improved over all play of the team that maybe it has to do with the talent lvl of the coaching staff and their ability to place players in a successful situation as well as coach and prepare and make adjustments as needed. clearly the last regime had talent but were unable to produce with this basically same group of players like the current regime has. now how much of that is a direct reflection on Irelands abilities? now don't get me wrong there are still glaring needs that he needs to address but is it more of a failure on his part or the coaching staff? just something to think about and yes I know this wont change some peoples perspective one bit but I can't help but wonder if we had someone like Philbin and his crew here when BP came in how would this team look now and how good/bad would it have been?

 

I Got VD wrong that's for sure..I wanted Tannehill the starter as soon as I saw his first practice, I thought Reggie would rebound and become a centerpiece.

SS24...wow, dude looks like Spider-Man.

 

He punked AJ Green, it was beautiful to watch. There were plays where Sean had him one on one, no cushion, no safety help, and Green couldn't do ish.

 

Saw that myself..he also led the team in tackles yesterday.

 

The only important factor is their production on the field and their history of it.

If Brian Hartline and Davone Bess are going to continue producing like they have, then you wouldn't trade them.

 

I never said that. I complained about our skill position talent and our secondary.

I predicted 8-8 at best and 5-11 at worst, so obviously, I never thought they were the worst team or one of the worst teams in the league.

 

Listen I don't want to weigh in on the Ireland thing anymore because that will play out how it's going to play out and none of us are going to change it...but I'd caution about the expectations that are being developed.

Ryan Tannehill has a high yardage count. Why? Two reasons. One is he's got a lot of pass attempts. Overall at 7.5 yards per attempt he's not lighting up anything efficiency wise. That's good, but not great. It's about upper-middle.

The other reason for the high yardage count is it's based on one game. That's the one that I'd caution. That Cardinals game is an awful big bowling ball thrown into the bath tub. It represents only one out of five outings yet if you tally the other four outings you've got 6.5 yards per attempt (which will consistently rank you in the 26 to 32 range), 210 yards a game. If you're Davone Bess then for one game you were dyno-mite, but for the other four games you're at 15 catches for 223 yards (56 ypg) and 0 TDs. If you're Brian Hartline then for one game you were off the charts, but for the other four games you're at 17 catches for 261 yards (65 ypg) and 0 TDs.

Listen, the Cardinals game happened. There's no taking it away. But remember Chris Chambers' 15 catch, 238 yard performance against the Bills? That got him into the Pro Bowl that year (finally, after everyone was always talking about it as an inevitability since he was drafted)...but to me the most notable thing about that performance was that if you excluded it he was a very average 59 yards per game receiver.

I just think that there's an element of time-weighting that isn't present when everyone keeps talking about, oh so and so is on pace for 1600 yards receiving or 4000 yards passing, etc. That kind of talk doesn't account for the fact that 4 out of 5 times a guy went out there he was kinda average...if that.

Just real talk.

 

I don't the size thing holds up for Jerry. His big selling point was his athletic ability for his size. You can't really expect the guy to do longer pulls, but other than that he's a good fit.

 

The Dolphins have the AFC's fifth leading rusher, the NFL's leading receiver and another top 20 receiver (yards).

The Dolphins' pass defense is 4th in the NFL in completion percentage allowed, 2nd in 3rd down conversions allowed, tied for 5th in interceptions and 9th in opponent passer rating.

 

More moving of the goalposts.

 

And currently higher than such notables as:

Aaron Rodgers
Drew Brees
Ben Roethlisberger
Philip Rivers
Matthew Stafford
Michael Vick
Andrew Luck
Brandon Weeden
Russell Wilson

And he's less than a tenth of a yard behind Matt Ryan and Tony Romo.

 

But that's all on Philbin.

When the players play good, it's because of Philbin. When they play bad, it's because of Ireland.

 

If anything, the team's coaching(or more accurately bad luck) has failed the talent. This team should be 4-1.

 

Your "realists" (or I should say, cynics) are also moving the goalposts in suggesting that what initially was a mistake of trading Marshall without replacing him because it left Brian Hartline and Davone Bess as the starters, is currently a mistake because it leaves the team with no third receiver, behind Bess and Hartline.

It's a very transparent attempt to remain "correct" IMO.

 

Then it's fixed. Super Bowl here we come.

Or we can continue to build by trading Hartline for a couple of 1st round picks since he is obviously better than Fitzgerald, and Megatron. Richard Marshall being Darrell Revis equal should net us a few picks as well.

come on guys.