Coaching could have been better, but it also could have been a lot worse. I actually think there was some really solid positional coaching going on, some of those guys still with the team today.
Sparano and Henning were not solid coaching for a majority of the time they were here though. Rizi was put on ST after the fiasco with Bonamego probably cost us an entire season. He had a good statistical year because Ginn returned a couple, but everything else was poor and he was allowed to keep his job until the Pats game produced possibly the worst STs ever seen in the NFL. That's Sparano's fault for not fixing that sooner. Henning struck gold his first year with Penny and the WildCat, but **** the bed by trying to force that with a strong armed QB like Henne and never came close to that success again. That was Sparano's fault for not fixing that sooner, especially considering he has shown he can have some success calling an offense, like in Dallas. And 0-7 is purely on coaching. More importantly though, I think Ireland needs a blueprint to follow and I don't see that as a negative. I think we he has a blueprint, he does a lot right for that blueprint even if the blueprint is no longer relevant.
My question at the beginning of the year was, what if the Dolphins finish where they were projected, about 5 or 6 wins? What then?
Agree with most of this. Curious who you'd give as examples of your final two sentences? My main knock on Ireland was a lack of faith in him assessing the DB position. With Rashad and Sean Smith developing, I am softening on that belief.
If things continue this way I stick with him, because switching GMs potentially destabilizes everything. Will he support Philbin? Will his philosophy cause shifts in the style of D and O he wants to see out of the staff. Will his player philosophy be so different that you end up with a mish mash mismatch of parts on the field for years as he turns the roster over. Does he replace Philbin? Forget it. I want to stay on this path unless it becomes clear that progress is not possible, or until we are consistently in the playoffs.
I feel like that's the biggest difference this year. Good position coaches, good head coach prioritizing development.
I don't really want to get into it because it's a very old debate but the Dan Henning/Chad Henne thing was more about the combination of Henning with the players on the roster than it was just about Henning or just about Henne. Dan Henning adjusted his offense to Chad Henne's strengths and weaknesses. You can't say he didn't adjust because he did. But he did it in ways that were not necessarily advisable. It was a bad combination. But Henning had been in this league a lot of years and had run a lot of successful offenses, so I think it would be disingenuous to just pretend he suddenly forgot how to coach football games. Chad Henne did better without Dan Henning around and Dan Henning certainly did better without Chad Henne as his QB. That much at least is as close to an objective fact as you're going to find in this debate. I'm not interested in debating this because you're just pulling out emphatic belief statements like "0-7 is purely on coaching" which really brooks no room for reasonable/productive discourse or disagreement. All it leads to is a series of declarations of point of view, then re-declarations, more re-declarations, and eventually, insults and personal attacks. So let's just end this one before it begins.
I see the acquisitions of Justin Smiley, Jake Grove and Reggie Bush as similar to one another. In every case (IMO), the pro personnel department got the talent question right. You can't say that when Smiley got here he was a total bum, or when Grove got here he was a slapdick. Not the case. But in all three cases they all had significant injury concerns. Very significant ones. That means there was a layer of top-down risk management that enters the picture on all three players. In the cases of Smiley and Grove, that went belly-up. The talent was there, but the health was not. When they signed Reggie Bush, I saw a scout from the pro personnel department conduct a chat on FinHeaven and he encapsulated the Reggie question very accurately. Not that I agreed with it at the time, but that's not really relevant. Point is, the scout turned out to be accurate in the way he framed the Reggie issue. He said the talent was clearly there, all they had to do was put on the tape and he was a human highlight reel. The big question was the health because there were knee issues there, it was being said his career would be over soon if he had to play on turf more, and he'd missed a lot of games with New Orleans despite never being a work horse. That issue (the health) was not for them to decide. It's a top-down issue. I think another instance where they got the talent right but the "other stuff" wrong was Brandon Marshall. You acquire a guy for two 2nd round picks (a 1st round equivalent) and he turns out to have a serious psychological disorder which had probably been well-signaled by the dozen or so run-ins with the law and various other incidents and behavior problems he'd had in Denver that were pretty well documented and enumerated. Because you got the talent right, you were still able to jettison him for two 3rd round picks (2nd round equivalent)...and recover some value. But you also paid him a lot of dough in the process.
Fine. Point being Henning wasn't getting it done whether he wasn't adjusting or adjusting poorly. There was a problem coaching and that falls on Sparano. The 0-7 statement isn't a declaration. Either the team wasn't properly motivated or they weren't talented enough to win a couple. I find hard to believe they weren't talented the first 7 games, then magically became talented enough to go 6-3 after that. i just don't think its unreasonable to say we could have had a win or two more with better coaching, which would be a 9-7, 9-7, 8-8 record and no one would be calling for Irerland's head. Apparently you do think that's unreasonable.
Where in anything I wrote did I ever say that better coaching could not have gotten the Dolphins more wins. Just face it for what it is, you put extreme words in my mouth in order to make your position look more reasonable relative to mine, the definition of a straw man argument.
You didn't flat out say it, but it is the logical end to your stance. If better coaching could have gotten us a few more wins, then we're a better than .500 team that just needed a franchise QB or a player here or there and then we aren't having you and others talking about the poor job Ireland has done.
Tale of 2 Smiths 20<---------->20----He is right there for best corner in the league IMO.. 20<-------->G----Playing like the worse corner in the league.
Can I just get a MEGALULZ @ the assumption that Ryan Mallett is a bust because he hasn't beaten out the greatest QB in NFL history? Really? REALLY? As to the matter in hand, I think the distinction has to be made between when Ireland was running the show alone and when he was running it with Parcells (also known as Parcells running the show on his own). I've been a heavy critic, but I actually think he's doing a good job.
I mean if we're just talking straight up let's grade Jeff Ireland based on what's happened this year, we definitely still have some more shoes to drop before we can do that. If you're looking at how the team has performed in five games I think you'd say the team has some solid talent. But I do think before this year is done, lack of depth will get exposed a little.
I think Ireland's most important seven months approaches. Re-sign key players who have developed and who are the bedrock of the team, make big decisions on capped up players like Carpenter, Dansby, etc., and then see what he can do with 5 picks in the first 110 selections. Can he find two or three pieces of.magic?
The scary part is if he's not the man for the job, that $40 million in cap space and 5 picks in the top 100 represent a lot of rope for him to hang himself. And a lot of masonry that could need to be ripped up by a new GM after the fact. That would suck.
No, not really. Nobody said that or anything close to it. I said he hasn't looked good because, well, he hasn't looked good. He completed less than 50% of his passes in the NFL's best short passing offense, with a ypa of 4.47. That's bad. Very bad. As I have said repeatedly, it is too early to call him a bust, but he has played like hot garbage against mostly backups in his preseason experience.
But the preseason is all we have seen of him. Well, we do know he was beaten out last year for the backup job by Brian Hoyer, a currently unemployed former UDFA. Since the day he has drafted, has he done a single thing to lead anyone to think he will be a great QB in the NFL? Or even a decent one?
I just posted something along these lines in another thread. We are going 7-9/8-8/9-7 and Ireland is coming back, that is inevitable. The question is how does he handle what is the biggest offseason this franchise has had in a decade? He can set himself up for a long run at the helm of a contending team if he has a great offseason. He can also **** this franchise for 5 years if he ****s the bed.
Heaven forbid what you were saying about Aaron Rodgers before he git some actual playing time. You may have had the poor fella retired before he'd made a meaningful throw.
"the greatest off season this franchise has had in a decade" can we all agree that Ireland made that possible?
I'm not sure how folks convince themselves that Ireland is directly responsible for choosing players as a rookie GM, hired by a rookie president of operations who had the task of saving and turning around the worst team in the league, especially knowing exactly who Parcells is, and what he's expressed he's wanted in the past in terms of acquisition of talent, and 100 million dollars to spend on free agents and # 1 overall picks. Thinking Parcells would give up that kind of monetary responsibility to his first time Gm, with the condition this team was in, with his rep on the line, doesn't make any logical sense to me.. Also, including Sparanos and Hennings failures as coaches in Ireland's evaluation is completely unjust, the probability of him having anything to do with those hires is slim and none.. As a Gm,you must have all the power to be judged fairly, Please tell me how he had the power to hire what coaches and players in the beginning, considering who he had above him, and what condition the franchise was in?
I'm with you on the coaching staff. Sparano and Henning were pieces of the foundation that Parcells was responsible for. In fact, before either Ireland or Sparano were hired there was not-so-subtle speculation that they were the 2 guys Parcells wanted to fill those positions. And since he was responsible for building that foundation, I think it's safe to assume Henning and the rest of the coaching staff were mostly of Bill's doing. As for the players, however, Ireland most certainly had a lot to do with it, whether he actually had the final say or not. Parcells brought Ireland along to Miami in good part because he trusted Jeff's judgment on players. And as someone with the background that Jeff has, I think it would rather foolish to assume Miami's draft boards/free agent lists didn't have Jeff's stamp of approval on them.
Something that never happened but you think would've happened if events in the past had gone differently is a fact? My lord, you certainly have a high opinion of your own thinking. Here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fact?s=t
I don't believe I have any insight into the inner workings of the team. I just don't believe so many coincidences could have happened without an orchestrator. My theory is that Ireland wanted McCoy because of the way he adapted his offense to accommodate Tebow and win a playoff game against the Steelers. Pretty impressive for sure. Philbin on the other hand comes from a perennial winning organization that had a good friend who coached a 1st round QB prospect in college. I believe Philbin showed up in Davie with a plan that included hiring Sherman and drafting Tannehill and Ireland bought in to save his job. Please don't tell me what I need to do. My wife does that every day.
In what aspects though? I agree with you in terms of having to hire a coach and a big chunk of the coaching staff. Finding a QB was a huge piece of last year. However, this coming offseason is really the first year that Miami's going to have to make decisions on a large portion of their nucleus - Bush, Hartline, Fasano, Long, Starks, and Smith - that's big, and something Ireland's not been through before as the Dolphins GM. There's what, 5 picks in the first 110ish spots in the draft. If you play that right, that's a fairly large put you're going to add to the core of the team. If you play that wrong, that's a lot of money you have to eat down the road and you'll reap the lack of benefits not having hit on those key picks. I think there's some fairly big weaknesses on the team as it stands right now - pass-rusher, WR, S - and you potentially have to add a few of the spots above to that list as I don't think you're going to bring back all 6 of those big free agents. That's a pretty important offseason staring you right in the face in terms of player personnel; improving the team. I think last year is more chalked up to changing the staff (team culture). Finding a QB was a huge piece; but now you've got to build out from that. I think with the circumstances of this offseason, it's more important given that a lot of that work is going to hinge on Jeff Ireland, who really hasn't had to face an offseason with so many decisions in my opinion.
Yes, but it's not like Ireland was thrust into an unfamiliar situation as it relates to player evaluation. He was, after all, with Parcells for years before coming to Miami. And while he may not be a Parcells clone, he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did if there wasn't a decent amount of common philosophical ground that the two of them shared. I happen to live in NJ, and I'm old enough to remember Parcell's time with both the Giants, Jets, and to a lesser extent, New England. He gets portrayed by the media as an ogre, tyrant and dictator, an image which he himself has probably fueled to a large extent. But at the same time, he has always leaned on the judgment and advice of those he has hired. Jeff was brought here in large part because he showed himself to be a good evaluator of talent, the type of talent Bill wanted on his team. And while there may have been minor disagreements here and there, Jeff's fingerprints are on every personnel move this team has made the past 5 years, good and bad.
