Tannehill and Philbin absolutely can be evaluated at any point. If the organization needs to wait years to make an evaluation then that problem is the most severe. I'm not sure how you theoretically let someone finish the job, while the person who did the hardest part of the job gets fired. Just doesn't seem logical to me.
I agree although in my opinion it depends on which Head Coach was hired. When Joe Philbin was hired and he subsequently hired Mike Sherman, taking Ryan Tannehill at #8 was a foregone conclusion whether your General Manager was Jeff Ireland or Jeff Foxworthy.
It's not that people who criticize Jeff Ireland in general are necessarily biased (although they may be); it's that people are biased who criticize him for not putting sufficient talent around a QB they believe has the rare ability to play very well as a rookie, while failing to give him any credit for drafting that QB. The bias is in finding fault with Jeff Ireland no matter what happens. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If you truly believe Jeff Ireland just drafted a QB who has the very rare ability to play very well as a rookie, why aren't you talking about how that sets him apart from so many GMs who have failed to do that? That's what I mean about "bias." The evidence contrary to the idea that Jeff Ireland sucks is either ignored or discounted, in favor of the "evidence" (i.e., "Tannehill would be better with better talent around him") in support of the idea that he sucks.
If the only thing that matters for the GM is acquiring the QB and HC then how is it logical to be stuck on a GM after you've already got a HC and QB? That's not logical. You should be willing to fire him for any reason, because he quite literally can do no more good for the team.
That's fine. Tannehill hasn't been good the past 2 weeks. That's a given. And Stringer is right: The reality is that winning in this league starts with the QB and head coach But: In the Tennessee game, we were down 14-0 before Ryan Tannehill had even the slightest opportunity to throw an errand pass........14-0. In the Indy game, our defense would've let Andrew Luck convert a 3rd down even it was 3rd and 92. Buffalo, well I'll put a lot of blame on Tannehill. But when you're facing the worst run Defense in the league and you can't muster up 2 yards on a 1st or 2nd down carry, well that's putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on a QB playing in his 8th game. In fact, they were losing yards rushing the ball. It was pathetic. This was right off the bat. From the first drive forward. I just can't remember any rookie QB being successful with a running game looking like ours. Seriously, think about it. Take every QB currently playing in the league right now sans Andrew Luck. Were ANY of them successful with an anemic running game? Our Defense suddenly falling apart and our running game being the way it is doesn't point to Ryan Tannehill. Ryan Tannehill has certainly looked like a rookie the past couple weeks, made his share of bad decisions and bad throws, but I don't think he's the reason why the Defense couldn't get off the field on 3rd down against Indy, or why we fumble away any sort of momentum, or why we suddenly can't get 1.5 YPC.
I dont think the word "logical" is the word you are looking for in that spot. I think the word is "fair". I would agree that it would not necessarily be fair to can the guy after doing the hardest part well. However, if he doesnt have the ability to build the rest of the roster, and he has already done the one part he was capable of doing (finding a HC/QB), IMO while not fair, it would be best to move on to a different GM who can build the rest of the roster... with the intention of trying to get the best of both worlds. Having a HC and QB... as well as having the rest of the roster built well. We both agree that the QB/HC is the hardest part, so being able to find someone who can do the rest of the job (the minority part of the job as you say) shouldnt be too difficult. I agree with the HC/QB being critical and easily the most important aspects... but I disagree that he should be "rewarded" for doing that and not be required and/or held accountable to fulfill the rest of his job description.
The jury is still out, because you are still in the middle of the season. Once the season is over, there needs to some decisions made on the performance of both. Not all that matter, but I'd say its an overwhelming majority when you are talking about both. If you hit on one and not the other, then it becomes a much different situation. Right, but I didn't claim that. I said they are the overwhelming majority, not the entirety. If your argument is that Ireland should be fired to appease angry fans, I suppose this makes sense? From my business experience though, its generally bad practice to fire someone just to appease others rather than merit. It certainly happens, but I think its bad precedent. Either way, I think if Tannehill and Philbin are hits then attendance won't really be an issue.
I'm not sure finding HC/QB is a GM skill thats independent of finding other positions. If you can hit on those two, then the rest of the roster will look good.
Also, to give Ireland credit for the Tannehill pick, wouldn't the earlier issue of him even being interested in Tannehill prior to Philbin and Sherman coming on board have to be put to bed?
I'm going to start with this part before I get to the others because herein you lay out exactly the problem I'm talking about. Anyone who has an OPINION and who sticks with their own OPINION despite evidence which someone else feels runs counter to it, is automatically qualifying to you for biased status. Logically if you have an OPINION then you're going to present evidence for that opinion. And logically, when someone else presents evidence to the contrary, you're either going to believe that evidence and change your opinion, or you're not going to believe it, and you will keep your original opinion. If you don't believe that evidence, and therefore have kept your original opinion, then you NECESSARILY have reasons for that. Therefore you are "ignoring or discounting" the evidence that someone else laid out that supposedly runs counter to your own opinion. Everything you've laid out for what you feel is evidence of BIAS is in fact just evidence of a difference of OPINION. Everything. You've not laid out any standard whatsoever by which a rational person could differentiate between bias and a difference of opinion. By your own standards, you yourself are proving yourself biased. In this thread and others I have laid out specific challenges to this logic, that you continue to either discount or ignore. Here are three pointed challenges to logic of yours: 1. Several of us have pointed out that crediting Jeff Ireland with picking Ryan Tannehill does not mean Jeff Ireland is a good General Manager. I've pointed out plenty of good picks made by people that are considered to be bad General Managers. 2. I presented a detailed challenge to this notion of it being so "rare" for a rookie quarterback to succeed. In fact, since 2004 there have been about 27 rookie quarterbacks that played significantly as rookies and/or were drafted highly, and 14 of them either personally performed very well (by statistical measures) and/or their team had a winning record during their starts. 3. Several of us have also pointed out that picking Ryan Tannehill was an obvious choice at #8 overall. The Dolphins to that point only had Matt Moore and David Garrard under contract, both with only 1 year remaining on contract. Ryan Tannehill's college Head Coach was the team's offensive coordinator. Further, Ryan Tannehill was the UNANIMOUSLY AGREED UPON third best quarterback in the Draft. And I do mean damn close to unanimous. A pre-Draft survey of 19 General Managers found that 17 believed Ryan Tannehill to be the #3 quarterback in the Draft, with 1 General Manager believing him to be #4 and another believing him to be #2, as I recall. The one thing you've consistently left out of your construction for Jeff Ireland being damned no matter what...is winning. He's not damned if the team wins. He wouldn't be damned if the team was winning from 2008 to 2011, either. When the team won three games in a row, the tenor around Dolfanland was a lot different. I don't know how much was different around here (I imagine a lot) because I was mostly absent from message boards as I had other things going on obviously, but I know the tenor on Twitter was hugely different. Hell, even the guy who flew the Fire Ireland banner was interviewed for an article in which he openly changed his mind and acknowledged that Jeff Ireland is doing better. Win, and he's not damned. If he had won then he wouldn't be in a difficult situation. If the team would start winning, he wouldn't be damned. Overall I think you're trying to snag people into a contradiction that is not, in fact, a contradiction at all.
Still hasn't been answered by anyone in this thread yet... How many losing seasons will it take to convince you that Ireland should be fired?
Here's another thing, I'd love for Jeff Ireland to be given a chance to keep his job, by seeing what Matthews, Egnew and Miller can do with extended playing time. Unfortunately, either the coaching is once again so inept as to not recognize their obvious talents, or none of them are very good. Either way, it speaks ill of Ireland since for the purposes of this discussion we are crediting him with the hiring of Philbin
I think the reality is that getting into the specifics of which players are good, which players aren't, hit rates, bust rates, doing that all around the league, etc...it's a briar patch and it has very little use. First off, it tends to be an argument of convenience rather than relevance. The contrarian's case is focused on bringing up the lack of these completely comprehensive studies as evidence that the activist case is unfounded. If the activist is a person arguing Jeff Ireland should get a raise, the contrarian says where's your evidence, we have yet to see a fully comprehensive study proving that Jeff Ireland is doing particularly well relative to the rest of General Managers so why should he get a raise. If the activist is (as is the case here) a person arguing that Jeff Ireland should be fired, the contrarian says where's your evidence, we have yet to see a fully comprehensive study proving that Jeff Ireland is doing particularly poorly relative to the rest of General Managers so why should be fired. I think in both instances what is commonly underemphasized is the fact that doing nothing is in fact doing something. All these folks so worried that there's yet to be a comprehensive case made against Jeff Ireland to where he's deserving of being fired, are similarly guilty of proposing action (the retention of a GM) on the basis of no "comprehensive" evidence. They just like to pretend that non-action isn't action when it really is. Secondly, the entire theoretical concept of this all inclusive, comprehensive and objective study...is a unicorn. It doesn't exist. It is, as I said, a total briar patch of subjective paralysis by analysis. The entire campaign screams how easy it would be to lose the forest for the trees. In fact, many people already engage in these campaigns, and are predictably chided by the other side of the debate for their "bias" and twisting things to look a certain way, omitting other things that would go against their opinion, etc. This serves to highlight both the subjectivity and impossibility of this task. You build an extensive model full of numbers which calculate bust rates and hit rates and compare them throughout the league only to step back and say, wait a minute...what's a bust? What's a hit? Is there a half-hit? What are the standards? You're manipulating this aren't you! WHY CAN'T ANYONE JUST DO SOMETHING OBJECTIVE AND THOROUGH!!! The reality is, the simpler, the better. Do you have a lot of good players? Does it seem like other teams have more? Are you winning ball games? Is that subjective? Entirely. But so too is whatever "objective" study anyone tries to publish. Subjective both in its qualitative evaluations and in its methodologies, structure, omissions and inclusions. All subjective. All imperfect. You can spend a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars building a bridge with precision and careful craft, and if the theory isn't sound it turns into a pile of rubble and is no more useful than the cheap pile of rubble at the local quarry. It all boils down to differences of opinion.
All play postions of need, and now that the season is circling the drain, it seems appropriate to play these guys more. Particularly Miller, who seems to make something happen every time he gets on the field, yet we are still subjected to entire drives of Daniel Thomas stumbling across the line of scrimmage. As to Egnew, Fasano can't even get targets, let alone catches these days and Clay has been basically horrible. How much worse could Egnew be? Even if his blocking is lacking he has the athletic talent to make a big play from time to time. For Matthews, he seemd to be the only guy who was able to beat his man deep against Buffalo, yet when we needed to get down the field, Davone Bess is running double moves. Let's see these guys play already.
I agree that now would be the perfect time to play them with our season over. However before it was definitely the experience level that keep them off the field while we were competing for the playoffs. Not Philbin's ineptitude or their lack of talent.
Experience is overrated when it can't make plays. but I get your point. Miller is the most frustrating example for me as the guy had a burst and a knack for making a play every time he got a chance, and then he would go 3 games without a carry
Judging by the last couple of games I think Reggie Bush might be even more frustratingly under-used than Lamar Miller. Egnew should've been on the field by now. So should Rishard Matthews.
Come on. Ryan Tannehill has a QB rating of 70. This isn't Dan Marino where we're losing games 45-42 because, despite Marino's greatness, we have no defense, one, and we have no running game that can keep opposing offenses off the field, two. I was around and saw all that firsthand. You've cherry-picked examples of how the team around Tannehill is faltering that IMO ignores or discounts how he himself is playing.
Incredibly frustrating to watch the way they run Reggie. He's incredibly talented receiving and running out of the backfield, and we've barely used the guy lately. He's our best player in space. Draw up SOMETHING to the get man open. It seems like every time they split him out, he makes a catch for a decent gain, yet he's been thrown to at most twice a game.
Why would you say "sans Andrew Luck"????? And there is no way you can convince me that RG3 has a better team around him than Ryan Tannehill, especially now without Garcon and Fred Davis.
Here. Note that I very well COULD have rigged the standards of this study to where it looked even more compelling. For instance, had I thrown the cutoff at QBs with 10+ starts as a rookie then I'd be eliminating Jay Cutler and Trent Edwards from the "good" side but also Eli Manning, Josh Freeman, Colt McCoy, Alex Smith and Charlie Frye from the "bad" side. But in the interests of truthiness I tried to include as much as I could and let you make your own opinion based on it. Personally I do find it interesting that of the 20 QBs that have started 10+ games as a rookie (incl. playoffs) since 2004, their total record is 126-136 (which includes 4-4 in the playoffs)...which is 0.481, which is essentially 8-8 (7.7 wins).
That's my point. It's both Tannehill has played poorly. And the team has also played poorly. And it's a statement of fact that before Tannehill made a single error in the Tennessee game, we were down 14-0 due to a fumble and inability to pick up a 3rd and half yard because our RG and RT both got blown up on that play. Our defense in turn gave up 2 easy TDs in that scenario.
Because Andrew Luck is in a league by himself, IMO. RG3 certainly has a better run game at his disposal as proven by the successes of Alfred Morris
For those willing to heap praise on Ireland for picking Ryan Tannehill (and for the record, I've also credited him for the pick); let's not kid ourselves and act like he had any choice. If Ireland went into the season with anyone else besides a first round pick at QB on the roster that meant his job security was playoffs or you're fired. If he decided the team was able and ready to win with Matt Moore, nothing short of playoffs would have saved his skin. Not after essentially ignoring the position for 3 years. Tannehill gave him the position he needed and an excuse for another poor season should he need it. There was no other pick for Ireland to make at #8 if he valued his job.
I've spoken off the record with at least one journalist who is pretty sure Steve Ross directly demanded that Jeff Ireland draft Ryan Tannehill, FWIW.
No, Luck is in the same league. This is Tannehill's competition. That running game wouldn't be very good without RG3. He also has probably the worst defense in the NFL as well.
With the logic that's been used to defend Ireland, it's basically impossible to come to any sort of "objective" conclusion that he should be fired. "But the team isn't very good!" = Well, that's because the QB play hasn't been very good. QB rating has the highest correlation with wins = "But Jeff Ireland picked the QB's!" = Yes, but he wasn't really the GM then. Parcells chose Long over Ryan, and Sparano was a horrible Head Coach = "But Parcells is gone and the team still sucks!" = He hasn't had enough time on his own yet. Give him a chance. "But the team doesn't have talent!" = Well, we don't know that. The QB isn't playing well right now so it's making the team look worse than it really is. = "But Ireland drafted THAT QB as well!" = Hey, he's a rookie. It happens. Give it more time. It's like the movie Looper. At some point, someone will need to close the loop.
I'd ask you what Sparano and Henne not being hits here meant, but I think I know what your answer would be.
Even in the games where Tannehill has been relatively successful: Arizona, Indy.... We still couldn't run the ball effectively at all. I get your point, and in most cases it's true. But even when Tannehill was throwing the ball all over the place against Indy, a bad run defense, we still weren't effective rushing the ball.
So why would it be illogical this off season, with the jury still out on Ryan Tannehill and Joe Philbin?
