There was a shock of "they're not nearly as bad as we thought" around mid-season, along with several articles land comments along this line: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/...improvement-makes-beleaguered-gm-look-better/
And the public was happy with the retention of Tony Sparano along with a flourish of confidence in Tony that was demonstrated through a contract extention? The fans want Ireland's head. Give them that, and anything else could be spun.
Yeah, and the flirtation with Jim Harbaugh and Dan Henning's firing occured at the end of that year or the 2011 off-season.
Along with more shock, a mere three weeks later, that the Dolphins "are as bad as we thought" complete with analysts and even a former GM around the league lamenting that you can't make evaluations of Ryan Tannehill because the Dolphins have no talent. And then people like Mike Mayock and Michael Lombardi weighing in that the reason the Dolphins don't make plays on defense is because they're built slow. So let me recap. Ron Jaworskie says that the Dolphins don't have enough talent for Tannehill to throw to, that the "windows are too small". Bill Polian says that the Dolphins can't protect Ryan Tannehill nor do they have play makers that can catch the football, and you can't evaluate his ability to win games toward the end of the game until he has those things. He also said that coaches would tell you the Dolphins are working with a "short stick" at wide receiver. Mike Mayock said the same thing during a game broadcast, saying that the Dolphins' lack of play making in the skill positions results in a red zone offense everywhere on the field. He also told Big Dog that Miami is built slow on defense and that's why they don't make plays there. Michael Lombardi offered the same exact assessment.
I'm not sure its necessarily some master plan targeting this offseason. I think its more of a perfect storm, so to speak. There are players that really don't fit what they're trying to do offensively. You have a coaching staff which can now probably make better determinations on who they like than last offseason. You have a lot of free agents and draft picks. Usually when you bring in a new coaching staff there will be more turnover than what we saw. I think its logical to assume they decided they would be better off making those changes this offseason as opposed to last.
Well no, the team does have top-end talent. Mike Pouncey, Reshad Jones, and Cameron Wake deserve serious argument for the best players at their position this year. Note that Jake Long has been here historically as well Kevin Burnett, Paul Soliai, Randy Starks, and Brian Hartline are in the next tier, arguably Karlos Dansby pre-injury but no one gives a **** because well uhh You might not like where they are oriented, but that's not true at all.
So what exactly is your argument? That they didn't say these things? Or that you really shouldn't pay attention to what they say, for bad or good?
I respect those guys and their opinions, but their viewpoints on this just don't comport with the objective data. See here for example: http://www.thephins.com/forums/showthread.php?73384-The-Talent-Surrounding-Ryan-Tannehill&highlight= And here: http://www.thephins.com/forums/show...he-Dolphins-Starting-WRs-to-the-League-s-Best
I'm just curious how everyone defines wholesale roster turnover. Is it based on retention of how many of the 53 players from the 16th game of the regular season... or is it based on % 2013 salary cap spent on new additions? Because we've got between 30 and 40 mill in cap room coming up this offseason and some expectations are that more than 2/3's of which should be spent on new talent. I think that's the crux of the debate and how keeping Jeff Ireland affects each.
You were the one that dropped a claim that as of today Jeff Ireland is viewed around the league with more respect based on the roster he put together for 2012, than prior to the start of 2012. That was your claim. I asked you to provide evidence of this claim and you provided month-old statements and observations that have since been washed out by other statements and observations that have been very damning of the talent on the roster.
Your questions are reasonable but I still fail to see how this connects back to your initial implication that my best guess for how another off season with Jeff Ireland would proceed, was evidence that I'm too emotionally caught up in the Miami Dolphins. I assure you my analysis was based in history. And I didn't pull any of that "Knowing Jeff Ireland, he will sign Brian Hartline to a $50 million contract" stuff. There should be nothing inherently wise-seeming or unwise-seeming about the scenario I outlined. Just pure realism.
I don't think Ireland's future here after this season will depend on the team's final record this season. If the team were to finish 5-11 or 6-10 I think it will depend on how we lose the remaining games. Yes, we lost to the Patriots, but almost all of the key plays that caused us to lose had nothing to do with talent and had nothign to do with anything the Patriots did. 1. The muffed punt snap 2. The roughing the punter 3. The penalty on the Reshad Jones INT return 4. The overthrow of a wide open Hartline 5. The underthrow of a wide open Hartline Etc. Those were all simply mistakes by the Dolphins. They had nothing to do with a lack of talent. They had nothing to do with the Patriots having more talent. If just one of those things happened differently we would have had a chance to win at the end. If two of them happened differently, we probably would have won. If all 5 happened to compete with differently we might have won by a few scores. This team has the talent to compete with and beat the Patriots, they just can't make so many blunders and expect to do so. The same was true of the Texans game. The only other game in which this team was not competitive and did not have a chance to win at the end was the Titans game and that wasn't due to a lack of talent either.
No, what I said was pretty clearly stated within this thread: Jeff Ireland should not be more negatively regarded than he was previously. If anything, the burst of success in the season, plus drafting the long-waited rookie quarterback high will have earned him goodwill. The way this season has played out should have been pretty predictable to everyone including Stephen Ross given the situation.
Yet the PAtriots overcame many of those same issues. Tom Brady was not as "on" as he usually is and in fact missed wide open guys just as badly as Tanny did. The difference is the Patriots have enough talent to voercome those mistakes. Even the Dolphins themselves understand that they don't have the talent to beat the Patriots unless they're perfect. Most of the comments after the game from Philbin to Mike Pouncey expressed this exact sentiment. A fantastically talented team does not need to be perfect to win a game. We've had mostly the same guys on this etam for several eyars and we win the same amount of games, we still lose to the Patriots all the time too. The worst thing this franchise can do is convince itself that it's "close" or better than it is because we played the Patriots sort of tough for 3 and half quarters
See, I don't believe that at all. I believe the Patriots played down to our level all day and simply turned on the juice when they had to, on the final drive, and you saw the domination there. If those plays you mentioned would've gone differently, they simply would've turned on the juice sooner and still won IMO. However, I don't believe the Patriots are on a different level than us for any reason other the QB position, at this point. I don't think it's because of an overall talent differential.
If he is, I would have to question how much he really wants to bring a winner to Miami. My main complaint for over a year has been that Ireland is still the GM of this team. If the Dolphins once again finish below 500 and Ireland is retained as the teams GM. I will no longer see Ireland as the problem with the organization. I will then place all the blame on Ross, because it is up to him to provide the organization with a GM who can finally turn this team into a consistent winner.
Penny, Henne, Moore and Tanny have all taken significant snaps for this team with similar talent around them and all have finished in roughly the same place. And don't give me the 6-3 with Moore. Let's give him the full credit he deserves which is 6-6.
Thanks for quoting yourself and showing that you did in fact say pretty much exactly what I thought you said. You put forth the theory that Jeff Ireland is now "better regarded" than he had been previously. As your evidence you furnish quotes from immediately after what you call the "burst of success" around the beginning of the season. However, the Dolphins also had a "burst of non-success" immediately after, which includes having lost 4 of their last 5 games, and hence there have been a flourish of quotes coming across the board disparaging the amount of talent on the Dolphins' roster. And so, I fail to see how Jeff Ireland has improved his reputation.
No, I think Pennington was decidedly better than the others. Either way, my point is that the main difference between NE and Miami is that NE has one of the 5 best QBs to ever play the game. There really isn't much of a difference otherwise IMO.
The Dolphins have dropped 4 of their last 5 games and seem poised to travel across the country and accumulate their 5th loss in the last 6 games. How anyone sees that and comes away thinking, "If anything Jeff Ireland is better regarded now than he was before" is beyond me. If the Dolphins beat the 49ers, and/or win two in a row against the Jaguars and Bills, then we'll talk.
He did go on the trip to California with Ross to "talk" to Harbaugh that pretty much saved his job. I wouldn't be surprised if these moves had slightly similar intentions.
You should perhaps consider what the qualification "if anything" means. In this context, I suggested that there was no reason for a change in how Jeff Ireland was professionally regarded. By suggesting "if anything"(suggesting if change has actually occurred, which I had previously denied), Ireland would be regarded more positively. In simpler terms, I indicated that my personal belief is that Ireland would be regarded pretty much the same as he was when it was decided he would be retained, and that it was more likely he would be regarded more positively than negatively. Nuance is maaaaaaaad tricky.
No, the Patriots didn't really overcome those same kind of issues. They didn't muff a punt snap. They didn't rough the punter. They didn't have a penalty that caused a TD to be negated. Etc. Brady missed some plays mostly because we did a good job of mixing coverages and getting pressure on him. We sacked him 4 times and pressured him many other times. He had only been sacked 15 times over the 11 prior games, with the one other time he got sacked 4 times also being a game in which his passer rating was under 80. We didn't need to be perfect. We just couldn't afford 5-6 major unforced blunders. Had we had only 3-4 we very well might have won the game. The Patriots are a better team. They have a much better QB and that makes a big difference. The rest of their team collectively is not much better, if better at all.
If Ireland had done a great job as the teams GM and he was leaving because he was retiring or for a better position somewhere else, promoting someone who works for him might make sense. In this case, if you fire Ireland, you need to fire everyone else in the player personnel department and let the next GM hire his own staff. Firing Ireland and promoting Gaine to GM isn't going to resolve the talent problem for the Dolphins or the attendance problem at the stadium. I'm glad he was instrumental in signing Wake, but that certainly doesn't justify promoting him to the teams GM.
Pennington went 11-7 here in the games he really played (not counting the ones in which he was injured early in the game). That's not roughly the same place.
A lot of expiring contracts... a wealth of draft picks next year... it's almost like *gasp* this is a rebuilding season! We are switching philosophies (Sparano to Philbin) so I think you could expect a mediocre season this year anyway with a rookie quarterback starting. If we finish 5-11... Ireland may be fired. But we'll likely finish 7-9 and Ireland will stick around.
My opinion is this: Tannehill has spotty accuracy, there were PLENTY of windows to throw into and he just flat out threw a bad pass. This is why those chattering heads on the NFL media tour shouldn't be given that much weight, when you watch the games and then here their blather, one has to wonder if they bother to watch the film or just pick up talking points. My complaint about Ireland is he does not have an eye for playmakers and does not spend to acquire solid prospects in favor of trying to catch lightening in a bottle. Arguably we have 2 guys on D who make plays, Wake and Jones. On offense we have a high priced OL and low priced pieces around them, if Egnew had panned out I'd think a lot more of the job he did the last 2 yrs.
And they in practice impart very little of their knowledge. You know how newspapers are written by professional writers, but said to at a 5th grade reading level? Take that but multiply it by the fact it's a technical topic oriented towards a largely non-technical crowd.
You may not think so , I however think Mike Mayock is a very sharp , astute football guy , son of a coach , player , analyst. If he is talking to his buddy over beers and details Miami's shortcomings I am not dismissing that conversation. When does Miami need to make the playoffs for you before the one ultimately responsible is held responsible? Not next year because it will still be an adjustment year and the plethora of draft picks haven't had enough time , so 2014 ? Maybe?
Another year of Ireland and his middling performance probably means another year of disappointing FA's and draft picks. Which will lead to yet another 5-9 win season......and everyone wonders why Sun Life Stadium is half empty on Sundays.
Lol, heaping praise, who does that?? Lol, you funny man..I actually don't think he has many fans, I think it's all about debating folks about a timeline, and what's fair, I know that's what it is for me..
Exactly, Deej. I mean, honestly, how much praise can be heaped on a GM who is only in his 2nd year in charge of a team? Philbin & Co + the 2012 draft as a whole (especially Tannehill) is a great start, but we still gotta wait for these guys to develop before any of us can accurately qualify his decisions. It's nice that we were 3 plays away from 8-3 and showed we could compete with NE, but it's still too soon to start passing any judgement. This has to continue for a few more years before determining him as a success.
