I prefer to look at individual players and how they are playing better this year as opposed to last. I suppose if one had time they could go on PFF and compare the rankings... I'm supposed to be working....
Successful coach is a successful coach. Did the Dolphins hire Joe Philbin thinking it's OK if he doesn't bring us a Super Bowl or achieve a very good record, because he's just a rookie coach? No. If the idea of a rookie coach is just ACCEPTED to be inferior to an experienced head coach, then the Dolphins should have hired an experienced head coach.
Other than Jones, I don't think any have really improved over last season. None of the lesser receivers have improved. Hartline might be the most improved wide receiver and he was too sick to be coached by this team.
The Sparano team benefited from a pretty weak schedule that resulted in finished with the worst record the year before. They also had a season where they turned the ball over so few times that they set records. Much of that was due to having a really good quarterback fall in our laps and have one of his best seasons as a pro. They also benefited from having Brady miss that year. Finally the offense was so bad they had to revert to the wildcat which completely caught teams off guard. There were so many anomalous things that happened that year that comparing that year and this year is stupid.
Of course... but they can't scrap the plan after just one year. The decision maker (Ross) had to know in the back of his mind that the expectations are tempered... does that mean when he pimps himself to the media that he acknowledges that? Of course not.
This years schedule is pretty weak. Not turning the ball over is a good thing. Generally done by well coached teams. Wildcat was highly over stated. For instance Miami was beating New England 14-0 before the first wildcat play.
Why should he be excused for a lack of experience? You can either do a job or you can't. Throwing his lack of head coaching experience (at any level) aside, I think it's air to wonder why he wasn't even considered for Green Bay's HC vacancy before they hired McCarthy. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2288985 This year, Tannehill has shown mediocre play, followed be severe regression, Sherman has shown himself to be the same incompetent play-caller that was ousted from GB, and Joe Philbin is at the head of it all. You can point to "rookie this", "rookie that", but there are examples out there of similar players and coaches out there that have had success. I just don't think we should give someone time for the sake of giving them time.
He has not been getting a pass from me. I am on record as saying that his poor debute concerns me. I have seen many things in his coaching that I am not a fan of so far. He will get another year as he should but he should also be kept on a short leash by Ross. IMO the Dolphins do not come across as being a well coached team.
* Chuck Noll took over a 2-11-1 Steelers and led them to 1-13, 5-9, 6-8... but then won 4 SBs over the next 8 years... and is now in the HOF.
If you have been following my interactions in this thread, you will know that I agree with your statement, but I'd like to know what you're not a fan of.
I disagree about Pouncey and Odrick. I thought their improvement comes more from experience than coaching. Plus I do believe Odrick had better PFF stats last season. Especially Pouncey, he looked really good last season. Misi has improved. I don't think Clemons has. Jerry has lost weight, however he is still better at pass blocking than run blocking. Still can't get to the second level.
Jim Zorn took over a 9-7 Redskins playoff team and lead them to 8-8 and 4-12 records before getting fired. He also hired Sherman Lewis, a bingo announcer at a retirement home, after starting 2-3 in the latter season as a "consultant", only to have his playcalling authority stripped in his favor. He was also responsible for this: [video=youtube;6-tqLG__Al4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-tqLG__Al4[/video] Etc, etc. We can go back and forth with isolated examples that suit our arguments all day. Up to you. A coach starting off on the right foot and improving their team is objectively better than not, though. Do you honestly disagree?
Chad Pennington threw only 7 interceptions while the team fumbled 18 times and only lost 6 of them. You're going to tell me that's all coaching? I disagree that the wildcat was highly over stated. The point is if you could replicate the situations that Tony faced and throw Philbin in there then you can compare the years. But there is simply too much variance between that year and this year to compare them. 2008 culminated in a perfect storm scenario that gave the dolphins a chance to have at the time an unprecedented turnaround. When that ended the team fell down to earth and demonstrated what it was. Average. I'm not arguing in Philbin's favor. Just that you really can't compare their first years as a head coach.
How is giving someone more than 1 year giving them time just for the sake of giving them time? Unless a coach displays an obvious trainwreck of a performance than they should get more than a year. All these coaches and quarterbacks that come in and have crazy success their first year have created a fanbase that is impatient. If someone doesn't light it up the minute they show up it's send them to the door and find someone new. No one can wait and see if any growth or development can or will occur. It's sad really.
Pouncey is a second-year player. One expects improvement from rookie year to second year regardless of coaching. I don't see any particular reason to attribute Pouncey's play this year to better coaching. I don't think Odrick has been better this year at all. I think his play has slipped. His PFF ratings certainly have. PFF has Jerry with a -5.0 rating in 2011 and a -4.5 in 2012. I do not see that as meaningful improvement. Clemons barely played last year (just 22 snaps), so there's not enough basis for comparison to say that he has improved, let alone that he improved due to better coaching. He has been a little better this year than he was the last time he was a starter, in 2010, but again, I don't know that there is any real reason to credit that to better coaching. I think Misi has been better this year than last, but I don't think he'd been any better this year than he was as a rookie in 2010. According to PFF, he's been a little worse this year than he was in 2010. And on the other side of the balance, I think Long, Incognito, Bush, Clay and Fasano have been worse this year than last year.
What would help in determining whether someone in Philbin's position should get a "free pass" is some objective research regarding how well first-time head coaches do on average in year one after taking over a team with a 7-9 record. I suspect what we'd find is that he's doing non-significantly worse than average if at all, and that there is no way of predicting, based on any variable presently available to us, whether his team is going to play well enough in the future for him to be eventually regarded as a successful coach who should be kept beyond this year. In other words, we probably don't know a damned thing about this topic right now.
It's sad that we've been waiting since before Jason Taylor was born to go to the Super Bowl. Are you really flustered by our fans considering that we've been mired in mediocrity since last century, and our solution is to hire coaches who have never coached before? If we lose to Jacksonville and/or Buffalo, will you consider it a train wreck? If so, would you see justification in his firing?
Theres many things about his coaching that do not impress me. I dont like him keeping starters on the bench when they are needed. I did not like that silly onside kick move of having our punter out there too. I dont like the energy level of the team on sundays. I dont like his appathetic pressers on mondays. Philbins coaching strikes me as sort of flat. Also I think it was a mistake to trade away and cut certain players instead of trying to work them into things.
I was unsure after getting an inside look in preseason, and can't say I've seen anything thus far that makes me have conviction that he is a potentially great coach.. I do like some of his clock mgt.. he didnt select these players so he didnt really know what their good and bad at, so the eval is incomplete, can only give him more time to find out. Every coach deserves the year to figure out what they have and how to use it.
I'll check the pff stats when I get home but I know for a fact that Pouncey is rated higher on there this year (1st overall) than he was last.
I wholeheartedly agree with all of that with the exception of the onside kick thing. Don't get me wrong. It's one of the dumbest things that I've ever seen us do. I believe that that was Rizzi's doing, though. Quite frankly, the only coach on our team that I think is doing a good job is Coyle.
Fire Philbin and release Tannehill. Keep hire coaches and picking Qbs until one shines their first year.
I've said this before, but this team has been mediocre essentially my entire life as a fan. And seeing as how I don't have the desire to drive down to Miami and torch everything after every loss and ***** and moan because we aren't in the playoffs, then yes it does bother me. I don't see the point in creating turnover in an organization just because we aren't being an instant success like everyone else. Joe Philbin isn't coach of the year fire him. Ryan Tannehill isn't playing like Andrew Luck and may actually need a year to develop draft Barkley. That's a sure fire way to never be more than mediocre. Even if they lose to Jacksonville and/or Buffalo I'm still willing to give him another year to at least get a chance to put his plan in place. And as for hiring a first time head coach, that doesn't bother me. Everyone has to get their start somewhere.
I'm not sure why I feel the need to correct this but Sherman Lewis was an OC before in the NFL... not just a bingo announcer
because it took a guy off the field better suited to recover a fumble then our punter and it confused nobody.
I've been watching football for a while and I don't remember ever seeing the inside guy (i.e., the guy lined up right next to the kicker) recover an onside kick. Have you? That inside guy is generally pretty irrelevant, especially if the kick is designed to go almost all the way to the sideline. I'm not sure how you know if confused nobody either.
Let me preface by saying that it was also dumb to essentially waste 10 seconds by running a play before kicking a field goal prior to the onside kick. He should've made the field goal or scored the touchdown. If we had actually gotten the kick back, only to run out of time, this really would've taken the cake. The onside kick. I know it didn't fool you. I've seen you post intelligent things on this website before. I know that you know what you're talking about. It didn't fool us, armchair coaches of the year, so why would it have fooled coaches and players getting paid millions of dollars to understand and play the game? Nevermind the fact that Fields AND Carpenter were on the field and the Patriots called a timeout, only for us to roll out with the same, stupid idea. You knew it was coming the second the two of them got on the field together. Then, the actual kick, there were probably a solid 3 seconds between when Fields stopped and Carpenter actually kicked the ball. The whole thing was absurd.
We don't know much. At this point, it's all just a bunch of educated guesses, with some being more educated than others. I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that he should be fired after this season. I suspect the research you suggest would show that the average record for a first time coach taking over a 6-10 team is probably about 6-10, with some doing better and others doing worse.
