If you could only fire one, who would you let go? Philbin or Ireland?

Sure, but the argument was posed that retaining Jeff Ireland would cost Ross financially. Either way, I don't think theres anything extreme about the argument, it is pretty simple.

Not if you control what he spends on?

 

Thats exactly how I would feel.

I think its also important to explain why we are used to it.

Being a fan makes us believe we have a say so, but after a period of time we simply realize it just isn't so. I really doubt even an entire season of a home stadium empty would change things.

 

That is exactly the reason Ireland needs to be replaced. He has been the GM for six years and has had complete control over player personnel decisions for the past three years. Yet even as you admit, this team really isn't that talented. They aren't that talented because the person selecting the talent for this team has done a poor job of selecting quality talent since he came to Miami in 2008.

So I don't believe Dolphin fans want change for change sake, as you suggest. Those of us who want to see Ireland replaced hope that the next GM will be better at selecting quality talent than Ireland has been in the past six years. Ireland is great at selecting talent that will win enough games during a season to finish around the 500 mark. We just want and expect more from this team and organization.

As far as Philbin goes. I don't care one way or the other if he goes or stays. The problem with this team is the overall talent on the roster and perhaps if Philbin stays with a new GM, he would be a better coach with more talented players on the team. If he stays and the team fails to reach the playoffs in 2014, I would expect Ross and the new GM to find a new coach at that time.

 

Ross is a Billionaire and claims he wants to build a winner here in Miami. So a few million dollars to fire Ireland and the scouting staff and bring in a new GM and staff should be nothing for him financially.

As far as not knowing what results would happen if these changes are made is concerned. Teams make these type of changes all the time. Some times they work out, other times they don't. After 6 years of Ireland as this teams GM, and a losing record after those 6 years, it is time Ross spends the money to make this change and hopefully the next GM will be the GM who turns this team around by selecting better overall talent for the roster.

It should be noted that Ross had no problem paying Sparano's remaining years on his contract and hiring a new HC, along with a new coaching staff under Philbin. So Ross has already shown he is willing to spend millions to get rid of a HC who needed to be fired. Now he needs to spend a few more million dollars to fire Ireland and hire a new GM.

 

Philbin and his coaching staff are way more dangerous to this team than Jeff Ireland is. This team could be so much better with good coaching.

Ireland(with no intervention or change in management structure) means you'll have a good influx of talent with questionable roster management, and at worst, status quo.

Philbin means your team will continue pissing away games it should win, ****ting the bed in the clutch, and a strong possibility a ruination of Ryan Tannehill.

 

The fans don't care about any of that and think the entire blame is on Jonathan Martin whom is a big homo or whatever. Maybe if you put it in a Jeff Ireland context it's different, but it has nothing to do with ticket sales.

 

One could only imagine what the fans would have done if Ireland cut Incognito in the offseason, after FA.

 

Keith, I appreciate the information and literature. They were good reads.

We just have a difference of opinion on this.

 

Philbin being more dangerous to this team than Ireland is a hilarious statement. Absolutely hilarious. Because we've been so safe under Ireland all these years, right?

 

Yes, a nice safe 56-59. Some people are happy with mediocrity because it's been so long since it's been otherwise around here on a consistent basis.

 

yep. sure was. exactly why I started a thread about it.

What does it say about a HEAD COACH who admits his team does not have it (swagger)

The joke was deflect the real question being asked which was

With the playoffs around the corner and preparation going into next several weeks games, how come your team doesn't seem to portray any confidence?

Was a good deflection and I have to admit it worked.

Then we went to Buffalo and again fell flat on our faces with piss poor preparation!!!!

 

But also in KB's world it is the fault of the GM for a players bad performance......not the player. It is also the fault of the GM for the coach not preparing the player so that he has the best chance at success.

 

Jim Harbaugh took over an underachieving team and turned them into contenders. We don't have those Justin Smith, Patrick Willis, Vernon Davis, Frank Gore, entire offensive line, Dashon Goldson level players they had.

Sent from my GT-P3110 using Tapatalk

 

I dunno...there are SEVERAL scheme adjustments, play-call differences, confusion-causing plays that can easily be instituted to mask individual deficiencies and take advantage of the other team's strengths/weaknesses...our OC/DC don't call them often.

Our RBs completely screwed the pooch on blocking, and for some reason I think they have the physical tools to do the job, they just haven't been coached into it properly.

For instance, running the ball directly into the Bills' strength all game long, expecting it to improve and work; allowing the Bills' safety to basically have a pro-bowl making day against our OL, and not changing a DAMN THING to fix it. There was no creativity, razzle-dazzle, nothing. I put that game SQUARELY on the coaches, with a sprinkling of player problems (Hartline's drop, Wallace's lack of aggressiveness, RBs completely sucking balls at blocking, etc).

Else why the hell would you even need coaches at all? Just load up a bunch of players and let them call the game...if coaches don't matter.

I honestly think our worse losses this year were a combination of poor coaching and poor play, but I lean more toward the coaching/game-calling being the bigger issues. The Bills and the Bucs looked exactly the same to me in their intensity and overall WANT to win...we didn't have it, they did. Our team often comes out ho-hum, another day at the office, in appearance, while other teams are hyped up and ready to kick some ***. THAT is on coaching and leadership, period.

Not saying Philbin shoulders all the blame, I'm talking about the coordinators and the other coaches. Maybe it's how Philbin wants it, and if so, then ya it's on him too, I just hope if he's around next year (which I expect he will be, especially since I expect we make the playoffs), he can see some of the areas the coaches/coordinators can improve, and brings in some fire-pissers to get it done.

 

At the time of this posting 91% wanting Jeffy gone.

 

So, some of you mean to tell me that our biggest problem has been coaching?

Nick Saban was 15-17 (.469) over two years. He's one of the best football coaches on the planet.
Cam Cameron was 1-15 (.069) in his lone season. This is truly the only poor coach this team had during this string.
Tony Sparano was 29-32 (.475) through 4 seasons.
Joe Philbin is currently 15-16 (.484) over 2 years.

So, you mean to tell me that Miami's problem during all this time is more coaching than talent? We just happen to have gone through three different coaches since the 2005 season with all three of them having essentially the same winning percentage.

Dave Wannstedt won 58% of his games during his time. Was he a very good/above average coach, or did he simply have great players (Jason Taylor, Sam Madison, Patrick Surtain, Zach Thomas, Ricky Williams, Tim Ruddy....etc) to work with?

I've already mentioned this data before, but here it is again. From 1970-1999, the Miami Dolphins were one of the top 3 drafting teams in all of the NFL relative to VAE (Value Over Expected Value) and ROI (Return On Investment). During that time, Don Shula won 65% of his games as coach, and Jimmy Johnson won 58% of his games as head coach. Since 2000 and through the 2012 season, the Dolphins have been among the bottom 5 teams in the NFL in drafting relative to VAE and ROI. Is it a mystery why the coaches the Dolphins have had since the 2000 season, with the exception of Dave Wannstedt (explanation later) have won only 47-48% of their games?

The reason Dave won 58% of his games is obvious. He's not a great coach. He's like the majority of NFL coaches that are largely interchangeable. Dave won 58% because he had great players that were brought in by Jimmy Johnson. When that talent base started aging, Dave had not done a good enough job of adding talent to that base. So, the talent base started eroding. The problem we have had since then is that we have not built the talent base back up. Look at today's team. We still don't have a lot of great players. We don't have a Jason Taylor or Sam Madison type of impact player. We don't have a player like Zach Thomas leading the defense. We don't have a back like Ricky Williams who is a bull and plays great in both the running and passing game. I'm not even convinced that we have a receiver as good as Chris Chambers was. We definitely don't have an OJ McDuffie type.

 

Yep...shame we don't have all those super bowl winning players on this team. Oh wait...

 

The problem is the Qb. until he get's "it"... doesn't matter who is coaching. Ask Belichek when in cleveland.

 

I think there is a good portion of us who want to see the season finish out..speaking for myself, I'd like as much info as possible when the end of the year comes.

If the dolphins would of beaten the bills and then the jets, it's pretty much the majority in favor of keeping that together..if we beat the jets on Sunday it really comes down to that one gross outing in buffalo that gives you so much certainty.?

So if we did beat the bills and jets you wanted to retain everyone?

 

I'll quote my masters program statistics teacher (PhD from Texas A&M 30 years ago, singularly rich as in independent operator since, from doing drug studies and the like), "Anyone can make statistics say what they want them to say, positive or negative...there's no better way to support or defeat an agenda."

 

I would keep Joe regardless of Sunday's outcome, and fire Jeff regardless too.

Edit: But, if they clean house I won't complain.

 

Go figure!

The loss to the Bills only served to open up weaknesses that somehow we had overcome. Sadly if we'd beaten the Bills, the OL and Tannehill's predictable cadence that McKinney brought up, might have been seen as less of a problem than is obviously was given we already had 51 sacks of Tannehill even before the Bills handed us 7 more.

In a way I'm almost glad for that loss as it had to make it obvious to Ross he just can't stand pat with Ireland and Sherman & the OL Coach (can't think of his name right now, it's the darn Chardonnay again), who IMHO all three need to go at minimum. ASAP so the new GM & any new staff can be fully prepared for the draft and FA.

 

That's a typical response from someone when statistics prove them wrong. Statistics show you exactly what they are. Statistics are objective measures of what happens on the field. Some stats are better than other stats. The people that think stats can be twisted to say what you want them to say are the ones that DO NOT UNDERSTAND STATS.

 

The fact of the matter is, and I don't think many Dolphins fans on here understand this very well, the players on the field are who wins and loses the games. Fans in general have created this illusion of control when it comes to head coaches. We always love to attribute great things to a great leader, and if things don't go well, then by proxy, we must not have a great leader. A leader is only as good as the people he is leading.

The GM is the one that is responsible for giving the head coach players to work with, and well, our GM has not done a good job of getting great players or managing the roster. We don't draft well, so we overspend in free agency in an attempt to cover up our lack of impact players that have come through the draft. Then, when those free agents don't pan out, we cut bait and overpay for some more because we still can't draft worth a quarter.

You want to know why Ted Thompson is a great GM -- probably the best GM in the NFL right now? He understands the value of the draft, and he understands that the more picks you have, the better your chances are of getting quality players. For example, if you combined all the trades he has made in the draft over a 4 year period, you would see that he traded a 1st round pick, two second round picks, one third round pick, two fourth round picks, a fifth round pick, a 6th round pick, two seventh round picks, and two disgruntled players in Javon Walker and Corey Williams......and he got 26 draft picks in return (6 second round picks, 2 third round picks, 4 fourth round picks, 4 fifth round picks, 6 sixth round picks, 4 seventh round picks, and Ryan Grant. The value he got in these deals was akin to him generating a 1st overall pick and a 7th overall pick out of nothing. He traded 9 picks for 26 picks.

 

It shouldn't really even be controversial. We know what level of talent Jeff Ireland brings in, for all his flaws.

 

What happened to Barry Switzer after he ran out of Jimmy Johnson's players?

 

Yeah. We know that Jeff Ireland has brought in 7-8 win talent. The team has 8 wins and will likely finish with 9 wins. Yet somehow, they are poorly coached. Somehow, if we were better coached, this 7-8 win talent would actually win 11-12 games instead of the 8 they have currently won. In some mystical way, the coach has more control over winning and losing than the players do.

Put Todd Bowles as the head coach and this team still has 7-8 wins right now. Bruce Arians? Still 7-8 wins. Mike Tomlin? 7-8 wins. Mike McCarthy? 7-8 wins.

With Gary Kubiak, this is probably a 3-4 win team. Houston has better talent than Miami, but they have been poorly coached for years.

 

We don't have the worst offensive line in football in terms of results or raw talent.

We've got one of the worst overall blocking situations, but that's got a huge amount to do with coaching. Running scheme over common sense adjustments and mitigation has put the team in this position.

Most all of those last minute games they've won have also been games they had 10+ point leads in that they've blown. Which is a coaching issue

(unless you believe that there's some sort of situation talent issue that has and will remain unidentified that causes the team to do well, tank hard, and then rally at the last minute, which some here apparently did)

He's been a bit better in some areas, and catastrophically worse in dealing with pressure, and you can directly link that to coaching issues.

I'd like them both fired, but if I had to pick one it'd be Philbin.

 

Which ones are worse?

 

Yes, sure, when your major, outstanding issue is the blocking issues, which are probably the singularly worst-managed situation I think I've ever seen on a Dolphins team.

I'm a big proponent of engaging any idea no matter its relative merits, but take the "coaching doesn't matter that much" **** to a Marlins game.

 

Yeah. Somehow, a better coach could scheme better to allow John Jerry, Tyson Clabo, and whoever they play at left guard to win one on one blocking match ups that they are currently consistently losing. A better coach would improve John Jerry's reaction time and keep him from getting beat off the snap consistently. 'pate seems to think that it is wise to keep 9 men in to block and have only 1 person out in route, because that's the only way you can scheme to try and improve the situation Jeff Ireland put this team in up front.

 

The only thing poor about the management of anything with this team is the management of the roster of this team. That's piss poor, and it has lead to the worst offensive line from a production and talent standpoint this team has ever had. Even Dave Wannstedt was able to patch together better lines.

 

The Cardinals are, easily.

The outstanding issue that the Dolphins have is the number of sacks, and the issue looks worse than it is because their dumb**** coaching of Tannehill has a higher percentage of pressures translated into sacks than anyone else in the league. There are 17 guys in the league being sacked at a higher rate than he is.

 

Oh, and if you think we have a hold on the offensive line right, wait till you see the hole that Jeff will create on the defensive line if he is given the opportunity to manage this roster once again. Jeff's MO is to throw money at a problem, which ultimately creates a hole at another problem. This time, if Jeff is kept, he will likely overpay for the likes of Michael Oher and some other free agent offensive lineman, and in the process, the team loses Paul Soliai and Randy Starks.