http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap30...oover-despite-woes-rgiii-still-a-firstrounder Has Tannehill going 3rd and Lamar Miller going 32. I thought Ireland was the worst GM EVER? Edit: Vernon too at 15.
He's not the worst GM ever, but we're way better off without him than with, which is what counts. And yeah, Ireland deserves partial credit for Tannehill, but Tannehill being at #3 in the do-over I think says more about how inept the Browns are than how good Ireland is.
Yeah, and I think we should credit the coaching staff for the development of these players, because all three were pretty raw coming out and all have made significant improvements since then.
Tannehill and Miller were good picks regardless of how well they panned out. They needed a QB and Miller was good value in the 4th. The OV pick is still as much of a reach as it was 3 years ago.
More to being a GM than just drafting. Yes he hit on a number of picks in the draft, but his 2013 FA class in particular was a disaster. I'm sure it was not just his fault, I'm sure Philbin had some imput too, and I defended him for a long time but in the long run we are better off without him. If he is so great, how come he is not a GM somewhere else now? Is he even working any where else now?
After we fired him, he got picked up by Seattle for a month or so as a draft consultant. He's now a scout for the Saints. As a GM, Ireland is a failure (we were not going to be a perennial playoff team with a team he created), but he's not a bad scout.
I've always felt our problem for the last 8 or so years has been coaching. Philbin and Sparano are/were both mediocre are best. Cam Cameron was just a train wreck. The only person on the staff I really like now is Lazor. Edit: All of his drafts with a lot of good picks. I still think his worst pick was Pat White. I hated it at the time and I still do. I think that pick had a little to do with what coaching wanted to do. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1481460-miami-dolphins-grading-all-of-jeff-irelands-drafts/page/7
He's a scout for New Orleans. Edit: Actually assistant General Manager : http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ts-job-is-actually-assistant-general-manager/
That article was written before his really bad 2013 draft. In 2013 his only good pick is Jenkins. Otherwise, everybody is a bust except Jamar Taylor (still a ?) and Dion Sims (average). And given how valuable the 3rd pick overall is, Dion Jordan is easily as bad (if not worse) a pick as Pat White. I'll grant you though that Pat White as a player looked the most out of place in the NFL among high draft picks.
Ireland wasn't a bad evaluator of individual talent. He was very bad at building a cohesive team though and that was his downfall.
Ireland was mediocre in the draft, at best, and mostly horrible in FA, with a few exceptions, he shouldn't be in a position to make those decisions, and he's not. Why are we still arguing about Fireland?
No, he has RW going 2nd, and another team taking RT at 3rd...so he wouldn't have been available for us at 8th...in that scenario.
I remember Skip Bayless arguing up and down that Brandon Weeden would be a better NFL QB than Tannehill...lol.
I do not remember many people being on the plus side of Tannehill. A lot of people thought he was a 2nd rounder.
I know Todd McShay was really high on Tanny and thought he would be a good fit for Miami and I don't remember what Kiper had to say about him. Tannehill was definitely a raw prospect and a huge gamble at the 8th pick, but I think he has been all that we could have expected or hoped for. He is only going to get better...
No way.. I think Tannehill was more or less the consensus pick for the Dolphins at #8 in mocks before the draft. Here's a small sample from that time, but all have Tannehill going to us at #8: http://www.nfl.com/draft/story/0900...-mock-projecting-every-pick-in-2012-nfl-draft http://www.si.com/more-sports/2013/12/14/mock-draft http://walterfootball.com/draft2012.php http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...draft-breaking-down-espn-gurus-latest-edition That's why I think that while Ireland should get some credit for picking Tannehill, you can't give him too much credit (for talent evaluation in this case) because almost any other GM would have done the same in our position.
I said then, and I still stand by it, that at the end of their careers RT3 was going to be a higher rated QB than RG3 and Luck and every other QB taken that yr. He already has every other QB other than Wilson (got a lot of work to do there) and Luck beat out. We'll see this yr I think if maybe I might be as smart as I think I am. I doubt it. Not because I doubt RT3, but because it would be REALLY flippin hard to be as smart as I think I am.
Any GM that could have pulled that off would have been a genius (for that draft), even if Wilson was taken in the 2nd.
Hickey and Tannenbaum have demonstrated both "addition by addition" and "addition by subtraction". Love our FO (except for Philbin).
Those "consensus" picks are often the result of the numerous reports that Miami and Ireland had been all over Tannehill since before the previous draft. I have no doubt that if those reports had been about Wilson or Weedon then they would have been the "consensus" pick for Miami as well.
No.. it's more than that. In almost every draft prospect ranking for the 2012 draft, Tannehill was #3 at the QB spot, after Luck and RG3. Examples: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/prospectrankings/2012 http://www.nfl.com/draft/story/0900...e-mayocks-top-100-nfl-draft-prospect-rankings http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ig-board-ranking-the-top-100-prospects/page/3 In terms of absolute ranking, you see Tannehill as a prospect between 10-25 in the 1st round. What pushed him up to #8 is just the fact you had 3 QB starved teams in the top 10 that year.
We've passed on QBs before (alot!). A ton of teams that you think should take a QB pass every year. So it's obvious that not every GM in a similar situation would have taken Tannehill at 8. What pushed Tannehill up to #8 was that we had a GM who had been infatuated with him for over a year. I don't agree with not giving Ireland the full credit for making the pick.
Never said every GM would do the same. It was just by far the most likely thing a GM would have done in our situation. Reasons are obvious: 1) Dolphins were QB starved, 2) almost all QB prospect rankings put Tannehill at #3, and 3) Tannehill was there when we picked and Luck and RG3 (the "consensus" top 2 QB prospects) were already gone. Also, mocks often aren't created to predict what will occur, but instead show what the person creating the mock draft thinks should occur. So I don't even agree with you that Tannehill was mocked at #8 because everybody thought that would happen. Finally, even if all those arguments are ignored, Ireland can't get all the credit. You have to give some to Sherman and Philbin.
I think you're right that most people aren't consistent when it comes to giving credit vs. assigning blame, but that's a separate question from how much credit/blame should be given. When consistency does matter, the only discrepancy between how much credit vs. blame is given for the same act, but with different outcomes, should depend only on the difference between the benefit (in this case to the team) of being right vs. the cost of being wrong. Those are often different.
In the end it's ultimately Ireland's call. I know that Philbin specifically mentioned Dion Jordan as his favorite player in the draft to Ross (as did Ireland). I also know that the coaching staff recommended Wallace, Ellerbe and Wheeler as FA targets that year. I don't know what Ireland's opinion of those guys was, but I know the coaching staff wanted them specifically and that Ireland was emphasizing working more cooperatively with the coaches that off-season. But almost everyday I was reading posts blaming Ireland for those picks/signings. In a fair world the coaches probably deserve most of the blame for those FA misses and half of the blame for Jordan. But it's the nature of the job. Ireland gets all the blame for the misses. He should get all the credit for Tannehill.