The Objective Case for Jeff Ireland

Pennington was able to change the plays that Henning called. He basically negated Henning. When I said that almost no QB could overcome Henning, the almost applied to a QB with enough knowledge and cache to be able to stop Henning from getting in the way.

 

And that's the difference that years in a system will get you.

 

What's messed up is here we are debating whether this drafting record is actually kind of good or kind of below average, and we're not even considering the free agent efforts. This off season they signed Artis Hicks, Jamaal Westerman, Eric Steinbach, Chad Johnson, David Garrard, Legedu Naanee, Richard Marshall, Gary Guyton and Tyrell Johnson. Tyrell Johnson, Chad Johnson, Gary Guyton, Jamaal Westerman and David Garrard were cut. If Eric Steinbach hadn't retired he likely would have been cut as he was looking like ****. Fans just WISH Legedu Naanee was actually cut. Artis Hicks now on IR with mysterious neck pain.

I suppose Richard Marshall is starting. That's a positive. That's a good 1 out of 9. WOOT!

 

Good points, and I completely agree..... and what you said is essentially why I haven't yet made my mind up about Ireland b/c I don't know how the team would've looked had it instead been set up around Ireland's own personal coaching staff hires from day 1 rather than Parcells'. Perhaps it would've looked great. Perhaps it still would've sucked. Who knows.
For me, this is the first time I feel the entire onus genuinely falls on him and will determine what he truly is about, failure or success. I like what he seems capable of defensively, but I have no clue if he has an ability to build an offense (however the drafting of Tannehill & the hiring of Philbin at least seem to be a step in the right direction from my eyes, but I still don't think that's enough to give him a free pass on anything).

 

Of course there's a balance on that. You don't want someone who thinks so far out of the box that he makes 10 mistakes for every one uniquely good idea.

Again, though, the issue here was that this was a 1-15 team that needed a quarterback. If you take the one who's widely considered top-five material, how can you go wrong? If he pans out, great. If he doesn't, then you just did what the vast majority of other GMs would've done.

And he did pan out, by the way.

Instead, we have the bozo move of passing on the top-five QB and taking a left tackle, while waiting till the 2nd round to get a QB. Backfire.

 

Well where are all the teams that are wanting to stick Chad Henne in their system? Why are teams not banging down Jacksonville's door to trade for Chad Henne?

 

Oh lord. The "exception to the rule" argument.

What's grandiose is thinking you're the GM who's going to replicate that kind of feat, and staking a 1-15 team's fortunes to that likelihood. Good luck.

 

I don't agree with you that passing on Matt Ryan was considered an "outside the box" move at all at that time.

However, I do agree with you that Jeff Ireland cares what others think. If Jeff Ireland didn't care what others thought then he'd not have sent Ryan Tannehill's tape around the league to get a bunch of 2nd and 3rd opinions and make sure he was doing the right thing taking Tannehill at #8 overall.

 

Fantastic point. GM is not only a 1 aspect job.

 

Pretty much sums it up. There's a whole lot more to being a GM than drafting. And Ireland has failed at all of those other aspects as well.

 

Do you think it's a bad thing to be in the position to have $40 million in FA money and slew of quality draft picks next year after giving Philbin & Co a season to settle in and first see how things shake out?

 

lol.

I'll answer for him.

Yes..it is a VERY bad thing to give 40 million of cap space and a bunch of picks to Jeff Ireland.

 

and we seriously have fans on this board that say we have no talent on this team....lol

 

Wasn't that particular fantasy centered around Chad Henne? I distinctly remember people claiming that Chad Henne put forth a herculean effort to thwart Dan Henning's will and play-calling.

 

Basing any sort of conclusion about players on these behind-the-scenes ideas is insane IMO. The chances that these explanations are correct are so slim that you have to believe you have some super power to be sold on them at the expense of the far more likely ones.

There's a one in a hundred chance this explanation is correct, but I'm sold on it. There's a 99 in 100 chance that Matt Ryan is simply much better than Chad Henne, but forget that one.

 

It's outside the box in that you're trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat. You have a 1-15 team with no quarterback, and you decide to wait till the 2nd round to pick one.

The conventional wisdom would suggest you simply take the quarterback with the first overall pick in the draft.

 

-Hicks was injured but wasn't looking bad prior IIRC.
-Westerman wasn't a poor signing but it seems you're disappointed that Shelby turned out to be a nice enough surprise to make Westerman expendable.
-Did it really hurt us to bring in Steinbach? Weren't you the one who said he'd be a good signing if he's back healthy [based on the film you watched]?
-Garrard was an insurance policy who got hurt and didn't look to be back to 100%. Did you have a crystal ball that could predict Tannehill's readiness to start as well as Devlin's surprising development? You make it seem like a bad thing that our QBs have stepped up enough to make cutting Garrard possible.
-Guyton & Tyrell Johnson? Do you honestly have a problem with us cutting 2 backups?
-What's the problem with signing a one year stop gap at WR in Naanee? It's not like Ireland or Philbin expressed that Legedu is the future of the offense and will immediately be given a 5 year extension upon arrival.


We obviously brought in guys we could walk away from fairly easily if needed, so I'm not sure why you're treating them as anything more than such. The only FA signing we were truly committed to was Richard Marshall.

 

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, Section.

 

At that time, no I don't really believe that to be the case. Most Dolphins fans didn't even want Matt Ryan. Most Atlanta fans didn't either. Unless the guy is considered to be Andrew Luck type can't miss, then there was a TON of reluctance to spend that high a pick on a QB knowing that you're paying him a ridiculous (ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous) amount of money before you even know if he's better than a coin flip. Just saying. It's easy to pretend that the mood now is what it was back in 2008 but that's not the case.

 

The rule that QBs who are drafted in the 1st round have better careers than those drafted later.

 

Water under the bridge type stuff now but we should have taken a QB.
Now we have ties with a very good LT that will want to be payed big dollars.

 

And I really do think that's an issue. Well, at least it is until I know we have a QB worth protecting. Until then, cart before the horse.

 

If Ryan Tannehill + Jake Long prove to be better than Matt Ryan + some other left tackle, then none of the Long-Ryan debate will matter much.

 

We were 6-10. Don't you think bringing guys that might actually help the team might have been a good idea?

 

LOL, so true. At least we're looking in to jake scott as an OL option (according to the Miami Herald). Figures theyd luck in to a decent player.

 

Alternately, if a decision was made to build through the draft, how exactly do you expect that to look like when it starts?

 

You might be wrong here Chris. You are going to give 70 million dollars to a LT.
Before QB development. Not real sure I would do that.

 

Except he'd get here and we'd suddenly discover he's overrated, and he'd be off the roster in a few weeks.

 

You neglected to notice that I'm agreeing with you.

 

I have read the low risk aspect of all these signings in free agency and I have argued that is part of the issue. Not getting much talent in that situation. The Dolphins are void of proven talent at this point. Do you guys remember all the criticism of the Bengals in regard to drafting and player development. Something happened in recent years to change that perception (winning). The Dolphins have had a decade of poor drafting and weak free agency. We live in an outcome society. And the outcome for this team has been an extreme issue for a decade plus now.

 

I think its quite simple really: its not as much as the players (though, I think Miami's players collectively might have some of the lowest IQs of NFL teams) it has been the coaching they've gotten.

 

Good question. No, I don't think getting ourselves tied up in big FA contracts would've been a wise idea considering the change in HC and schemes and us not being sure exactly who will or won't translate and who might emerge among the team amidst it all this year. Plus, our talent said we weren't a 6-10 team considering the 4 late-fourth quarter losses. When you begin a season in complete 0-7 disarray but have the talent to finish 6-3 with a backup QB and interim HC, there's a reason for it, and it's not b/c of lack of talent; therefore, IMO it's much wiser to let the team's money build up for a year so it can be more properly & precisely spent in 2013 after the team has had a chance to settle in under coach Philbin to where our roster can be better assessed.

 

Section pretty much took the words right out of my mouth. The thought of having all that go to waste because Jeff Ireland is completely inept at his job really sucks.

 

I didn't think it was even possible to spin cutting/putting on IR 7 of our 9 free agent signings. Easily one of the worst free agency I've ever seen a team have. And then on top of that, Naanee is absolutely awful, and Richard Marshall will soon make us wish we had Vontae back because he's not very good either.

 

Considering we wasted 3 years with Chad Henne and Matt Moore at QB, than yea, I'd say it does matter.

 

I don't understand why people would want to actually keep Ireland. What has he done for this team? I don't understand the allegiance to the guy.

 

So, hypothetically, if we end up with the better QB who wins us a SB, you'd rather trade that in for Matt Ryan just b/c Matt started his career sooner than Tannehill?

 

Why is it one of the worst? Is it simply b/c we didn't go crazy trying to blow FA money the offseason before a new coach and 2 new coordinators arrived?
Naanee is a 1 year guy, a stop gap, so I'm not sure why you seem to treat it as if we brought him in here to be a long term solution.

We'd have Vontae here if Vontae did what we paid him to do. There's no excuse for a guy being paid $10 million dollars to not bust his butt for his company. It's no different than any job. He was drafted/hired with a certain set of expectations and was paid ridiculously well to meet those expectations, but if Vontae wants to instead show up out of shape, not fully commit himself, not be a leader or lead by example, and not play with a higher level of consistency like what was expected when "hired", then we'll simply try and find someone else who will. If a player has been in the league 3 years and still isn't giving 100% then I personally wouldn't care how talented he is b/c I wouldn't want him on my team, and I wouldn't want to commit long term to a player I don't trust.

 

I think some just don't want to start all over again, it sucks because we never get stability in the front office down to the coaching staff and I'm sick of it. It will continue to affect the players and translate into losses on the field until it's resolved.