Pouncey is without a doubt a "start the play and finish the play" kind of guy. He was putting some of the big boys on the ground. He doesn't stop. I really like what I see from him. I also like what I see from Shelby, who is a rookie, but doesn't play like it. I believe he and Vernon get better with more time and repetition.
That would be awesome, but this is the sort of game we'd lose under Sparano so I'm a wee bit nervous.
Don't worry, Sparano is busy destroying the Jets with his wildcrap and timeout management. Philbin already looks like Vince Lombardi compared to that fool.
As usual, you're going way too far with the insight you believe you have about the inner workings of the team. You did the same thing in thinking Philbin is running the show, despite that Jeff Fisher wasn't hired precisely because he wanted to run the show. You need to scale back a bit on these "reaches" you're making into the team's infrastructure. When you look at the players who have improved, for example, the vast majority of them are young players for whom it could be argued that simple experience and development are the prime movers.
Meaning if he didnt pick one of those 5 players between those picks you would be griping anyways.....
Where are all the "Ryan is just average" guys right now? Ryan is probably the MVP so far. I love what we're seeing from Tanny, but Ryan is an excellent player we would've been lucky to have these last 4 years.
Nope. Safety and DE were areas of need. One of those Pro Bowlers was Ryan Matthews, another McCourty. Odrick was perplexing pick at the time. I know I'm not the only one who felt that way.
Man was his unit disorganized, he's got two major problems, one, he needs to make a change at his qb position, two, he needs to figure out how to steal a copy of mike MCcoys tebow offense.. Tebow may be the answer, but does he even have a chance with sparano calling plays?
I didn't remember if it was for Carroll or Jones. I like Carroll more than most people here do. He's still got some work to do, but his footwork is pretty good and he generally stays with his man. Ball awareness is what he needs to improve the most and I have generally thought that is largely innate and not learned, but I'm not completely sure of that. I thought Carroll played well on Sunday.
Sort of, Will Allen did eventually improve in that area over time so it is possible. I do like Carroll's game but think Ginn would be more useful this year.
I don't recall any public declaration of Henne being a successful pick. But there was a time when Henne was looking pretty promising and virtually everyone felt he would at least be a QB you can win with. There are many, many examples of GMs missing on a QB and keeping their job for many years to come. Ozzie Newsome missed big on Boller but has kept his job. Belichick and the NE braintrust missed on Kevin O'Connell (and maybe Mallett, although it is too early to tell) and are gainfully employed. Andy Reid and the Eagles personnel dep't missed on Kolb but are still there. Ted Thompson missed on Brian Brohm but is still in GB. Tannenbaum missed on Sanchez and Clemens but he's still there. Casserly lasted for 5-6 years in Washington after the Heath Shuler debacle, and survived in Texas for 4 years after taking David Carr. Matt Millen kept his job in Detroit for 6 years after Joey Harrington busted. Rod Graves has stayed in Arizona long after Leinart was banished. Jerry Angelo kept his job in Chicago for many years after Rex Grossman failed. James Harris was the top personnel guy in Jax for several years after Byron Leftwich got the boot. The list goes on and on. Missing on a 2nd round QB is not unusual nor does it usually cause the GM to be fired.
All right, wait a minute. I've been off the Ireland thing for awhile as I'm just trying to enjoy the season and Tanny's development, but your last paragraph makes very little sense. There is a big difference in a GM missing on a high 1st round pick "franchise" QB and missing on a QB when you already have a franchise QB. I give you that Ozzie Newsome survived Kyle Boller but he had already built one of the best defenses of all time and was coming off a Super Bowl win. Most GMs would survive in that scenario. And second, who cares that Belichick "missed" on O'Connell and Mallett? They have Brady in case you forgot about him. Same thing with Thompson. Sure Brohm sucked, but he already had Favre and Rodgers, so who cares? Third, how did Andy Reid miss on Kolb? He drafted him, developed him and then flipped him for a ransom. As for those other guys, maybe they should have been fired sooner. Casserly was a failure at two spots so shame on those owners. Same thing with Millen and his Svengali like hold on the Ford family. None of those examples really have anything to do with Ireland and his performance to date. If Tanny continues to develop and look like the answer then good on Ireland. He will probably keep his job and I'll hope for the best.
Excellent points. The one I'll disagree on is Kevin Kolb. That was supposed to be the heir to Donovan McNabb and I think Reid & Co. missed on him. That they were able to sell him for a ransom after they hit on Michael Vick but to me that's a separate consideration. But note that back in 2008 when Kevin Kolb was selected, Tom Heckert was the General Manager. In 2010, he left the Eagles to go be the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns and Howie Roseman took over. I don't think it's accurate to say whether Heckert did or did not "survive" the Kolb pick. He left before they could find out whether Kolb was a successful pick or not. Roseman brought in Mike Vick in 2010.
He was named Art Modell's Director of Pro Personnel in 1994, and when Modell moved the team to Baltimore he enticed Newsome to come with them by promoting him to Vice President in charge of Player Personnel. So yes he absolutely did assemble the defensive cast that won the Super Bowl in 2000. He was given the official title of General Manager in 2002, but the move was so insignificant and ceremonial that his lengthy bio on the Baltimore Ravens website doesn't even mention it once.
Shows you where we're at with this discussion when someone actually mentions the length of Matt Millen's tenure as GM in defense of Ireland. I mean, LOL.
Fair enough on Kolb but Reid still made chicken salad out of chicken bleep. I can't put that as a demerit, when they also had the guts to sign Vick when no one else would.
And in case you haven't noticed, this isn't really a thread about Ireland and his performance to date. A statement was made that drafting a QB who doesn't pan out is a fireable offense. The simple fact is that most GMs don't get fired for a miss at QB. I gave about 10-12 examples, but could have gone on and given dozens more. Ireland didn't have the luxury of having a franchise QB on his roster already. That doesn't make the Henne pick any worse. Logically, the O'Connell, Mallett and Brohm picks were worse because not only did those GMs pick bad QBs, they didn't really even need a QB in the first place! That's double dumb. Reid missed on Kolb because he isn't good. He redeemed himself for it by getting the Cards to do that stupid deal, but it doesn't mean the pick itself was a good one. Virtually every one of the "legendary" GMs has missed on a QB in the top 2-3 rounds. Some in spectacular fashion. Beathard took Ryan Leaf. Polian took Kerry Collins. Newsome took Boller. Belichick took O'Connell and Mallett (again, still too early to tell, but it doesn't look good). George Young took Dave Brown. Jimmy Johnson took Steve Walsh. Al Davis took Marinovich, Jamarcus Russell, etc. Bill Walsh took Giovanni Carmazzi. Ted Thompson took Brohm. Yes, not all of these guys are "legendary" but the point remains . . .
I know. We're certainly playing better than I expected, so props to all, but let's play the thing out.
None of this is really relevant. The debate here is when a GM drafts a QB in X round, what is the expected rate of success for that pick?
Agreed. FWIW, I actually think Ireland has built a good core, the problem is it's for the wrong era. If he can somehow adapt to 2000's football I think he'll be OK. This is one of the reasons I liked the Philbin hire. Oddly enough, it's also the reason I initally liked the Cam Cameron hire, but I digress.
I don't think anyone is expecting a GM to hit on every pick. I understand that fans tend to overestimate the amount of production you receive from the draft and free agency, but at the same time no one is going to convince me yet that he's done an above average job in 5 years, and since the bottom line in sports is winning, an average GM is more or less a failure. I will say I am encouraged by the development of some of the younger players and will certainly cede that perhaps Jeff may have had a valid point in placing some blame on the previous coaching staff. But his roster building has been questionable, and he's missed on a few too many opportunities to be where he needs to be.
However, I would note that Howie Roseman did the latter, not the guy that was the GM when they drafted Kolb. Roseman also drafted Nick Foles and he looked dynamite in the preseason (FWIW).
The fact that there's a move to list Belichick's "missing" on Kevin O'Connell and Ryan Mallett really shows where this conversation is at in terms of intelligent debate. Bill Belichick has Tom Brady in the fold and he takes a flier on Kevin O'Connell in the 3rd round, and this is considered a miss on par with Ozzie Newsome's missing on Kyle Boller. Words don't describe...THAT. And then to put the cherry on top hey let's also consider Ryan Mallett a bust even though he hasn't taken a single snap, even though he beat the media's darling Brian Hoyer, inducing the team to cut him at a time when several members of the media speculated that Hoyer could be traded for mid to high round compensation. Oh right, but there's a parenthetical that it's still too early to tell on Mallett, and that makes it all better. In other words, TAKE WHAT I SAY SERIOUSLY (but don't take what I say seriously).
I disagree. I think that's going off on a bit of a tangent. The debate is about being able to find a franchise QB when you're building a team.
Personally I've never felt Jeff Ireland was anything below a 4 out of 10 in terms of scouting and evaluating talent, and I waffle between that and a 5 out of 10. Honest opinion. I said the same thing to the WAARF people long ago and you can imagine they don't like hearing that as they're on the extreme low end when it comes to how good Ireland is at spotting talent. But there's a lot more to being a GM than that, IMO...especially when there's nobody above you that has a firm grasp on the stuff that you don't.
Reid has final say authority, that's true. But he doesn't do the legwork on the evaluations. He doesn't do the scouting report on Kevin Kolb, or assign him the priority 2nd round grade. I think he was heavily involved in the idea to sign Vick, but then I also think Roseman was heavily involved in that decision as well...because if you remember, when Vick left the NFL, it was widely believed that he had been "figured out" as a player and could be defended.
I'm kinda with you here. As I've said before, if he's put together a team that's solid running the ball and stopping the run, you'd like to believe he can assemble a team that has solid weapons in the passing game and a defense that gets pressure on the QB and and can cover. What spoils it, is some of the things you hear about free agents. The Ryan Clark business and the like. Many here have written that off, but I think there's some merit to it. I mean, even if you don't think it's detrimental, it can't be a GOOD thing when guys come away saying stuff like that.
Even folks in the business defending him point out that his problem is he thinks too much like a scout rather than the head of an organization. I absolutely think there's something to that. But I certainly don't think he's exceptional at finding talent either...and I'm not sure why people are stuck on the idea of firing him. If you fire him, you might not do better. You could bring in a guy that is essentially the same at evaluating talent. But the chances aren't really high that you're going to do worse either, and in the mean time if the guy you're hiring really can run an organization and do the things that Ireland lacks the ability to do, then you've probably got a net gain even if you didn't hire a guy that is better at evaluating talent.
A miss is a miss and O'Connell is a miss. He was a bad pick. Are you arguing otherwise? Look, I get it that Mallett was your boy. And I said, twice, that it is too early to call him a bust yet. But it doesn't look good. Mallett has performed poorly when he has played int he preseason, despite the fact that it was on one fo the best pass offenses ever. And let's not make this beating Brian Hoyer thing into some kind of great accomplishment. Hoyer was a UDFA who completed 51% of his passes as a senior and threw as many INTs as TDs. He was no special talent. And what kind of compensation did they trade him for? None. they just cut him. But let's pretend he's some great QB prospect because some media members speculated that he could be traded for mid to high round compensation and let's further pretend that Belichick was just so tired of draft picks that he decided not to do the mythical trade. And let's further pretend that there was at least one team willing to accept Brian Hoyer with no compensation to the Pats for a minimum NFL salary for a 4th year player. In other words, SUGGESTING MALLETT WAS A GOOD PICK BECAUSE HE "BEAT OUT" BRIAN HOYER FOR A BACKUP ROLE IS THE SINGLE MOST RIDICULOUS STATEMENT EVER MADE ON THEPHINS.COM.
You may be right. I'm one of Ireland's biggest critics, but even I have to admit that guys like Misi and Hartline are playing much better than I ever thought possible, and Tanny improves by the week, so perhaps in fairness I need to give Ireland a second look. But on the flip side, this offseason is so improtant for the future of the franchise, that it scares me to death sticking with the guy. I don't know what the right answer is, and I doubt Ross does either which is why he probably sticks with the devil he knows
I'm just curious -- what do you consider yourself on that 10 point scale? How do "your picks" stack up against Ireland's?
Jeff Ireland is like a serial solid player picker. Koa Misi. Solid player, limited to two-down football but solid. Sean Smith. Solid player. Jared Odrick. Solid player. Reshad Jones. Turning into a solid player. Brian Hartline. Solid player. Kendall Langford. Solid player. Hell, even Ryan Tannehill we're not sure yet if he's destined to be just a solid quarterback or something more than that. The stars that he's drafted? One was taken #1 overall where, if you DON'T draft a "star" player then you end up criticized heavily and probably fired, eventually. The other plays a position of limited impact, whose historical draft success at the spot drafted was as sure thing as you'll find in football personnel. The guys that are turning into more than solid, are some of the diamonds from the pro personnel department. I'd love to know who uncovered Randy Starks. Reggie Bush is turning into a homerun. Cameron Wake is a homerun. Karlos Dansby is still one of the league's best ILBs. It hasn't always been the case that we could champion the wins of the pro personnel department (in fact, at times, the decision-making there has looked abysmal) but right now those players are stirring the drink more than the drafted players. There's all kinds of ways to look at it. Jeff Ireland is responsible for the entirety of the beast but that also means he's graded in large part by the success of the franchise and the success of the players, and that means you do have to look at the fact that the team has a 33-37 record on his watch, and how that record and that success has seemed to take steps backward the more Parcells took his hands off the wheel, the more they successfully cycled out pre-2008 players on the roster, the worse the record seemed to get. You absolutely are answerable to that. You're answerable to whether there were any parts of the roster in any of the years that were just abject weaknesses, especially if the weakness wasn't a result of making the wrong moves, but rather the result of making no moves. If you make the wrong moves then you're the captain of the ship and you're ultimately the one answerable for it, but there's also a whole lot of folk under you going down for that one too, giving the wrong evaluations. But if you don't even make significant moves to address an obvious weakness...you can't chalk that up to the mis-evaluation of underlings. If you acquire guys that play as well as you'd hoped, but whose previous injuries and/or character problems tanked their career with you, I don't think you can chalk that up to the mis-evaluation of underlings. Those are top-down issues.
As I had said regarding Ireland, he had this season for his players to show what they can do and to produce. So far his players have played well ( some anyways ) and show signs of long term production , to me it doesn't change you evaluate this at the end of the season. This season may indeed show Ireland warrants going forward as the GM.
