Darlington: Ireland admits he made mistakes with the receiver position last year

Hah. Ryan Clark very similar. Except his problem was that Jeff Ireland essentially tried to bully him into signing a deal. He came away from that negotiations thinking Ireland was a rude a-hole. Chris Hope came away from negotiations sounding himself like the rude a-hole. Hope's comments I remember were like the absolute epitome of "Show me the money".

 

You have a problem with English? Not everyone can speak Oregon Duck.

 

A very general comment Fineas, not directed at you. Just that unless we know deep throat himself, we will likely not know the inner rationale for decision making at Davie. Coaching does play a part in how a guy works out no doubt. But in the case of the receiver corp situation, I think the coaching bailed Ireland out, at least last year.

 

I swear Ryan Clarks was also, "Show me the money"

 

Limey is bad? We stopped Scurvy by introducing Vitamin C. Stopped our sailors dropping dead. Whilst is a lovely word. Btw I'm ok with Ireland admitting he messed up as long as he recoups on his mistakes. God save the Queen. :-)

 

Maybe but there were never any quotes to that effect. He just absolutely KILLED Jeff Ireland afterward, talking about how rude he was.

 

As you say, we don't know what goes on behind the scenes, so we don't know if anyone bailed anyone out. I didn't get the impression that the coaches were pounding the table for the proverbial No. 1, alpha dog WR. I got the impression that they wanted some more talent and depth, especially when Hard Knocks was being filmed in the preseason, but that was also when Hartline was out too. If we are resigning Hartline for $6-7 million that tells me the coaches like him quite a bit. And I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't similarly like Bess. I think they do want to add some explosiveness, and I think they'll do that this offseason, but I don't know that the coaches were real eager to add an alpha receiver last year.

 

I guess if you look at the "Green Bay" offense and I remember a number of posts about that when Philbin was hired, that offense was thougth to function without necessarily requiring a "alpha" receiver. If I recall correctly, it could function utilzing receivers who ran great routes, and had very good hands. I view Hartline and Bess as meeting that description. I still think that offense would need a deep threat, and I think Green Bay would want the same. I think when Green Bay drafted the kid from Kentucky they had that in mind. My feelings are that Ireland still missed the boat on the receivers. That is just my opinion. The guys he assembled didn't fit the bill for route running or hands, or speed for that manner. Right now I would take a Jennings in his prime over a Wallace. As I look at the draft I like the Pattons, Williams and Baileys of the draft. Good routes, good hands. But I do like Mr. Austin.

 

It's clear Clark doesn't like Ireland, but I don't recall him saying anythign about him being rude. He said he didn't think he was a "good guy." Circumstantially, it looks like Clark was just leveraging the Dolphins to get a better deal from the Steelers. We had supposedly reached a deal and then Clark's agent said he "changed his mind." Meanwhile, Clark said "My plan was to retire a Steeler," Clark told Anderson. "It took a little longer than I wanted it to get this deal done. But I think in the end, both sides got what they wanted." This is just a guess, but it may be that Ireland got pissed when it appeared he had been played and said somethign to Clark to that effect. And Clark was pissed enough about that to be tweeting about how Ireland isn't a "good guy" more than a year after it all went down.

 

Looked it up, I guess I combined them into the same person

 

Again, we don't know. It doesn't seem likely to me that the brand new HC was clamoring for WRs and Ireland just ignored him and waiting until the late rounds of the draft to even draft one. I think Ireland very much sees his role as serving the desires and schemes of the HC. I like Rishard Matthews and think he'll be a solid player.

 

"I think Ireland very much sees his role as serving the desires and schemes of the HC. " I sure hope so Fineas.

 

I could have sworn he was steady *****ing about Saban's attitude.

 

Yeah whatever the deal was with Clark, if it was about money, he didn't say so like Chris Hope did. He just talked about how much he didn't like Jeff Ireland. He did this openly and then later he also spoke "anonymously" (it was pretty obvious who it was, IMO) to another journalist.

 

You might be like Dupree kind of amalgamating the two players. Chris Hope as I recall was straight up "show me the damn money" and his griping about the Dolphins was based on how they did NOT show him the money and instead tried to woo him with all this talk about a storied franchise and blah blah blah.

 

I don't think Chris Hope was here as a FA since Ireland has been here. He went to Tennessee in 2006 and was there through 2011. Last year he signed with Atlanta but I don't recall him coming here for a FA visit last offseason.

 

I distinctly remember him saying something along the lines that he was a grown *** man, and he's not going to be treated like that, in reference to Saban. I just did a search and found...nothing, but dammit I know I remember it.

 

I know, I was talking Saban.

 

The important thing this off season is the purse strings, the sales pitch, and the appeal of the area (and no state tax) need to come together at the same time like an irresistable aroma. And keep Dawn Aponte out of the negotiations (lol).

 

I remember something along those lines but he was talking about how he's not going to be impressed with rah-rah stuff or stuff about the franchise's history or something like that. I do remember the absolute jist of his rant was that he wanted Miami to show him the money not give him a speech about how he's going to help them build something special, etc.

 

I do remember him finding it insulting.

 

And he said it in the 3rd person. "Chris Hope don't care about no tradition, Chris Hope just wanna get paid."