AFAIC, Saban is the devil incarnate. Any good things he did, which IMO are overstated (since even a broken clock is right twice a day} has been neutralized, if not negated by the classless way he and his classless, big-mouthed skanky wife slunk out of here once he was revealed as a mediocre pro-level coach. Rather than fulfilling his obligation to right the ship, he had his agent actively lobbying Alabama to chase the Benjamins. Any true Fins fan should hold this excremental specimen in the same type of perpetual disdain as we do the Jets, since he turned out to be as big an enemy and should be rooting for any team playing Alabama!
its a cat fish... These guys use their arms as bait... Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb5kEEcJqKM
IMO RB was a bigger need in 2005 than QB. Remember Saban thought we had solved our QB problem with the signing of Dumbte thus shoring up that position, therefore the need to draft was RB much so over QB. And remember there was not 1 QB in the 2005 that was worthy of the #2 pick and that statement is still true today.
I have to disagree completely. He did his very best to ruin this franchise for years to come. Prior to the 2005 season, the main problems of this franchise were: - No QB - An aging defense - A horrendous offensive line (no LT) - Absolutely no WR depth behind Chambers - An underachieving TE - Problems at safety - No pass rushing OLBs - No RB Not only did he manage not to solve any of these issues except the RB one (which was a no-brainer) - he also managed to create another issue by getting rid of Sam Madison and Patrick Surtain, leaving us with one of the lousiest CB depths in the league. I'm hard pressed to think of a recent headcoach who did as poorly as Saban did. Even Cameron - way over his head as he was - actually solved a couple of issues.
personnel wise, we watched some good players age, while adding some talent. but Saban did take a team with a terrible draft record, and improve upon that. but the best thing he did was take a team in salary cap HELL, and leave us in terrific shape. and fortunately CamRamuL didnt ruin that for us either.
But where's that "talent" now? Two years after Saban, there's only Vonnie Holliday and Will Allen left as qualitiy starters acquired via FA. That's two in two years - not a very good track record in my book, to be honest. And certainly not getting better when we glance at who's already got the boot. Shelton, Howard, Harrington ... To be perfectly honest (although that's not a popular opinion around here, I know), I don't like his drafts at all. He got one impact player (Ronnie) and a load of underachievers (Matt Roth, Channing Crowder, Jason Allen, Derek Hagan ...). I actually like Muellers single draft a lot more than I like Saban's combined. No, he did not. We weren't in good salary cap shape under Saban. In fact, we were one of the bottom feeders in terms of cap space. Mueller took us out of there by making a lot of unpopular decisions that Saban refused to make. When the previous FO got rid of all of its quality ST and rotational D-line guys, for instance, blame the results on Saban. He refused to give them long-term contracts and so the quality guys (Morris, for example) became FA when he left. Mueller elected not to resign them to finally get in good salary cap shape.
-theres also contributors like: andre goodman, michael lehan, and renaldo hill. and then we let kevin carter go, which proved to be a huge mistake in 07. - you're entitled to your opinion on the draft. while some would be brash enough to simply say, "No you're wrong", i acknowledge that its your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but i disagree. -and i THINK you are wrong. before Saban we were quite simply MILLIONS above the cap. after Saban, and even before the cba loosened everyones pockets, we were millions under. we were millions under way before he jumped shipped for Bama. camram cut guys like carter, bowens, and mcmichael, and did nothing to replace them. these were the areas that killed us last year. front 7, tight end, ST blocking and bodies...we got no production out of. bigger bodied ST guys. losing a morris didn't effect us that much, and still, morris was a saban guy, this regime let him go. you dont sign a sammy morris to a 6 year deal anyway. they could've resigned him. and they cut carter, he was under contract, but camram couldnt negotiate with him. that proved to be a big mistake. and bowens was under contract from a period before Sabans tenure too. Saban got us into terrific cap shape, in comparison to where he started, and where he ended. its not even debatable.
Here's my list of what he did for the Dolphins: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Sorry, imo he did nothing but reek havok here and make every one miserable in the process.
Saban signed a whole bunch of free agents to huge contracts, thats WHY we had to release guys like Kevin Carted under Muellers short reign, we couldnt keep paying the guys. Bottom line is that Saban did better than Wanny, but he didnt do anything to significantly improve this team that your average fan couldnt have done. His biggest issue was that tried to coach and run an NFL organization like it was a college team. He found out what many of us already knew, THAT DOESNT WORK!!! I wasnt particularly thrilled to have him here in the first place. Everyone started peeing themselves because he was from the "Bellicheck" coaching tree and he won a bunch of college games. Turned out that neither meant horsecrap really. He was every bit as much in over his head as Cam Cameron. He went downhill fast, and abandoned ship for the golden college land like the weasel he always will be. He is a classic "me first" guy, the ultimate "I" in a land of "team" and I dont regret his leaving at all.
I think Nick Saban was a high quality coach who would ahve brought us success if we had stayed. We would not have gone 1-15 under Nick Saban. Even though I was and still am a supporter of Cam Cameron I am an even bigger supporter of continuity and I think it's very much a case of "what might have been" when discussing Saban. He proved his credentials with the way we outright dominated some elite level teams during his tenure, remember shutting out the Patriots? That won't happen again for a long time.
Kevin Carter and Vonnie Holiday deserved those contracts at the time of the signings, and were awesome contributors to what was one of the best defenses in the NFL during Saban's 2 years. The part I bolded I'm gonna just assume you were just throwing out there and don't literally mean. If you go and read a lot of what the PLAYERS had to say about Saban, especially the vets, you'll see that they thought he handled things professionally and much differently than he handled college kids, and man-boys like Manny Wright. He completely re-structured a team and a system, fighting faulty doctor reports and key cogs(mostly scott linehan) jumping ship, fixed a crap salary cap and the dump of a franchise that speilman and wanny left, and in his first 2 years ended up 2 games under .500. go see what Bellichick and a lot of other "winners" do in their first 2 years. it isnt much. we can argue whether he would've been a winner or not in the nfl. i think a lot of his peers feel that he would have. fans obviously dont. but he had a solid system, but the daunte debalce(not entirely his fault), and losing linehan, was a huge set-back. in life, if you're not happy, fulfilled or your heart isnt into a job or a commitment, you owe it to yourself, but more importantly, you owe it to the other person/people to fix it. Saban at least finished his season like a man...and remained loyal to his team until the season was over and the 06' DOlphins were at a complete finish. what bobby petrino did is spineless and a joke. saban did not abandon us in a manner that left us in shock and shambles like petrino did the falcons. saban didnt want to be in the NFL. if you're heart isnt here, then get out. he did it the best way he possibly could have. he faced the music and trooped through it 1,000 times better than snivelling Petrino, who was doing that stupid razorback chant before either the R-backs or Falcons had played their last game of the season.
absolutely right. we should not have been 1-15 with the personnel we had last year. we were not that talentless. great post all around.
No I was serious, your average fan could have done about as well. They may have deserved those big contracts, but that didnt help our cap. They were short term solutions with no long answers that clogged up our cap, especially once it was apparent that we werent as good as we thought we were. There is a reason many of these guys arent on the team anymore. He DID treat his players like college kids. Some responded, some didnt. And it certainly wasnt the way you deal with the media and fans. And go ahead and say they dont matter, I dare you to make that claim. Guess what, in the NFL when they pay the revenue, they matter big time. He came in thinking he was a genious, a god among coaches who would take this team to a superbowl and never look back. He never even came close. If he thought his system would work after 2 years he wouldnt have left. He realized that it wouldnt and that he was overmatched. Thats why he left to go back to college. So he lost an assistant, guess what, that happens. He couldnt even come close to fixing it. And his biggest mistake btw, letting Ferrotte go. Next to Wanny, yeah, he does look good. Compare to any successful coach though? Please. Despite what some players might say, Saban quit. He realized that he wasnt going to steamroll the league and bask in the adulation of us normal folks, so he cut and ran. I have no respect for him at all. Comparing him to Petrino is pointless. Was Bobby a skunk and piece of slime? Absolutely, but that doesnt make Saban any better. I am frankly astounded that people here trully cant see how overmatched he and cam both were. I just pray to god sparano is better.
I think overtime Saban would have been successful b/c his defensive schemes were very good. I also think he had a good eye for secondary talent. However, in the time he was here he didn't do much that will improve the team in the long term. His drafts and FA acquisitions weren't great. Beyond a starting CB and a fairly easy selection of Brown I don't think he solved many future issues. And his salary cap management was nothing special. He made some cuts and he signed some band-aids but it didn't improve our position much. When balanced with the whole lying/quitting thing I think he did more harm to the Dolphin's legacy than good.
I really don't despise the man Aqua. He is just so easy to pick on 'cuz his personality is so hateful and grates on the nerves. I hear about him all the time down here, it's like he's always in my face. Nah, I don't despise any one.
I will give Saban credit for boosting the team's morale and attitude in his first season here, and that alleviated both the team and the fan's confidence in the team, after Wannestedt's disaster in 2004 nearly crippled this team. Of course, Cam would revive that pessimistic sentiment.
Please forgive me for not being awed by bringing in the likes of Goodman, Lehan or Hill who would struggle to even make the team on other NFL rosters ... Add to that that the secondary wasn't even in need of such "contributers" when Saban took over. I can hardly praise him for bringing in guys like that while at the same time getting rid of Surtain or Madison. Saban essentially traded or released the quality guys to bring in the leftovers of the FA pool. We let Carter go because we couldn't afford his salary. It was hardly Mueller's fault that he wasn't able to keep the rotational guys on the defensive line when there was no way to pay them. Not to say that I disrepespect your opinion but I'm honestly at a loss as to how one can call Saban's drafts "good". He only drafted a single playmaker. I'm hard pressed to name five teams that did poorer in those two drafts. Sorry, mate, but that's just plain wrong. In 2006, we were actually over the cap and had to waive Madison in order to get under. Then the new CBA came around and we were still amongst the bottom five teams in terms of cap space. We didn't do much better in 2005 either. Dunno where you got your information from, but they are wrong, I'm afraid.
even more of a reason not to draft a QB.. IMO Gus is a much better QB presently than Dumbte Good point non the less
I disagree, Gus was already a proven journeyman, and was clearly a short term answer. Given that, he shouldve fulfilled the role of manning the ship while we develop a rookie franchise QB, and while 2005 didnt present many opportunities at QB, we still couldve taken a chance and grabbed one to develop. We couldve traded down and grabbed Aaron Rodgers or Jason Campbell., along with another pick to solidify the OL. Saban instead took a Rb. Dont get me wrong, I like Ronnie Brown and hope he can stay healthy long enough to succeed. But I think this team was in such horrible shape back then that Saban shouldve tired to stack up more picks and pick up players that couldve been the foundation for this team to build on. Ronnie is a solid player, but one of the reasons he cant stay healthy is the long term neglect of the offensive line and having a solid QB. It has led Ronnie to being the only player on offense that can produce, ala Ricky Williams, and it has hurt his durability. I thought the 2005 overall draft was alright, considering the blunders of Wanny-led drafts, but Saban's 2006 draft to me, resembled more of the same from the Wanny years, grabbing players that had no business drafted where they were. Saban didnt make the most of the draft and overpaid FA that hurt the salary cap situation that Randy Mueller and Bill Parcells have worked to clean up. Looking back, Im glad Saban took off. Were much better off.
What riles me up is that there are two former fin QBs, rated above both of those guys. Sage Rosenfels & Huard are both ranked higher & should be. We should have kept both of those guys & conitnued to develope them.
the point my friend, is that in this modern FA era, what do you expect? a team who has been through two complete and thorough regime changes, with coaches and GMs bringing in "their guys".what can you expect? theres only 22 starting roster spots. some players were here before and during Sabans campaign. some Saban brought in and are still here. and some came and went. a good amount of his draft picks are still here though. but the argument that he didn't bring in a lot of FAs that stuck is kind of moot. nobody does these days. and quite simply, you're remembering your history falsely. before Saban we had cap issues. Madison's release had more to do the playing style and personality then salary. CAMRAM were left in a far better situation then Saban entered after Wanny. we let guys go, but we also dropped boat loads of dough on guys like trent green and joey porter. this is from the horse's mouth: http://nicksaban.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/my-january-4th-press-conference-transcript/ I mean, its from "Satan" himself, but he's not lying.
Rosenfelds would've never been the QB here, that he could be and is, under Kubiak. Some coaches can simply coach up that difficult position. Andy Reid is another. imo.
Letting Gus go was just boneheaded though. He certainly wasnt a long term answer or anything but a journeyman, but he was effective and effiecient and did what he had to to keep us competitive. Letting everything rest on a QB with a bum knee and a 3rd overall bust was just stupid. His personell skills were nothing more than average at best. His defensive schemes were pretty solid, but offensively he wasnt great, and his reputation with fans and the media by making the Phins camp a relative gulag never went over well. I think finsane hit the nail on the head. A decent first year (much better than Wanny, but hell that wasnt hard to do) but his second year was a dissapointment and led us into deeper problems. He thought he could take Wannys team, add a few pieces, work his Saban genius magic and win us a superbowl, but ended up going nowhere but sideways in the end. Then in came CamRan and made the exact same mistake. I cant believe anyone can argue that these guys werent overmatched. I would be excited to have either as a DC or OC respectively, they have some great tactical football minds, but as people responsible for running the teams each was a tremendous letdown.
Saban was more of an egomaniac then JJ,, if that is possible.. No if - SATAN (as I like to call him) was even half the h-c that he THINKS he is the guy would have thought long and hard before leaving LSU and robbing the Dolphin fan base of 2 possible playoff years! SATAN was an uprepared prima donna (still IS) that couldn't handle the fact that he basically was over his head for this h-cing postition before the ink dried on that exorbitant contract that WH offered him... As far as SATANs draft picks,,, Ronnie Brown imo is the only pick that he helped this team with and that was a no brainer.. I think that one of the main things that SATAN should be measured on is his signing of C Pep and the waste of yet another 2nd rnd pick.. SATAN himself is a WASTE and where ever this self serving jack@$$ coaches you can bet your last dollar that this Dolphins fan will be rooting for the opposing team! Count on it....... Marino1983
Never had anything against the guy. He did a decent job drafting. Didint boot Ricky. BUt when Alabama came up, i started to hate his guts. Still do )
I didn't argue that Saban didn't bring in a lot of FAs - I argued that he didn't fix a single issue this team had when he took over (other than the RB issue). No, man, you are. When we cut Madison (and Howard and McIntosh) we were more than 8 million over the salary cap. Madison alone was scheduled to earn more than 8 million. I agree that his declining play had something to do with it but Saban was forced to release a quality guy somewhere because of poor cap management.
we could do this all day and skew different points in time of Saban's campaign. my point is still that he took over and we were millions over, and when he left, we were millions under...with all our draft picks. i know im not gonna change your views. i think you're wrong, you think im wrong. agree to move on.
... with a new CBA that put everyone millions under. I completely see your point but I don't see how you can credit Saban for something he had absolutely no involvement in. Without the new CBA, we'd have been millions and millions over. After the new CBA, even notorious cap-ignoring teams were in pretty decent shape. The new CBA saved our butt salary cap wise, not Saban. But yeah, let's move on
