I dn't think we agree very often, but I agree with this. Jeff Ireland had major problems putting a complete team together to fit the ideas of his coaching staff, but he didnt necessarily have a bad eye for talent at several positions. He had several failures, but he had several successes too
I thought Ireland was a terrible GM when he was here and I still feel that way now that he is gone. As far as Philbin and Hickey are concerned, I think Philbin is now the coach because no decent head coach wanted to take the job because he would have had to deal with the players Ireland drafted and signed in free agency. I hope he proves me wrong, but I think 2014 will be Philbin's last year as the Dolphins HC because I just don't think he is very good at his job. Hickey got the GM position because the better candidates did not seem to want to be stuck with Philbin and Ross didn't want to give the GM the power to fire the head coach. I hope Hickey works out but I just have the feeling that this team will not become a consistent winner again until Ross sells the team to an owner who actually has an idea how to hire the right personnel to turn this organization around. I do feel Ross wants a winner in Miami. I just don't think he is an owner the top football people in the NFL want to work for.
As much as, "the fan that sticks to the Dolphins no matter what and believes this is the year" doesn't want to believe that, the seasoned fan in me says your post is most likely spot on. Ross needs to sell to someone more connected to bringing the Dolphins back to an organization committed to integrity, class, and of course winning. Not winning at all costs like DeBartolo Jr. or the Jerry Jones heavy handed type either. I know its a tall order but please tell me there is at least one billionaire out there with the type of personality I'm talking about. Again the relentless fan in me says there is and the future is bright.
I would love for Mickey Arison to buy the Dolphins. He has shown as the Heat owner that he knows how to hire the right individuals to lead an organization to the top. His son now basically runs the Heat organization along with Riley, but I have no doubt Arison would be the type of owner who would turn this organization into a solidly run organization once again. Unfortunately he has never expressed any interest in owning the Dolphins.
So, can you finally get to that Crisis in the Ukraine and sort that out now? Its been weeks and all you've done is worry about your ability to find common ground with this guy............there are things to do you know.
I said more than once he left us w/ a nice checkbook. He easily could have blown all that money trying to make it or break it last year, but he didn't.
You got exactly what I was saying lol. It takes time to clean up after such a bad tenure as Ireland's so I don't want to hear ANYONE who swears Ireland was terrible saying Philbin or Hickey should be fired anytime soon.
She is a pro model and is extremely well represented on the internet. Czech Republic is a hotbed of female beauty. Maybe more per capita than any country on Earth. Well, all of Eastern Europe really. Seems like Czech Rep is more high profile with it though.
If you need time to "clean up" from a .500 team you don't belong in the job you have. Hickey almost certainly shouldn't be on the firing line immediately on his own merits, but Philbin not only shouldn't be immune, he shouldn't be here any more. He's got nothing to contribute besides management in a very narrow sense. He's not a scheme guy, he's not a motivator, he isn't even really an ideas guy. He's a middle manager, a guy who is going to set up practice schedules well. Which does sweet **** all without the other stuff
Honestly I don't think many Dolphin fans care if you want to hear it or not. This will be Philbin's third year as the teams head coach and therefore it is playoffs or look for a new job, as far as I am concerned. I believe if Ross had fired Ireland at the same time he fired Sparano, the Dolphins would be much further along in their development. I also think that Philbin would not have been hired in that case. The Dolphins were stuck with Philbin because no quality head coaching candidate wanted to work with Ireland. The problem with the entire organization is that Ross first refused to get rid of Ireland three years ago and this past off season he refused to give the new GM the power to have any influence over the firing of Philbin or the hiring of a new head coach. So that means the best they could do for the GM position was Hickey. A man who has been in the personnel department of the Bucs for nearly 2 decades and yet was never offered a GM position with any other NFL team in all those years. The major problem with this organization is an owner who really doesn't have a clue how to put together a first class leadership for the football team. That is why I don't see this team being any better than mediocre or worse as long as Ross remains the majority owner of this team.
The NFL isn't the NBA...you can't just go out and pick up Lebron James or Shaq on aisle 3 next to the canned goods.
Romanian girls are pretty. Italian babes OMG. But the Swiss cheerleading team would be hypnotizing. Spain, Greece, Finland, I'm sure would field respectable teams. I don't think the Middle East is going to come out well in this competition. Or the Egyptians...dry skin ya know. And if South America or Asia gets involved its anybodies game. I almost dissapeared in Australia. Maybe we should start a new thread to decide which nation, other than California that is, would field the hottest cheerleaders team. And American rules football team. Don't look at me. I'm too drunk to drive.
As much as you guys probably won't believe this: I've really enjoyed not talking about Jeff Ireland these past few months. It's been very therapeutic. That said, as much as I joked that he would never find a job - he does have a skill set valuable to NFL teams. He's not completely devoid of talent evaluation skill. He was just pretty terrible at building a complete NFL team and was a complete **** of a person who also lacked the necessary people skills for the job. Now that he's with another team I hope he has a few more very public embarrassments in him.
I think the story here is not that he was hired, but who hired him. Either with McGloughlan's sudden departure, Ireland was the only person available with current knowledge of the players in this draft... OR His evaluation skills aren't viewed as poorly around the league as they are here.
OR As someone else suggested earlier, they want to have a look at his projections and then draft the exact opposite of that.
Or maybe he reached his level of incompetence being an NFL GM, but this type of position now is exactly what suits him. Ireland was the poster-child of mediocrity as a Dolphins GM, however if I were a Seahawks fan I can't say it would upset me to have a former GM as a draft consultant for my team.
This is exactly what type of job Jeff Ireland is qualified for. This is what most of the rational Ireland "detractors" stated for the past 3+ years. That he should not be a GM and instead in the sort of role he just got hired for.
Which is bad. The goal in the league isn't to be above the bottom, it's to make it to the playoffs. If you don't make the playoffs for five years that's bad. You didn't even make it to the dance. That said he's not Matt Millen level bad. So he has a job in the league. We all thought with the Parcells shackles finally taken off of him, we'd see the real Ireland unleashed. Yet it was a bit more of the same ...
Well, I'm a big fan of Dion and Jamar, I also am one of the very few who think Dallas Thomas has a chance to be a solid guard.. I hope he left us with his best work.
He drafted completely different between the parcells era and post parcells era. The problem was he didn't draft for Philbin's (outside of Tanny) scheme and he left giant holes every year. If you pair, Ireland with a Rex Ryan, that would be a tough team to beat.
His scouting reports/evaluations might be good though. Like the difference between a game plan and calling individual plays in a game. They're different skill sets.There were a few positions he had massive trouble acquiring, namely offensive skill players, but he's put together some good pieces here and there. He just couldn't put it all together.
I didn't find the drafting too different. He still had the commitment to size prototypes etc. Don't forget it was the Parcells regime that drafted Pat White.
Tannehill, Clay, Martin, Jordan, Taylor, Davis, Miller, Thomas, etc. were never players Parcells would have signed off on. Pat White was completely out of character for Parcells, its why it was fumbled so badly. He had no idea what to look for in an option QB. Pat White is basically the exception that proves the rule.
The bold is contradictory. Pat White is a player Parcells would never sign off on, but that's someone he signed off on. Tannehill would be someone Parcells would have looked at except for the number of starts. I don't think the apple fell that far from the Parcells tree. Does Ireland take a QB that high, with so few starts, if his college head coach wasn't the OC? Maybe, we know he looked at Tanny before the regime change, but just not sure. In any event, I don't think his performance was Matt Millen level terrible. He did just enough to be mediocre, every single year. There will be variance, some down years, some up years. Last year had a chance to have an up year, but the team ate a chokeburger the last two weeks (thanks Philbin!)
I specifically make a point to explain that Parcells only drafted one guy out of his wheelhouse and it went spectacularly bad and how that proves he wouldn't have drafted any of the other guys, but you ignore that and say I'm contradicting myself? Ok....sure...makes perfect sense. Parcells had a checklist. It had four requirements. http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports/columnists/hyde/blog/2012/04/hyde5_how_does_tannehill_fare.html Tannehill missed half. And FTR, Pat White passed all 4 criteria. Sooooooo, yeah.......
"Ok Jeff, who do we pick here? Player A or Player B?" "Ummm I'd go Player A" "Ok...thanks Jeff" ---*** With the next selection of the NFL Draft the Seahawks select.....Player B"**---
How many seasons did Bledsoe start, and how many wins did he have? And he still hasn't gotten a college degree. Skipped his senior year too. 0 out of 4. Parcells' 4 rules for QBs is just window dressing for someone who rarely ever used it himself. It's a great marketing piece for the brand that is Parcells.
interesting thread, but then again, what does Seattle know about football talent? have they vindicated Ireland? lots of questions left unanswered with this move, suddenly re-emerge.
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Parcells Anyway, as I was saying, parcels has this checklist......or do you have more stuff to declare as true without any evidence?
I forgot John Schneider and Ireland are longtime friends, they go back to their KC days, this is basically just a friend doing another friend a favor.