can we please stop making excuses for Ireland now

That's pretty much how I feel. Ireland has been poor in some areas and good in others. He has sucked as a face, but he's added talent at key positions that the current coaches are starting to use. Like the FO, they've used some of the talent well and some not so well. The idea that the team is not talented at many key positions is just fiction. Reality is that this is an ascending team with a great deal of young talent. Respected talent evaluators like Polian and Casserly, who aren't carrying around the emotional baggage of the critics here, have stated as much. This team has excellent talent at QB, DL and in the secondary and at least good talent among the receiving targets. Polian specifically talked about building an OL, saying that it doesn't take huge resources. Miami already has a premier C. If it can find a couple of Ts, Gs can be manufactured. That's going to require both the coaches and the FO to work together as they obviously have. It's pretty obvious that the choices made in the draft and in FA were a product of both parties. All the choices haven't been great, but some have and overall the team has improved. Those acting like all the bad choices are the fault of the FO and all the good choices are due to the coaches are just placing blame where they want with no knowledge of what was actually happening. The coaches have repeatedly talked about how they've been involved in and working with the FO in player/FA evaluations. The decisions made at QB, WR, LB, RB and on the OL were most likely and obviously the result of those evaluations. It is a completely baseless fabrication to pretend that the QB and WR production was due to the coaches and the production of the LB, RBs and OL was due to the FO. It was all a product of their collaboration. It is an unfinished product of course, but it is also one that has a pretty good shot of making the playoffs this year and being at least playoff contender for several years.

I agree with Polian that the OL can be built. You can overpay to find some FA tackles (which we seem to have the cap room to do) and manufacture some Gs out of later round picks or from acorns (an area Ireland shown an ability to find talent in). The same can be said about LBs and RBs (they are often found among the later rounds and among the FA acorns). (I personally believe that there is talent at LB that just hasn't adapted well to the coaching scheme. They may or may not be able to do so). Now that we have key talent at QB, DL and the secondary and some playmakers among the receiving corp (WR and TE), it is easy to shift the focus to those other areas. Philbin specifically talked about the importance of being able to pass and defend the pass since the day he arrived. He also stressed the importance of winning the TO battle (He specifically talked about the need create more TOs going into this season). Those were obviously not the areas that were stressed while Parcells and Sparano were here. Well in Philbin's two years here there has been a huge upgrades in the talent and production of those areas. This is so obviously the result of the coaches saying we want certain types of players and the FO bringing in those types of players, many most likely being the exact, specific players the coaches said they wanted. So I can see some wanting Ireland fired b/c of his failing as the face of the franchise, but I see very little basis for his firing based on the talent acquired since Parcells has left. It depends on what you value as most important. IMO the talent acquisition fitting and being a product of a collaboration with the coaches far outweighs the face part. I think that area is far more important to those who want to win. In fact, I don't believe that anybody in the FO should be the face. I believe the coach should be the face like it was when Shula and Beathard were here and what you see in SF and others currently. I also think that we finally have a coach in Philbin who is capable of filling that role. I think Philbin has made some mis-steps in the Xs and Os but he has been rock solid as the face. Despite my disappointment in some of the game planning and adjustments (particularly against Buffalo), I believe that Philbin is developing as a coach and developing the kind of team he wants.

 

You're looking too deep into it. My point was that mistakes happen even at #1 overall all the time.