This. All day this. People freely credit him with things that happened while Parcells was around but...Absolutely. Refuse. Criticism. For anything that happened that was bad. Why? Because "we can't know..." This phenomenon is MUCH more irrittating than Jeff Ireland's personnel management itself, which I've always stated is more of a 3 or 4 out of 10 than it is a 1 out of 10.
I don't think I've blamed Parcells for bad drafts or FAs (maybe I have), outside of potentially Pat White. But regardless, what I think shouldn't matter in regards to your opinion. If you want to blame Ireland for the draft and FA his entire tenure, then you should indeed credit him for 2008. If they're worse than 8-8, no he shouldn't be retained. If 8-8, I'd need to see what other circumstances were involved before deciding yay or nay, because 8-8 is still progress over last year.
I hesitate to call 8-8 progress. It's a made field goal or weird bounce of the ball. Progress is 10-6 and being in the playoff hunt till the end.
I'll accept getting to the playoffs and NOT getting blown out when we exit. It's been nearly 20 years since the Dolphins exited the playoffs competitively.
I have no problem with you giving Ireland credit for 2008, as long as you don't blame Parcells for all the bad drafts and free agent flops during his three years with the franchise. Like you, I think Ireland has been involved in all these selections since his time as the teams GM. Of course this means that Ireland is the only GM in the NFL who has been with the same team for the last four years and the team has not had at least one winning season. 8-8 would not be enough improvement for me to justify Ross keeping Ireland. Especially when you consider the amount of money Ireland spent to upgrade the roster. Hopefully Ireland and this team will be a success in 2013. I plan to attend all the home games in Miami and the game in New Orleans, so I certainly hope I won't be wasting thousands of dollars on another sub 500 team. I just continue to have my doubts concerning Ireland as a GM, but he is still here and I will have no problem admitting I was wrong about him if this team wins at least nine games this season. I think they will probably finish the season 7-9 again, but I look forward to them surprising me.
To me Jeff Ireland gets credit for everything including helping turn a 1-15 team into an 11-5 team. But he also gets credit for the bad drafts, bad free agency signings, bad trades, and the ensuing 27-38 record after the 11-5 start. He gets credit for Randy Starks and he gets credit for Pat White. He gets credit for Chad Pennington and he gets credit for Chad Henne. When you balance it all out, I don't think the team has managed its personnel very well.
as much as I support Ireland, if we're not above 0.500, then yes, Ross needs to consider replacing Ireland. The caveat is if we get hit with major injuries to guys like Tannehill, Wallace, Keller...
By definition, 8-8 would be progress. But like I said, I wouldn't keep Ireland just because of 8-8. I'd need to look at other factors too (and I'd probably lean towards not keeping him).
I can't see spending a #2 pick on a LT and then the following season moving up in the first round to draft another LT before giving the previous LT a chance to play and grow into the role. Also, despite all the negative press and impatience with Martin, he has done much better in the role than pundits and fans expected. It's almost as if everyone is wanting Martin to fail just so they can scream "I told you so"... The team had to know what they have in Martin. If he can't handle the position. Then you draft or sign another LT for depth or to push him. As for Jordan, Wake is our sole star DE and is aging. There is no one proven on the other side or depth if he were to get injured. The pick made perfect sense.
The monkey wrench in the gear works on all this is the fact that Ireland's contract is up this year. That's what makes 8-8 a valid question. If he were under contract it would be a lot more certain that he'd stay on with an 8-8 record. Another thing is Jeff Ireland himself may decide he's had enough of Miami. I could see him thinking that he got off on the wrong foot with the fans here, had to build a team together with two other guys he doesn't even talk to anymore, and he'd like to start fresh rather than having to deal with the legacy of mistakes they made together, etc. He may also secretly not appreciate the way Steve Ross has structured the organization. And even though he HELPED pick Joe Philbin, there is the spectre of a rumor that his guy was Mike McCoy. It's tough for me to imagine a team out there just handing Jeff Ireland the keys a la Scott Pioli in Kansas City, but it does happen.
Mike McCoy incidentally is the head coach in San Diego. Let's pretend the Dolphins go 8-8 and this time next year we're as open-ended on the Ryan Tannehill question as we were about Chad Henne in 2010. Let's also pretend that McCoy leads a big turnaround in San Diego. If Jeff Ireland's contract is up, and some other team offers him full control in a manner he didn't have here...does Ireland start thinking to himself, you know what Joe Philbin wasn't really my choice, Ryan Tannehill wasn't really my choice, screw it I'm starting fresh with full control? Would have to be tempting for him. Just a thought.
Do you know why we had the money to spend in F.A.? because Ireland destroyed wasteful spending these last few years. Even the big contracts ireland has given are incredibly team friendly. I hardly feel Ireland is the best GM around. I'm not above criticizing him either, but he has restored cap balance. We've never had it this good with cap... Never. Shula, Johnson, Wannstedt, Spielman, Saban, etc.... Never. Ireland has freed us up to be very flexible and competitive in FA for years and years to come. This FA he showed he could acquire some great talent too. Even outside of the big prize, Mike Wallace. His drafting and priorities in the draft are still in question. I hated the Daniel Thomas trade up pick from the start. I hate that we continually pass on a number of skill position the team desperately has needed over the years, but he has been successful in some other areas. Not the total failure you seem to believe he is.
Reading between the lines of some of the things Joe Philbin and Jeff Ireland have said about Jonathan Martin, I think they're like a lot of us here...worried based on his poor practices, but cautiously optimistic based on his better game performances. They're continuing with the "best pass rushers in the NFL" defense that Mike Sherman started, when it comes to Olivier Vernon and Dion Jordan. It's laughably quixotic but that's what they're going with. Both Philbin and Ireland alluded to him taking a lot of lumps from them in practice. Philbin pointed out that he's done very well during the games though. That showed me that Philbin is seeing a little bit different from Martin in games as opposed to practices, and he's taking hope from that. There's an uneasiness in their language and a certain amount of affirmation by negation going on. Essentially they're just like the rest of us...waiting to see more and hoping for the best. He also gave a vote for Vaughn Martin in there and I believe he's implying that in his mind Vaughn Martin is on the 53 man roster. I found this from an earlier Barry Jackson note to be quite encouraging...
This is what bothers me about the trade up to grab Jordan. While I understand that position picked in draft has no bearing on whether or not an individual will get injured, it's losing the latter pick that has me concerned. Now, if Jordan blossoms into a great pass rusher and the injury doesn't hamper his performance (as this says he will be ready before the opener - I'm just more concerned long-term) I'll gladly eat my crow.Also, we need Starks.
Javis Jones had twice the number of tackles - twice the number of sacks - twice the number of forced turnovers - twice the number of tackles for a loss - played in twice the conference - was a 2-time ALL AMERICA selection and SEC defensive player of the year. Dion Jones averaged 4 tackles a game and under a sack a game in college in a weak conference. Jones goes to the Steelers and will become just another great player on the Steelers defense that seems to always have great players. Jeff Ireland had the resources and draft picks to really do something special this year and what it looks like we got was another "wait till next year". As much as you all love Dion Jordan - trading up, burning a 2nd round pick, to draft an average college player coming off shoulder surgery on the surface seems moronic. He basically drafted this kid on his height, speed, and wing span. Potential ceiling as many of you like to call it. Give me the proven animal all day every day. There is more to playing football then wing span and height. That being said, lets see what happens this season. I can see scenerio's where this team could suprise. Mainly defensively but not out of the possibility the offense shows some improvement. Our kicking game is out of this world and that plays well to our defensive strength in the terms of field position. The running game is a question mark, especially with the offensive line being one also, but Lamar Miller has a blazing speed gear that we haven't seen in a running back in a long time, if ever around here. So given above average offensive line play, a solid running game, a stiff defense, an incredible kicking game, Ryan Tannehill would only have to be marginally better to achieve this season. The problem is there are a lot of unknowns and many of them have to work out. Can Martin hold down Left Tackle, and can we fill his replacement at Right Tackle. Can Lamar Miller carry the ball 20-25 times a game for 16 games and if not can Daniel Thomas finally come into his own. Will Ryan Tannehill show improvement, or is he basically the WR we drafted with the 8th pick. Can the defense, who will boast several new starters come together as a unit. Can Brent Grimes come off major achillies surgery to be anywhere near what he was. This is Irelands team now, the roster is filled with his guys and if this all blows up, considering all the resources and all the draft picks he had to play with in 2013....WELL. On the reverse, if it all comes together, and we lash out 10-11 wins with this schedule, then I think everyone has to say Ireland was a success. We'll know early in this season, as the schedule is front end murder. If we can open up 3-2 or even 2-3, I think this show has a chance. If we open 1-4 or 0-5 (Priscoe), then a demoralizing momentum will begin, fueled by major disappointment amoung the fan base. How many of you can stomach another 7-9 season, especially considering all the excitement the FA check book and multiple draft picks going into the 2013 offseason afforded? Leave the book on Ireland open and lets see what develops.
If the Dolphins do go 8-8 and Ireland decides he has had enough of Miami, good riddance to him. I have no idea what job he would be leaving for. Especially since I don't see any other NFL team hiring him as their next GM. If they go 8-8 this year, that would make it five years in a row that he has been the GM of a team with no record above 500. I would hate to be the owner of an NFL team and trying to explain to his fan base why he would hire someone who failed in his previous job as a GM and who had only one winning team in six years on the job. Ireland only got the GM job with the Dolphins because of Parcells and I just don't see him getting another opportunity if the 2013 Dolphin team doesn't have success on the field. As far as Ireland wanting McCoy and not Philbin. I wanted Harbaugh in 2011 and Fisher in 2012. I didn't get either of them and I think Ireland was a big reason neither of them wanted to come to the Dolphins. So Ireland should be happy any HC wanted to work with him. Hopefully Philbin works out over the long run.
Why wait until the season is over to judge the General Manager? His job is basically done at this point. Now it's on the coaches and players to go out and win games. If the team wins then Ireland was a success but if the exact same team falls on it's face then he's a failure? That's playing the result, and it's an incredibly lazy way to evaluate a GM IMO. .
Since they have NO other option at LT on the roster, they have to try and hope Martin is the answer. Martin played okay against mediocre defensive ends last year. It was in the games where he played against the top tier defensive ends that he looked completely lost and overwhelmed. In the preseason, the starting players don't really play at the same speed they play during the regular season. We really won't know if Martin can play the LT position on a consistent basis until the regular season begins and he has to play every offensive down. I still think that he will prove to be merely a mediocre LT and the Dolphins will be forced to upgrade the LT position after the season is over. In fact I think their first pick in the 2014 draft will be a LT, unless Tannehill is a complete flop in 2013.
That makes absolutely no sense. It implies that winning and losing games has nothing to do with the quality of players on the roster. Yet we always hear it said over and over and over again, this is a player acquisition league, you have to acquire talent and develop it. On the bright side, your way of thinking on this is pretty emblematic of why the General Manager continually gets a free pass based on...well, still trying to figure out what it's based on.
I guess that makes every owner in the NFL lazy. Because it is always after the season is over and the teams have failed that these owners fire their GM's or head coaches. Results are the only thing you can use to judge a GM, because he is the person selecting the talent for the roster. When the talent doesn't perform, the GM and the HC should both be held responsible. Ireland has total control over player personnel decisions and therefore he is the one person who is totally responsible for the players selected in the draft and signed in free agency. He may talk to the coaches and the owner regarding certain players, but he is the one person in the organization who is responsible for every players on the teams roster.
And before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ad infinitum.
Ok, I'll bite - Out of all the seasons Ireland has been a GM here, he has acquired exactly TWO Pro-Bowl players. (Brandon Fields-Jake Long) Lets not even begin to talk HOF players. What more do you need to know? I could throw darts blindfolded at player BIO's and hit two Pro-Bowlers.
He was running the show, I don't give credit to ireland for that run, it's a ridiculous assumption. I don't think most are thinking that Ireland should get credit for that year, their saying if your gonna always say Ireland should be responsible for his tenure, well than include that year when you do, if your gonna take that side.
And I forgot to mention two of the new guys on the team, Mike Wallace and Brent Grimes...you're having to try awful hard to back-up your negativity with falsehoods.
Umm yea, that's how it works cheif. You think Ross let his GM give out almost a quarter of a billion dollars in contracts so we could have a 5th straight losing season? Whether you like it or not, wins and losses dictate job security. Ireland is in the last year of his contract, he's lucky to even still be here, considering there's already enough evidence to fire him with all the blown picks and bad FA signings, and last but certainly not least the losing records every year, also a new owner firing the coach he inherited but keeping the GM is a very rare thing. Ireland's time is up, if he wants a new long term contract, he'll have to earn it.
I don't feel it's indicative of his actual performance to use his Parcells-Puppet years in the equation. Fact is, since 2010, he's done well on picks, even better than the almighty heralded GM of the Ravens. We're 2 missed field goals away from this conversation never happening...
Let's base the performance of a GM on how well he has done his job on a popularity contest done by the fans.Reshad Jones must have had a forgettable year last year.
I'm not about to pretend Jeff Ireland hasn't executed some unqualifiedly good pickups. Jake Long, Reshad Jones, Mike Pouncey, Cam Wake and Randy Starks. These pickups were all great ones, and don't deserve any qualification. Then there are also solid pickups that don't deserve much in the way of qualification, like Kendall Langford, Brian Hartline, Jared Odrick, Davone Bess, Anthony Fasano, Richie Incognito, Sean Smith and Karlos Dansby. But there are really a bunch of guys that you've got to asterisk. You can't talk about them without putting up the asterisk. Chad Pennington was great...for ONE year. Then he went belly up, and he earned a pretty fair bit of coin along the way. Jake Grove was good for ONE year and Justin Smiley was also good for ONE year but both got paid a lot for that and then went **** up. You paid two 2nd round picks for Brandon Marshall and gave him in excess of $20 million to get two of the worst production years of his career, a bunch of headaches, and two 3rd round picks in return. Reggie Bush only gave two decent years before you decided he wasn't good enough for you, and got paid a handsome sum while he was here. Kevin Burnett same thing. Vontae Davis spent about half the time he was here sucking, collected $6 million, and then got traded for less than it took to acquire him. So I mean, 5 years here with about 25 impact positions (not counting STs) on the team every year, and to show for it we've had: 1. 5 unqualified great acquisitions that have given you 15 years of really good play. 2. 8 unqualified "solid" acquisitions that have given you a total of 30 seasons' worth of solid play. 3. A bunch of well paid to overpaid short term 'solid' options that tallied up to 11 seasons' worth of solid play, plus 1 really good one. So every year on average our GM has given us rosters with about 3 good players and 8 solid ones...essentially half a team.
For the record I don't think the Dion Jordan trade up was a bad move, although I wouldn't have done it (I wanted to do what the Vikings ended up doing, taking Xavier Rhodes and then trading back into the late 1st for Cordarrelle Patterson). But I think Dion Jordan will be an excellent player and no I don't think he's some project, I think he can make plays on the field right away. He probably won't go insane like Aldon Smith did his rookie year but we don't necessarily need him to.
I get a little tired of the non-stop Ireland bickering... Would it be fair to pick 3 random teams with a similar or better record and compare how their GMs have fared with draft picks and FA acquisitions over the past 3 seasons? How long would the GM have had to be in place, same tenure?
Some of this spottiness could be mitigated by hitting on a QB. But Henne was a fail, so it makes everything else worse, imo
The NFL's a funny business, though. Rick Spielman's GM stint with the Miami Dolphins was short but not so sweet. While having some positives on the organizational side, Spielman's tenure (although it has to be tied to Dave Wannstedt, as well) was an utter failure in personnel moves. Reviewing a few of his moves: Traded away Adewale Ogunleye for Marty Booker and a 3rd Round pick Let Todd Wade walk in FA with no good replacement In 2004 draft, traded a 4th round pick to move up two slots to select Vernon Carey, who would have likely been there without the trade (skipped on Vince Wilfork to select Carey) Other picks in 2004 draft: Will Poole, Tony Bua, Rex Hadnot, Tony Pape, and Derrick Pope... few if any, besides VC, made it thru Saban's first year as coach Traded a 2nd round pick for AJ Feeley Traded a 3rd round pick for Lamar Gordon Part of the Ricky Williams trade that ended up being questionable Traded for David Boston, who did nothing Was GM over a 4-12 season Yet with all that, a year after being let go by Miami, Spielman had a GM job with the Minnesota Vikings... where he seems to have done a better job. I think it's likely, if Miami misses the playoffs, whatever the record, and doesn't re-sign Jeff Ireland, that Ireland will find another GM job sooner rather than later. (And if he's not in Miami, somehow, he'll do a better job. Things just seem to work out that way.)
Ahhh right, since Parcells was obviously not hired to be a coach in Miami then what the hell was he paid millions for and why was there such a big deal made nationally about him coming here? Was he just gonna sit around with this thumbs up his *** watching his first year protege run the organization despite his lofty reputation being on the line? Gimme a friggin' break. Wayne Huizenga might have something to say about this. Wait, he did, back in 2007 after hiring Parcells. Cowboys VP Stephen Jones has something to offer as well: Perhaps you'd like to reread the above two quotes. .... or perhaps you'd like to read this one instead: Joe Rose has some input as well: ....and here's a fun one from Peter King: ... and one from the NY Times: .... and this enjoyable must-read snippet from Phil Simms & Carl Banks: Let me spell this out for you WADR: it's one thing to run your own show based on how you want to run it using your own philosophies, your own blueprints for drafting players, your own choice of coaches, and your own goddam vision of what type of team you want it to be. That's entirely different than trying to assist someone else's vision & criteria, especially when it's flawed & outdated and the coaching staff is putrid. Ireland faced an impossible task of trying to help Parcells build a successful organization around outdated blueprints, an ineffective vision, and two failures of a coach in Sparano & Henning, both hand selected by Parcells. What don't you understand about that? Seriously dude, what type of success do you expect from a team head-coached by Sparano, features a timid, outdated, ball-controlled offense built around Dan Henning, has a coaching staff that can't develop players for piss, and follows a draft blueprint that's outdated?! Even if Ireland hypothetically made poor decision after poor decision while under Parcells' rule, you have ZERO way of determining if the decision was poor because Ireland made it or because of the player blueprint, vision, and offensive scheme it had to follow. Because let's face it, that's what it all came down to---> a terrible HC + a crappy Henning offense + an embarrassing ST unit thanks to Parcells' hiring of John Bonamego. If Parcells weren't such a dinosaur and instead hired us a capable HC + an effective modern thinking OC things might've turned out differently and we would've drafted/acquired a different group of players to fit THAT vision & blueprint rather than having to wait till 2011 to do so.
