Is our weakest link the head coach?

Might be true but I think a lot of San Fran fans hated Harbaugh. Hell, a lot of Seattle fans wanted Pete Carroll fired midway through 2012. But I think it depends on the fan base, and it seems to me the fan bases that were once cheering for a dynasty have the least amount of patience. And it never seems to wear off as we saw with San Fran fans. Nothing is good enough for them even though they just suffered a few decades of losing. I would say Dolphin fans are the same way, we better be contending for championships every year or gtfo.

The good news is the Patriot fan base will be joining us soon enough...

 

Should I do an Approval Rating Poll Thread?

 

Is that what that means?

Do you know what the game plans are? Do you know how they are built in relation to the talent on the field? Do you know if the coaches have been able to put together the types of game plans they'd prefer or that they were brought to Miami to install? We are talking about a highly inexperience QB, an O-line that by most account isn't very good and a defense that has lost key players throughout the last several seasons and hasn't had the benefit of good depth to sustain like most good teams do.

So...you're developmental QB and the roster you're overhauling isn't winning and we're concluding that it's the game-plans? Are they too conservative? Are they not conservative enough? How do we know they weren't perfect and that the inexperienced and/or crappy players didn't fail equally as badly as they would've in another game plan?

I respect the hell out of your approach because you seem to come to conclusions after your analysis but how are you getting "game plan" out of 1st and 2nd quarter success? Do you see how ridiculously nebulous that is and how much it sounds like fans painting a story? I'm certainly interested in how you went about it, but I seriously doubt you can isolate Philbin's "game planning" in the numbers.


ooooo....the coach got out-smarted! We both know how stupid that sounds? We're talking about guys who operate on the highest levels of football knowledge. They know what they're putting out there and they know what they're going to face. They study the opponents all off-season and they've seen the same concepts the decades. It's not about getting "out-smarted." Philbin knows as much about football as any other coach in the NFL so it's not about get "out-smarted." It's about having the right players that can operate your game plan.

Where is the evidence to suggest Philbin's game planning is non-traditional? We know nothing about the content of the game plans! How do we know 99% of other coaches aren't installing the same thing? How do we know he's not giving the team good game plans and that his half-time adjustments aren't countering the horrible play and the failure of the players?

No...simply no. Philbin is yet to be proven he's a bad HC any more than Tannehill has been a bad QB for not making the Play-offs. Could he have with better play? Absolutely, Tannehill could've made Aaron Rodgers-esque plays and put the team on his shoulders. Is it his fault the team didn't rise above 8-8? Nope, and it's not purely Philbin's either.

And don't think it's Philbin's responsibility any more than the QB or the GM or the all star DE or the shoulda-been-better MLB or the C-turned-G who had a bad year.

My whole point is that this team shares the blame and it's lazy and dumb and to isolate just the HC and to think everything will change by taking out Philbin. If it's the same coach and more or less the same system and certainly the same players around the QB...the product on the field will almost certainly stay more or less constant.

If the offense sucks this year and it's not the lack of talent at Guard, then we'll know he sucks because Tannehill is adequate and the weapons around Tannehill are adequate. That will be an indictment of Philbin.




And by the way...this team would've been in the Play-offs if the defense had held it together so to act as though that's Philbin's fault the back-up FS isn't very good and because the DTs played like crap...man, Jesus Christ...what is my response to that supposed to be?

Most people wanted to retain Odrick for God's sake!

 

I was all for a regime change after last year woeful performance but the powers to be thought otherwise.They opted for continuity which is understandable from their point of view.They are in survival mode and Tanny did improve last year especially under Lazor which gave the powers to be an excuse for continuity.

This year has a favorable schedule at least in the front end and there is no excuse for this team not to make the playoffs IMO.The fear I have is that we barely make the playoffs ,have an early exit from the playoffs and Philbin is extended for another mediocre 3 yrs.

 

We're basically an 8-8 team each year. If Philbin's game plan coming into the game was average, then we'd on average be ahead vs. behind similar number/frequency of times in the 1st quarter. But that's not the case. We tend to be behind on the scoreboard after the 1st quarter. So yes, Philbin's ability to prepare the team for a game is worse than average, statistically speaking (if you wish, let's just say "prepare the team for the game" instead of an explicit "game plan" to avoid some technical rebuttal).

One difference: I don't see Philbin improving like Tannehill does. Most of the problems I and others have identified over the years are mostly the same year to year.

 

I was talking about fans, not players. Every team has a large contingent of bitter fans that rant against their HC.

 

I am obviously in the minority, but I had ZERO problem with the Green Bay TO at the time. This defense was spent. I blame the defensive players for that TD, not a timeout that gave the players a breather.

ONE STOP. That's all this team needed. And they couldn't do that. The coach obviously felt he needed to give his guys some time to regroup. This team needed a leader on D last year. No one stepped up consistently. Not even our great Cam Wake. We sure as hell have one in Suh. Those tough games last year just might go our way this year.....

 

Maybe it's Tannehill. I mean, point blank, the QB is preparing all week to go into a game with a set of 10-20 plays I'm sure he knows are coming and we're laying it all on Philbin and concluding the team "isn't prepared?" Don't the stats show that Miller is most productive on his first 10-15 carries?. So why is the team not scoring? Well, it must be the passing, huh? Or maybe the defense is just playing like crap? That could surely be! Why not crucify Coyle, Lazor and Tannehill because it's more directly in line with them than anyone else, right?

In the current Miami coaching structure, the OC and DC must bear first blame outside of injuries and roster/talent issues. That's not debatable. That's the logic presented in "the HC is also concerned with preparing the defense and therefore is most responsible for the team being 8-8" argument. If Philbin's responsibilities are spread out, he's less to blame for the short-comings of a given group.

So is Lazor's group failing or is Coyle's group failing because that's the individual who could bear more blame than the HC himself?

Let's be direct here...what is it exactly Philbin is supposed to do to "prepare the team?" What is it exactly that is so beyond my knowledge of football that I can't conceive but which that Philbin is so obviously not doing? What is it that only Philbin can do and which the OC and QB cannot possibly?

Shouldn't the same stats speak to the QB and OC just as much as the HC? So why is the HC so hated and the QB and OC so beloved? Seems hypocritical to me.

Let's say this...Philbin demands people be held accountable and that they do things correctly. Maybe he's not a Pete Carroll in that regard. But why then...on the apparent verge of Tannehill moving into the top-10 of NFL QBs would we not want a HC like Philbin--even if it were to keep in place Bill Lazor who would almost assuredly be replaced if he were not promoted after Philbin were terminated? Or why would we not at least be specific about who we wanted in his position when he left? I ask because I don't hear names and constructive conversations, I hear hate speech and anti-Philbin BS.

 

Bottom line is that the vast majority of fans, basically all fans, lack the necessary info and expertise to competently judge a HC. So what happens is you get a bunch of gumshoes playing the result. Team wins? Fans go looking for reasons why. Team loses? Fans go looking for reasons why. Dolphin fans are generally unhappy with the team so the latter applies.

Thats not to say there aren't valid criticisms of Philbin, or any other coach. It's when people are ONLY looking for his faults that they veer towards stupid. 8-8 suggests he did as much right as he did wrong. But start one thread on Philbin errors and another on Philbin kudos then watch how silly season ensues.

 

I hardly think it's fair to attribute second half adjustments to Philbin, but not lay the first half problems at his feet, also. There does seem to be a common problem with the Dolphins under Philbin, of coming out flat and seemingly unprepared in the first half, and in must win games. It's happened far too often for me to lay the blame anywhere but on the head coach. That being said, I've been very critical of the defense, and would not be in the least bit upset if Coyle had been let go. I wish he had been. The defense has been underwhelming under him.

 

I think Rizzi is a problem. Not happy w/ ST last year.

 

Philbin is the one person on the Dolphins whose thought process will affect the performance of all facets of the team on game day. So the one guy who most likely deserves at least some blame is Philbin, at least without knowing in greater detail how offense vs. defense or QB vs. RB etc.. performed on a quarter by quarter basis. So, I'd say the most viable default position is that Philbin is the one to blame most (without knowing any more).

Now you're right that it could be someone else. Maybe it's just the offense or just the defense that underperforms, or maybe it's just Tannehill. But if you want to argue that, you'll have to present evidence for it. It would actually make for a very informative discussion if someone got those stats.

Finally, contrast the 1st quarter to the 3rd quarter. The plays on the first drive(s) or so are rehearsed far more as you pointed out. This means there is an outsized influence of the coach on the outcome relative to 3rd quarter play where the coach may make a change but there's no time to rehearse. So, in comparing 1st to 3rd quarters, the bias should be that success/failure in the 1st should relatively speaking more likely to be credited/blamed on the coach(es) than on the players, all other things being equal.

Again, the reason is because of the problems one can identify. That doesn't mean he does everything poorly.

 

No fan base is 100% happy with everyone. There are Dolphin fans that hate Marino.

 

See, this is boring. Every fan base has someone hate on someone. There is zero players in the NFL with zero hate. There are zero coaches in the NFL with zero hate.

This entire post is lazy. It is just being a contrarian with the added bonus of, "I don't have to really explain myself because I can just comment on how everyone isn't as smart or as good as fan as I am". The entire, "People disagree with me, so there must be something wrong with them," is absolutely lazy. It might take a little work to come up with the fancy words, however it is so done over and over again.

This is a very "hipster" view point.

 

Greg is only being contrarian in the sense that he freely admits to being neutral/not knowing whether Philbin is doing a good job or not. So really it's the rest of the fans, the ones who have concrete positions on the subject, who are claiming to be smarter.

 

Philbin was not the one responsible for the late season collapses. I am a fan of Tanne. I'm not knocking him. He's done some great things. He came in raw with only 19 college starts. He's been getting better every year and I hope it continues, but those last season collapses were mostly on him, especially the first one. The D certainly didn't help last season. They really had fault for the collapse. It's just very easy to blindly blame the coach. He was first saddled with Jeff Suckerland and had to go with some of his decisions, but then, against Suckerland's wishes, he did step up and force the trade of Clyde Gates. Wow, what a bad move on his part because Gates has been an absolute superstar since he was traded.

 

That's incorrect. Gates was released and claimed off waivers by the Jets.

 

That is some faulty logic.

 

Yeah, I meant to change that, but point absolutely still remains. He forced the release. He wanted to get rid of him when Ireland did not.