The fact that you implied Zach, JT, Sam, Pat etc were to blame for the franchise's shortcomings sums up your knowledge of the entire situation. The argument was talent acquired. Like in '96 drafting Gardener & Zach. JT & Sam a year later. Drafting Pat & LoBro and signing Brock Marion & Brian Walker a year after that. The defense on today's roster doesn't even come close, FACT. I love Wake, Dansby & Vontae but they're not enough. You say revisionist history, I say how soon they forget. Just because this year's squad showed some promise doesn't mean you have to forget about what took place in the past. Okay, so they ranked 6th in yds this past season. That's great for a young bunch and I'm happy for them. But the real ranking is 14th in points allowed. Now compare that to '03 when our D ranked 3rd overall, 4th in '02. Third best in 2000 and most of all in '98 no other defense ranked higher. If Zach's crew ranked 14th that would've been considered a disappointment. I laugh at and at the same time feel sorry for Dolfans who criticized that defensive unit. Do you know how difficult it is to be dominate playing man defense in the nfl? So difficult that we were the only team running it the majority of the time. Scheme? That D was personnel driven. It was vanilla yet still got to the qb and got the pick six. Remember when they shut down two all-time great wrs in Rice & Brown? Are you having another convo with another poster b/c what does salary cap allocation have to do with acquiring talent? Y'know, the original argument, not "this regime acquired the most talent and spent wisely the past 3 years..." I already mentioned the wanny years were the worst. 25... what? Please tell me you're joking. Bringing in K.Jackson, Byars & Fryar trumps anything ireland has done (or will do) for the offense. You can judge Shula for not delivering a SB for Danny, judge Zach's D for not doing the Offense's job while you're at it, but that is not the debate. Again, it's about bringing in the players.
My knowledge of the situation? They all made 5 million (or more) per year at a time when the salary cap was less than 70 million. Blame? No, I don't blame them. They play for money and when the money was gone - they were gone. I passed no blame. I asked you what that defense did for you. You were the person that thought their merit was beyond reproach. So what did they win for all that loot Dave Wannstedt gave them? Cameron Wake is playing for peanuts. He got 14 sacks this year. You want to know how many sacks JT had in his second season? 9 There goes the JT reference. Probably your most egregious hindsight was that of Daryl Gardener. This dude could not stay on the field. He played just long enough to get paid by Dave Wannstedt. Then (poof) he was gone. What's talent if you can't use it? And what kind of talent is 30 tackles per year under the first contract? Would you give up this years 1st rounder for Daryl Gardener? That's exactly what Jimmy Johnson did. You cite Gardener, I'll cite Jared Odrick. How's about that? Their careers are looking about the same. .......and you are kind of combining things around here are you not? I mean Patrick Surtain had ZERO starts under Jimmy Johnson. It took 3 years for Surtain to become a starter. Did I mention how many starting corners Jeff Ireland has put on the field through the draft? You mentioned 1 other name that was drafted - Zach Thomas. How about I just say - Jake Long. There........ Does that match the talent? I mean you will not give Reshad Jones, Kendall Langford, Phillip Merling, Chad Henne, Brian Hartline, Nolan Carroll, Austin Spitler, AJ Edds, or Koa Misi time to build THEIR reputations around here. So I'll just eliminate the Thomas name with the Long name. Brock Marion? How about Karlos Dansby? Brian Walker? Dude had ZERO starts for this team. I might as well say Jeff Ireland did a good job getting Benny Sapp. I'll just bury Tim Dobbins name in my back pocket. Or how about resigning Will Allen? It meant about as much as your Brian Walker reference. I didn't forget. I reminded you of how much they were paid to produce. Then I asked "What did they produce?" 62-7 ring a bell? That's 62 points when they were playing on the cheap. When they were getting paid they produced similar results. I didn't forget anything. I faced reality. I don't romanticize an uneventful past. Then why do you cite 2003 to compare to this years results? Those are Wanny years. Those are VETERANS getting paid a king's ransom. Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano are fielding babies compared to that crew. Yet you give that fact no merit. You want to compare the two defenses? Forget about the Wanny years. Compare 1999 with this 2010 team. Why? It was JJ's 3rd year just as it's Sparano and Ireland's 3rd year. What do you get when you compare that? 1999 Defense - 19th in points, 5th in yards from scrimmage 2010 Defense - 14th in points, 6th in yards from scrimmage Geez..... You fell into that trap? You just named the free agent bonanza that took Don Shula down.........and if that's the best you got - you've got nothing.
The biggest mistfortune for Ireland IMO was going 11-5 instead of 3-13 the first year. I believe that set unreal expectations and caused us to lose out on better talent of earlier draft picks which we could have used due to needing to clean house completely (47 of 53 players gone and counting). This has mostly shown up in our lack of team depth considering all the injuries the past 2 years. I'm curious as to where OP rank Ireland vs. the other 32 teams. Personally I currently see him as middle of the pack around 14-16. To me he seems significantly better than what we went through with the last 3 GM's and very similar to JJ. So I figured I'd list their draft picks and highlight the ones IMO which are average/good or yet TBD. Last 3 years were tough to judge and more of a personal projection. Anyway, feel free to comment. Ireland: 8 average/good + 5 TBD's out of 26. (2010 odrick, misi, jerry, edds, carroll, jones, mccoy, spitler; 2009 davis, white, smith, turner, hartline, nalbone, clemons, gardner, folsom; 2008 long, merling, henne, langford, murphy, parmele, thomas, hilliard, dotson) Mueller 3 average/good out of 10. (2007 ginn, beck, satele, booker, soliai, mauia, mormino, smith, fields, wright) Saban 4 average/good out of 12. (2006 j. allen, hagan, toledo, evans, wright, aromashodu; 2005 brown, roth, crowder, daniels, alabi, vickerson) Wanny 6 average/good out of 43. (2004 carey, poole, bua, hadnot, pape, pope; 2003 moore, smith, whitley, lee, tolver, jenkins, provost, bell, williams; 2002 mckinney, mcmicheal, lowe, simmons, henry; 2001 fletcher, chambers, minor, greenwood, draper, winey, heupel, leverette, crowell; 2000 wade, kelly, dyer, freeman, grant, harris; 1999 johnson, konrad, ruegamer, collins, jones, bartholomew, haley, wong) Johnson 6 average/good out of 36. (1998 avery, surtain, mixon, jackson, shannon, bromell, shaw, strikwerda, dutton, bundren; 1997 yatil, madison, taylor, rogers, ward, smith, daniels, tanner, lopez, fiala, manning, crawford, perry, ismaeli; 1996 gardner, brew, jabbar, pointer, pritchett, jones, mcphail, burton, thomas, wooden, buckey, hunter) Shula's last 3 drafts = 7 average/good out of 21. (1995 milner, greene, mitchell, hand, kopp, swinson, myers; 1994 bowens, beavers, ruddy, woolfork, gaines, boyer, hill; 1993 mcduffie, kirby, bradford, gray, o'neal, merritt, gordon)
A great comparison, the quibble I'd have is UDFA's count as well, in that Ireland is probably ahead of JJ, and certainly ahead of wanny, though: JJ: Larry Izzo Wanny: Wally Ogunleye Ireland: Bess Carpenter not sure where Wake would fit in BTW, Kenny Mixon and Lorenzo Brommel were both good players, Brommel still has our Rookie Sack Record.
Thanks for the input. I thought about FA, UDFA and player trades but didn't have the time to sift through them all. I would think that would tend to lean towards Ireland as well. Although hit and miss and not that he is great but after 3 years but the book has yet to be written on him. Guys like misi or wake could go backwards. Soliai could have been playing for a contract or he could have gotten "it" in year 4. Or it could go the other way in that jones, merling or odrick could set the world on fire and move from the TBD's. You're right I should have included Mixon. Good with the phins although his best years were with the vikes. Brommel I struggled with but in the end he never was able to consistently crack the starting lineup (7 starts). Good back up and rotational guy but I don't remember much after the 8 sacks his rookie year. Just as as some may argue ginn, bua, j.allen, booker while others could argue gardner the other way due to the back injury which drastically shortened his career.
Count me in the I'm happy group. As for Tony's treatment, he's playing in the big boys arena now and "FAIR" got off at the first Bus stop, sorry. BTW I'm amazed at Tony's recovered status here. How one little Owners trip to the WC changes his going from Tarred and Feathered to oh poor Tony on the forum is amazing. Are ya'll really sure the Owner is stupid.
