So…yeah. How do you begin a defense of a hated person? I dunno. I guess all I can do is start at the beginning. 1-15. There were a number of reasons we were 1-15. Some of those reasons go back as far as Don Shula making the mistake of taking over GM duties. Some of them go back to Jimmy Johnson being a GM. Many of them were directly related to Wanny being a GM. Those lead to Speilman, which lead to Mueller. That is a long…long…stupidly long list of GM failure. Yes, Shula drafted Marino and JJ put together a solid (not great) defense. But it all equals to decades of zero SB wins. That is the point of being an NFL team after all, winning SBs., and we are shockingly bad at it. 40 years, 0 SB wins. Enter The Parcells …ewww. We bring in Parcells to right the ship. He promptly reorganizes the…um…organization and boom 11-5 and an AFC East Championship. Thanks to that we start to overlook the King Fish level of douchebaggery that comes with being crushed beneath the ample weight of a Parcellian ego. Parcells had a mold. This mold, with this ego cannot be wavered from. The mold is so well known, sometimes you can look at a player and think, “That’s a Parcells player.” Parcells says to whoever his GM is, I want a player that is X size. Has played for Y years. Has this trait. Has that trait. So what does his GM do? Well, if Parcells is your boss you go out and find players that are X size, played for Y years, has this trait and that trait. And you do it happily because if you don’t, you know Parcells is going to get in your face with his (what I assume would be) liver and onions breath and tell you you’re a big dummy. That’s where Ireland comes in Parcells. With. That’s where Ireland comes in WITH Parcells. Sorry. A lot of people want to assume the time that Parcells was Ireland’s boss, there was a sharing of duties. To that I say, “chuckleheadsayswhat?”. What have any of us have ever seen in one William Ballbreaking (that is his middle name, look it up) Parcells, that says he shares anything? Basically Parcells told Ireland to find players to fit his mold. Ireland did that, and now everyone blames Ireland for picking bad players. I submit, the mold was bad. It wasn’t Ireland’s job to find us a QB. It was Ireland’s job to find us a Parcells QB for example. He did. If there has ever been a QB that fit the Parcells mold it was Chad Henne. He literally filled in every single thing Parcells covets up to and including a panache for making a mean liver and onions. That’s how it went. Ireland didn’t have to find players he thought would work, he had to find players Parcells thought would work and he did that job well. He found Parcells players. The problem with all of this, is that the game has passed Parcells and his mold, by and you don't win with Parcells players anymore. How can we blame Ireland for those acquisitions? We can’t, if we’re honest and logical. We can if we're emotional or about to bleed for 3-5 days. At this point, Ireland has had one full off season, which wasn’t horrible and the beginning of this one which, if not for the media lying to us about our chances with Manning, would only be kinda sub par so far. We have a long way to go yet, before we can declare this offseason a winner or loser. And I guess that’s all I’m saying. We don’t have enough data on Ireland that hasn’t been filtered through Parcells to pass honest judgment on Ireland…yet. Sure, I understand we have 40 years of bad GM..GM..um….Gm-ing(?) to get us angry and depressed, but Ireland is not responsible for 40 years of not winning the SB. He’s responsible, really responsible for 1 year of not winning the SB. We are about to enter a new era in the Miami Dolphins. An era where we finally have the structure (if maybe or maybe not the personnel) of the organization correct. We have a coach most of us actually feel hopeful about in Philbin. The first calm but highly intelligent coach in the mold of Walsh & Dungy, we’ve ever had, I might add. Now, maybe Ireland will prove to be the horrible soul sucking devil ball cupping evil bastard some of you take him for or he may turn out to be actually average. The point is, we don’t actually know yet. We’ll probably know a little better after this season. So…yeah. Maybe, just maybe we can tone down the rhetoric and hyperbole a little and let this off season play out. Or maybe not., but can we at least try? Please?
Just a great thread. I'm not an Ireland fan but this was well-written and fun. Nice distraction from this frustrating off-season.
Im drunk so i am liking this thread. Ill come back tomorrow and maybe disagree with everything, depending on what I comprehend when sober.
He sucks. But it's not personal. THEY'VE ALL SUCKED since Shula retired. I've been a fan of this team since 1992. In that time, we've won a grand total of 4 Playoff games. Exactly 2 since 1994. None since 1999. In 1999, I was 14. I will be thirty soon, and I doubt my team will have won a playoff game or found a QB before I get there. Yet to some, this is acceptable. When did we become San Diego? When did playing like .500 ball, having nice weather and trying hard become GOOD ENOUGH? I'm starved to see my team win. This is the NFL, where teams have a meteoric rise and then crash out. But at least they take a shot. Cardinals. Seahawks. THE TEXANS! The ****ing... Texans (who we never beat), the Broncos, The Bucs, The Vikings... these are all hardly NFL Juggernauts... all with more success more recently then us. We sit in neutral. It's damn frustrating.
Great thread FinD! Clearly worth 1000 fist pumps or more! Instant Gratification by most today requires that common sense take a back seat to knee jerk reaction. Thus the logic of which you speak fails completely to a closed mind hell bent on being right! Sad isn't it?
Instant gratification? The clown has been here for 5 years and hasn't done ****. Maybe you like mediocre football teams, but I don't.
The Case against Ireland: 1-consistently wrong about players he drafts and signs effectiveness, dude would not know a playmaker if Desean Jackson was his neighbor 2-consistently runs away from such talent, when presented the opportunity to acquire, he runs like a little girl and just drafts a lineman 3-Morticians in South Florida nicknamed him "Mr Giggles", dude needs a personality transplant 4-9 million in unspent cap money in 2011, uhm, think we could have used that on some better players last yr? 5-"Big Man Game"..uhm no, it is an explosive man's game, not a bunch of lumbering, ent like players. 6-rarely takes responsibility, from White to Misi, "not my fault, it wasn't me, it was him!!!", yeah lead from the front there big fella. 7-uhm, what talent we do have is coming up for FA, think maybe you should sign them to extensions now, cheaply, rather then wait, blame the cap, and watch VD/SS/Wake leave. 8-this is how he works, he takes "credit" for Matt Moore "I signed him last yr and a lot of people did not like the move", then, flips and says "we have to find a quarterback"..that is our El Jeffe to a "T", he won't stick his balls out to support Moore but he will claim credit for signing him. Ore so bheatha bhaile! Happy St Paddy's Day!
eh,muh,ehm...can someone please tell that dolphinjake has hacked padre's account....well i stopped reading after..."constantly wrong about players"..... --- I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?ggmhbs Sent from my iPhone 4 using Tapatalk
Well, we're all tired of not getting better, the point is not all of the blame is Jeff Irish's...He's certainly part of it, because he's been here and been the 'public' partner of Parcells, Ireland and Sparano. I don't think any of us can realistically pick which bad moves to 'blame' on Ireland right now. This year, he has a new HC with a new scheme and nuances of the type of players he likes. Ireland's charge is to mesh with what Philbin needs and make it happen. The QB issue we've gone thru is due to Mr. Loss. He led the "We must have a franchise QB" cheers that the media has molded in to this 'quest' that they think Ireland has...however, I'm not convinced he and Philbin are as worried about that position as the media (and Loss) make it out to be... We'll see how things pan out...it's too late in the process to give up any hope and it's likely there will be a lot of fans that won't change their opinion of Ireland, no matter how well he does from here on out. Just like the groups of folks that can't see any positive in Henne, even though he improved this past season prior to his injury. But the bottom line is, as Dolphans, we are in the wait and see mode once again...
I found myself wanting to agree with the original post and actually starting to possibly feel good about this upcoming season until one harsh slap of reality hit me. Instead of being Parcell's puppet, Ireland is now Ross's puppet. Bring back the fat man. At least he was somewhat knowledgeable in the field of football and not entertainment.
He's effectively been here last year and this year. Before that every move, good & bad, was Parcells.
You should stop, and get your eyes checked too...consistently not constantly but yeah, I don't read any posts past a couple lines...Sometimes I do paragraphs, but they've really gotta hook me from the beginning. Anything past 3 paragraphs is a filthy whore and needs to be spanked. Best to use pictures really
He's a puppet because he does what his bosses tell him to do? He's Ross' puppet because he went after Manning? He's Parcells' puppet cause he got the players the great franchise builder told him too?
Ok, Pads, there's no talent on this team. None. Zip. Sigh. Yeah, one of the top things you must have in a GM....charm. Everyone knows that. Sigh. Another thing a GM should do...spend to the cap every year, regardless. Nothing says success like zero balance in the cap. Sigh. That's Parcells' mantra. Sigh. If your overbearing boss tells you to get a copier just like Copier X2000, and you get Copier X2000, who is to blame when Copier X2000 sucks? You or the boss? Replace "copier" with "QB" and "Copier X2000" with "Chad Henne". Sigh. Lol. Oh yeah, Ireland sucks because of something bad that hasn't actually happened. Besides, if your #1 & #2 points were true, why would this matter? Sigh. So wait, someone else brought in Matt Moore? Matt Moore was a helluva get. He wasn't got to be a starter, because he isn't a starter. He was gotten to be a back up, which he is. What's the problem again? What about Pouncey? Sigh.
Where can I get a job like Ireland? Everything that goes right I was responsible for and everything that went wrong was somebody else's fault. What a gig. And now the excuses are that he has to do what Ross wants? Again, what a gig
Maybe because, whether it's glamorous or not, the game is won up front; even great quarterbacks can't throw when they're flat on their backs.
You realize that the people making decisions regarding Ireland's employment have a lot more information than we do?
Ever been forced to betray a close friend by getting on a jet with an old, idiot muppet planning to subvert said friend's job. Then botching it horribly due to your boss' naivete and some irksome minion who knows how to track said jet on the computer. Thereby sharing all the live excitement online with fans. The same fans you take such careful precautions to keep in the dark?
But...but...but...he's been a fan since 1992...1-9-9-2!!! That's a lifetime to some kids...er...I mean people.
I disagree. Parcells set the foundation, pointed the direction and mentored Ireland, but as part of the process the evidence shows that the decisions were co-operative. He had to convince Parcells to go after Marshall. He had to convince Parcells to take Vonte Davis when Bill reportedly wanted Clay Matthews. They may not be mirrors of each other philosophically, but they share enough foundation principals. I do agree that Ireland should be judged primarily on what he's done in the past few years if only because the lines of responsibility have be obfuscated to a certain degree. But there's no way I can absolve him of what went on before hand and just lay blame at the feet of Parcells.
Having to convince Parcells of taking a few players actually proves my point. It shows that Ireland tried to get out from Parcells comfort zone (or mold) and had to fight to do it. That doesn't mean the decisions where cooperative, it means they weren't.
What evidence? And reportedly? You may be right, but I doubt it. Parcells is an egomaniac. The thought of him allowing smoeone else to run the show, or even allowing someone something more than their opinion is a stretch. Parcells would never take the chance of someone else messing up his house. He believes he knows all the answers. No doubt that Parcells was Irelands mentor. However, Ireland's FA's and draft picks, the ones we know for certain are his, are pretty decent. And I only use decent because it's too soon to say about some of them. And with this actual evidence we see that Ireland took waht he learned from Parcells and updated it to today's game.
Quite a bit I imagine. He set the draft board. He was the guy who evaluated Pat White as a 2nd rounder and Pat Turner as a 3rd rounder. Whether Parcells ultimately pulled the trigger or not is irrelevant to me. Easy to say in hindsight that Ireland would've done something different. I didn't buy that excuse when Spielman used it and I dont buy it now. Regardless, the guy is still here so I hope he does well, but I'm not overwhelmed with confidence
We do know he set the draft board based on Parcells requirements. The requirements are bad. Do you really think Parcells told Ireland to pick any QB he wanted and had no input into what Ireland should be looking for in a QB?
You imagine? The facts are we don't really know how much say Ireland had in getting players while Tuna was here. However, if you look at Parcells history you find that he's an egomaniacal twit who thought he could do no wrong. Does that sound like a person who would allow someone else to run the show when he was the boss? It doesn't to me.
Scout turned First time GM makes personnell decisions over a future hall of famer taking over president of football operations for a 1 and 15 team?..I'am pretty comfortable in saying that that never happened once on Parcells clock.. Wonder where this team would be if we hit on two top 10 picks who would be in their prime..Choosing Ted Gin and Ronnie have as much to blame for our state of affairs as anything...
It is pretty clear there is no defending Ireland by he actions alone, it is self-explainatory...the league has a very jaded view of him and Ross...... If you do defend him, please do not post here with your "surprise" of the record every year....
My view of Ireland is pretty clear by now. But he's still the GM, so hopefully you are right and everything bad that has happened to this franchise since Ireland arrived has been either Parcells fault or Ross' fault.
Fin, I respect your opinion and nice post. As you know, I'm not quite as willing to defend Ireland as you are. While it's true Parcells was in charge during his time here, Ireland is a guy who has worked under Parcells going back to the Cowboys. To think Ireland wasn't on board with many if not most of Parcells decisions while here is incredibly naive, IMO. It's also an error to think Jeff Ireland is not of a Parcellian philosophy. A philosophy that became obsolete in 2005 when the league decided to make the NFL a passing game. But Parcells/Irleand with an abundance of arrogance decided they would build a 1985 NFL team. BUILD THE TRENCHES. Focus on the running game. DEFENSE. It's this arrogance that led us to not adequately address the QB position during the time Parcells was here. Ireland, in the one year we all agree he was calling the shots failed once again to upgrade the QB position. He did bring in Matt Moore, but if we're mostly in agreement that Matt Moore is not a franchise QB, the job was still not done. I will not blame Jeff Ireland for not landing Peyton Manning. I will blame him if he doesn't have a back up plan. I'm still not a fan of the man. I find him incredibly arrogant. I think the players hate him. I think his perception around the rest of the league is terrible, whether deserved or not. I don't think he places appropriate value on the QB position. In 2011 at the Senior bowl he talked about building a team around Chad Henne, rather than finding a better QB. When asked about the QB position in 2012, he skirted the question and said something to the affect of, "Look at Tony Romo, Tom Brady, etc. There's good QBs out there we just gotta find them." Leading me to believe he's more interested in looking for a gem in late rounds than either drafting a franchise prospect in round 1 or acquiring a proven guy in free agency. But I'm willing to see what he does the rest of this offseason. How he addresses the QB position this year will shape my ultimate opinion of the man. He has to make it a priority. Anything short of that will lead me to believe he's just continuing to follow the Parcellian ways. And that is not going to get us a superbowl in this NFL era. If he continues to try and build a Parcells team, I hope Ross will wipe away the last remnants and get us a GM who knows how important the QB is to winning. I know my opinion isn't popular. I know you're not going to get any love around here having an anti Ireland point of view. But winning and losing in the NFL is a process that starts at the FO and flows all the way down to the coaches and the players on the field. When you don't win, the GM deserves a share of the blame.
