Barry Jackson Sports Buzz: Why Ireland's 49ers dream hasn't happened

It is quite simple why the Dolphins haven't been able to replicate the success of the 49er's. The Dolphins have been stuck with Ireland, who has no idea how to build a winning football team. The 49er's have had a front office which has been effective in the draft and in free agency and obviously understands what it takes to build a Super Bowl contending team.

The 49er's were also able to do what the Dolphins failed to do. They signed Jim Harbaugh to be their head coach. Better ownership and a better front office is the reason the 49er's are now a better team than the Dolphins.

 

Now that you've said this for the hundredth time, I'm finally convinced. All it took was some indiscriminate drubbing of it into my head over and over. Thank you for your patience with me.

 

Too bad it had to take over 100 times..lol

 

Actually it was exactly one hundred. On the nose.

 

Not bad, considering it took most of the rest of us once.

 

Well, you'll have to pardon me. I'm sure you can tell from my posts I'm a little slow.

 

Ok, so now that we know that it is all Jeff Ireland's fault and we will never win another game as long as he is our GM, what should we do........we do have a good punter?

I know,,,,,,whaaaaaaaaaaaa, whaaaaaaaaaaaaa, whaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

The 49ers success has a lot less to do with recent personnel moves than it does coaching. They've inherited and improves a lot of what was already there.

Barry Jackson is also badly confused about a lot of things here. Did he by any chance look at the 49ers off-season transactions? They've got basically a single player in free agency and the draft making any sort of contribution, and that's Mario Manniningham, and "contribution" is pretty generous.

They've also had the dubious distinction of having a grand total of zero snaps from their rookie draft class thus far this season, which I'm not sure is something I've ever seen before.

 

They didn't have many holes to fill, so they were able to draft depth. They've also get very few key players leaving via free agency next year. Two starters - Isaac Sopoaga and Dashon Goldson, and Randy Moss but he's been limited in snaps. Most of their free agents are depth guys, the most important of which is probably Delanie Walker. Their 2012 draft meshes up pretty well with the depth guys slated to be free agents.

http://www.spotrac.com/free-agents/nfl/san-francisco-49ers/

 

Nobody ever praised the 49ers front office or ownership until Harbaugh became head coach.

 

Does anyone realize that the reason Harbaugh chose SF over Miami was the mainly because of who was already there ?? They didn't change all their personnel guys when he came in, they haven't changed many players since Harbaugh got there. The problem in SF before Harbaugh was coaching. Basically the team was already built for him when he got there and he chose to stay out there...

 

No wonder Dilfer loves Tannehill.

 

I don't buy that at all. They've had plenty of avenues to get their picks on the field. It's not like Brandon Jacobs was blocking progress at running back, or their receivers besides Crabtree plausibly have kept AJ Jenkins from getting any snaps.

They've undeniably made some good decisions but the 49ers are performing well pretty much completely off of the backs of the previous regimes decisions.

 

Considering that SF has been working LaMichael James as a slot WR in practice thats not entirely true.
What we really cant afford is another free agency period where Ireland comes away basically 0-for his signings. Like him or not this years FA acquisitions were awful.

 

They were essentially all insurance. They pretty much exclusively signed insurance players who were not needed because the players they were providing insurance for played well or well enough.

 

That's okay. I realize that some people need to be told over and over before it finally sinks in. The good thing is that once you finally get it, you generally understand the real cause of the problem.

 

What planet do you live on where our roster was so good that free agency was just to provide unneeded players as insurance.

We are not watching the same team, clearly. And that definitely includes how they looked at the end of last season.

 

The one where signing bonus money doesn't come out of thin air?

 

That's a good planet.

Not sure though how it relates to saying the Dolphins roster was set for starters and free agency was only useful to sign insurance players who were unnecessary.

Am I missing something? I assume I am.

 

And, by the way, there's a difference between believing "We couldn't afford players we needed." And "We didn't need players, we were set."

 

The success rate on mid to high end free agency is bad and frequently leads to salary cap problems. Plenty of successful teams abstain largely, and that's not just once they got successful.

 

There is a lot more to an organization's activity in free agency than the football team's needs. Looking at it objectively, who has the team given a significant signing bonus to the past 2 years? The team isn't even re-signing their own guys, never mind FAs. There appears to be a concerted effort in that area.

 

Unfortunately there are some individuals on this forum who actually think the Dolphins have plenty of talent, and therefore signing good players in free agency isn't needed. Of course these individuals consider talent being merely good enough to finish with six or seven wins, year after year.

I have stated numerous times that I think there are many Jets,and Patriots fans on this forum who like to pretend they are Dolphin fans. These people are actually very easy to recognize. They are the people who constantly defend Ireland and claim the team has plenty of talent. They blame the previous three seasons on having Sparano as the head coach and they blame this season on it being Philbin's first year as a head coach, and Tannehill being a rookie QB.

These same individuals want to claim that all Ireland did during Parcells years with the Dolphins was sit around and do everything Parcells told him to do. The fact that Parcells hired him to be the GM because he was suppose to be an excellent talent scout with the Cowboys, means nothing to these individuals. They just want to blame everything on Parcells and Sparano, in hopes the Dolphins will retain Ireland. Of course this makes perfect sense if you are a fan of the Jets or Patriots, or even the Bills. I know if I was a fan of one of these teams, I would certainly hope that the Dolphins owner would be dumb enough to keep Ireland as the Dolphins GM.

 

Pete Carroll played Madden his first year as Hawks GM/Coach, performing over 200 transactions in just the first year. We need a guy who hits in the FA and draft.

 

That sounds like a conspiracy theory and no-one has ever tried to make that argument the way you phrased it.

 

The truth is often hard for some to accept.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

I'm not claiming it is a conspiracy. I am just trying to explain why it appears some individuals on here want the Dolphins to retain Ireland as the teams GM. Because I can't believe that any true die hard Dolphin fan wants to see him remain the Dolphins GM, after seeing how little talent this team has on the roster at this time.

I have friends who are fans of the Jets and Patriots and they are hoping that the Dolphins don't get rid of Ireland. They figure that as long as Ireland is the Dolphins GM, they will not have to be concerned with the Dolphins winning the AFC East division.

 

what's ironic is San Fran has only 2 starters from the past 2 dafts-- Aldon Smith & Bruce Miller (fullback). CKaep can make it 3 if he keeps his job.

Only 2 backups see action beyond special teams (Chris Culliver & Kendall Hunter).

3 of 7 2012 picks are no longer with the team.
None of their 2012 picks have seen action IIRC.

 

I'm sure Miami would look much better if we had 9 Pro Bowlers from pre-2008 as well.
Miami: 2 starters from pre-2008.
San Fran: 12 starters from pre-2008 including 4 elite players (Vernon Davis, Willis, Justin Smith, Gore), 2 Pro Bowl linemen (Staley & Goodwin), and 4 other very good defensive players (Sopoaga, McDonald, Brown, and Pro Bowler Goldson)..... plus Pro Bowl punter & kicker.

 

Please elaborate on the players you felt we needed to sign in 2012. Manning ? Sure.

 

Good points. Tuna Inc. had zero to work with than they arrived. Worst talent in the league. Our keepers were Brown, Ricky, Will Allen, Bell, Carey and Jason Taylor. The roster has been completely rebuilt here, and the coaching has been sub-par considering Sparano, Henning, etc.

 

But this isn't the Jets situation. As I understand it we had and continue to have ample space as it is now... plus most teams will re-structure with a current player or two and CREATE more space if necessary to go out and get a targeted Free Agent. Other players are often willing to do it because it helps the team increase the chance of winning.

 

I didn't want Manning. i was convinced he was done (boy was that wrong).

Before I take the time to go through the list of last year's free agents (which I'll gladly do), I'm curious... do you think there were none who could have upgraded the Dolphins at any position? I doubt that'll be the case once I look at it. A team in the state we are in.

 

There were quite a few lineman i wish we'd signed....... corners aside from marshall, but we dont know what he brings....Wimbley would have been nice.... but he cost a lot. So no not really anything I saw worth overspending. Very happy we didnt sign who many were bananas for : Vincent JAckson, Mario Williams, Matt Flynn, Laurent Robinson etc.

 

It has nothing to do with space, everything to do with cash-flow.

 

I've already gone on record as being on board for throwing $ at a WR next year. Maybe a TE. Otherwise, stay the conservative/build through the draft route. We just need a proven target that bad, and no rookie can offer that this year.

 

Free Agencywise, Here Is Who I Would Have Targeted (Obviously You Don't Sign ALL Of Them, But If I Got half These Guys I'd Be Stoked)

WR Vincent Jackson (All those upset we did nothing to replace Brandon Marshall, here's your guy. And the 5-year $55 million works out about the same as Brandon's 4-year $47.5 million contract we gave him and that we had just unloaded, so please, no b.s. ppl about 'How could we afford him???'))
OR
WR Robert Meacham (Yeah, that might have been a mistake. Though I was a bit suspicious of the Brees effect and that he would drop off without Brees and Payton, so I may not have signed him. Some guys are productive doe to talent and measurables, others because of the system and supporting cast. Meacham, to me, was debatable heading into FA)

TE - Dallas Clark. Perfect 1-2 Punch with Fasano's blocking, Clark's receiving. Adds redzone TD potential.
or
TE Joel Dreesen Balanced TE

OG/T Geoff Schwarz
or
OG Carl Nicks (yeah, he ended up injured, but I wouldn't have known that an I would have gone after him)
or
OG Evan Mathis

CB Chris Carr
AND
CB Brandon Carr
(Two new Carrs in the garage)
RT Anthony Collins

DE William Hayes (decent DE would have come at a value price and provided average DE production. I'd have hoped for 7-8 sacks from him).
OR
DE John Abraham (a 3 year $16 mill contract is a bargain for his production. Even if that was a hometown discount and we had to pay $18 million, I do it. Pairing Wake and Abraham with Starks, Soliai and Odrick rotating in the middle on run/pass downs gives us a NYG-like front four).

LB Stephen Tulloch (and I probably would have moved him to OLB and gotten him to replace Kevin Burnett, whom I thought was disappointing in 2011. The irony is, these guys are about the same this year, as Burnett has stepped his game up again.)

Safety LaRon Landry - I would have brought him in for the medical staff to go over and if he checked out, I'd have tolerated his internet self-pic stupidity. Fast. Instinctive. A hard hitter. A football player. He signed for one year for $3.5 million. I'd have given him 2 years for $6.5 million unless I had plannned to draft a Safety. That makes it around $1.8 mill a year more than Chris Clemons costs us, though. Imagine Jones and LaRon back there scaring the bajeesus out of receivers.

Again, if we had signed half these guys we'd be a better team now.

This idea that there was NO ONE gettable in free agency who could have upgraded our abysmal talent level at various positions is just nonsense.

 

I agree that you should mostly build through the draft, but if you are only drating role players (due to your inability or unwillingess to draft impact playmakers) as a GM, then you need to spend to get those proven guys. If Jeff cannot project playmakers from college to the NFL level, he has to pay a premium to get guys who are already doing it at this level.

Or we get a GM who can project that level of talent better, trusts his asessment and will pick those guys.

Bottom line, Jeff picks safe becasue he doesn't trust his own assessments, imo, when it comes to high risk high reward players.