Why? It wasn't just local news, it was in NFL circles. You can choose not to believe it, that is your right obviously, but that doesn't make it untrue. If I remember correctly we were allowed to try and negotiate with him before talking compensation. Ireland didn't want to give up the second, maube becausr of the contract. I can conceed that much is possible. Wallace may have been here but I'm fairly certain our LBs weren't. I may be wrong on that, but regardless deals can be structured to not kill the cap. For example after this year the cap hit of Wallace goes way down, we could have structured that as the big pay year for Albert and not sacrificed much. Regardless, nothing we say can rewrite history so its not a big deal. If just have liked to get the deal done.
Exactly. If only Napoleon had an extra 100k troops, he woulda held Moscow, I bet ya. Rumor is Philbin wanted Aaron Rodgers too, shame on Irish for not making it happen.
That's fair. But understand we're not talking about Albert in a vacuum. BA was franchised, meaning he's almost certain to be a FA in 2014, meaning you're giving up a 2nd round pick to trade for a guy you can get for no draft pick compensation at all a year later. A guy who has never played a full season, by the way. And the 2nd round pick you're giving up probably takes you out of the running for Dion Jordan, arguably the best player in the draft. That's what I mean when I say Philbin needs to shut up about personnel. His job is to win games and live in the day to day whereas the GM is charged with looking out for the longer term interests of the team. All the crying about the OL and yet here were 3 Pro Bowlers on it. How many teams had 3 Pro Bowlers on the OL last year? Did they underperform? Yeah. So did Jones, Starks, Soliai, Wheeler, Ellerbe, Miller, Wallace and Wake, among others. At what point do we start asking why so many players who have proven themselves in the past take a step backwards in 2013?
Which three Pro-Bowlers did we have on the O-line last year? I know of Pouncey, and Cogs was an alternate that got to play. Who else did we have?
Considering how many 2nd round draft picks Ireland has wasted and considering how we get next to no production out of 2 2nd rounders last year, this should have been a no brainer. Especially when your head coach identifies that the current OL isn't good enough. That point of view was validated by one of the worst OL's I've witnessed as a fan. How many more games would we have won if even just 1 of the OL spots could be counted on to do their job, allowing everyone else to focus on the RG and RT spot?
Wheeler, Ellerbe and Wallace are playing on a new team, in a new system. Sometimes it takes more than your first season to "get it." What bothers me is players who don't do well here lighting up the league after they go to another team, which means the coaches are not getting the most out of our players. Well, they're new, too. There is no arguing in favor of this offensive line.
These are simply not valid arguments in both of the above observations. Not apples to apples and represent dismissive straw-man arguments. No purpose to that. It only testifies to a strained desire to defend the Dolphins or Ireland. The rumor is Philbin wanted Albert at the price the Chiefs were asking; one the Dolphins were capable of paying. It was very realistic that they could have gotten a deal done with a 2nd (had Miami not traded it in the Dion Jordan deal) and, given what we now know of Martin, it makes even more sense. The comparisons thrown out above? Entirely unrealistic, and therefore arrogantly dismissive rather than engaging. It would never have been realistic to expect the Dolphins to have the trade power to get Aaron Rogers last year under almost any scenario.
3 Pro Bowlers? Not "pro bowl" level. Two were. If you are talking the Clabo, that's a misnomer. He was a shell of his former self the day he arrived and Atlanta could see that which is why they let him go. 3 years prior does not make one currently a PB caliber player. We could have signed Art Shell so we could say we had a 4th Pro Bowler and 1 HOFer on the OL. Actually, given how the line played, he might have been a reasonable option. And, further, the way players drop out and the way the pro bowl is voted on, it's not as grand a feat as you think. Often reps are built for linemen in particular (not all, but many) that gets them a few PB votes solely because the offensive talent around them is great and they benefit from it. Those others you list who underperformed did not do so to the degree that they were as damaging to the team as the OL was. The D was still pretty effective so - Not even close. Protests notwithstanding. Statistically or on film, the OL was a sieve. And, the weak links were horrifically weak.
I disagree. I think what's dismissive is the propensity to blame all ills on Ireland, the OL being the most glaring example. The bottom line is that of the five OL who started last season 4 of them had already proven themselves capable of being starters in the NFL, the only exception being Jon Martin. You guys can call then the worst ever all you want but those are the facts. I admit they played poorly but what's missing from the discussion is how poorly they were coached and utilized. As for Philbin wanting Albert, it's coming out a year after the fact as a transparent leak attempt to shield Philbin from any responsibility for the OL issues, but let's assume it's true. As Stringer pointed out, DUH, what coach doesn't want better players? My issue is that Philbin is the HC not the GM. It's no different than Ireland trying to tell Joe who to start or bench and what plays to call on game day. I don't want to hear it...shut up and do YOUR job. If I can back track for a second, there were similar leaks about Incognito when the Martin issue came to light. Philbin wanted him gone back in 2012 yada yada yada. Why wasn't it leaked in 2012 then? When Cogs was balling out and going to the Pro Bowl. All this crap wreaks of self serving leakage, back stabbing and infighting. I don't really care who said what when or who wanted who gone I just want an organization with a singleminded focus on winning. If Ireland was an obstacle to that then I'm glad his *** is gone and if Philbin, Aponte or anyone else is an obstacle then their asses need to be gone too.
I get you, the Pro Bowl isn't an end all be all. But would you concede that making the Pro Bowl means you are above average at worst? And you didn't answer the question, how many teams had 3 Pro bowlers? Yeah the D was "effective" but IMO they could have been better. Everybody wants to crush Wheeler and Ellerbe, and of course blame Ireland for signing them, but again, Jones, Wake, Soliai and Starks, 4 more Pro Bowlers, also underperformed. Add Wallace to the list too. Dansby leaves Miami and all of a sudden he's a Pro Bowler again, in the running for DPOY. I'd love to stop scapegoating Ireland and have an honest discussion about what's going on.
Is it really scapegoating? If you want to say that Ireland wasn't the only reason for all of the bad happenings, then sure. I can get behind that. But he does share a lot of the blame. And you may say that Philbin needs to shut up and do his job... Well, last time I checked, his job is to win. And if he feels that one of the players doesn't cut the mustard, why WOULDN'T he say anything?
I agree with you. What I'm saying is that in the NFL every HC is going to have to deal with players who aren't very good, players who aren't disciplined, or talk too much, party too much, show up late, complain about their contracts, sandbag injuries, the list goes on and on. If Philbin can't deal with those issues then he's not cut out to be a HC. What is he waiting on, a team full of all Pros? A team with no weaknesses or character issues anywhere? It's never going to happen. No GM on earth can build the perfect team, if that's what JP wants then he's in the wrong line of work.
We paid the girl off so the story wouldn't get out, it would be kind of stupid of us to leak a story we paid cash money to keep on the down low...
I didn't see that at all. I saw a front 7 that was leaky vs the run after 4-5 years of being damn near impossible to run on. I'm with you in the sense that Soliai, Wake and Starks didn't magically become lesser players. But IMO if you look at how they were used in 2013 as opposed to 2008-2012 you will see a major change. That's on coaching philosophy and play calling as opposed to just blaming Ellerbe and Wheeler, which has become the excuse of convenience. Not saying you feel that way but I see it a lot. What are your thoughts?
I thought Coyle used the two about in the same roles in both his seasons as DC. The weakening of the run defense IMO was Odrick no longer at RDE, which had given us essentially 3 DTs and a bigger DL, though cut down on the pass rush effectiveness on early downs. Ellerbe and Wheeler simply were not the tackle to tackle thumpers in the run game that Dansby and Burnett were. I never expected they would be. Wheeler of the 4 is IMO the best blitzer, and Ellerbe is good at pass coverage in the short to intermediate middle zones. It seemed to me Coyle was willing to sacrifice some run defense for better pass defense and turnover potential. The bottom line though is points allowed to me. We went from 7th to 8th least points allowed. 317 to 335. Hardly a difference. About 1 point per game. We ranked 21st in the league both years in total yards allowed. Just my perception but the increase in takeaways should have given the offense more short fields, and points scored went up from 288 to 317. I think this roster is playoff worthy if the right changes were made at both OT and both G positions, and everyone else remained the same.
I understand that. But I don't think that wanting to trade for Albert was too unreasonable, considering that (at the time) we were banking on Martin to do a lot better on the left side than he did on the right side.
Agreed. And it wouldn't be any less stupid a year later, except for some one who was looking to cover for Philbin by saying he had wanted Cogs gone. IMO any decision to pay someone off would have to come from above Philbin/Ireland's pay grade, but what those two did have control over is what happened afterwards. Ireland could have released or traded him, like he did with Bess, Dansby and Burnett. Philbin could have benched him, he certainly had no problem voicing his disagreements on personnel matters by not playing/starting certain guys, Dion Jordan for instance. Both guys had every opportunity to show that they felt Cogs was bad for the team and neither did anything as far as we can tell.
It's not unreasonable at all. But rolling the dice with Martin-Cogs-Pouncey-Jerry-Clabo for a year and using that 2nd round pick to trade for Dion Jordan instead of Branden Albert isn't unreasonable either.
It is unreasonable when your coach tells you that Martin won't be good enough (after having coached him for a year so its not like he just hated the tape) and he told you to replace Cogs because of his behavior. If nothing bad happened then this would be chalked to up to differences of opinion. Since thinks blew up in a spectacular fashion almost entirely because of those two guys, then......
Albert was due to be a FA in 2014, along with Veldheer, Monroe and a couple other guys. It's not crazy to balk at giving up a premium draft pick and a big contract when you can fill the position more economically a year later. Especially when giving up that premium draft pick would take you out of the running for a guy like Jordan who you really covet. I don't know if Jordan will pan out or not but if he does I don't think many people will be talking about how we shoulda passed on him to get Branden Albert a year early. NFL players have been involved in murder (3 of them!), assault, DUI, illegal weapons, illicit drugs, performance enhancing drugs, etc etc. and you're sitting here acting like a few text messages is a big deal. It was a media driven story, mostly by ESPN and NFLN, who, by the way, both had Miami on nationally televised games in the two weeks after the "scandal" broke. To a man the players in the lockerroom were behind Cogs the entire time, even as the media was running his name through the friggin mud. I don't know why Philbin gets the benefit of the doubt from anyone on that issue, other than it was a chance to continue the hate parade vs. Ireland. The leadership council actually came to Philbin after he got rid of Chad Johnson and said whoa coach why don't you talk to us before you make a decision like that, maybe us players can step in and nip stuff in the bud before it comes to a crisis. You know, stuff like hazing or "bullying" maybe? But we know what happened to the leadership council. It's a little confusing to be honest. Didn't Philbin want Dansby, Burnett and Bush gone too? Ireland listened and he's killed for it. Then when he doesn't listen he gets killed for that too. Ultimately he gets "fired" for not listening, or did he get fired for listening? I dunno. What I do know is that the guy Philbin hated and wanted gone was also serving as his force field, a magnet for any and all criticism that is no longer there. The ramifications are obvious.
All of it's hearsay. But it seems like the rumors that paint Philbin in a positive light are more readily accepted as true.
Don't think Albert would've won those final 2 games for us or prevented us from giving away two or three other games in the 4th quarter, at least not amidst the coaching effort working against him. In that regard, we were better off NOT using a 2nd rounder to rent him for the year, especially when we can sign he or Anthony Collins now w/o any picks involved.
That may be because of Ireland. Coming from someone who was neutral on Ireland, it wouldn't surprise me if the ridding of the leadership council was his doing. But, then again....
That was Clabo at RT. And it wasn't just the sack. The play call was bad, the pass pro was bad, the QB shouldn't have fumbled, the D shouldn't have let Buffalo run the clock down after the fumble, etc, etc, no one player costs his team the game. I know that's cliche but its part of the wider point, like TP said, Albert wasn't the magic bullet for us last year.
That's fair. I kinda think they did it mutually but you're right, who knows? I just don't like finger pointing after the fact. Now we seem to be having trouble getting a new GM in here and that's got to be at least in part b/c the candidates are of leery of getting Ireland'ed.
Few, if any, argued the scandal being a media overblown situation more than me. Whether it was a valid scandal or not, it took a toll on the team and could have been completely avoided had Ireland listened to the coach. Again, Philbin wasn't going off tape or conjecture...as a lifetime oline coach he determined Martin couldn't play after coaching him for a year. If Martin's college coach told Ireland that, Ireland wouldn't have drafted him. I get the whole "rob peter to pay paul" finagling that has to happen to keep a roster relevant and in contention.....but Ireland, it seems, forgot to get the roster into contention first. Again, I don't think Ireland is bad evaluator of talent at all. In fact, I think he's pretty good at it, but I think he had serious problems managing the roster, which is the other half of the skill set needed. He was to me, a classic example of a really good scout missing the rest of the tools needed to be a great GM.
My biggest gripe w/ Ireland was that he basically got rid of all the leaders at once. Dansby, Burnett, Long, Bush, Fasano, all in one offseason. And then you look out on the field and see a team that was wildly inconsistent. 3-0 then 0-4, 5-2 then 0-2. They would prove themselves for a few weeks and then relax, play well vs the good opponents, come out flat vs the lesser opponents. IMO that's not a talent issue it's a leadership, motivation, professionalism issue. I don't care if Philbin got on hands and knees and begged for those guys to be gone, Ireland shouldn't have let it happen and at the very least he should have phased them out over a couple of seasons. I think those issues, much more so than the OL issues, were why we didn't make the playoffs.
Fred Jackson bulldozing his way through our defense to kill the clock and get Carpenter into chip shot FG range? Or maybe Tannehill throwing a pick 6 on the opening possession and a bonehead INT in the EZ a few series later. Lots of mistakes were made in that game.
