Hickey didn't have a bad year, but the amount of credit he's getting for not being Jeff Ireland while producing a Jeff Ireland-quality offseason is amazing.
You're definitely in the minority thinking hickey and his last off season with us was anything close to Irish-esque. 2nd round picks say hello. Same with UDFAs who seem promising and good FA pickups. You also can't knock him for injuries. Hell I almost forgot what it was like to have a meaningful draft with instant impact and skill positions. Just because he was "okay" doesn't mean he was Irish bad.
None of those things you're saying about Jeff Ireland are true, besides maybe the 2nd round picks thing, and even then that's a bit arbitrary. His success rate on higher picks was pretty typical overall. The FA thing is even more asinine. Ireland took more risks in FA, but he also had multiple off-seasons where he arguably picked up the best player in free agency overall that year(Brent Grimes most recently)
Ireland took more FA risks over his collective tenure here than Hickey did in one offseason? Okay. That's fine. It's not even worth the argument if you think Hickey and Ireland can even draw a slight comparison, really, Let alone calling Irish better at anything. At the end of the day there is a reason Hickey will continue to be employed in the NFL after he leaves the Dolphins and Ireland went to Seattle and was let go within a month. Where is he now, again?
Juwuan James was awesome pick. Landry is awesome. Genre fede just won the game this week. Our FAs were stellar before injury. Get us a big WR, g, and lb hickey!
I don't know why there is this desire to act like Hickey has put together an amazing off-season that totally and forever repudiates the evil of Jeff Ireland. It's relying more on fantasy than anything at this point. Ireland got fired(and deservingly) because he had poor roster management skills. Not because he had an awful success rate in either the draft or free agency, or anything like that, because it simply isn't true. Hickey had a solid off-season. It would have been better if most of his acquisitions hadn't been injured, but that's absolutely part of it as well.
That's really not that particularly unheard of given the circumstances, and that's even without his abrasiveness. Ireland deserves another job, and if he learned from his mistakes he'd make a quite good GM.
I think the difference with Hickey is that he prioritized the acquisition of players who fit the schemes of the team's current coaches. I'm not sure you can say Ireland did that as effectively.
no one is acting like that. lol. not sure where that came from. comparing Hickey to Ireland is absurd. much more than saying we feel he's not bad and no where near as bad as Irish. you stated it was like an Ireland-esque off season and that's just wrong. It was one offseason, and he spent it trying to repair Irelands disgusting abortion of a season the previous year. Injuries, Really? How the blue f**k are injuries part of the equation when judging how a GM handles his talent evaluation and acquisitions? I never held any GM accountable for that. Especially Ireland. I feel sorry for anyone who has. Sure you can have some warning signs on personal injuries that will lead to hit or miss,* but it’s still chance. *If you go out and sign a stud who is a perfect fit and upgrade for your team, and someone spears their helmet into their knee and ends their season, then no, that’s not on the GM. Okay fine. Let’s see the Draft. Hickey took James and Landry which were both (almost unanimously) perceived as ‘reaches’.* How did those work out for us again?* Oh, right. Amazingly.* As most, I’m still lukewarm on Turner and Aikens, but how could you not be excited about the upside of Tripp and Fede? It wasn’t an absolute out of the park homerun draft, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t solid as all hell. Now FA… In the offseason season we grabbed Brandon Albert, the biggest splash for us, and how much of an impact did that make again, this year?* Yeah.* *Oh also,* remind me, who wanted Albert last year and who DIDN’T want Albert last year?* How did THAT work out for us?* Just adding more comedy to the comparison. Now, completely ignoring his re-signings, which were obviously far from bad at the time, Delmas and Finnegan were surprisingly solid pickups and contributors. Earl Mitchell was an impressive pickup, even if his play has somewhat dwindled as the season has. and I may be in the minority but I thought us signing Moreno was absolutely huge, and for his limited time here, it was. High risk High reward and we just happened to get the short end of the stick. Again, not the GMs fault. UDFAs?* Nothing huge. However, Gator has shown some flashes and I like him. D Williams is looking like he’s got some serious future potential. Really how much more are you going to ask of a GM who came in right behind Ireland and the catastrophe that was last year? If you wan’t to knock him as a GM based on in season decisions or lack thereof, that’s fine, but you have no idea what goes on behind the scenes or the reasons why X happens and Y does not. Personally looking forward to seeing what he can do this offseason. It’s all spilled milk anyway.
The 2nd round pick thing isn't true either. Sean Smith, Koa Misi, Chad Henne, Brandon Marshall, Jamar Taylor. No home runs in there but no worse than average. People point to D Thomas and Pat White as if they were the only 2nd rounders to come here. Ireland is gone bc he and Philbin didn't see eye to eye on how to build the team and Ross sided with Philbin. It's not because he sucked as a talent evaluator or GM.
Totally disingenuous argument. The second round pick curse is definitely true. Brandon Marshall was not a second round pick (yes, a second rounder was used to trade for him, but the complaint is about crappy college TALENT EVALUTION). Chad Henne sucked. Jamar Taylor, the jury is still out. You're forgetting to mention our pal Jonathan Martin.
In his first year as gm, Hickeys 2nd rounder has flat out embarrassed everything Ireland has ever done with second round picks.
What Hickey did this year is encouraging, especially seeing some of the late round/FA guys he grabbed looking legit. Another year like that, plus having a better shot with FA's due to having a legit QB and just a better looking team overall - Miami will be a bit more attractive for free agents this offseason i think.
To me, what may separate Hickey from Ireland is what may wind up occurring with our mid to late round picks and UDFA's. And I don't necessarily mean quality as much as quantity, as Ireland did a decent job with late round picks. Hickey appears to have acquired numerous players that have flashed and shown some ability to be starters or at the very least, solid contributors to this football team. Far more than I remember Ireland drafting or signing in any given year. And the more this team struggles to get under the cap (especially with Tannehill needing to be re-upped soon), the more we're going to need a good amount of cheap talented players who can be developed. As for the free agency I haven't particularly seen all that much difference between Hickey and Ireland yet. And I was disappointed at the lack of in-season moves on the part of Hickey, made more noteworthy by the success the Patriots had in acquiring players that have played a meaningful role on that team the second half of the year.
Would have made no sense to fire a guy after a year and heavy residuals from the last administration still left to clean.
Despite trading away 2nd round picks for Marshall, Ireland had 7 second round picks during his tenure. Not a single one of those players made a significant impact in year one. Yes, Misi has matured into a solid LB and Taylor shows some promise but that is a pretty poor track record for second round picks.
You can't fault a GM for injuries when he is the one who signed those injury prone players? Before the season, a lot of people expected Delmas, Finnegan and Albert to miss games. Even Moreno missed time in his career. I don't think he can be absolved of all blame here. I did not like Ireland and was happy to see him go but I think Hickey is a bit overrated around here, especially his FA signings.
Praising Hickey for the good moves he's made is fans overrating him now? Interesting. I guess We should have just kept Ireland at the rate this is going. Whats the difference, right???? And yes. Common sense will tell you that More than likely people are going to slightly over praise a new GM making decent moves after they just got rid of the absolute cancerous dumpster fire that was the last one.
I'm not sure if you're joking or didn't read what he said. Lets compare Hickey's only 2nd rounder against everything Ireland's ever done with any 2nd round picks and revisit this shall we?
Yes, Hickey drafted a good 2nd round pick. Doesn't mean he did an overall good job. I actually think there would be about 10x more hatred for Landry if he was an Ireland pick. People would point out that most of his catches are below 10 yards and a lot are behind the line of scrimmage. Plus all of his drops/fumbles in the return game.
Please. A player who's had injuries his entire career can just never have one again, just like that. Same way an injury free player can end his career any day of the week. Hell, Garrard got hurt at his house FFS. Injuries happen. It's a chance. Sure having an injury past can increase the risk, unfortunately that's not the GMs fault. It's ridiculous to think otherwise. It's even more comical when you can blatantly see more often than not that most injuries aren't even the players fault who got hurt. Is it smart practice to avoid players who are hurt all the time? Sure. But the fact remains that you run the risk with every single player.
The fact that he did an overall pretty good job is what means he did an overall good job. I don't remember saying hickey is a good GM because he picked landry.. guess I need to reread what I wrote. This wouldn't even be a conversation if it wasn't for injuries OUT OF OUR CONTROL. It must be easy for people to say Hickey didn't do a good job without offering any substance on what you or any other good GM would have done instead eh?
When you sign a guy who is frequently injured and put yourself in a position to rely on him, it most certainly becomes part of the "equation". Branden Albert getting injured was essentially a given. Hickey didn't properly compensate for it, and it's quite possible that as good as Albert's play was this season, that it becomes a bad signing through time missed and a decline in play. The same thing applies to the Dolphins prior signing of Justin Smiley/Jake Grove. Ireland's off-season wasn't a catastrophe, it was merely bad, and the two major holes either recurred(offensive line) or were fixed through coaching rather than any personnel moves(Linebackers).
Interesting. The offseason that got him fired, fielded the worst oline and line backing crew the team has ever seen, while becoming the laughing stock of the NFL due to a drama filled bullying scandal centered around his terrible evaluation of a 2nd pick wasn't enough to call it a catastrophe. Just another thing you're in the minority on, I guess. Last season was a disaster in almost every way. I don't care if a player is Injured every season of his career. If a gm takes a chance on him and he gets injured by someone hitting him a certain way or something that's out of anyone's control, it's not the gms fault. It's called bad luck. How far has being conservative and taking safe routes gotten us lately?
If injuries weren't out of control, he would still be using mostly Ireland's roster. Hickey did O.K. It is hard to call his job good. He did hit on his first two draft picks, but every other draft pick is still TBD. Which is a positive in the sense that there are zero losers, however there is no guarantee that they will work out. His free agency record is not all that great. Albert was a good signing, although a little pricey. Jared Veldheer did really well and was a lot cheaper. College sucks. Satele pretty much sucks, but was also signed too late. Shelly Smith was a huge disappointment. Earl Mitchell looked good at first, however he has broken down during the season. Delmas was a decent pick, until the injury prone safety got injured. Speaking of injury prone, Knowshon also got hurt. Cortland Finnegan was way over paid and pretty much was not good. It is pretty easy to state that Hickey didn't do a good all around job. I do believe 100% if Ireland did the exact same job there would be a lot more hate for these transactions.
Thats why some of these Stats by PFF are hard to understand. I watched all the games last year and this year and while after Albert got hurt and Thomas was at RT we took a step down, in my eyes this years line was CONSIDERABLY better. Not even close
That's all well and good. Last year didn't have the injury to Albert and major shufflings this year did. Albert, The anchor and leader of the oline. The one Ireland the great refused to get. Last year's line was absolutely pathetic. You use pff gradings. I'll use sacks and hits.
I do not agree. Last season had a little better interior line play. For all of the Jerry hate, he was MUCH better than College, Guard Pouncey. Samson Satale was a much worse center than Center Pouncey. Incognito was better than College/ Guard Pouncey and Dallas Thomas. This season had much better Tackle play with Albert and James, except for the Kansas City, they both were bad that game. This season's interior play was much worse than last season.
