Jeff Ireland Joining Saints Personnel Department

Which resulted in us being an average team. Which we have been since 2008 when he became GM. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to settle for average. I want us to be elite. We were never going to be elite with Ireland at GM. We might not be with Philbin as HC either but that's another thread.

 

Who cares what Jeff Ireland is doing right now. Really. The guy is gone. Not sure how this is Dolphins related, other than for the reason we can have the same arguments over and over with respect to Jeff's picks here.

 

I don't think a guy that was compared to Matt Millen in league circles will ever run a team again....

 

Jordan has yet to prove exactly what he is and this staff hasn't figured out how to use him properly in their system.

Tannehill is still developing as a QB but was looking terribly average before this season(yes, the OL was terrible). Ireland could've selected another QB (Wilson) but Tanny is our guy right now. I'd argue though he might've been just as much a Philbin and Sherman pick more than Ireland.

Pouncey is a C, one of the best in the league(and a gimmie of a draft pick). But alas, he's not a "playmaker".

Odrick I wasn't a fan of when we drafted him. I felt then as I do now that there was better players available at his selection. Still, I was wrong about my assessment that he would never develop. He was hurt his rookie year so it did hold him back some. Still though, as good as he is now, he disappears about as much as he makes plays. There are alot of Odricks in the league, he's slightly above average. I think he would better in a 3-4.

Davis made plays and was burnt alot as well. He was immature and had issues with the staff. Its too bad we gave up him, because he was looking like a rare Ireland pick that could've developed into an All-Pro. Well he finally did, just not for the Dolphins. We were also losers in that trade.

Long same as Pouncey. He also broke down and got hurt. Today he's an injury prone former All-Pro LT. I suspect his injuries had alot to do with the weight training program Parcells initiated here, where players bulked up but broke down after awhile.

So I'm still not impressed with that group.

 

I'm not arguing he was more than average. I'm arguing that he was not below average.

 

And I'm arguing for Ryan Tannehill. RYAN FRIGGEN TANNEHILL, believe or not, he's our future and was a GREAT pick (imo of course). And if we win with him with solid contributions from Ireland's other picks. The Ireland detractors will look quite foolish then. Like when we played San Diego.

 

The point I was addressing wasn't whether they are impressive. It was to address your theory that he only went after 'blue-collar' type players. He very clearly went after some high-upside players along with what you refer to as 'blue-collar' players.

 

Besides being an average GM, he was also horrible at dealing with people. You don't want your GM to be the center of controversy and be a turn off to the rest of the league. You risk losing out to luring potentially high caliber FAs and coaches. For all we know, Ireland could've been a deterrent to us landing Peyton Manning when he was a FA.

 

And all these Dolphins fans may not believe he did a good job. But talk to a knowledgeable Ravens fan, and let them tell you how they fear us going forward. Flacco is good but not always consistent, Matt Elam isn't playing well and the secondary needs to be addressed, also HB. Pass rush aging, also receiving core needs help, and imo they were the second best team in the AFC this year. They see the talent we have imo, we don't lol. Every team has problems, not every team has a QB who again imo, has about as much potential as any QB on planet earth.

 

Of course if your the owner of the Dolphins, you hire a former fired GM to be head of football operations and have the present GM report to this individual.

Is there any wonder why this team has not had a single winning season under this ownership?

 

And again, we're still waiting to see if these guys are even worthy of being deemed "playmakers". Two of them are linemen, Odrick is closer to being just a blue collar guy than consistent playmaker. Davis was indeed a (uneven) playmaker who the team threw away too soon, and the jury is still out on DJ and Tanny. I never said he never tried to get playmakers, just that he wasn't very good at it.

 

I would say Ireland was an average scout and a below-average GM who never hit on a QB.

Just look at the prior post using Bill Belichick as an example of a good GM. Belichick never had great drafts. He's a good 'game-prep' coach who got lucky and landed a HOF QB with a 6th round pick. Now, people now assume he's a good GM, which he isn't, IMO. Having a great QB can go a long way in making a coach or GM look like some sort of genius.

 

Based on Flacco's record against the Dolphins, I would suspect he would love to play the Dolphins every week of the season.

As far as the potential of Tannehill is concerned. I believe he has the potential to be a QB who can win you 8-9 games a year, but not the QB who can ever take this team to the Super Bowl.

I think the new head coach in 2016 will realize Tannehill's limitations and will want to bring in his QB to take this team to the next level. Tannehill is a decent QB for a mediocre team like the Dolphins but he isn't the long term answer if your ultimate goal is the win a Super bowl.

 

"Playmaker" is an over rated term. What does it even mean, skill position, good football player, impact player, what? The Dallas Cowboys drafted a guard who transformed there entire team into a potential superbowl contender. Tell me about what a sexy "playmaking" pick that was. It wasn't. It was a good, sound football decision, on a good sound football player like Ireland did for years. Like when he lobbied hard for Parcells to draft Ware back in the day. Check the facts.

 

I respectfully, completely disagree with your analysis.

 

BTW the 2 calls on Pouncy changed everything in that game. But that's just the truth, don't worry about that lol.

 

Oh and the safety on Flacco delivered by Vernon that the official on t.v even said was an incorrect call. Get some. I'm a soccer referee personally so I know the impact we can have on games.

 

It's pretty simple: a player who makes game changing plays. Dan Marino, Jason Taylor, Zach Thomas, Sam Madison, Patrick Surtain, Ricky Williams, Mark Clayton, Mark Duper, Irving Fryar, AJ Duhe, Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, Mercury Morris, Paul Warfield, Bill Stanfill, ect are examples of former Dolphins I'd consider playmakers. In the NFL you have Calvin Johnson, Dez Bryant, Dymurius Thomas, Richard Sherman, Patrick Peterson, Marshawn Lynch, Jordy Nelson, Ndakong Suh, Kyle Williams, Mario Edwards, JJ Watt, Rob Grodkowski, ect. You need some of those type of guys to win. Ireland didn't have enough of those guys.

 

At the end of the day people hate him because he didn't win. People love the Shehawks because they win, period. I personally see guys like Wake, Vernon, Jones, even Wallace at times, Clay, Grimes, and Miller as playmakers. Not consistantly, that's why we don't win enough. But once we start, you'll all change your tune and sing Hickey's, Failbin's, or some other jagoff's praises until the cows come home, why? Winning.

 

And Sam Madison was over rated btw, too many penalties. Surtain was my boy though.

 

The point is that nobody really has an abnormally great record as a drafter. Every GM has his share of busts and wasted picks. And even those who appear better than the norm may just appear that way because of luck. Some people don't like to hear that, but in any pool of 32 people some will do much better than others based on pure luck/chance. If it's coin flipping with heads as the more desirable flip, some will get 9-10 out of 10 and some may get 1-2 out of 10. If its rolling dice with high rolls as the more desirable roll, some will roll a bunch of 5s and 6s and others will roll a bunch of 1s and 2s. Drafting among GMs isn't much different.

 

This is the worst thing to ever happen to the city of new Orleans

 

No overstatement there at all lol. When did Jeff Ireland become Darth Vader again? I can't wait till it's official. He belongs with a mind like Payton.

 

Oh I get it. Jeff Ireland got a scouting job with an NFL team and that vindicates every awful thing he did to our franchise? "Oh look! He got hired to a job that's about 13 rungs down the latter from NFL GM!!! We were right all along! He wasn't a complete trash pile of a GM!!"

If this news makes you happy, don't let me take that away from you. As long as it's not a job with this franchise, I'm happy too.

 

He did good work here. You'll learn in due time.

 

Winning is everything. Since he was the GM who picked the players and we weren't winning, why on earth should he have kept his job?

 

Lol.

 

And when you can draft a really good QB, your team is likely to be successful despite whatever else may happen in the draft. Such is the margin of error associated with having great quarterback play.

 

Mostly true, although I don't think it is just about the drafting of the QB. I think the system and surrounding talent have a lot to do with whether the guy you drafted will be good or great. but yes, if you get great QB play you have a larger margin of error.

 

True. See Miami Dolphins 1983-1999.

 

If he was as bad as some say then Philbin must be a damn good coach going 8-8 with all of his terrible players.

 

Because 8-8 is the epitome of winning.

 

Ireland did a good job building a run the ball and play defense roster, the missing link was QB and by the time he found one, which is more luck than skill, the team was moving in a different direction. The core of the team was basically gutted and is still being rebuilt. In a stable environment with a clear philosophy in place Irish could do well, the same can be said for a lot of GMs.

Personally, I think Irish-McCoy > Philbin-Hickey but that ship sailed long ago.

 

Because sarcasm is the epitome of intelligent discussion

 

Except for the fact that year after year, he always failed to address a gaping hole in a unit that led to a failure of a season. As Fin D pointed out, he failed as a team builder, which is the point of being a GM in the first place.

 

Different league, though, now. Passing game is much more emphasized across the league, and so not being up to snuff at the QB position almost certainly equals mediocrity or worse.

 

Philbin did about as expected, with a QB who played about average, and with about an average number of Pro Bowl players for a non-playoff team.

 

How many GMs have a team with no holes? I'll wait.

 

Tannehill played significantly above average this year, all things considered. His devwlopment and continued development is the main reason we weren't a 5-6 win team this year.