Let me start by saying I wanted Philbin fired after the Buffalo game (he lost the team and doubled down on what made him lose them instead of changing) and I wanted Coyle fired a looooooong time ago. Now, having said that, I don't understand the doom and gloom for the rest of the season. I am not saying we will be good or bad going forward, I'm just saying that I don't understand the negativity. Here's why.... 99% of the posters on this board thought Philbin & Coyle were horrible coaches and were our biggest issue. Yet, now that they are gone, we're expecting a season worse than we've had in a few years. Shouldn't the removal of our biggest roadblocks to success mean we improve as a team? Let me restate, I am not defending Philbin. I am not saying we'll be a good teams and have a better record than 8-8. I just don't understand why when people wanted those two gone, got what they wanted, they are still down in the dumps and expecting us to be worse than ever.
Very few people expect us to be worse. I see no evidence of that here or anywhere else. Plus, how can it get worse than being outmatched and outplayed nearly every snap? Anyone *****ing about the move to Campbell is probably a closet Jets or Jills fan trying to stir sh*t up.
WADR, you are 100% wrong and not even sure what you're talking about. Many, many people on here don't see us winning more than 4 or 5 games the rest of the way.
We just played the easiest part of our schedule and got dog walked two out of three losses. If we win 5 game from here on out, I would say that is an improvement.
I think that the pessimism comes from how badly the team has played during the first four games, which was obviously FAR below almost everyone's expectations. While I was always against Philbin and wanted him gone after every year, and I think that had we hired a better head coach/staff last January we'd be in a much better spot than we currently are, I also am not sure how much of an "addition by subtraction" bump we may get. It could happen, but my optimism has certainly faded. I love the team, will watch every play, and hope that they turn things around starting Sunday afternoon. I'll be pumped if they do. But if they come out flat again, even if they win the next two to get back to .500, I'm not sure how much my mood will change. If they look about as good as they did during the better parts of 2014, then I'll likely start to feel better.
The pessimism stems from the thought that when you tear the rudder off of the ship by running the ship aground and then promote 1/2 of the same coaching staff to the top, weather qualified to be there or not, 9 out of 10 times when the ship is resailed with its missing rudder, the ship runs in circles
I dont think you have to overthink why man.....you wanna know why? Last two decades. If we had been great at some point in the last decade..and just had four bad years of Philbin and Coyle...you wouldnt see the negativism and cynicism. Guys just are kinda used to our team not living up to expectations...so...a new coach, meh. I see it in a much different light, btw....I think Coach Campbell is exactly the right coach for this team at this time. You could not have gotten the team to buy into what hes selling unless it was Campbell. He was a player...hes been on great teams..and bad teams...and hes been there for all this just like them. You bring a fiery coach who wasnt part of that group, into our locker room, and guys would probably cash out.
Replacing the unpopular coaching staff does not resolve the problems they leave in their wake . Its too late in the game to change either the offensive or defensive schemes. All that can be done is to tweak them and switch players . Its also too late to add any significant players that will fill the obvious holes we have on the OL,LB,DB .Perhaps our running game will improve with the addition of Ajayi . IMO the team will improve its performance but will it be enough to get into the playoffs . IMO fans are still suffering from the disappointment of another year of busted expectations so who can blame some of them from being negative .
Bad leaders can significantly degrade performance. Good leaders can enhance performance. We have no idea of their ceiling. I will not predict anything, but I would not be shocked if they played well.
Hey Ill fully admit if Im wrong..but I really really dont think I am. I think everyone is wayyyy overthinking this. Our schemes are fine for the most part...you do realize we are still running a 4/3 defense right? But theres a huge difference between asking guys to read and teact...rather then just playing nard nosed football. Thats what these guys have been asking to do...dont make us read and then react...just let us impose our defense. Allowing that to happen isnt ancheme change...its a tweak. We have plenty of run plays in our offensive scheme...our offensive scheme is great...tweaking it to be more power run and adjust some things on the line isnt a radical change. This team did NOT WANT TO PLAY for Philbin and Coyle. Its that simple. They have two coaches they want to play for. Its that simple. Oh and we are getting healthy....Albert will be much healthier..we get Dion Sims back...Jordan Camerons groin is much better now...DeVante Parker will now become a much bigger part of our offense. The team is there guys. You cant just assume we arent gonna do well because teams that change coaches early in the season dont do well. Look at our team on its own...see whats there. Do over think it.
Once bitten twice shy. There really isn't any evidence yet to suggest that the team is on any better a trajectory than it appeared to be on through the first four games. If there is no such evidence, then the safest bet (again, "twice shy") is in expecting the team to stay on the same trajectory.
Basically that means, we went 8-8 the last 2 years, so we'll be a sub-.500 team by adding Suh and removing Philbin and Coyle?
Why would you be particularly optimistic about an interim head coaching staff? Especially when you're still working within the confines of Joe Philbin's coaching staff, a group of people he put together largely on the basis of who he was friends with.
Why do you think it's so crazy that fans could be happy Philbin is gone and still not feel optimistic about the rest of this season? Everyone on the current staff was on Philbin's staff. They are also stepping into an extremely difficult situation. It's not that anyone is being negative about the current staff. Only speaking for myself, but I wish them all the best and hope they can somehow coach this team to the playoffs. But reasonable expectations keep me from getting too wound up. But if you or anyone else wants to buy into the hype that the Dolphins social media and PR department is feeding fans and get your hopes up about the rest of this season then don't let me stop you.
But you'll believe we'll be worse than we have been the past 2 years, even though we got rid of our 2 biggest issues?
I didn't say it was crazy. I didn't say anyone was negative about the current staff. I didn't say I wanted to buy into the hype.
I don't think the math is that simple. Like Nappy said, some of us are predicting sub-500 because we are heading into the toughest part of the schedule now. Right before Philbin was fired I was predicting a 3 win season given our lack of attitude, game planning and lack of depth on the team along with injuries. Now with Campbell, I am expecting an improvement, I see Campbell winning 5 more games instead of 2 more games. I see us @ 6-10 at season's end. Comparing to previous 8-8 seasons isn't relevant, it's comparing expectations to the remainder of this season between the two coaching staffs.
He explained why. Because there's no guarantee that an interim coaching staff made up of the underlings of the biggest issues will be successful nor is it reasonable to expect that. You're just ignoring the answer to fit your narrative.
For me, what it comes down to is this... Great. Philbin and Coyle are gone. We needed that. We wanted that going back to last season. Now, we've replaced him mid-season which never really ends well for the interim guys. Secondly, we've replaced Philbin and Coyle with guys who basically have zero experience at their new coaching positions. To me, it just doesn't breed a lot of confidence for me in the team. Moving Rizzi up to Assistant HC helps me feel a bit better about things, he's at least done something like that not too long ago. At least that's it for me. I'm not overly confident in this team based on what they showed us under Philbin. Philbin is gone, great. Really great. However are the replacements an upgrade that's really going to improve the team? Maybe, maybe they will play better, but the damage is already done IMO. It was done last year when Ross elected to keep Philbin over Quinn. Or anyone else really. It's the unknown about a new interim HC who's only been in coaching for 4 or 5 years, it's the unknown of a new DC who hasn't been one in forever. It's inexperience across the board, and it just doesn't inspire confidence for me. Is this new staff really going to outcoach Belichick or Ryan? Hell... even Todd Bowles? I'll say I'm cautiously optimistic, but that's about it really.
Pretty much everybody thought the team would be a 10 win team in spite of Philbin and Coyle being terrible, essentially they thought Tannehill, Suh, Lazor and maybe Tannenbaum would all be so good that even Philbin couldn't keep them down. Obviously that assessment was wrong. Tannehill- during the Sunday night game they had a graphic that showed the bottom 5 QBs causing incompletions due to errant throws showing that Kaepernick was the worst in the league. But I noticed the guy tied with him as the worst was Ryan Tannehill. Lazor- has his offense been exposed a-la Chip Kelly? Suh- clearly we're not getting our $100 worth out of him and I don't want to hear he's doing what he's supposed to do eating up double teams BS. Suh was supposed to make the d-line look better which would in turn make our iffy secondary look better than they are. Both the d-line and the secondary has looked terrible. Suh is obviously not giving his best effort. Tannenbaum/Hickey- forgetting the Suh disaster for a minute to have success we needed some young unknown players to step up and be great. At LB'er we needed Tripp or McCain or a new guy to step up and be the next Jenkins. Same with defensive back, we need a young guy to step up and surprise. And on offense we needed one of the guards to break out. But their big miss was not getting us a viable swing tackle. The Bengals are so stacked at o-line they arguably have two tackles sitting on the bench that are as good as our starters. So Philbin is getting all the blame but everybody expected Philbin to suck anyway. If people are being honest with themselves they'll admit this team has some much bigger issues than just the head coach.
The way in which it was done may have some bearing on the issue, as well. This is quite a bit different from "cleaning house" during the offseason and installing something new with lots of time to do it. Because this was done in this way, the "addition by subtraction" you're talking about could be far less than if it had been done in the traditional way, at the beginning of the offseason. There are lots of unknowns here, and again, when the overall picture is unknown to this degree, the safest bet is in expecting what was already happening.
Because the current coaching staff is still full of a bunch of guys that Philbin and Coyle hired. Just because Philbin and Coyle were bad, doesn't mean it can't get worse.
Basically the "miracle" here would need the following ingredients to occur: The players were so disenchanted with and demoralized by the former head coach and defensive coordinator that the "sleeping giant" Dan Campbell has referred to was indeed not only sleeping, but in a coma. The changes made at HC and DC, along with the other shuffling that's gone on, would have to awaken the players immediately from said coma. The leadership among the players is such that Campbell's philosophy and message are taken hold of to such a degree that they permeate the locker room and immediately change the culture. All of those changes, and perhaps others we're unaware of, result in measurable effects in the actual physical play of the team on the field. Those are an awful lot of conditions to have come to fruition. It's certainly not impossible, but it is improbable.
So if a person thinks we'll end up with a worse record than last year, they believe Philbin & Coyle are better than what we currently have?
Yes, I definitely think theres an argument that Campbell and Lou Anarumo are worse than Philbin. Anarumo especially.
Wasn't this what everyone was saying just before the season started? We fixed our biggest issues: stopping the run with the help of Ndamukong Suh, making more explosive plays with the help of the new WR corps, running the ball by adding more OL talent and developing guys like Turner and Thomas.. how can we get worse? Well... we did. Sometimes things just don't workout as planned. You can't just say that we will get better by removing our biggest issues. I am optimistic on Campbell, and I think he can have a winning record the rest of the way (no playoffs though), but after everything that has happened to our team not just this season but over the last decade, I can definitely understand why people are more pessimistic.
Philbin's whole staff is still here. As bad as we thought Philbin was, he wasn't 1-15 bad. Just not good. We needed it to be done. But it would have been better at the end of last year. So basically, the staff, as a whole (not individually), wasn't all that great, and then you lop the head and one arm off. Yeah, there's a chance this can be even worse. But it needed to be done. Clean shop over the offseason. And there's a slight chance, that Philbin indeed was the only problem, and the team does better.
Fin...no offense man...but it really seems like your digging for something...as a way to circle this bacm to Philbin...
Here are some things Campbell has going against him: 1. Grimes is hurt 2. I'm sure some in the organization appreciated Philbin's style and felt he got the short end of the stick. Locker room rift? 3. We are hearing rumblings that some in the locker room have issues with Suh and his entitled attitude. Campbell didn't help matters by leaving "Manhatten" alone while shifting around the locker room. 4. Bilick made the point that some players may not want to put their bodies on the line for an interim coach 5. it sounds like some players wanted Lazor ousted too. It sounds like Lazor needs to perform or he'll get the axe sooner than later. Will the players that want him out do him like they did Coyle?
Philbin wasn't the guy. That was clear. So you get rid of him. Whatever happens after that is secondary to the fact that he was not the solution; just because you don't have stellar alternatives doesn't mean you ride with a guy who you know isn't getting it done. Are the odds great that Campbell and co. are the solution? No - hence the skeptics. But there's a chance, and with Philbin there wasn't.
I'm pretty sure my reputation isn't one where I subtly dig for something. If I have an idea or thought I say it. I don't beat around the bush. Again, my record should speak for itself on that. I'm not digging. I genuinely don't understand why people are gloom and doom, if they wanted Philbin gone for so long. He's gone, we should be better...unless you think the coaches we're left with are worse than Philbin and Coyle.
- We added Ndamukong Suh, Jordan Phillips and CJ Mosley, our run defense should be better. - We simplified the defensive scheme and developed Aikens and Thomas, and added some talented rookies to our secondary, it should be better. - We got rid of Wallace, Hartline and Gibson while adding Jennings, Stills, and Parker, our offense should be better. - Turner and Thomas will develop all while adding a rookie guard who fits the system in Douglas, the OL should be better. - Tannehill has been constantly improving, so this year he should be better. These are all things we were saying before the season started. Point is, just because things should be better doesn't mean they will. We have more reason to believe they won't (based on recent Miami Dolphins history) than to believe they will.
Right, but I'm not saying we won't be worse. I'm not saying people can't worry about it. I don't understand the expectation that we'll be worse I guess. Try it from this angle, if we had kept Philbin and Coyle would our record this year be better then it will be going forward with Campbell & Co.? If yes, then why did they want them fired before the end of the season? (was it just draft slot related). If no, then why the expectation we'll be worse than 8-8?
If you don't understand why I'm confused, then I don't know how else to explain it you. Yes, of course people could be punishing this team for **** that happened 20 years ago. But that's not the only reason some of these people are predicting we'll be worse than 8-8 WITHOUT Philbin.
Right, but wasn't Philbin and Coyle the reason many of the things you mentioned didn't come to fruition or are we to just believe that Suh is no longer a top DT, simply.....because?
For us to be 8-8, Campbell will have to go 7-5 the rest of the way while still having to face teams like the Patriots (x2), Bill (away), Jets (away), Texans (who we never beat), Cowboys, Eagles, Ravens. Do I think he can do it? Sure... is it realistic? Probably not. Most people saying we'll be worse than 8-8 are being more realistic than you are right now.