With Jabar Gaffney cut, we get to see more of receiver Rishard Matthews (who debuted against the Bills), and Dolphins cornerbacks say everyone will be surprised how good he is. “He made this diving one-handed catch for 40 yards in practice,” Sean Smith said. “He’s been making plays all year in practice. He’s got size, speed, strength. It’s crazy he was [only] a seventh-round” pick. He caught 91 passes for 1364 yards at Nevada in 2011. Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/sports-buzz/#storylink=cpy
Prepare for the onslaught of negative Jeff Ireland opinions when people click on the link and read that "everyone in the building" knows the team needs a speedy receiver, while almost no one remarks about how he appears to have potentially drafted a good receiver in the seventh round.
More reason I don't trust the coaches to make good decisions about who plays and who doesn't. Unless Smith is just talking up Matthews for the sake of talking him up, evidently he's been making plays all year in practice.
They haven't given us a whole lot of reason to trust them. Keep on throwing a right tackle out there that gets the QB killed...sticking with Richie instead of giving Samuda (sp?) a shot. Complete lack of Miller despite the fact every time he carries the ball something good happens.
Some interesting off-air comments made by Bill Polian, whom Jason La Canfora reported a few weeks ago is looking to get back into the game: Interesting indeed.
This one is flat out scary: Attendance is a systemic problem across the entire NFL right now. But TV ratings are not even close to a problem across the league. If I'm Steve Ross and I see that TV rating...I'm scared.
"Now, he's getting better," Sherman said. "He's working his butt off. We're really excited about what he's going to be, but it's just harder to put him in there ahead of (Anthony) Fasano or ahead of (Charles) Clay at this juncture." He was talking of Egnew. Here dolphins talkin about Matthews. "Dolphins cornerbacks say everyone will be surprised how good he is" Not really.. It would help Ireland's case if Matthews really flashes..bottom line for me is all I want in my GM, is the ability to evaluate talent, and the last two years are on notice.
The waiving of Clyde Gates still rubs me the wrong way. He needed some time, he was raw. And our dire need at Guard- Donald Thomas is looking pretty good now for another AFC rival, the Patriots. Both guys were unusually short on football experience and unusually long on talent and long term potential. What happened to the notion that it takes a couple of years to develop players? And that is generally referring to players with full high school and college experience, unlike these two players. I think that Ireland should have put his foot down regarding Gates, and I have no idea what happened with Donald Thomas, who went from mega prospect to waiver wire in a flash.
Donald Thomas and Clyde Gates would hardly be the first or second Dolphins players we've had on roster since 2008 that have been thrown away and ended up good elsewhere. Rob Ninkovich has been making plays for years in New England and Evan Mathis has become damn near an All Pro. And of course you can make a case for Brandon Marshall being the best WR in football this year.
I know that he was cut two years ago, but Ireland was here then. There just seems to be a culture here of releasing players that go elsewhere and become productive NFL players- often for our division rivals. Donald Thomas had a ton of potential and very little football experience- he was effusively praised by the coaching staff and Dolphins players (heavy hands, great push, uinbelievable strength) and then we dumped him. And the Patriots, who also needed help at Guard, signed Will Shields as a low cost free agent, he then turned in an All-Pro season, and now they have Thomas, who looked outstanding last night and has been cedited with helping the Patriots to jump start their running game. That's an interesting compare/contrast on how a winning franchise goes about solving a problem and how a losing franchise tries to do the same and fails. And Gates- if the FO didn't want to give him some time to develop given how limited his football background is, then they never should have drafted him in the first place.
We also brought the corner for the Seahawks Browner in for a tryout at the same time Wake was here, apparently they both were told before the tryout that only one would be signed, and Wake turned out to be that guy.. No idea why Browner didnt get signed as well, I'm sure the cost would of been low at the time.
And there was the famous instance where the Dolphins brought Sam Shields in for a workout and dismissed him in part because when they asked him to name our DBs Coach he couldn't.
It's not meant to be overly negative, it's just a reflection of what's been going wrong with the Dolphins. That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing how Rishard Matthews performs. If he's a hit and we can sign Bowe or Jennings in FA that will take some pressure off in the draft. We could easily spend the first five picks on DBs and pass rushers anyway, maybe take the right WR or G if available. If Rishard works out and we sign Jennings or Bowe, maybe a D'Andre Hopkins or Da'Rick Rogers.
There's obviously two ways to look at it. It's a positive sign for our player evaluation that we were interested in guys like Rob Ninkovich, Donald Thomas, Evan Mathis, Brandon Browner, Marcel Reese and Sam Shields. However, it's also a negative sign for your player evaluation that you let those guys walk out of our clutches because you decided they weren't good enough.
That strikes me as a serious negative, something that you would expect from the Bengals not too long ago. I have to admit that the development of Evan Mathis was a complete surprise to me, but the releases of Gates,Thomas and Ninkovich aggravate me. It would not shock me at all if Donald Thomas eventually becomes a Pro Bowl Guard. For the Patriots. Ouch.
Actually Browner was first brought in 07 along with Stefan Logan who spent some time on our practice squad that yr. I'm somewhat stunned that Ross really thought we were a playoff team this year, stunned as in not believing it. As for ratings, we've been dreadful for years, or mediocre and as per usual we have little hope of a playoff shot before December, this is unpalatable for most fans, and having few stars on the team means very little individual player interest to attract fans. Basically, this is a product of the Parcellian "drone player" approach imo.
Thomas also went through the Lions and Ninkovich went back to NOLA and along the way he had an ACL injury. Mathis was cut quickly in 08, reasons were never given. It took Browner years in the CFL to develop his game, his first couple of years he was more known for drawing flags then making plays. As for Reece, Fb's are basically devalued now.
He's not just a FB though. He could play TE or RB too. He is basically a superior version of Charles Clay.
I looked him up on wiki and it says there that he ran a 4.4. If that's accurate it's mighty fast for a man of his size.
Marcel Reece is a bad man... but he developed into this. The ones you don't sign / trade for are sometimes the best decisions you make though. Matt Flynn... Kyle Orton... Nobody is perfect. Every team lets some players go who end up making it elsewhere. It's not just some strange phenomena attached only to the Dolphins. BTW, Clyde Gates isn't exactly lighting it up for the Jets.
7-Eleven was always open too. Sparano had this problem about giving the bench playing time. Philbin is a rookie. He may have it in head that a player can't see the field until they have everything else down. Sparano was stubborn about this, even to the end. I am apt to give Philbin a pass for now. This "being a professional" thing might be taken a little too far We have no idea what Sean Smith was referencing about Rishard. The guy might be making great catches and getting open, but if he isn't clear on his assignments or there are other things going on, we have no way of knowing
Actually, if this is true it's an indictment on the coaching staff, not Ireland. If we have this great WR on the roster why has it taken until Week 12 to put him on the field? It's not like he's not playing because of all the great talent we have at the position.
Probably because we have a rookie QB, and the emphasis is on 1) making sure receivers are where they're supposed to be so that he can develop properly, and 2) minimizing costly mistakes because the team has a very narrow margin for error due to its starting a rookie QB. If this were Green Bay and the team was starting Aaron Rodgers, for example, it's entirely possible the coaching staff would feel more comfortable putting guys on the field who were unpolished with regard to the playbook. In fact, Philbin said just last week, coming into the Bills game, that he told the coordinators to forget about installing anything that might take extra practice during the week, even though it might create a matchup advantage, simply because they were operating with a short week, and he didn't "want any mistakes" out there. The team has a very narrow margin for error right now.
Personally I don't see why it's not an indictment on both. I think we ought to temper ourselves when we're attributing the word "great" to a 7th round pick who did some decent work in the preseason and then took until Week 11 to get on the field and catch a ball. I don't think Jeff Ireland has done a good job staffing the Dolphins' roster with players that make plays, win games, or match what Joe Philbin and his staff want to do. That's no revelation. I've said it many times before. But I also don't think Joe Philbin or his staff have done a great job utilizing 100% of the talent that Jeff Ireland has provided to him. Jeff Ireland may ultimately have kept Legedu Naanee on the roster but it was the coaching staff that kept putting him on the field. I think Reggie Bush is better than the coaching staff are making him. I think Lamar Miller and Rishard Matthews have shown signs that they already should have been on the field and being relied upon more than they have been. But some of those are pretty minor transgressions. So I don't see why it has to be so all-or-nothing...as in Jeff Ireland is suddenly vindicated because obviously Philbin & Co are bad coaches, with the evidence being Rishard Matthews not seeing the field until Week 11...or Jeff Ireland is so villainous in personnel decision making that Joe Philbin & Co have done no wrong and it's all purely a function of personnel. I think there have been subtle signs of something I feared all along which is just that Jeff Ireland and Joe Philbin don't completely see eye to eye in their philosophies. I once laid out how that contrast could be a strength or a weakness of the team's. If it's a strength, it'll be an east-meets-west thing where Ireland's obsession with power, size and speed football balance out Philbin's emphasis on talent and fundamentals. But I said it could (and probably would) also be a weakness where the inability to see eye-to-eye results in an under-staffed roster which also bafflingly doesn't utilize the talent that it does have. I think we sort of have more the latter than the former.
ratings are IMO the byproduct of the confidence fans have in the team. years and years of futility begets expected futility. when you expect that things will go south in close games or that the team is getting or will get outplayed, the desire to watch is slim. I watched the 1st half of the Buf game and quit torturing myself. I am still as avid a fan as ever, just cant stomach the anxiety anymore. I blieve teh staff is good but tired of having to "wait til next year"
I wonder how much the Heat being on affected it, too. First off, Thursday night is a new night for football on television. Fans still aren't totally used to it and to be honest a surprising number of fans hate it. I remember that the Heat were also on television that night, although it was during probably the final 20 minutes of the Dolphins game. I don't know how the ratings are calculated but if it captures the fact that people were flipping the channel after a while, the Heat could have had a lot to do with that. And if it doesn't capture that, the Heat still could have affected it, because fans might have decided not to tune into the Dolphins game at all if they weren't going to be able to watch it start-to-finish, and decided to do/watch other stuff until the Heat came on at 10:30pm I believe it was. People scoffed at the idea that Miami would become a basketball town instead of a football town but I think that's exactly what's happening.
I'm not sure completely discounting the role practice performance has on getting a player on the field simply because it's not available to us is all that logically rigorous a viewpoint.
The Bengals started a rookie QB last year and had no problem playing AJ Green. The Colts are letting TY Hilton on the field, along with 2 rookie TE's. Your answer sounds more like an excuse than a reason.
