Miami Herald
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He has definately been the bright spot this year. His first draft and FA were a real treat.
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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.
Skyfire023, Piston Honda, Stitches and 1 other person like this. -
Tin Indian likes this.
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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) -
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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!
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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. -
Ireland deserves another job, and if he learned from his mistakes he'd make a quite good GM.Stitches likes this. -
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.
Tin Indian, gilv13 and Piston Honda like this. -
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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.Tin Indian, StillyStiff and smahtaz like this. -
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. -
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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.
77FinFan likes this. -
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.
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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. -
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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.
StillyStiff likes this. -
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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. -
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MikeHoncho likes this.
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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.
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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? -
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. -
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Itsdahumidity likes this.
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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. -
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