We could play with no RT at all and I wouldn't miss Marc Columbo. If healthy, Murtha is a big upgrade over whatever we had last year IMO. Especially if he's a backup, which is what he's penciled it as for now.
I'm assuming here, but I think Columbo was the RT because the coaching staff thought he was the best man for the job, not because Ireland came in and demanded he play. Chad Henne over Pennington? Now that had front office written all over it. Jake was supposed to be the LT with Murtha on the right side, Columbo was signed to be the backup RT. Long wasn't healthy so Murtha filled in and Columbo became a starter. Then Murtha got injured so they went with Columbo. They could have went with Jerry or Nate Garner but they didn't. Again, coaches decision.
We cut some guy that was probably never going to play and signed another guy who's probably never going to play. Ho-Hum either way IMO. Hicks, Jerry, Garner, the loser of the Murtha-Martin competition, are all candidates to play RG. If Steinbach plays at all it will be because he's a very good player or something has gone horribly wrong.
well, if it was a joint effort and Ireland was following a blueprint of big and strong, he still did a poor job in some cases of finding talent that fits that blueprint, I just don't have any proof how it worked with that fatass scam artist of a president in charge, so its hard for me to speculate. Don't get me started PS on Prof athletes who don't take care of the one thing that they depend on for their craft...I'll just say its the biggest epidemic in the game today...Owners are being ripped off left and right.
So you think Jeff Ireland had Joe Philbin review film of Eric Steinbach and give him a grade? Sorry, not sure I see it going down that way.
Who would describe Jeff Ireland as insolent for doing the job he was hired to do and being the GM? It's in his contract. If he agreed to a job where he would have the official title, and have the legal leverage, but it is verbally agreed he would be nothing more than a gopher, yes man, I call that gutless, and I think the rest of the NFL would as well. The job description and the contract gave HIM the responsibility, gave HIM the power, gave HIM the command. If he gave some power back that's up to him, but he's still the one ultimately responsible. What I find disconcerting is how many people want to absolve him completely. Not just consider him only mostly responsible, or half responsible, but not responsible...at all. Can't have your cake and eat it too, either he made bad calls as a GM or he's a coward and afraid to take responsibility for calls he could have argued against and vetoed at any time. I just happen to think the man isn't a coward. I don't think he's gutless. I don't think he's spineless. I don't think he would sit here and tell you those weren't my calls, I had nothing to do with any of that, couldn't have stopped it if I wanted to. I think he knows he had that power, I think he would tell you he's responsible for any mistakes that were made in personnel no matter whose idea the move was. I think rather he would argue much like Disgustipate that their various personnel moves weren't that bad, that some mistakes are overblown and that they've done a good job over the last 5 years filling the roster with talent. I think THAT would be his argument, not this childish "Well that was all Parcells" BS.
He gets some blame, because if he didn't believe strongly in the pick, he should have found a way to convince BP that we should have picked someone better. In any company, you don't tell your boss he's wrong too often, it's better to offer a better alternative that can distract him
Come on CK, you know Ireland was just a GM on paper. All he really did was get Parcells his coffee and take vacations on draft weekend.
Parcells did'nt give a sh?> about this franchise, I don't put it past him to think of giving Ireland the Gm in training label..just under the table.. Nobody can convince me that in the first year of taking over a 1 and 15 team Parcells would allow his Gm in training to make decisions on almost 100 million dollars of contracts..Smiley, Wilford, Grove..
I agree, however I DO put it past Ireland to accept that. You hire me to do a job, you give me the legal framework to enforce my will, and then ask for a wink-nod verbal agreement that I'm just a puppet? **** you. That's the appropriate response. The same response Bill Parcells gave to Sean Payton on behalf of Tony Sparano when Payton asked permission to interview Sparano for a "offensive coordinator" job. Forgive me for not thinking Jeff Ireland gutless enough to accept a puppet job where he's the man holding the gun yet the hostage is really the boss. First off Grove wasn't first year. He and Gibril Wilson were second year. Second, they weren't really big spenders in 2008. Smiley's modest $5 mil/yr contract was the biggest of the bunch. Third, even if Ireland willingly ccepted guidance and advice from Bill Parcells, it was still him accepting the advice and guidance. He was still the one carrying the gun. Answer me honestly. You get Jeff Ireland onto a witness stand, and you swear him under oath, to where he can't dodge anything and he has to answer. You ask him if he, as the General Manager with final say authority written into his contract, was ultimately responsible for personnel decisions in 2008 and 2009. What do you believe his answer is?
Do we really think Parcells was combing film trying to find players? I just don't think BP was grinding the film room at 10 p.m. or 3 p.m. for that matter. I think he wanted to be Prez; have some input on a few guys; set a philosophy with his guys in place; and get a tan. Plus he was the guy who said when he coached he wanted to buy the groceries. But, then he's going to continually override Sparano/Ireland? I don't see it. He may have had input on a few guys (like White, which was really contrary to his fundamental philosophy). But, I think Ireland did the hard labor and I have trouble imagining him saying, "There's 15 OL's who are on the market and graded out better than player X" and BP insisting on player X. The Colombo signing was incredibly bad. No one wanted him ... ever ... except Ireland (& maybe Sparano). Just ridiculous to sign him. That said, I have more confidence in the Steinbach signing than Colombo.
IIRC the football world understood that Miami was Parcells' baby and Ireland was the protege who would one day be handed the reigns. Proof exists on the subject. I can probably dig it up. The wording of his contract was used to get him here; however Miami gave Parcells the responsibility, gave Parcells the power, and gave Parcells the command. Ireland didn't give anything back b/c there was nothing to give back. Back in 2008 when Parcells took over, no one envisioned it being a colossal failure; hence, Ireland leaving Dallas to be the great Parcells' protege and future of Miami was considered a tremendous career opportunity contrary to how you're trying to make it seem. Individuals are groomed for top positions all the time; it's nothing new to the business world. Who's doing that? That's silly. Even great GMs make mistakes, and I personally expect a first time GM to make his share of them early on (don't you?). All I care about is how the young coach, GM, etc rebounds and learns from it. Presently, the team looks like it's headed down the right path and that's all I personally care about. I'm certainly not hoping the organization implodes so I can have joy in calling Ireland a failure. I don't think he's a coward etc either, and I too think he'd accept accountability for the team's past mistakes, not necessarily b/c they were or weren't his but b/c he seems like the type of guy who takes the "we" approach in that regard. I don't agree that he thought he had the power b/c Miami & Parcells wouldn't have brought him here if that were the case. I agree with Disgustipate that the roster has been filled with pretty good talent, but I agree with you that it lacks(lacked) playmakers, and I put most of that responsibility (the lack of playmakers) on Parcells b/c it was his blueprint and design that was used. Perhaps some of the lack of playmakers was on Ireland, but if it were we wouldn't know it b/c he changed up the drafting style once Parcells stepped down. The biggest problem I have is the coaching staff Parcells initially employed and the trickle down affect that his wasted experimental pick on Pat White had. IMO everything else is on the verge of nitpicking (except for the lack of playmakers).
I'm not getting into another Jeff Ireland debate. I've explained myself well enough on the subject over the last three years. I've just got done watching a game that I'm quite sure the Dolphins watched in their evaluation of Eric Steinbach, and that is the 2010 game between the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins. Yes, somehow, Jake Delhomme and the Browns beat us that day. SMH (Chad Henne). This is just one game. Just one game, so keep that in mind. You need a lot more than this to come up with a proper evaluation. But overall, I have to say he's not as bad as I was expecting. He clearly moves well, which is a big deal in this system. He gets out and runs with speed and burst. He's pretty balanced. His hands are quick. He understands angles and plays really well when it comes to pulling and screens. He executes well. He cuts his angles tight on pulls and wastes no time making solid contact in the hole, and he neutralized our linebackers when he did that. He pretty much had Dobbins and Dansby in this game when he was asked to pull. But he also had them pretty good when he released on zone plays, and I thought he did a good job there. He owned Tim Dobbins in that game. My one nitpick on pulling is sometimes on collision he just drops his hands after the initial push and so a guy like Dansby who has some mass to him, if he didn't get moved by that initial hit, he can still look for the ball and try get to it. Back to his hand use, very quick, very active, punches, locks on, no hesitation in adjusting and re-engaging as the hand-fight progresses and the defensive player tries to use his hands to get better leverage. Just like any offensive lineman, if a defensive lineman gets a special jump off the snap and gets a jump on engagement, he can definitely be beat in his run blocking. Randy Starks taught him a lesson on that on one play. But otherwise he showed that he can actually create some movement against a guy like Randy Starks straight ahead power blocking. The problem is, against a guy like Starks, in straight ahead power blocking, it's not going to last. He has to get over-extended and into bad leverage in order to create movement and then that leaves him open to counter moves by Starks who was able to shed pretty well to make plays on the ball. Zone protection he's got his head on a swivel, awareness is good, really active in looking for work, good lateral movement. Takes on blitzing guards really well. In fact ironically (given what I'm about to say below), he's really impressively good in overload situations where there are multiple guys trying to swing through his zone. And that translates in zone run blocking as well where he understands the plays and technique well enough to wall off and impede multiple defenders at need. The real downside to his game is straight up pass protection. You get into a passing situation and you've got a specialist rushing over guard, Steinbach's quarterback (Delhomme in this game) was essentially on an egg timer. He was surprisingly OK against Paul Soliai, but then Paul Soliai has a tendency in his pass rush to stop using his feet and arms after about three steps. If he were good at keeping his momentum and pass rush going, he'd be Haloti Ngata. Alas, he's notta. The real issue is with guys like Randy Starks, but not even just him because he also experienced trouble against Phil effing Merling in this game. Guys that are active, move their feet, good strength, keep up their pass rush...Steinbach was on skates way too often. I wonder how his back felt in 2010. I wonder if it was already a problem. I say that because core flexibility and knee bend seemed to be an issue in his game. I realize he's 6'6" and so getting his pads underneath players has probably been a challenge for him his whole career, but I did a quick reference to a 2009 game of his and I just thought in 2009 I saw a player that had better knee bend, flexibility, more willingness to get his back moving and get his pads down, etc. Overall, to me he's kind of similar to Jake Scott. It's no wonder they flirted with both men and kind of set up a decision to grab one or the other. They're both lighter, athletic guys that have trouble anchoring against under tackles in pass rush (no matter what the PFF rating of Jake Scott's pass pro says), they both get out into space and to the linebacker level really well, yet have some issues with straight ahead DL run blocking, reach blocks and cut-offs, power and iso blocks, etc.
Everything about Steinbachs style is the antithesis of the power run scheme Sparano ran. I'm looking forward to a very different style of football this year... Sloppy as it may be at first, once we get the offense down and the men to run it, it'll be great to watch. Definitely more fun than the past fours years.
The one question I have is about Steinbach only being a LG in the NFL. Scott has only been a RG. Incognito was only a C and RG before coming to Miami. Seems like a lot of people feel like Incognito's worst of the 3 positions inside is LG, though I think he did pretty well there for us the past two seasons. If Steinbach is one of the 5 best OL, and is named a starter, which alignment would make more sense? Him at LG and move Richie to RG? Or leave Richie where he is and use Steinbach on the side he's not played since his sophomore year in college? The one other option if Eric were to start, would be use him at LG and move Richie to C and Pouncey to RG. I don't expect anyone here to agree, but I think that may be our best option.
I think they're just not very comfortable with the idea that Artis Hicks has no real competition for a starting spot. The difference is, before they thought Jerry would be valid competition and perhaps now they're realizing tha won't be the case. One thing about Steinbach versus Hicks. Both fit the system, but they do present different strength/weakness profiles. Hicks seemed to me to be the more powerful player both in straight ahead run blocking and anchoring in pass pro. He is mobile and gets out to the second level, does a serviceable job on zone blocks. But he sucks at pulling. Not his thing. Steinbach is really a pretty excellent puller, in addition to his excellent second level work on zone blocks...but weaker at anchor protection when isolated against big nasties, and also has issues digging those guys out of holes and sticking to them. Should be a good battle.
You're right, I don't agree. No way do I see Steinbach-Incognito-Pouncey. We will see very quickly. My guess is Eric works immediately at RG with Hicks.
I don't meant to say I think that will happen. Just that if it were up to me, I'd give it strong consideration. Because it would put all 3 at the positions where they have performed the best IMO.
And the prize goes to Mr C. Eric Steinbach working initially at left guard. Still don't think there's any way a Steinbach-Incognito-Pouncey combination could happen, nor do I think it should happen.
