Revisiting Dolphins' Brandon Marshall Trade, ESPN's Opinion

I certainly accept your apology. We all make mistakes and I know I've made tons of them.

As far as Hardknocks is concerned, I never watched the episodes the Dolphins were on, so my views of Philbin are not based on anything from that program.

Neither you or me really know how much input Philbin had in the players let go, signed or drafted while Ireland was the GM. The only people who know the truth are Ireland, Philbin, and others within the Dolphin organization. All I do know is that the Dolphins got rid of more talented players in the two years these two worked together on the Dolphins than they drafted or signed in free agency during those two years.

My biggest issue with Philbin is that I just don't think he is a good NFL head coach. Just as I never thought Ireland was a good NFL GM. Perhaps Philbin will turn it around this season and prove me and many others wrong about him. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to come on here and state that I was 100% wrong in regards to the head coaching ability of Philbin. All he has to do to satisfy me is to lead the Dolphins to a winning season this coming season and a spot in the playoffs. Anything less than that, Ross needs to fire Philbin or sell the team to a new owner who hopefully will have a better idea of how to run an NFL franchise.

 

STOP IT. That **** doesn;t belong here. Keep it in the Club, please.

 

The fact was that he was NOT as effective for us (as for Chitown) and he was an organizational cancer. He likely would NOT have aided Tanny's development. I'm happy that BM has gotten to the point of controlling his illness and would like to have him at his current mental status, but that didn't happen here for him or for us. Bottom line, it was a good trade, at the time. Shoulda, coulda, woulda's don't count in the NFL.

If you want to affix some blame for it being a poor trade, fix it to Ireland who didn't use the compensation as effectively as he should have...

 

Well, we do know there was a major battle over players between Philbin & Ireland. It was reported about by everyone after the season. It was also confirmed waaaaaaaaaay before that in the Club.

 

I don't doubt that there were conflicts between Philbin and Ireland, but Philbin took the job with full knowledge that Ireland would have final say on the roster. If he didn't want to deal with Ireland, he shouldn't have taken the job in the first place. That is why he got the job, when none of the top tier prospects had any interest in the job.

Perhaps it was all Ireland's fault. That will be determined this coming season. Of course it certainly wasn't Ireland who failed to get the team prepared for the final two games of the regular season against the Bills and the Jets.

It seems that Philbin has Ireland to blame for the past two seasons and Tannehill also has Ireland to blame for not providing him with enough quality WR's in year one and a terrible OL in year two.
I totally agree that Ireland was a major problem, but he is now gone and there are no more excuses for this team. Five years of rebuilding and three years on the job for both Tannehill and Philbin are plenty of time to turn this into a playoff team.

Make the playoffs and they deserve their positions. Anything less and what are going to be the excuses for either of them to have their positions in 2015?

 

Ever find it interesting that none of the things listed in those articles occurred when McDaniels was coach?

Oh, and some of the worst people on the planet avoided trouble throughout their NFL careers. Michael Irvin and Marvin Harrison come to mind. Brandon Marshall is a better human being than either of those guys, and certainly in their league as a talent.

 

Football wise it was a terrible move. We traded a future Hall of Fame player for a few draft picks. He is in his prime as well so its not like we got what we could get for an aging vet or something like that. I do think that the trade was really good for Marshall as a person and he seems to be doing much better which I think is great. IF Ireland had landed a great player with a draft pick I would call this a wash but we all know what Ireland does with draft picks..

 

I'm just trying to illustrate that your original premise of "Philbin not being able to work with certain players", is not really based on a whole lot of (if any) evidence.

 

Just like none of Marshall's real civil or legal transgressions happened under Philbin... they still happened though and his history of such actions goes back an extended amount of time. Denver was tired of his act and his being disgruntled. I had hoped that after the Darrent Williams incident that he would have matured more quickly, but that didn't happen.

I don't ever recall Michael Irvin avoiding trouble. I recall seeing him in and out of court in his fur coats quite a bit in the 90s. I'm sure Jerry was able to money coat a lot of his self inflicted problems though. As for Harrison, I don't know anything about his issues, but if Marshall has straightened his life up, the more power to him. Just wished he had done it a couple season's earlier so that we could have benefited from it.

 

Woah, woah, woah. The coke in Chicago is NOT better than the coke in Miami. We can't seem to get our facts right on anything.

 

If we had kept him, I wonder what cap effects that would have had? I really have no idea, just stirring the pot.

 

I don't believe this argument. Yes, of course, it was an incredibly stupid trade. I hated the trade from the beginning. Look at how incredibly successful the guy was and is now. Some here talk about his BPD. All of these dime store, internet psychiatric geniuses A lot more people than you could imagine have BPD and people who lead normal, successful lives. People acted like if we kept Marshall, he was going to eventually start screaming, running around the field, throwing his feces at everyone and then go all Silence of the Lambs on his coaches and teammates. BS! Their are MANY MANY players in the NFL, past and present, who have done far worse things than Marshall who weren't and wouldn't be diagnosed with BPD. That issue should really be dropped. At least in the context of this discussion. Who did we get in return for that awesome trade? Will Davis, Micael Egnew and BJ Cunnigham. LOL!!!!! Yeah, that certainly turned out to be equal production.

 

Basically....dolphins fans will try to justify any of the countless dumb decisions this franchise has made over the years.

 

Well we probably don't get Wallace. So better? Or roughly the same.

 

I really dont see the problem with that at all... Screw VD

 

Well, then, you (and all the people that agree with you) need a lesson on how to treat other people. Showing up to work hungover is bad. Hitting someone in the face because they showed up to work hungover is worse. Far worse.

You guys are unbelievable.

 

Well, in his defense, if Miami's inept organization at the time, especially the head coach, hadn't created a lax, unprofessional environment that left players unafraid of accountability to where they felt they could show up to practice drunk or show up to training camp overweight and out of shape, Brandon wouldn't have needed to go beyond his scope and take matters into his own hands when he wasn't yet at that stage in his career capable of doing so.

If a team has to have a borderline personality disorder player attempt to step up and correct things in the only manner that he knows how, then that's a dysfunctional team. Brandon should've never been in that position to begin with. A structure should've already existed where Brandon could just be Brandon and works his *** off and plays ball. Instead, we had head coach Sparano failingly attempting to be a "player's coach" with no idea how to effectively do so w/o letting the players take advantage of it. He thought he could treat a group of guys not too far removed from college life as responsible grown men and it backfired massively.

On top of the team's general dysfunction, Brandon had to first deal with the worthless Dan Henning who didn't give two s**ts about maximizing Brandon's ability and was content with just treating him like a giant possession receiver in a dink-and-dunk offense that literally chastised QBs before they could reach the sideline for throwing jump balls to Brandon. Then in year 2 he had more of Sparano's field goal-fistpump mentality that was scared to take chances and routinely shut the passing game down inside FG range. If I knew my ability were being patently abused like Brandon's was, I would've been emotionally on edge as well. I mean c'mon, he wasn't getting paid $47 million to boost his own stats; he was being paid a boatload to help bring wins, and he was well aware of this..... and that's a LOT of pressure to burden, especially when his own HC and OC were trying their damndest to handcuff him.

 

That isn't a defense.

 

All I know is that a lot of good football players have been cut, traded, or not resigned by the team since Philbin has been the head coach. These players have also been replaced by players who have turned out to be inferior players to the ones they replaced.

If you want to blame all that on Ireland, so be it. Perhaps Ireland disliked working so much with Philbin, he intentionally got rid of better players and signed and drafted worse players to replace them.

Neither of us really knows what went on, but it doesn't change the fact that Ireland was an inept GM and so far Philbin doesn't appear to be much better as an NFL Head Coach.