Ross Should Have Let Philbin Go...

"Galant wrote:

...at least, that's what I was coming to think today the more I considered it.

Now, I should preface this by saying that I'm not a 'if they blink, fire them', type of guy. I haven't had a problem with Philbin staying on up until today, and honestly, I'm not 100% certain. Something occurred to me though and the more I turn it over, the more I think that maybe letting Philbin go this offseason would have been the right decision.

There are likely tons of reasons you may agree or disagree with that move, but here one fact which begins to seem more and more significant to me. Do with it what you will.

Ross had to tell Philbin to fire Sherman.

For now, please put to the side any opinions you may have about Sherman, or any evaluation of his performance. Here is why I feel this is central:

Outside of off-field/personal issues, an owner should never have to tell a head-coach to do anything. A HC should be capable to do what's best for the team, especially concerning his coaching staff. A HC should be responsible for hiring and, if it should ever be necessary, firing his coaching staff.

Since we know that Ross told Philbin to fire Sherman we have to consider three possibilities:

1 - Sherman was good and Ross was wrong. Philbin's decision is then a matter stick to his guns and sacrifice his job (if it comes to that) or fire the guy to keep his job.
2 - Sherman was bad, Ross is right, Phibin knew it but would have stuck with Sherman for personal reasons to the detriment of the team.
3 - Sherman was bad, Ross is right, Philbin didn't know it, and either realised it late or never came to realise it, and for Philbin this equates to point 1.

If we don't know whether Sherman is bad or good then we either have to trust Ross or Philbin:

1 - If Philbin is right, and Sherman was good, then Ross has potentially hurt the team if Sherman's replacement, Lazor, isn't as good or doesn't work with Philbin or the players as well as Sherman did. However, we still have a scenario where Ross doesn't trust Philbin's judgement, or else, trusts someone else's (or his own) judgement more. Shaky ground, he probably should let Philbin go.

2 - If Philbin is wrong, and Sherman is poor (whether seen or not), then Ross has helped the team but exposed a lack of vision or bad priorities (helping a friend = good, to the detriment of the team = bad). Ross here couldn't trust Philbin to do the right thing. He should let him go.

Either way, Ross probably should have cleaned house.

Now, there is also another additional factor to keeping Philbin. Lazor has been brought in. If after this year Ross wants to get rid of Philbin what happens to Lazor if he is decent? Does Ross just dump Philbin and tell any potential new HC that he has to keep and work with Lazor, Hickey etc.? Tricky. Better option, if he is unsure of Philbin, is to clean house.

So that's that. Not nice work, but necessary?

My preference was for Ross to bring in a vice president of football operations who would been responsible for the hiring of the GM as well as the head coach. Ross making these decisions makes no sense because he obviously doesn't know the first thing about hiring quality football personnel to run his team.

I don't expect Philbin to last more than one more year and by the end of the 2014 season, Ross will finally realize that Philbin doesn't have what it takes to get the job done as an NFL head coach. Unfortunately that means Dolphin fans are going to have to suffer through yet another mediocre season.

I have no idea if Hickey is the right man for the job, but Ross keeps creating turmoil by not getting rid of the head coach and GM at the same time. First he fired Sparano and demanded that the new head coach work with Ireland. That prevented many quality coaches from even being interested in the job. Next he got rid of Ireland and required the new GM to retain Philbin. None of the top tier GM candidates wanted to come to Miami under that scenario and the Dolphins were left with Hickey. A man that no other team has shown any interest in hiring as their GM over the past two decades he has been in the NFL.

The one person who really needs to be fired to improve this team is Ross but he owns the team, so Dolphin fans will just have to continue to accept mediocrity until he finally sells the team. The sooner the better IMO.

"rafael wrote:

Several reports indicated that Philbin did not want to fire Sherman. The alleged compromise was that Sherman gets paid for the full term of his contract even though he's been let go.

Thanks I was not aware of that.

I can not defend keeping philbin but not for the reason given in the op. Ross is the guy who preaches continuity. Philbin just hasn't been a great coach
I think Ross should of given the new gm the authority to hire his own choice for a head coach.

This thread reminds me of reading the Bills message boards.

They dont debate and rank their successes they rank their failures.

Philbin hasn't shown anything that leads me to believe he is a very good coach. His strength appears to be his ability to stay organized. But other than that, I'm not sure I see much else that is redeeming.

I certainly would have been on-board with his firing, but at the same time, I generally think its good business to let your HC finish out his contract.

One thing that I still find curious - nobody has mentioned Dawn Aponte in this entire discussion. Her power within the organization is vastly underrated IMO.

"Fin D wrote:

Wanny was a horrible coach.

In fact, all of the things that people hated about Sparano, Henning & Sherman, were all things Wanny did and to a larger degree.

His record was good because the talent on the team was effing stellar. If you have the NFL's leading sacker and rusher and an amazing defense overall...but you miss the playoffs, the problem is coaching. His GMing was horrible that's true, but its proof positive that his success was all the talent that was already here. Jamar Fletcher & Eddie Moore didn't cost us games after all.

He was 11-5 with Jay Fiedler and won our last playoff game with Lamar Smith. It was the "leading rusher" you talk about that did us in, his GM skills. Wanny is a decent coach. Not stellar, not elite, but decent. The NFL leading sacker doesn't mean squat. It's one guy, with what, 15-20 sacks? Pressures and hurries are more indicative and yet it's still just one guy.

In 2001 we were 11th in defense pts allowed but 8th in pts scored. With Jay Fiedler. And Lamar Smith's 3.1 ypc. That sack leader you talked about only got 8.5, and still lead the team. The point remains, Wanny with a stacked team isn't that bad, and we weren't that stacked offensively but he wrung out performances from the likes of Chambers, Fiedler, Gadsen, Smith, McKnight. If he had a Flacco level QB we probably have a good chance to win a SB those first two years. Fiedler was that bad, with a 4.0 INT % those first two years.

"shula_guy wrote:

Is there any proof that Ross forced philbin to fire Sherman?

Was he fired the day after the season ended? He should have been. That's strong circumstantial evidence right there. He wasn't fired until after stories surfaced that Ross was pressuring Philbin to fire him. What else do you want really?

My gosh this thread is about 4 months too late. No he should not have fired Philbin. Ross should have not meddled in decisions which are within Philbin's prerogative.

People say Philbin doesn't do anything well but seem to forget we've been one of the most disciplined teams in the league since he took over.

Tom Olivadotti is an interesting case. Have we as fans, in our reverence of Shula, scapegoated Olivadotti a little bit. The Dolphins were a top 10 defense essentially, up to 1983, when they ranked 1/7 (pts/yds). 1984 7/19. 1985 12/23/ 1986 26/26. 1987 is when Olivadotti started. And for the next ten years they had mid 20's defenses, so Olivadotti didn't help things much of course and I'm not in the business of defending him at all, he sucked.

But it looks like Shula's focus on defense evaporated when Dan Marino took over. The defensive decline definitely started under Shula and not Olivadotti.

"Rocky Raccoon wrote:

People say Philbin doesn't do anything well but seem to forget we've been one of the most disciplined teams in the league since he took over.

In terms of what? Penalties? I'm not sure it's a big feather in his cap:

http://www.nflpenalties.com/index.php?&year=2010

Seattle was the most-penalized this year, all four teams in the Super Bowl the last two years have been highly penalized. Miami also had similar performance in regards to penalties before Philbin got here.

But we lead the league in least number of bubble gum wrappers on the practice field. So there's that.

"Rocky Raccoon wrote:

People say Philbin doesn't do anything well but seem to forget we've been one of the most disciplined teams in the league since he took over.

The team is also 15-17 during Philbin's tenure with the team, including a complete collapse in the final two games last season. What good is it to have a disciplined team if they can't win more games than they lose?

The Dolphin players appear to have taken on the persona of Philbin. Just like Philbin, the team seems to have no emotional involvement in many of the games they play. I would prefer a team with a little less discipline and a lot more attitude and emotion on the field.

"Rocky Raccoon wrote:

People say Philbin doesn't do anything well but seem to forget we've been one of the most disciplined teams in the league since he took over.

Disciplined by what measure? If you're looking at penalty metrics, IMO those could be just as much an indicator of lack of aggression as discipline.

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Would have liked a shot at Jay Gruden.

Disagree, we have Tannehill, like Philbin, think his duty to the Franchise is to make sure Ryan Tannehill develops, in that sense, he has done a great job.

This is not Chad Henne folks, Tannehill is coming along, he does not have Henne's fear, and is a far far better athlete.

Do think Philbin is over loyal to his staff, Turner, Sherman, neither should have been retained, Coyle and Rizzi are on the bubble

"padre31 wrote:

Disagree, we have Tannehill, like Philbin, think his duty to the Franchise is to make sure Ryan Tannehill develops, in that sense, he has done a great job.

This is not Chad Henne folks, Tannehill is coming along, he does not have Henne's fear, and is a far far better athlete.

Do think Philbin is over loyal to his staff, Turner, Sherman, neither should have been retained, Coyle and Rizzi are on the bubble

Right now Tannehill is a middle of the pack NFL QB. So I'm not sure how that equates to Philbin having done a great job in developing Tannehill so far. Perhaps Tannehill will still develop into a quality QB in the NFL, but I think that will probably have a lot more to do with the addition of the new OC and not because of Philbin. Especially when it appears that if he had gotten what he wanted, Sherman and Turner would still be on this coaching staff.

I didn't see the link where Ross tells Philbin to fire Sherman. Was that just made up?

"Triggercut wrote:

I didn't see the link where Ross tells Philbin to fire Sherman. Was that just made up?

Please...anybody who doesn't think Philbin was forced to fire his longtime friend is as naive as our clown ass owner.

"Disgustipate wrote:

In terms of what? Penalties? I'm not sure it's a big feather in his cap:

http://www.nflpenalties.com/index.php?&year=2010

Seattle was the most-penalized this year, all four teams in the Super Bowl the last two years have been highly penalized. Miami also had similar performance in regards to penalties before Philbin got here.

"Stringer Bell wrote:

Disciplined by what measure? If you're looking at penalty metrics, IMO those could be just as much an indicator of lack of aggression as discipline.

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"jw3102 wrote:

The team is also 15-17 during Philbin's tenure with the team, including a complete collapse in the final two games last season. What good is it to have a disciplined team if they can't win more games than they lose?

The Dolphin players appear to have taken on the persona of Philbin. Just like Philbin, the team seems to have no emotional involvement in many of the games they play. I would prefer a team with a little less discipline and a lot more attitude and emotion on the field.

I wasn't saying it was some great measure. People kept asking what Philbin did well besides being well organized and I gave something he does well. And being one of the least-penalized teams is still a good thing even if you want to say championship type teams have been highly-penalized the last few years. There are also a bunch of teams who are constantly high in penalties and have sucked for a long time (Oakland).

Being disciplined may not give us an extra 3 or 4 wins a year, but it certainly helps on a game by game basis when we aren't shooting ourselves in the foot time and time again with penalties. It absolutely is important.

And the only two teams who had less penalties than we did last season were New England and Indianapolis. Two teams at a place we all would love to be right now.

"LBsFinest wrote:

Please...anybody who doesn't think Philbin was forced to fire his longtime friend is as naive as our clown ass owner.

Interesting, you fantasize the narrative and with full knowledge accuse others of naïveté for not supporting the fiction. This betrays your own lack of reasonable defense, and should be rightly left in dreamland with whatever sycophants join you.

I'm willing to give Philbin one more year for the simple reason that I don't want to give up on Tannehill yet. But if neither of them progresses this season, they should both be gone.

"Rick 1966 wrote:

I'm willing to give Philbin one more year for the simple reason that I don't want to give up on Tannehill yet. But if neither of them progresses this season, they should both be gone.

Tannehill clearly progressed from year one to year two, and probably had the best single season of any Fins QB since Marino. He's in his mid 20's. And some of you guys want to dump him and start over...

"padre31 wrote:

Disagree, we have Tannehill, like Philbin, think his duty to the Franchise is to make sure Ryan Tannehill develops, in that sense, he has done a great job.

This is not Chad Henne folks, Tannehill is coming along, he does not have Henne's fear, and is a far far better athlete.

Do think Philbin is over loyal to his staff, Turner, Sherman, neither should have been retained, Coyle and Rizzi are on the bubble

I'm not sure what Philbin's role is in Tannehill's development. At least from a positive standpoint, I mean. He takes a hands-off approach to the X's and O's elements, and some of those were done so poorly as to necessitate his intervention, which didn't seem to happen.

You can(and should) find better coaches from both the standpoint of running a team and from developing quarterbacks.

"Disgustipate wrote:

I'm not sure what Philbin's role is in Tannehill's development. At least from a positive standpoint, I mean. He takes a hands-off approach to the X's and O's elements, and some of those were done so poorly as to necessitate his intervention, which didn't seem to happen.

You can(and should) find better coaches from both the standpoint of running a team and from developing quarterbacks.

Tannehill got better from year 1 to year 2. Our record improved from year 1 to year 2. Our quality of play got better from year 1 to year 2. We have no problem attracting FAs anymore. He wanted Martin replaced. He wanted Cogs gone.

This Philbin hate is so bizarre to me.

"Fin D wrote:

Tannehill got better from year 1 to year 2. Our record improved from year 1 to year 2. Our quality of play got better from year 1 to year 2. We have no problem attracting FAs anymore. He wanted Martin replaced. He wanted Cogs gone.

This Philbin hate is so bizarre to me.

This is just as much a justification for Sherman keeping his job as Philbin.

I'm not sure how much of a feather in his cap wanting to get rid of Jon Martin is, considering Philbin likely was the one that wanted to get rid of Karlos Dansby. Philbin's track record with veteran personnel is a negative IMO.