I'm sure most of us saw this play Sunday night:
[video]http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-cant-miss-plays/0ap3000000550220/Can-t-Miss-Play-Spiller-s-80-yard-TD-for-the-win[/video]
What you see there was a newly inserted linebacker who was exposed by an offensive mind (Sean Payton), coupled with a high-quality quarterback and a speedy player on the receiving end. Those sorts of plays inspire an entire team. They tell the team they have a coach who knows what he's doing, and a quarterback who can execute the plan.
Players must have that sort of faith in their coaches and teammates if they're going to believe they can compete at a high level in this league. If they don't have that belief, they're likely to -- as we've heard lately -- "go through the motions" in practice and even somewhat on gameday. As Dan Campbell said yesterday, "it doesn't work that way."
Now, enter Campbell as head coach. Campbell's message yesterday was that the team has more talent than it appears on its surface. He said the difference is in getting the most out of these players, challenging them to "scratch and claw" and compete and play at their full potential.
Campbell is a former long-time player in the league. I have to believe he can tell the difference between a untalented team that wasn't able to compete regardless, and a team whose talent wasn't being fully tapped.
So, why wasn't this team's talent being fully tapped? I recently wrote about this here:
http://www.thephins.com/forums/showthread.php?87237-Sunday-was-the-Players-Message-to-Stephen-Ross
So, is all well now? Can we expect the players to suddenly turn it around now that the Joe Philbin "ball-and-chain" has been removed?
I'm not so sure. As we saw in the video above, inspiration is generated from coaches who know what they're doing and can exploit the opposition, coupled with players who can pull that off. If the Dolphins' players believe that it was not only Joe Philbin, but also his coordinators, weighing them down, making a change at head coach without also making a change in the coordinators is unlikely to result in any greater inspiration in the locker room, and little if any greater "fire" on the field in practice and on gameday.
In other words, Dan Campbell may sound like the anti-Joe Philbin in terms of his intensity, aggression, and fire, but if the players continue to feel that even their best efforts will be undermined by offensive and defensive coordinators who don't know what they're doing, they're very unlikely to generate any greater inspiration than we've seen thus far this year.
More changes may need to be made for the "Dan Campbell effect" to truly take hold. His personality alone may not be sufficient.
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Pandarilla and thetylernator like this.
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I don't see how the Campbell hire could backfire unless your argument is there was a better candidate to be interim coach. Win or lose, he can't be much worse than Philbin and even if he is, we will have a new coach at the end of the season.
Puka-head likes this. -
finfansince72 Season Ticket Holder Club Member
We either turn it around or we get another coach, I don't see how it backfires unless you think that Philbin could have led us to 10 wins.
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"Backfire" may have been a poor choice of words. By "backfire" I mean "not produce the intended results."
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I think expectations have already went out the window. This was a 5 win team at best. I'm torn between wanting a high draft pick for rebuilding or some miracle turnaround season which I have a hard time believing is possible after 4 games.
Either way, we know we will have new leadership and new hope that maybe, just maybe, our new HC will be the man to turn it around. That's assuming our GM/Tannebaum can do their jobs. -
I actually think that if the changes are made that allow the players to believe their talent can make them compete at a high level in the league, we could see a dramatic turnaround this year.
Those changes -- and all of those changes -- have to be made, however. There can't just be a change in the personality of the head coach, without making whatever other changes the players believe would be necessary to make the team competitive.
Essentially the players have to reach a position in which they believe that if they give their best effort, the coaching staff will hold up its end of the bargain and put them in position to succeed. That may take more than just excavating the head coach. -
if you fire the coach 4 games in the season is already declared over. They're just going to go into evaluating the whole staff the remainder of the season most likely.
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You do realize Campbell has been promoted to HEAD coach. Which means he can overrule any play call. He can sit down with the coordinators this whole bye week and tell them how he wants both the offense and defensive schemes to look. If Campbell gets a read that the Coordinators are fighting him on this, I'm sure he will be afforded the right to can them as well.
As far as being Ws/Ls go I don't really care right now, I just want to see a team who is hungry and willing to compete for 60 minutes. If they do they I can live with L's although I'd much prefer W's.
But who knows, maybe this is the start of some magic, and the team goes 9-3 the rest of the way. -
We should have kept Philbin and not made any changes. It was going so well.
Puka-head, GARDENHEAD and Pandarilla like this. -
Was rooting hard for the Cowboys on Sunday night. I'm not a fan of the savior coach/GM, but Sean Payton would be a homerun in the offseason.
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Right, and that's another possibility, that Campbell makes changes in the coordination of the offense and defense that restore the players' faith in their ability to succeed within them.
Either way, the critical difference, as I outlined in the original post, is that the players' belief in their ability to succeed with their coaching staff may go well beyond a replacement of Philbin alone. Quite a bit more may have to be done to get them on board, and if that isn't done, don't be surprised if you see that same lethargic mess out there, even though the new head man seems "aggressive." The head coach's personality won't be enough to instill a belief in the players that the team can win if they don't believe the coordinators have sufficient expertise to get the job done.
Even if the main guy leading you seems "aggressive," that aggression is very unlikely to bleed off onto you if you feel like even your best efforts will be undermined by the other guys calling the shots. -
Jason Cole, Bleacher Report, take it with a grain of salt.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...o-dolphins-not-impossible-but-highly-unlikely
Anything can happen and it is way too early to speculate. I agree that Payton would be a great candidate. -
What are your intended results for a team after firing it's coach 4 games into a season ? The bar is set to rock bottom....we suck, let that sink in. Keeping Philbin around backfired on us, not the other way around.
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Insider Buzz: Payton Linked to Dolphins, 'Not Impossible, but Highly Unlikely'
MikeHoncho likes this. -
Well of course the intended result for Stephen Ross is that the team makes a turnaround.
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Yes, just like some people who declared this was a playoff team prior to this season. Obviously those individuals had no freaking idea what they were talking about either.
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Two different things.
One is making a guess as to what may happen, and the other is declaring X happened already.
It would be like the difference between a weatherman saying there's a 90% chance it will rain tomorrow but it doesn't, or a weatherman saying it didn't rain yesterday when it did.
One of those weathermen is more wrong and delusional than the other. -
Personally I don't think this move was made to turn the season around, I do think that they hope that's what happens, of course, but that is different, I think this move was made because it had to be made, I think the impetus of the move is to not let the season go down in flames while idly standing by.
I think that this move cannot backfire because Philbin is fired, I think they dealt with the problem as best they could, the problem was Philbin, and now he's gone, so that problem is solved.
IF Campbell turns out to be good, bonus, but the reason for firing Philbin was not to promote Campbell, it was to fire Philbin, so Campbell therefor can't backfire.djphinfan likes this. -
You have a good chance of being correct. I do believe that the offensive line and the defensive line have not been prepared for games. I see a chance for Campbell's strategy to be successful. There are a long list of changes that need to be made, but challenging the lines is a good place to start.Tannephins likes this.
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Can't we just be happy we are moving on from Philbin? Why does this backfire talk have to happen? You people find every negative angle to use just to create a topic. We should be expecting minimal results while hoping for signs of life with Campbell at the helm and nothing more. Hiring him as the interim coach does nothing bad at all for us. Backfire is a TERRIBLE choice of words. If anything this leaves options open. The only way this "backfires" is if Campbell leads us to a respectable record the rest of the way and we still let him go in the end, the way we did with Bowles. This isn't a ford Pinto, it's not gonna "backfire" lol.
I can see it right now, we finish 8-8 with Campbell, and people will cry about how we should of kept Queasy instead so we could tank for the first pick. Who the hell enjoys tanking? I'm a Sixers fan for basketball and they continue to tank seasons and it is completely miserable following them. There is an even lesser guarantee in football when it comes to tanking. Much easier to wager your future and trade up for a top pick....Thing is...that can "BACKFIRE" "BOOM" like it did with Dion Jordan.MAFishFan likes this. -
im happy, you happy, we all are happy, Philbin was taking us nowhere and now hes removed, step 1..Cambell will fire def coordinator..step 2..
Cambell will inspire these dudes to play very hard, im sure of it....this will be fun...it wont be good for our draft position, but it will be fun, maybe we strike gold on the dude and he has some of the acumen to gameplan to go along with all those great intangibles, if not new coaching serch in offseason.Sceeto likes this. -
Not sure, but if Campbell wants to start by toughening up the lines like he said, the team is going to have to run the ball a whole lot more. Playing that quick pass finesse stuff as much as this team does is incompatible with smashing teams in the mouth. He either has to get rid of Lazor, or he has to get Lazor to do a whole lot more running.
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I see it as counterproductive to keep Coyle on and I get what you mean by backfire. Maybe "spinning your wheels" is more appropriate.
Backfire under our circumstances would be like the life boats spontaneously combusting while leaving the Titanic...77FinFan likes this. -
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The point is that the team's lethargy may have less to do with Joe Philbin's personality than with the players' belief that their best efforts will be undermined by the coaching staff's ineptitude. So if you replace Joe Philbin's personality with that of another guy, you may be missing the mark if you don't also address the players' perceptions of the ineptitude of the coaching staff.
Now that may involve getting rid of the coordinators, or it may not, but either way, some sort of change has to be made at that level, as well, if indeed the players believe they can't succeed with these coaches no matter how hard they try.
It isn't just the former head coach's personality that's driving what we see on the field here. If it was, Tony Dungy never would've won a Super Bowl. This game, especially in the area of organizational/locker room dynamics, is far more complex than the very simple thought that "aggressive coach equals driven team." You don't get the 1985 Chicago Bears' intensity on the field simply because you've replaced your head coach with a "tough guy."Colmax likes this. -
I think if you read the original post and truly try to understand it, you'll realize that it rests on something far greater than the meaning or interpretation of one word.
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Sure you do, and Tony Dungy had Peyton Manning in his prime along with a defense that had the likes of Dwight Freeney, and Bob Sanders....two players that were the best in the league at their positions that year.
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You sound like Philbin, lol...
Should I stay pc right now and wait or should I throw you under the bus right now and risk my job by speaking up.
I still think spinning your wheels is more appropriate because it implies that your not getting anywhere. Whereas backfire would imply that they will play even flatter. -
The Al Saunders addition and the shuffling of offensive coaches fits with what I said here. We'll see what happens when Campbell has time to turn his attention to the defensive side of the ball.