After several years of heartbreak I think my biggest disappointment with the phins has been their failure to understand what opportunity cost is. In simple termms opportunity cost is saying that if you do X then you can't do Y or Z.
The Dolphins seem to be intent on making the biggest splashiest move. Examples include signing Suh, Albert, Wallace and drafting Dion Jordan. Even if all these moves worked out they leave an ongoing problem with the team structure, described by journalists as a stars and scrubs team. By investing resources in stars the opportunity cost has been to rip out depth and breadth of talent. We were at the point where people were discussing which of our UDFA LB rookies was going to star this year. When the season hit us the lack of talent in the LB position was a hugely expolitable weakness.
Other recent examples have been keeping Ireland as GM which cost us quality HC candidates and keeping Philbin as HC which cost us quality GM candidates.
There just seems to be a tendency in Phinlandia for people to say X is good, lets do X. They should be sayign well if we do do X we cant do Y, which is better X or Y?
I just want an off season that does not have big name free agent signings, but we sign good depth or solid starters who don't break the bank. I want an off season where we hire the best HC, not rush to hire a good candidate who might be signed by another team.
I don't want an off season where we sign a chosen one as our savioiur at great expense.
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In my opinion a lot of the coaches who want to be GM recognize this as a huge part of moving a team forward. Coaches and GM have to work together and understand this philosophy in-depth. I was very surprised Miami fired and hired a new GM before hiring the new coach. W hy would you do that - what happens if the one coach you really want wants GM authority?
Tannenbaum and Co. have again already began to blunder the next 5 years and I for one have zero confidence in their ability to get the job done.
Obviously Tannenbaum (lets just call a spade a spade and call him "BOMB" as his last name indicates) does not understand or does not care what signing big name "splash players" does to the football team. I am certain he will double down this year and do it again to temporarily appease the fan base. Without a solid structure the building will fall down. Solid structure are the guys no one talks about much, the depth, the heartbeat of the team. Bomb puts the cart before the horse and because that is his approach we are doomed.dolphin25 likes this. -
Interesting way to look at it.
We're also a good study of why it's important to build through the draft. If you draft well, you dont have the need to pay big bucks for super stars. You're getting young talent, on the cheap. Now, if we had signed Suh like we did, and then hit on highly productive guys more frequently, we'd have great, cheap talent surrounding the great expensive talent, balancing everything out. You've got to draft well to be successful. -
As to how he views the construction of a roster, well, that's up for debate but many seem to love his top-heavy, win-now approach. Again, in Mike's defense I think the NFL allows rapid development. There's no reason to wait 4 or 5 years when things can be accomplished in 2. If you're not aggressive in trying to build something great you may wind up perpetually "in the middle."
Miami had been there awhile. It may be time Miami commits to something and goes full boar right at it. I think we are seeing that with the resources given to the offense lately.dgfred likes this. -
USArmyFinFan and Ohio Fanatic like this.
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We won't get anywhere under the current ownership regime. They're very "reactionary" in their approach (often very late to make important decisions). They also tend to migrate towards big talkers and heavy spending.
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U make valid points in regards to signing the big fish and always ignoring depth. What I don't understand, and I have seen it raised in other posts, why can't we have a coach that doesn't have gm duties, or a gm in place before the coach? The coach job is to coach. If its a solid coach, he should be able to fit his system around the available talent on the team. I don't feel it's necessary for the coach to have input into who the gm is. I don't hire my boss, I either take the job or find another. The gm should be hiring the coach. I think we have it right this time
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I'd be careful about the "opportunity cost" argument. Are you happy we lost out on the Peyton Manning sweepstakes? That would have been the splashiest move, yet far better than the moves we made, even though Peyton's salary would crowd out others.
Everyone knows what opportunity cost is. It's just hard to predict which star FA signings will really work out. Keep in mind most of this board was totally ecstatic about signing Suh, so don't lay the blame based totally on 20/20 hindsight.gunn34 likes this. -
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Again, the coaching has kinda hamstrung this team in regards to their reticence to start young guys from the draft and still tinkering with the O-line.
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Larryfinfan 17-0...Priceless Club Member
Can it be fixed, yea, but it's not going to be fixed in 2016...no matter who the coach/gm combo is...2socks likes this. -
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The problem is they're never had an FO capable of stocking a defense with cheap parts - which is inevitably what you have to do when you've got a guy commanding $28.6 million, $15.1 million, $22.1 million, $24.1 million, $18.375 million for his next 5 seasons.dgfred likes this. -
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In isolation I have no problem with the phins signing Suh. What I have a problem with is signing Suh and deciding to rely on UDFA rookies to improve our LB corps and relying on a 4th round rookie to upgrade our O-line. The reason why we have such problems at LB and OG isn't because of Suh, but because of a pattern of going out for the big name and allowing other units to suffer. If the phins, instead of signing Albert and Wallace and instead of trading up for Dion Jordan had instead gone out and bought in NFL average guys at WR, OT and spent the extra draft picks normally we would have thee cap space and talent available to address the holes.
I actually think signing Suh was a good thing, but the problem is the history of similar moves in the past has thinned out the talent base to a dangerous degree.dgfred likes this. -
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dgfred likes this.
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To put it in other words, if a chef needs basil and you hand him oregano and tell him he should be able to make it work, then who's at fault when the dish turns out like crap, the chef or the one who bought the groceries? Now some would argue, "well if he's a chef he should be able to work around it" Ok fine, but then I ask the question, why did you hire this chef to make lasagna, not give him the ingredients he needed, tell him to work around it and get upset when meatloaf is set on the table?
A head coach should focus on nothing but coaching, but he should also work closely with the GM to bring in the talent needed for that coach to realize HIS football philosophy on the field. If you don't do that, then why did you hire that head coach in the first place?