3 teams from the AFC East?

 

Bills might have one of the best rosters in the NFL. They just don't have a qb. Not shocking they're getting love.

 

Is it September yet? Can't wait!

 

Fox Sports ranks Miami at #8

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/power-rankings

 

That ranking is from May 5th, before the Brady suspension. I wonder where they rank NE now. In any case, even without a Brady suspension, NE shouldn't be ranked 2nd given the loss of Wilfork and Revis among others.

 

Well, I think that its a ranking of team quality, and not where they project them to finish at the end.

 

Tough division.

Too bad Miami wasn't in the AFC South instead of Indy.

 

I'm not saying that I agree with the ranking but I will say that more important than a QB is a good coach.

I'm not rating Ryan as a great coach, but I can see how Ryan + a talented roster inspires more hope than Philbin + a talented roster.

 

Always is. Not once in my 25 or so years as a hardcore fan have we been the only good team, even for just one year. The odds of that have to be stupid.

 

I don't see that at all.

 

Carolina at 7?! I'd love to hear that explanation. Pittsburgh, Dallas, Detroit, and San Diego all deserve to be a little higher. Number 10 sounds fair for Miami, but I want to see the team on the field before I say that. I do believe the Dolphins are better than Buffalo, but I won't criticize someone for saying otherwise.

 

very much disagree. I have said that I think that Ryan in his first year in Buffalo will boost that team and I think they will outperform us this year, but that's mostly because their roster is more talented than ours.

 

arizona getting no respect anywhere.

 

You don't think that the coach is more important for the progress of an entire team than the QB?

 

Nope, and its not even close.

 

They have an aging QB coming off a torn ACL and lost Todd Bowles to the NYJ. Not exactly a recipe for success. The Dallas Cowboys at 18 is disrespectful.

 

The coach sets the offense and defense, tactics, strategy, perhaps even player selection. Every time there's an argument about whether a team is using a player's talents correctly that's an argument about coaching. The HC literally affects, (by definition), every single aspect of the football team. He even affects player morale across the entire team and also staff both directly and indirectly.

The QB also has an influence on morale, he usually (thought not necessarily) has lot of say in how the offense works (he can be restricted, funnily enough, by the HC), his play, particularly in a pass-heavy scheme, massively affect the offensive performance of the team. His play doesn't directly affect the defensive performance at all, although there is some indirect in terms of how often the defensive team sees the field.

The QB might be the single most influential player on the squad, but if you're trying to tell me that the influence of the HC is not only lesser than the QB (who is himself directed by the HC) but that is isn't even close then you're smoking something.

 

I'd counter with the question: how many coaches do you truly believe are better than the "pack"? IMO, there's an extremely sharp bell shaped curve when it comes to NFL coaches. i.e. very few, only a handful at best, are what I would consider to be better than the average coach. I'm actually struggling to come up with even 5 names. Yes, there are coaches like Kelly, Ryan and few others that bring in a system that can make a difference, but without star players, the system doesn't do much. Look at coaches for division leaders last year like Green Bay, Indianapolis, Denver, Carolina - nothing special at all, but they all had star QBs that carried their respective teams. Philbin is a mediocre coach sitting right in that large bolus of mediocre coaches. He's had the unfortunate luck to be a mediocre coach with mediocre talent.

 

Bruce arians will find a way..

 

cowboys are a ticking time bomb, they lack leadership.

 

It doesn't matter how good or bad they are, the HC remains the single-most influential figure on the entire team. I know you don't mean it this way, but it could be seen as an insult to head-coaches to simply chalk up a team's success to a great QB. The HC will have had an influence on the QB and the pieces around him, on the strategy, on the defense, on everything.

 

If the qb sucks and/or if the defensive talent sucks, coaches can't do anything.

Why did Shanahan suck after Elway?
Why did Belichick suck before Brady?
Why did the Cowboys win a SB after Jimmy Johnson?
Why was Mike McCarthy a horrible OC until he got Rodgers?

There are very, very few transcendental coaches. Shula, Lombardi, Walsh, etc. The rest are either average or horrible.

Football is won on the talent and abilities of the players. A coach can call the perfect play at the perfect time and the player can fumble negating everything. Most coaches' job is to herd cats and try an set a framework with which the talent works in, but all the planning in the world doesn't stop, create or breed talent.

And that's not me smoking something, that's you buying into the romanticized hollywood depictions of what a pro football coach does.

 

Too high.

 

Weird that they didn't consult you first.

 

Hopefully your annual playoff prediction finally comes to fruition this time.

 

The Cowboys should be much better than 18th with a very good offensive line.

 

yeah I was really off that time I predicted 8-8 and we went 7-9.

Don't you predict sub .500 every year?

 

I think so....can you blame me? Lol isn't that what we finish every year?

 

Um, no. 8-8 is not sub .500.

 

Yes so true, well you know how Omar really feels about the Dolphins...We read him in here :wink2:, and we read the same stuff, almost verbatim in The Sun Sentinal......I will be very happy when we can get more Dolphins Fan Beat Writers locally like Dave Hyde, and like Edwin Pope than transplant fans only due to their job like Salguerro(sp), and Kelly...if I am reading the local papers Sports Section, I want it to be Pro Miami,period.:knucks:

 

Well, I think that there's a fine line that Omar is wayyyyy over on the wrong side of, and Armando has stepped over as well to a lesser degree. Omar says over and over that he's doing his job, so maybe the Sun Sentinal has instructed him to do things the way that he does? Not excusing him, he's an ***, but has the paper given him that job description?

What I want in a beat writer is someone who's basically a diehard, but very level headed and very knowledgable fan who gets to watch the team and talk to the players and coaches every day, and then lets us all know the real deal in a clear and straightforward way. Someone who wants what's best for the team long term, and not just season to season (or even game to game). Many NFL cities have that. We haven't in quite a while.

 

Is that in reference to the rankings or yourself :tongue2:

 

Closest thing we have to that is The Finsiders, but I think they sugarcoat stuff a tad too much.

 

Thank you, that is basically what I was trying to say..you put it much better.:up:

 

Disagree a little.

I think Omar truly and honestly believes what he says. I think he thinks his opinions are accurate and honest.

I think Mando doesn't really care one way or the other and plays the game. I think he is basically running the "journalist" version of a protection racket. If you make his job easy he either blows smoke up your *** or leaves you out of the rants. If you don't give him info, he'll invent anything he can that has a slight morsel of truth, to rip you up and down.

They both end up accomplishing the same thing, but Omar is honest but dumb and Mando is dishonest and smart.

 

Ah, the power rankings. Best show of mental masturbation we get during this time of year.

 

Our strenght the last years, off season Champions and NFL Top 10. Let's see what happens in december.

 

I'm one of the minority on this topic as I'm in the corner of a great coach being much more important than a great quarterback. You mentioned great coaches of the past that were able to win with a myriad of different quarterbacks, even though you did forget Joe Gibbs who went to the Super Bowl 3 out of 4 years with 3 different quarterbacks, but the point being...

Great coaches win due to the totality of their talent and raise the play level of all the players
Mediocre coaches win due to the talent of a single player and when they lose that single player, they can't compensate and their season crashes.

 

Preseason power rankings are like Presidential election polls....the only "poll" that matters is who's hoisting the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season.