What is your impression of Jeff Ireland as a GM ?

Maybe I didn't make it clear. I'm saying if I gave schmoliot or whomever those resources, they would fail, and fail so badly it isn't funny.

Even if a GM had scouts, he didn't become a GM(unless you are Jerry Jones) without a tremendous amount of work, ethics, background knowledge, and the ability to competently have done every job below you for many years. Jeff Ireland has help, but he is capable of doing that work himself.

That's not really accurate because those guys are very heavily basing those lists off of inside information they are getting from teams. Mel Kiper, Mike Mayock, Todd McShay, etc. are not qualified to be General Managers. They've never held anything approaching that job as far as I know. They are journalists and talking heads who regurgitate information, and whose own original ideas are not even remotely close to being held to the standards of actual professionals.

 

And you can't show me an example of someone who has good results based on informed decisions that they made rather than synthesized off of other people.

 

I have been arguing since day one that we don't know what Ireland was or wasn't responsible for. Since we don't know, we throw out the data.

What I said about Schmools stance is still accurate. He didn't account for the differences in Parcells being his boss as opposed to being the boss of Sparano & Philbin, he basically said there wasn't a difference. How can he know? That changes nothing I said in that post to him or to you.

Who's to say what the dynamic was, how much control Ireland had, did he have to follow Parcells blueprint, did Sparano agree with the blueprint, does Ireland's natural tendencies align better with Philbin, etc.?

Yet some people think those questions all begin and end with IRELAND SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!

 

Everybody sing! (all together now!): "They pick the horses...with all the same resources!"

one more time for obnoxiousness sake: Our guy's initial qualification for entering the personnel side was that he cleaned skid marks off of William Perry's practice shorts.

 

Welcome to the club. You get your introduction kit in the mail.

 

Exactly. The problem with last season's team was inability to finish. 6 convincing wins and 5 blown 4th quarter leads. 11 games where they had a very good chance to win but could only convert 6. That's not a talent issue at all IMO.

 

And Bill Belichick almost certainly got his foot in the door making 25$ a week getting Ted Marchibroda coffee and a donut because his dad made a phone call.

It's a incestuous business and not as strict a meritocracy as some, but Ireland paid his dues.

 

Simple. fire him.

 

All my reasons to keep him would be excuses.

 

Ok, I'll do it tomorrow morning.

Moderators please close this thread it has been rendered unnecessary due to the Randian heroics of one man.

 

I need a guru!

I'm holding out for a guru on daytime TV

He's gotta be tall

And he's gotta be bald

And he's gotta be wiser than me

I need a guru!

 

And I haven't seen a convincing case made by a one of them.

 

I can't speak for Schmooliot or anyone else in particular, but I do think a lot of people could make those decisions with the same resources and end up with results comparable to what some GMs do. For a number of years in the past I did my own Dolphins draft "picking" the players I would have picked at the
Dolphins spot. Some years I did great, others not so much. My best years were about as good as any GM ever and some of may bad years were pretty bad. Yeah, I was using a lot of different sources -- Kiper Buchsbaum, Ourlads, etc. -- plus what I saw myself. In essence, Kiper, Buchsbaum, etc. were my assistant GMs or player personnel directors and I was taking into their opinions and a variety of other factors and making decisions. Just like what GMs do with their staffs.

Yes, a GM has to do a lot to become a GM. Neither I nor most people here have those credentials. But the fact that we couldn't become GMs based on current credentials doesn't mean we couldn't do the job well. The things we judge a GM on are his decisions and different people have different abilities to make good decisions. The top executives at Microsoft and Apple, for example, are not necessarily their best programmers. They may not be able to program at all. The NFL is a good old boys network that has its ways of doing business and is unlikely to change and welcome in someone without the deep football background. But that doesn't mean that a great executive with little football background couldn't make great decisions and be a great GM based on the advice, input and analysis of the scouts that work for him.

Who cares? What difference does it make it whether those guys have original ideas? The truth remains that those guys' top players lists end up looking a lot like most NFL teams' (collectively) top players list. If we went back over the last 10 years and figured out who Kiper's top rated player was at each Dolphin pick and compiled that as a "draft history" I suspect it would look a lot like most teams'. It would be better than some and worse than others.

What makes you think that Kevin Colbert, Ozzie Newsome, Jerry Reese or Bill Belichick are making their decisions based on unique, original ideas, as opposed to the advice of their scouting teams. They are rarely taking players that aren't generally viewed as being appropriate for the picks they are taking them. And when they do they fail as often as they succeed at it.

Although not necessarily accurate as to which team will take which pick, all of the draft commentators do a pretty good job of pegging the general area of the draft, or round, that the players will go. With that information widely available, the job becomes largely one of figuring out which player is the best fit for a specific team/scheme. I don't care if that is based on original though or heavily masticated and regurgitated thought as long as the good decision is made.

 

After losing Vincent Jackson in free agency, AJ Smith of the Chargers goes out and signs Robert Meachem, and Eddie Royal.
After trading away Brandon Marshall, Jeff Ireland of the Dolphins goes out and signs Legedu Naanee and Chad Johnson.
You do the math.

 

Going on record - I think Fineas and Shou might be the same person! Same style of writing, basically the same points, two of my favorite posters may be one.

 

I am positive they are not the same person, and I often agree with one and very seldom with the other.

 

Fineas I'd have faith in about 0.0001% of this forum (in other words, no one, including myself) to have the intelligence, organizational ability, and football background and expertise to 1) make good draft choices, 2) manage a salary cap, 3) plan for the future in terms of expiring contracts, players in contract years, and players who need to be motivated by the presence of competition at their position, 4) monitor the players on other teams' practice squads and the waiver wire, 5) have the negotiating ability to make good trades, 6) work well with the head coach and the owner, 7) hire the right head coach, and so on and so forth.

This job is about so much more than drafting players. This is a major managerial position in a very sophisticated organization.

 

Yes, it is akin to rocket science and 99.999% of posters here are mouth breathing, slobbering, knuckle draggers who have trouble forming a coherent sentence.

 

Okay. That's funny.

 

Fineas thanks you for the compliment.

 

i ull daft foobah playuh buttah dan jif urrland. Me gud gee em.

 

Just think how you'd feel if someone from in here were really named the GM. I think you might be a slight bit worried.

 

Some of us have managed many more people than Jeff Ireland and have successful businesses. Some of us have MORE experience than Jeff Ireland in a management position and some of us have never asked a prospective employee if his mother was a whore.

 

Not really.

 

I'm not saying no one here has any talent or ability, just that the combination of skills required for Jeff Ireland's position is probably held by no one here in enough abundance to inspire any confidence in how they'd perform.

 

Don't kid yourself. This HC was hired by Mr. Ross and isn’t going anywhere.

I think the front office was retained because of Carl Peterson. He would know as well as anyone that throwing everyone out of the building and starting from scratch is a guarantee of poor to mediocre football for at least 3 years.

It’s easy to make the argument that player development was never a priority for the previous coaching staff. The list of players that have exceeded expectations can be counted on one hand.

My major concern with this season so far is that many of these supposed “acorns” have already been cut. The a ha moment for me was Clyde Gates. Ireland was telling Philbin that you can’t teach that kind of speed and Philbin says he’s not a good football player. Gates is cut.


There is no doubt in my mind who is calling the shots now. I’m going out on the limb. Ireland stays if Philbin approves. Otherwise, I expect Russ Ball to take the helm.

 

Of course you think like this.

Because Jeff Ireland is GM of the Miami Dolphins, he couldn't possibly be bad at his job.


He's made bad decisions that you fail to even recognize the slightest bit.

Let's pretend I'm GM of the Dolphins. Mike Mayock, Mcshay, and Kiper are my scouts. They've provided me film of Earl Thomas who plays safety and I just watched a year of Gibril Wilson suck balls at that position. He then gives me film of Jared Odrick who plays DE where I have a logjam of solid players. Well then I made a better decision than Jeff Ireland. A decision that set up the franchise for much more success than the decision that was actually made. I'm not sure how that's any of the bull**** that you pretended it was with the picture example provided.

And looking at highlight reels and deciding on a player is asinine? Please explain to me how you think these decisions are made. Highlight reels, cut-ups of game film, calling the player's coach on the phone. I think that pretty much sums it up.

Again, you've gone and overcomplicated Jeff Ireland's job.

I don't understand what you mean by this. He has all the information we have on draft day x10000.

Do you think he didn't know that the Redskins were trading with the Rams for the #2 pick to draft RGIII? I'm confused. I knew that by watching NFL network and ESPN. Do you think Ireland doesn't get cable maybe?

 

Right, except you know that your FS, OLB, and DE in 2012 will all be on rookie contracts. There is a hell of a lot more consideration needed than "this player is better than that player".

 

Sorry, I'm not sure I follow

 

You have limited resources. You know that X% of your cap space can be used on FAs. Therefore you know that you need a certain number of players that will be on their rookie contract. So while you know that Earl Thomas is a hell of a lot better than Chris Clemons, but you also know you don't want Trusnik and Olivier Vernon as starters on your team.

 

Right, a position that I clearly don't believe Jeff Ireland has the skills for.

 

Negative until he proves me wrong....

Used to be neutral but I've grown tired of him bringing in high priced FA's only to cut them a year or two later. Trading for players then trading them elsewhere for less, and not replacing them. Trading away his picks for less than he paid in the draft. Piling up a huge amount of dead cap space and having naked pictures of Ross to help him keep his job...

 

Oh ok, got you

I invite you to re-watch Jared Odrick play against Houston this past Sunday. And keep your eyes on him this Sunday against Oakland.

He provided nothing that Ryan Baker can't provide. Our drop off at the DE and OLB positions would not be much, if at all, had we drafted Earl Thomas. IMO

 

How many times did Houston run left???

 

The reason I harp on the Earl Thomas situation so much is that it was just such an obvious mistake.

We had arguably some of the worst safety play I had ever seen out of Gibril Wilson. The two SS system was a failure. So we knew that in 2010 Bell would be going back to his traditional SS and we would bring in a more traditional FS. It was THE biggest hole on our roster.

And then Earl Thomas fell to 12. I'm thinking, he's not only THE BEST PLAYER AVAILABLE in the draft right now, but he fills a monumental need on this team.

The rest is history. The Parcells/Ireland obsessive need to re-coup that 2nd round pick hurt us in the worst way

 

I didn't count. But no offense, that's a weak point.

Run stopping 4-3 DEs are relatively inexpensive if that's what your goal is. So, it just kinda supports my point more.

Langford would've been fine until this year, at which point that edge setting DE could've been had cheap.

 

It certainly is a shame we didnt get Earl Thomas. By all means, feel free to levy criticism. But that criticism should be directed at the trade for Brandon Marshall, which wasted resources and forced the team to recoup picks.

 

Just wrote the same thing in another thread about Philbins power..I agree Taz, looks to me that Philbin called the Marshall, Gates, Davis, Johnson cuts, and nobody's talking about it.

 

well I kind of agree with that. If you can't handle the idea of not having draft picks, then don't trade them in the first place.

However, they weren't forced to re-coup picks. When a star player is staring you in the face at a position of dire need, you have to improvise and deviate from your philosophy