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Who's This Year's Scapegoat?

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by Bpk, Sep 8, 2015.

  1. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    Come on, every year has one.... Wanny, Cam Cam, Sparano, Ireland....

    Who's the scapegoat this year? Whom will the lower ilk of the misbegotten fanbase offer up to the god of anger as sacrifice when we do not have a perfect season? I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek because fans (myself included) tend to like to target SOMEONE and blame them for stuff, fairly or unfairly... okay, often unfairly. So who gets their share of unfair-blame-pie this season?

    Philbin?

    Tannehill?

    Suh?

    Place your bets on the poor fall-guy who will be this year's whipping boy for all problems in a fan's life!

    p.s. - LB, will you still blame the Ginger?
     
  2. Rocky Raccoon

    Rocky Raccoon Greasepaint Ghost Staff Member

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    Michael Egnew.

    Damn you EGNEWWWWWWW!
     
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  3. Dol-Fan Dupree

    Dol-Fan Dupree Tank? Who is Tank? I am Guy Incognito.

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    LaMike James, Dallas Thomas, Jamar Taylor to start.
     
  4. A13OVEAVERAGE

    A13OVEAVERAGE Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Obvious choice would be Coyle.
     
  5. FinSane

    FinSane Cynical Dolphins Fan

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    Dion Jordan.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T217A using Tapatalk
     
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  6. Phins_Fan_87

    Phins_Fan_87 Phins and Heat fan Club Member

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    Philbin. Especially if he does something to cost us a game.
     
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  7. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    Clearly!
     
  8. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    I have a feeling this is the guy I'd make money selling effigies of this year.

    THing is, he's improved a bit as a coach, imo. And the roster has improved. So here's hopin'!
     
  9. Dol-Fan Dupree

    Dol-Fan Dupree Tank? Who is Tank? I am Guy Incognito.

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    Oh yea, I totally forgot about him. I have already started blaming him already.
     
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  10. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    At least we are a fair, reasonable fanbase!
     
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  11. Alex13

    Alex13 Tua Time !!! Club Member

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    whats up with this negativity on the board 4 days before the game, all of a sudden our corners are a huge question mark and we are already looking for the goat this upcoming season...i just don't get it
     
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  12. CashInFist

    CashInFist Well-Known Member

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    Has to be Philbin.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  13. dolfan22

    dolfan22 Season Ticket Holder Club Member

    Ginger ? Our new punter ? ;)
     
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  14. MikeHoncho

    MikeHoncho -=| Censored |=-

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    This man.
    [​IMG]
     
  15. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    LOL. I am making fun of it, personally.

    I think it's kinda inevitable and ridiculous that we will, at some point, despite current good feelings, be ****ting all over some poor bastard in the Dolphins organization and treating them as the anti-christ because they rotated some player 'wrong' and it is the end of the franchise as we know it.

    YOu know.

    It's basically a thread making fun of ourselves AHEAD of time for the human propensity to look for scapegoats at the earliest sign of imperfection.
     
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  16. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box

    By the way Alex, I see your Skype is connected so anyone can click and Cam with you. Be careful. Some people around here may click on it. Then you will see the thing that cannot be unseen.
     
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  17. Piston Honda

    Piston Honda Well-Known Member

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    Definitely Philbin. Please please please let this be a good season bc I dread the scapegoating almost as much as the losing.
     
  18. Bpk

    Bpk Premium Member Luxury Box


    I bag on Philbs a LOT on this board and to be honest, I am even tired of hearing myself beef about the man.

    He is not, it's true, as bad as many have made him out to be.
     
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  19. PhinFan1968

    PhinFan1968 To 2020, and BEYOND! Club Member

    [​IMG]
     
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  20. Fin D

    Fin D Sigh

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    My dark horse candidate is Hickey.

    If we don't do well, it will because we don't have suitable depth at certain positions and he's had 2 years which is the extent of our fanbase's ability for patience with an owner/coach/GM/QB.
     
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  21. djphinfan

    djphinfan Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    lol...here, take a couple of our timeouts'', esecially on 4th down after we sacked your ***, here, regroup mr qb, catch your breath after that devastating cam wake sack that made your qb cough up the football like it had grease on it, no worries, we know he's the best in the game so were gonna respect him and give him that time to recollect, and shake off that narly hit, and oh yeah, fans, stop standing and screaming your *** off right now, they need some silence to figure out some sh&&, so sit back down and relax, you need a breather too..I mean its 4th down, lets be fair here.

    lol, fu%%in worst dumbest call ive ever seen..
     
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  22. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    This. I think you're right, it's obvious. Kevin Coyle can often fall into the dual traps of over-planning followed by over-correcting. The balance between the two sometimes eludes him. One of the biggest problems the Dolphins identified this off season and vowed to change involved Coyle's being too complicated in the shift of defensive duties that would be involved in certain personnel switches. He also gets flack for the sheer number of play calls he brings to a game, making it difficult for younger players to just play. That's over-planning.

    Yet, when he really got into trouble in 2014, in my opinion it was because he let some minor injuries such as the one to Cortland Finnegan induce him to over-correct for the lack of personnel, playing so soft that the defense got into trouble. The Broncos game really comes to mind here. Cortland Finnegan got hurt against the Lions, the defense was able to stymie the Orton-led Bills offense the following week, but then Coyle came out in some very basic secondary defensive coverage playing off against the Broncos because he wasn't that comfortable with Jamar Taylor, Walt Aiken and Lowell Rose at corner. I remember Reshad Jones having some screwups in that game because he was put into more space and didn't do well with it.

    Then a major injury like that of Delmas just blew the whole thing wide open. There were points where I think Coyle wanted to try and take pressure off the safeties by putting more on the corners, except at this point Cortland Finnegan is still fighting through the injury that knocked him out for a few weeks, and he's complaining that Coyle is leaving him out there to drown.

    But really this is just recent history with Coyle. He's got a history of bad ideas, from making a rookie Olivier Vernon into a nickel pass rush specialist (he's still not even necessarily the kind of caliber pass rusher you want in a nickel specialist today let alone as a rookie coming from UM's system which left him under-developed as a pass rusher), to making Jared Odrick a base defensive end, never playing to Sean Smith's strengths, nor Vontae Davis' for that matter resulting in Vontae sliding down to nickel on the depth chart which was probably the single biggest factor influencing the decision to trade him, the Kevin Coyle-led lobby to get rid of Karlos Dansby and Kevin Burnett in favor of Dannell Ellerbe and Phil Wheeler, some serious run-ins he has had with various assistant coaches (some of whom were respected, but are no longer in Miami for a reason), the development track of Dion Jordan, the drafting of Dion Jordan for that matter, heading into game days with a plan the assistants all agreed to all week long then changing them last minute on a whim during game day, etc.

    Kevin Coyle was already a mark during the off season this year. Joe Philbin kept his job, and made a big show of trying to decide what to do about Coyle, but kept him on (predictably) and justified it by talking about the changes he wants to see Coyle implement in the defense (which have to do again with less complicated personnel packaging).

    Could anyone else become the scapegoat? Sure.

    But I have a tough time imagining that the offense can't score. If that is indeed the case it will probably be a combination of the offensive line (guards, injuries?) and Tannehill not taking the step he looks like he's taking. Dallas Thomas is an easy mark, but at the same time it's tough to imagine him being such a consequential mark that he becomes a big deal. Then again, everyone, even people that don't watch the games, have been shouting that Dallas Thomas is awful for the longest time...and at this point Philbin's sticking with him despite the cacophony has made Dallas a big target even if he doesn't play a totally consequential position.

    It's worth noting that to whatever extent Ryan Tannehill disappoints or frustrates people by not taking as big a step as he needs to and/or showing up very inconsistently, Zac Taylor could easily become a scapegoat as he's the man that has been charged with developing Tannehill since he came into the NFL. You could argue that Taylor not only had virtually zero qualifications to get that job (thanks to his being Mike Sherman's step son) but he's not really shown that he can get the best out of...well, any quarterback that the Dolphins have put on roster over the past four years.

    Taylor hasn't gotten the best out of a single one of those quarterbacks. McLeod Bethel-Thompson saw better days with Minnesota than the performance he put together in preseason this year. Same with Josh Freeman, who outperformed his 2015 self in both Tampa and Minnesota. Matt Moore was arguably much better in 2011 than he has at any point since Zac Taylor became his "coach" (I use the quotations on purpose since we're told Tannehill and Moore basically run the meetings). Seth Lobato was better in Tampa this preseason than he was in Miami last preseason. He "developed" Pat Devlin for a few years, into...what? A guy they quit on because he was so bad. They had Austin Davis at one point, probably the best quarterback they've had aside from Moore and Tannehill, but let him walk. When I bring this up people always try to give me the chicken salad line but this isn't about turning third stringers into franchise quarterbacks. This is about turning third stringers into their better selves, which Zac Taylor has really never done. He's not turned second stringers into their better selves either. And if Tannehill doesn't take that next step this year then he'll not have turned Tannehill into the player we all know he can be. So at that point absolutely Zac Taylor becomes the lowest-hanging fruit for a scapegoat with respect to any frustration related to Tannehill.
     
  23. Rocky Raccoon

    Rocky Raccoon Greasepaint Ghost Staff Member

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    Dude, look who started this thread. Bpk eats crayons for dinner.
     
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  24. Rocky Raccoon

    Rocky Raccoon Greasepaint Ghost Staff Member

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    Oh God. Alex, do something immediately before lmeister gets a hold of you. RED ALERT!
     
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  25. Sceeto

    Sceeto Well-Known Member

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    It's been Tanne or Philbin. I don't see that changing.
     
  26. ExplosionsInDaSky

    ExplosionsInDaSky Well-Known Member

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    Coach wise both coach Queasy and Kevin F'ing Coyle will be prime candidates. Pretty much a two horse race in the coach department.
    Player wise, Brice McCain gets honorable mention, but I feel like Jamar Taylor, Walt Aikens, and Jeff Linkenbach (forced to play) are shoe ins for this award. Linkenbach especially.....he's clearly in the running for the yearly Marc Columbo award if he misses out on the Scapegoat honors.
    Columbo, Clabo, Colledge....Linkenbach this year despite his name not beginning with a C.
    Also, don't sleep on our linebackers. The ghost of Phillip Wheeler could very well show up in the form of a demon and possess Koa Misi or one of the other linebackers.
     
  27. ckparrothead

    ckparrothead Draft Forum Moderator Luxury Box

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    I'd like to disqualify Coach Queasy here. I think it's fairly obvious any shortcomings this season whatsoever will get laid at his feet pretty much by definition as he's the head coach and he's also been on the hot seat.

    Even if guys like Kevin Coyle, Dallas Thomas and Zac Taylor get scapegoated, that will still fall at Joe Philbin's feet. He hired Coyle and stuck with him despite several wanting him out. He has backed Dallas Thomas stubbornly despite everyone asking what the **** he's thinking. He kept Zac Taylor on even though Zac only got the job because of step dad, because Sherman was fired against Philbin's will and he wasn't going to fire Sherman's step son too (unless Ted Wells had dug up dirt on him, which he didn't).
     
  28. Dol-Fan Dupree

    Dol-Fan Dupree Tank? Who is Tank? I am Guy Incognito.

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    I blame Philbin for this post
     
  29. Alex13

    Alex13 Tua Time !!! Club Member

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    lol....is it ? i don't even use skype anymore its not even installed on my system, thanks for the heads up though :)


    Sent from my iPhone 6 Plus using Tapatalk
     
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  30. Georgia Fin

    Georgia Fin Fin For Life

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    El Nino.
     
  31. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    Damn, you're throwing in the towel already, even before we've played our first game?
     
  32. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    Lets start by eliminating the non-scapegoats *
    1) Ryan Tannehill, Nkomadong Suh and the WRs all have enough goodwill to avoid being the scapegoat
    2) Lazor. Has earned a pass mark and has accumulated sufficient good will to get another year.
    3) Tannenbaum and Hickey. All the pre-season analysis has been the Miami has accumulated a lot of talent, so if the team crashes the blame will be placed at the door of the coaching staff.

    * DISCLAIMER in the event of a crash and burn season everyone becomes a viable scapegoat.

    Low Level Scapegoat candidates:
    1) Lamar Miller. If the run game struggles this year he will be in the crosshairs.
    2) The LB Corps. While I have some hopes for some of the younger LBs to develop there is a distinct lack of proven quality here.
    3) The DBs. Like the LBs there is a scarcity of proven NFL talent.

    High level Scapegoat Candidates.
    1) Coach Queasy. He is already locked in as the designated whipping boy.
    2) Coyle. Basically what CK said. Long story short when he hits in the sweet spot he hits homers, but when he whiffs its a fly ball with double team written all over it.
    3) OL. Between health (Albert) and character (Pouncey) concerns our good starters are elevated risks for something bad happening during the season, and the rest of the line have yet to show they are capable of being mediocre. Although some of their poor prior performance comes from being played out of position, they will be be blamed until they prove they are adequate.
     
  33. shamegame13

    shamegame13 Madison & Surtain

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    1) OL and Philbin
    2) Coyle
    3) Other CB of Grimes and FS
    4) Running Game
    5) Kenny Stills
    6) Andrew Franks
     
  34. Kud_II

    Kud_II Realist Division

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    I think this board has been pretty good about distributing blame to the right people. If you're not doing a good job as a player, we'll notice. But the coaching staff is the natural scapegoat. I will drop a bag of flaming dog **** on Philbum's porch if we don't win 10 games at the VERY least.
     
  35. 2socks

    2socks Rebuilding Since 1973

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    FIN D:shifty:


     
  36. 2socks

    2socks Rebuilding Since 1973

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    will need video of the deed:yes:

     
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  37. Agua

    Agua Reality: Try It!

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    Whoever is playing opposite Grimes and whoever is at any LB position during passing downs.
     
  38. Tin Indian

    Tin Indian Rockin' The Bottom End Club Member

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    This guy.

    [​IMG]
     
  39. LBsFinest

    LBsFinest Banned

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    Obviously the scapegoats will be the guys that should've already been fired, queasy and coyle.
     
  40. xphinfanx

    xphinfanx Stay strong my friends.

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    Scape goat?

    This one is my biggest concern for obvious reasons.

    [​IMG]

    Please be a good receiver, o wait. Use both hands on the ball?
     

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