You confuse me, you want excellence AND wanted to keep Meatball.
Then you defend the molester Icognito, who has repeatedly demonstrated bad behavior to the degree that he has been kick of EVERY team he has ever played for. Its a pattern, Ireland should have seen it coming, its his job, especially AFTER the golf incident. Who drafted Martin again? Who went into this season relying on him to be the starting LT? The idiot GM you are desperately trying to defend.
Laughable? Our Pass blocking improved with McKinnie. Look up the stats, they have been posted in 100s of the threads. It dropped like 2 full sacks a game without those two.
Then you go back to Morono defending, if you think field goals and windmill fist pumps are exciting, I'm speechless. They pissed me off to no end.
Yes I want excellence.
I also never said I wanted to keep Sparano. I said, and I stand by my post, He was treated like SH*T. That was unprofessional, unethical and pompous of Ross to do him that way. People can make fun of the fist pump and all that, but the man had heart and he loved this team. For me that is good enough. Some coaches could learn a little from him. If Ross decides to make changes....we will suffer because of the way Sparano was treated.
I am defending Incognito. Because he deserves to be defended. As far as Ritchie goes there is one thing that he always brought, and that is something we sorely missed the rest of the season.....a punch you in the mouth mentality and his best effort. It becomes infinitely harder to play a team that you know will claw your eyes out if your not careful. That's the stuff that is invaluable. Incognito did what he was asked to do.....toughen up Martin. It's the truth. He was never told "How" to toughen him up. Let me assure you of one thing. Ritchie was picked because Ireland and Philbin knew he would get it done. He and only he had the cinchona's to do it. His choices on how he did it are questionable. But, shouldn't ireland and Philbin have known that? Or did they and that is why he was picked?
I stated facts. Ireland
and Philbin jerked Long's chain. Jake Long - We let him walk, most cheered he was gone. Now almost everyone is bitching Ireland didn't fix the line and should be fired, then some of the posters, including yourself are saying the line got better. So which is it? You guys wanted Long gone and Ritchie cut, now your looking back and want to place blame on Ireland when you cheered the decision's made previously. Hypocritical to say the least!! Philbin was all up in long when it went down. Philbin had a lot of say as to what players were here and let go. Why do we know this? It comes from multiple sources: Philbin, Ireland, Ross, Long and Incognito's Dad. Philbin is very much a part of the process.
The deal was Philbin came in with his staff (yr 5 for Jeff) and installed his schemes and systems and evaluated the talent. He got with Jeff over the off season (yr 6) and they collectively made changes including: Long, Dansby, Burnette, Clabo, Bush, Vonte Davis, Grimes, etc Obviously, since Philbin is a career Offensive line coach they thought they had the line covered until next year. No one could have known what would happen with Martin. Except of course.....GOD
So did Ireland/Philbin do the best they could with what they had to work with? Easy answer
You just stated things got better. We went from 8 sacks a game to 6. I'm excited. Could have just been Tanne getting rid of the ball faster?