Good Article on available QB's when we took Feeley

[rafael]

There is no argument about it, AJ sucks.

The only reason I said arguably was b/c I didn't remember what they were asking for Ramsey. I know at some point it was a 1st, so if we had paid a 1st for Ramsey (#2 overall) that might have been a worse choice even though I think Ramsey is a better QB (not good, but better than AJ).

 

[DolfanCole]

I've read all of the bashing of Spielman on the move to get Feeley, much of which I agree with. But, didn't Spielman get some help in the decision from the heralded Ron Wolf on this? As I recall, Wolf was the one that said that Feeley was the best of the group, and thus strongly influenced the decision by Spielman.

 

[DolphanD]

And guess who has interest in Feeley now that he's an UFA? Minnesota ofcourse, where he can be re-united with his old coordinator-turned coach Brad Childress and his biggest fan, GM Rick Spielman. And they're probably the only ones with intersest in AJ.

They have Brad Johnson at 37 starting, Mike McMahan who is all but gone. A 2nd round pick in Tarvaris Jackson, and one other guy who slips my mind; maybe JT O'Sullivan. I would guess Minnesota signs Feeley as the back-up to Johnson and Jackson will be their 3rd string guy.

Love is forever: Feeley and Spielman :boohoo: Those years apart I'm sure were heart-wrenching...I wish those two the best, 'til death do them part...

 

[MDFINFAN]

Selective memory sure is nice. The guy not only remembers things wrong, but he conveniently leaves out other stuff.

First off, Mark Brunell had an 85.9 QB rating last year, led his team to the 2nd round of the playoffs, helped Santana Moss gain like 1,500 yards or something...and to this guy, Brunell is simply "that guy that is stinking it up in Snyderville".

Second, yes...Drew Henson and Billy Volek were two guys who were also available. Drew Henson has done nothing in Big D and now is going the way of the dodo. But the dude simply ignores how in 2004, the same year Feeley was stinking it up and throwing more interceptions returned for a TD than I've ever seen before, Volek came in for McNair for 10 games, grabbed an 87.1 QB rating completing 61.1% of his passes with 18 TDs and 10 INTs.

The guy also conveniently forgets that Jeff Garcia, Kerry Collins and Kurt Warner were three veterans that were set to be available. And, while I would not exactly hang my hat on any of them as franchise performers, all three have performed better than Feeley did since the time in question. Garcia, the worst of the three, had a 76.7 rating in Cleveland in 2004 then a 65.1 rating in Cleveland. Collins put together ratings of 74.8 and 77.3 in Oakland. Warner, probably the most successful of any of the options discussed aside from maybe Brunell, put together an 86.5 rating in NY, and a 85.8 rating in ARI.

When Feeley got his big chance, he coughed up a 61.7 rating. When he got more chances prior to 2005, he got busted down to third string. Then when he got more chances with San Diego this off season, he got busted out of the roster altogether in favor of two rookies, Charlie Whitehurst and Brett Elliott.

Nothing will ever vindicate Rick Spielman for his decision that year. He paid the highest price among all of the QBs discussed, and got arguably the worst one of the bunch (depending on how you feel about Henson).

Plus he forgot an extremely important lesson when it comes to making these decisions. Not only are you not guaranteed to pick the right one among a group of QBs available in any given year, there is no guarantee that ANY of them are the franchise player you hope...because any given year there is probably only a 1/3rd or 1/2 chance that ANY QB that changes hands, turns out to be a franchise guy within a few years.

Spielman's an idiot, end of story.

After we made that trade, you wrote up a beautiful post defending the acquisition of Feeley, actually going game by game of how much potential Feeley showed in Philly when took over for the last 5 games of the year..you showed how his accurate passes led to the ability of the eagles to sustain. Now in your defense, the one game they lost you did point out how good of a D that particular team had. But even I was onboard with Feeley after reading your post.

 

[MDFINFAN]

I've read all of the bashing of Spielman on the move to get Feeley, much of which I agree with. But, didn't Spielman get some help in the decision from the heralded Ron Wolf on this? As I recall, Wolf was the one that said that Feeley was the best of the group, and thus strongly influenced the decision by Spielman.

This has been conviently lost by a lot of Speilman bashers..I actually think Speilman did a good job of bring in players for the Wanny system. Saban runs a different D, thus a lot of the picks for Wanny wouldn't work here. But as you see on O. Speilman was right on because of the type of O we ran. i.e, that's why Chambers, Booker, Mcmicheal, Hadnot, James, and Carey are still here, which where Speilman was targeting his first year as GM. He nail that correctly, knowing he'd have to address the D later, but he's put in place the building blocks for the O.

 

[MiamiMan147]

Woohoo! C'mon everybody join in -> :deadhorse

 

[ckparrothead]

. After we made that trade, you wrote up a beautiful post defending the acquisition of Feeley, actually going game by game of how much potential Feeley showed in Philly when took over for the last 5 games of the year..you showed how his accurate passes led to the ability of the eagles to sustain. Now in your defense, the one game they lost you did point out how good of a D that particular team had. But even I was onboard with Feeley after reading your post.

My most memorable quote immediately after the Feeley trade "This move shows that the front office have no balls".

You have a poor memory of what I actually did. What I did was use a game tape provided to me of AJ Feeley's game experience in 2002 and do a detailed analysis of his strengths and weaknesses. My main conclusions? He has a stronger arm than Fiedler by far, and it's POSSIBLE he could end up a decent QB.

Quite frankly, it's possible just about any QB ends up a decent QB.

You took observation material, and drew YOUR OWN conclusions from them, completely separate from any conclusions I drew.

 

[DolphanD]

I've read all of the bashing of Spielman on the move to get Feeley, much of which I agree with. But, didn't Spielman get some help in the decision from the heralded Ron Wolf on this? As I recall, Wolf was the one that said that Feeley was the best of the group, and thus strongly influenced the decision by Spielman.

Wolf, as his last year as GM of the Packers, was pointed out by some Sporting News reporters that his last draft in GB will be remembered and he picked Jamal Reynolds, DE from FSU at the 8th or 9th pick. Everyone knows Reynolds was a bust and I don't believe Wolf should be remembered by his last draft because he was so successful before, but it should have shown that his evaluation of talent was slipping. Plus he was retired when he gave an endorsement to Feeley.

It reminds me of when Wanny asked for draft advice from JJ when he was retired and we came back with one player who contributed, Todd Wade.

The moral I would say is, do not take advice from retired GMs no matter what their legacy in drafting was. They retired for a reason! I'm not saying they can't be helpful and come up with a "lucky hit" here and there but if you can't evaluate talent with your own scouts, why are you the GM in the 1st place?

 

[DolfanCole]

Wolf, as his last year as GM of the Packers, was pointed out by some Sporting News reporters that his last draft in GB will be remembered and he picked Jamal Reynolds, DE from FSU at the 8th or 9th pick. Everyone knows Reynolds was a bust and I don't believe Wolf should be remembered by his last draft because he was so successful before, but it should have shown that his evaluation of talent was slipping. Plus he was retired when he gave an endorsement to Feeley.

It reminds me of when Wanny asked for draft advice from JJ when he was retired and we came back with one player who contributed, Todd Wade.

The moral I would say is, do not take advice from retired GMs no matter what their legacy in drafting was. They retired for a reason! I'm not saying they can't be helpful and come up with a "lucky hit" here and there but if you can't evaluate talent with your own scouts, why are you the GM in the 1st place?

Very good point. But, I think at the time, Wolf was actually a consultant, or at least serving in that capacity. So, you could draw the conclusion that Spielman was using Wolf as a scout -- thus he was using his own scouts. But, as you say, regardless of passed experience maybe Wolf just wasn't a good one at the time.

 

[ckparrothead]

...I'm trying to find a silver lining here. I just think that the Dolphins showed no ballz here by taking the ultra-safe option...

...If you knew Jeff Garcia would definitely be available, would you have pulled the trigger on Feeley?...

...We just don't know that Feeley will be ready in his first year in the offense to lead us to the promised land. Guys like Warner and Collins are a bit more experienced, could be ready to lead us quicker. We know they have the armstrength, accuracy, and ability to read defenses that we HOPE Feeley has...

...quick dropback, tosses an easy one to Chad Lewis who ran a simple out and up and managed to get in front of the linebacker (throw was perfect, but its easy to throw that ball perfect).

...Feeley throws it a little behind Cecil, still hits his hands, but he drops it. Some fullbacks would have still caught it, maybe Rob would, but you can't throw behind and make it difficult like that with a FB or some RBs...

...(a unique throw, his throws look like high darts in some areas, yet on deep outs, they do have a duckish quality...

...Great play for Zgonina, dumb move for Feeley, one that I don't expect he should repeat otherwise coaches will chew him to no end...

...on a third down pass Feeley made his second imperfect throw on a deep out. Ball had kind of a duckish quality to it, and was inaccurate to the right sidelines, and rookie CB Trevor Fisher broke on it and tried to make the high flying leaping interception (had no chance to come down in bounds with it though) but failed...

...then Feeley tries a pass to RB Brian Westbrook to the right side on a leak but he fires it a little too high for Westbrook who leaps but doesn't come down with it (I've seen Ricky come down with it before)...

Good game management and excellent feel for the game's momentum.

Good high release dart throws, very windy out this game but perfect spirals keep his balls on track.

Bad at running with and protecting the football. Will have to improve.

Bad at throwing to RBs out of the backfield, which onlookers have actually noticed it would seem, so far at mini-camps. This is not a strength of his.

Sounds like you concluded what you WANTED to conclude from a set of objective observations

 

[VManis]

The guy also conveniently forgets that Jeff Garcia, Kerry Collins and Kurt Warner were three veterans that were set to be available. And, while I would not exactly hang my hat on any of them as franchise performers, all three have performed better than Feeley did since the time in question. Garcia, the worst of the three, had a 76.7 rating in Cleveland in 2004 then a 65.1 rating in Cleveland. Collins put together ratings of 74.8 and 77.3 in Oakland. Warner, probably the most successful of any of the options discussed aside from maybe Brunell, put together an 86.5 rating in NY, and a 85.8 rating in ARI.

In retrospect the Feeley trade looks just plain stupid. But to be fair to Speilman he was looking for a QB to be the future of the team not an aging vet. Brining in any of those guys might have bought us a play-off appearance but we would have probably been right back at the same place this offense season (looking to replace an an aging medeocre QB).

 

[SCall13]

I remember alot of people defending and supporting the acquisition of Feeley. In fact, at one time, it seems like MOST of the board was. I would have taken Fiedler over Feeley ANY day. Still would. Feeley was not only a bad QB, but he was a bad actor, acting as if he was hurt worse than he was when he'd get bumped into by a defender. He had no balls and no leadership. He had no confidence in himself, therefore the team had no confidence in him. I've always said this. I don't remember who all supported Feeley. And I'm not about to go scouring the old posts to find out who his most loyal supporters were. But there were plenty. I think the biggest reason there was so much support for Feeley was because fans have been so desperate for a quality signal caller and were ready to jump on anyone's bandwagon. Personally, I'm not that easily persuaded.

 

[Regan21286]

This puts that whole area in prospective...no matter what we'd done, this is what we'd have now..

http://www.thefinforum.net/Columnists/NobodyToldMe/608.aspx

So what do you think about this..????

I thought the Fins should've kept Griese instead of trading a pick for Feeley. But I was ok with the move since I wanted someone other than Fiedler to take the helm. Griese played well for Tampa before they decided to go with the youth movement and right now is upstaging Rex Grossman in Chicago. We'd have been able to save that pick and still get better results.

 

[Dol-Fan Dupree]

Jeff Garcia sucks. Kerry Collins was not availiable until AFTER the draft. Mark Brunell stunk it up to royal heaven his first year as a Redskin. Still would of got Spielman fired. Kurt Warner is a statue who would of got killed during Miami's line.

Giving up a 2nd was over paying, however the choices of quarterbacks available was like asking which one of the Golden Girls would you have sex with.

 

[ckparrothead]

Jeff Garcia sucks. Kerry Collins was not availiable until AFTER the draft. Mark Brunell stunk it up to royal heaven his first year as a Redskin. Still would of got Spielman fired. Kurt Warner is a statue who would of got killed during Miami's line.

Giving up a 2nd was over paying, however the choices of quarterbacks available was like asking which one of the Golden Girls would you have sex with.

I definitely agree, none of them was a great choice. But the simple fact of the matter is we paid the highest price of any of them, for the worst of them.

So in your golden girls analogy, it would be like paying $5,000 to sleep with Estelle Getty, when you could have paid $500 to have Rue McClanahan hold you over until there would hopefully be a little better stock available next year.