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Hickey and eDefensive Players Should Share in the Blame

AJ Duhe

AJ Duhe

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I am like many fans calling for Coyle to be replaced, but I'm not laying all of the blame at his doorstep.

Look at some of the pieces Hickey and Philbin asked Coyle to use. Did anyone REALLY think the Misi MLB experiment was going to be a winner? Yes, he was injured much of the year, but Misi is never going to be a tackling machine because he doesn't have the recognition or movement skills for that position. Delmas had a long injury history coming in. Finnegan is a stop gap. Wheeler already showed a year of incompetence but was still brought back without any true competition on the roster. I kn ow Hickey was pressured to fix the O-line first, but I didn't think he really appreciated how bad our linebacking corp was going into the draft.

I also have to blame some of the players...including some of our most heralded players. Yes, we know Wheeler sucked, but we knew that before the year started. I know he was voted to the Pro Bowl, but do you really think Cameron Wake had a Pro Bowl season? I saw numerous games where Wake couldn't seem to set the edge properly or pressure the QB in key moments. For all his blustering, Rashad Jones seemed to struggle with any coverage responsibility that was beyond 7 yards downfield. Jamar Taylor and Will Davis could never stay consistent in their technique and would inexplicably blow coverages. Even our stalwart pro, Randy Starks, got manhandled in multiple games.

Yes, Coyles schemes often put players in bad positions, but sometimes the players simply failed on too many occasions. I caution Dolphin fans about their optimism toward this defense. I see a bunch of players that have either plateaued or are on the decline. Hickey has a bigger rebuild than some people might realize.
 
Dude, as far as I'm concerned you're barking up the wrong tree when it comes to Hickey. He gets a pass this year. His draft looks to be very solid and brought in a top notch LT. He can't prevent players from getting injured. And those injured players he brought in like Delmas have very short contracts so they can't hurt us.
 
Do you realize how much money Ireland has tied up in the LB group of Ellerbe, Wheeler, Misi? Could Hickey really have afforded seriously addressing that position when the team had so many other needs including an oline with ZERO players. There are personnel issues on the D, thanks to Ireland. Give Hickey another year to continue cleaning up Ireland's mess. He was given worse than nothing to work with. He was given a number of bloated useless contracts that we simply can't afford to fix until the potential cap hits clear.
 
Just a pathetic post. Hickey is given one year and has to build a complete offensive line and is given Wheeler, Ellerbe, Mise as your LB's...not right CB...no safety...and a 3rd pick who is a scrub and you're blaming Hickey.

Wow....
 
With their contract numbers, Wheeler and Ellerbe weren't getting replaced in 2014
 
Your second and third paragraphs are right on the money.
Hickey was saddled with many bloated contracts were not possible to move in 2014. I am confident he will continue to improve the team this year.
 
AJ Duhe said:
I am like many fans calling for Coyle to be replaced, but I'm not laying all of the blame at his doorstep.

Look at some of the pieces Hickey and Philbin asked Coyle to use. Did anyone REALLY think the Misi MLB experiment was going to be a winner? Yes, he was injured much of the year, but Misi is never going to be a tackling machine because he doesn't have the recognition or movement skills for that position. Delmas had a long injury history coming in. Finnegan is a stop gap. Wheeler already showed a year of incompetence but was still brought back without any true competition on the roster. I kn ow Hickey was pressured to fix the O-line first, but I didn't think he really appreciated how bad our linebacking corp was going into the draft.

I also have to blame some of the players...including some of our most heralded players. Yes, we know Wheeler sucked, but we knew that before the year started. I know he was voted to the Pro Bowl, but do you really think Cameron Wake had a Pro Bowl season? I saw numerous games where Wake couldn't seem to set the edge properly or pressure the QB in key moments. For all his blustering, Rashad Jones seemed to struggle with any coverage responsibility that was beyond 7 yards downfield. Jamar Taylor and Will Davis could never stay consistent in their technique and would inexplicably blow coverages. Even our stalwart pro, Randy Starks, got manhandled in multiple games.

Yes, Coyles schemes often put players in bad positions, but sometimes the players simply failed on too many occasions. I caution Dolphin fans about their optimism toward this defense. I see a bunch of players that have either plateaued or are on the decline. Hickey has a bigger rebuild than some people might realize.
Click to expand...

really did a poor job thinking this to the end
 
You guys have it turned around. I'm not saying Hickey's job should be on the line or anything. I applaud many of the moves he made. Drafting James and Landry paid immediate dividends. He also hit on Earl Mitchell in the DT rotation.

My only criticisms of Hickey was the failure to find credible competition at the LB position through either the draft or free agency, and his reliance on players with significant injury histories. Tripp and MCCain couldn't have been expected to be ready to play, but he had to know upgrades were needed for Ellerbe and Wheeler. Is the GM to blame for injuries? No, but the GM has to take injury history into account when relying on players to start. The absence of Finnegan and Delmas definitely hurt the secondary.

I noticed that most of you criticizing the post didn't address the argument that some of our supposedly star players on defense actually had subpar years.
 
So what you are saying is unless hickey filled every single hole on this team ( created by the former moron GM) one offseason he's some sort of failure or something.

Based on his first year as GM, hickey is not a problem
 
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joeharley666 said:
Dude, as far as I'm concerned you're barking up the wrong tree when it comes to Hickey. He gets a pass this year. His draft looks to be very solid and brought in a top notch LT. He can't prevent players from getting injured. And those injured players he brought in like Delmas have very short contracts so they can't hurt us.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see. So Hickey can't be judged for anything bad that happens. Only the good things that happened. How awesome for him.

And it's also not his fault that the injury prone players he signed got injured. What could be more unpredictable?
 
Dr. Phin said:
Just a pathetic post. Hickey is given one year and has to build a complete offensive line and is given Wheeler, Ellerbe, Mise as your LB's...not right CB...no safety...and a 3rd pick who is a scrub and you're blaming Hickey.

Wow....
Click to expand...

Dude, don't just sit there and say this is a pathetic post. Dude is actually right about most of it. Some people think they know everything up in this piece
 
TheWalrus said:
Ah, I see. So Hickey can't be judged for anything bad that happens. Only the good things that happened. How awesome for him.

And it's also not his fault that the injury prone players he signed got injured. What could be more unpredictable?
Click to expand...

You eat paint chips when you were a kid??? Read again, never mind I'll spell it out for you......YOU CANNOT JUDGE HIM FOR ONE OFFSEASON ESPECIALLY WHEN HE INHERITED AND WAS SADDLED WITH BAD CONTRACTS.
For the love of God at least give him one more offseason before you roast him.
 
man come on.. the players were always out of place. we were always getting out coached. yea players mess up, every team goes through that, but when you are always out of place.. that is on the coach
 
Knowing you have a multitude of problems and being able to solve them are two different things, what Hickey did in one off season was outstanding compared to what has went before. I do have a bit of hope that the LBs are slowly being upgraded with Jenkins one of the three and hopefully Jordan joins him on passing downs rather than rushing the passer, Tripp might even become a starter after an off season of conditioning.
Where I do agree with you is there is enough blame to go around, coaches and players haven't performed as well as you would have hoped, I think there are sufficient things that I saw to judge that Coyle isn't a great DC.
 
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