it all depend on who you comparing him to. other nfl coach or just Dolphins head coach. he was slightly below 500. as w/L. his biggest problems as dolphins hc was not being able to make playoff. I think he had 2, 8-8 season. if I remember correct. 24 -28 as hc 462
Philbin did a few things well as HC and a lot of things poorly.
Discounting all of the behind the scenes scuttlebutt, I give Philbin credit for having a team that was rarely penalized and that didn't turn the ball over a whole lot. I think that, in general, Philbin's clock management was usually pretty good. We all rip him for the "Kodaking" thing against the Packers, but typically Philbin was good with timeouts and managing the game clock. It was also pretty well documented that Philbin made good use of practice time and had solid organizational skills in that department. I also credit Philbin for signing off on a few good personnel decisions when he first arrived, such as immediately cutting Chad Johnson when it was clear that Chad Johnson is a ****ing moron who would cause nothing but problems, and for his willingness to move on from Vontae Davis when he was showing up for practice drunk or hung over.
But I gotta blame him for making some terrible staff hires, clamping down hard on player leadership -- apparently feeling instead that it was the job of the staff to provide leadership -- and overseeing an extremely dysfunctional football team. His feud with Jeff Ireland became a feud with Mike Tannenbaum. His offensive coaching staff was essentially put together by Mike Sherman, a guy who had just been fired at Texas A&M for being a subpar head coach with a lousy staff. I also think that his complete inability to coach or develop offensive linemen, even as that unit was an absolute black hole disaster for the team, was a huge black mark on his tenure here.
Ultimately I think Joe Philbin is back where he belongs. To make a military analogy, Joe Philbin is a good adjutant and a horrible commander.
I'm not even going to go into the stories that leaked out about Philbin during or after his tenure. I don't even think you need to bring those into the equation when examining Joe's failings as a head coach. He just didn't do a good job, and I don't even need to hear anecdotes about some insane thing he told Ryan Tannehill in front of the team to form that opinion.
