Why the "Fireland" crowd is just not getting it.

[J. David Wannyheimer]

Dannell Ellerbe is just as bad as Phil Wheeler. The only reason to single out Wheeler is the dumb penalties on two critical third down stops late in two games this year.

They're both awful.

 

[Rev Kev]

I don't understand how anyone thinks this is a well constructed team. Here's how I see it:

OL: total disaster. Mike Pouncey is the only NFL quality starter here. Bryant McKinnie is an acceptable backup. Nate Garner is an acceptable backup due to versatility. Sam Brenner might be okay.

RB: total disaster. Lamar Miller sucks, Daniel Thomas sucks, and we got nothing after that.

WR: decent unit. Mike Wallace looks like he's making an earnest effort to fit into the offense and become a more complete player. That's huge. This could turn out to be a great signing. Brian Hartline is who he is. Rishard Matthews and Brandon Gibson are solid.

TE: almost disastrous. We have a very good H-Back in Charles Clay and.... that's it. Dion Sims is a good blocker. That's it. Again, Clay isn't even a traditional in-line TE. And after him, we got NOTHING.

DL: good unit. Even with Starks and Soliai likely gone, this is a good unit overall.

LB: total disaster. Total and complete unmitigated disaster. And there's nothing we can do about it until after next offseason.

Secondary: big money contract to Reshad Jones, who isn't very good. Drafted two rookie corners who can't even get on the field. Chris Clemons is a free agent. Brent Grimes is a free agent. I think even Nolan Carroll is a free agent.

Right now the one bright spot for this team is that we have a QB who looks (to some of us) like he's going to be very good. And that QB is getting crushed behind the worst OL in football.

And I'm not even going to go into the fact that we drafted a kicker who is worse than the kicker we had before.

I don't understand how folks are excited about 2014 for this team right now, considering all of those things. We are flat out stuck with bad linebackers and our defense is likely to regress. All we have to hang our hat on right now is the hope that Ryan Tannehill takes another big step forward and that we can somehow fix the OL in just one offseason.

Excellent post and for this reason - I draft Oline LB and TE in the first rounds in the upcoming draft with two RBs who weigh 230 or better who like contact... on the 2nd day

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

Excellent post and for this reason - I draft Oline LB and TE in the first rounds in the upcoming draft with two RBs who weigh 230 or better who like contact... on the 2nd day

I don't want to play armchair GM, because I think I would be awful at it, but we absolutely need to get a new GM in here and that GM needs to make it his first priority to fix the OL. I'm not saying to invest all of our highest resources in the OL, but we need to address it aggressively.

Flynryan is probably going to have an aneurysm, but my first suggestion would be to see if Pittsburgh wants to trade Maurkice Pouncey for something reasonable. He's an impending free agent after next season (I believe), they are in terrible cap shape, and we could entice them with a mid round draft pick. That would instantly allow us to fix one of our G positions by moving Mike over.

 

[dnespins]

Dannell Ellerbe is just as bad as Phil Wheeler. The only reason to single out Wheeler is the dumb penalties on two critical third down stops late in two games this year.

They're both awful.

yes. everyone piles on wheeler but ellerbe has made just as little positive impact on this defense.

 

[Rev Kev]

I am very tired of people creditting Wake to Ireland when half the league tried to sign Wake, the pipeline from the BC Lions to the MIAMI dolphins goes back 20 years..., the best thing Ireland did in my eyes is not sign Dez Bryant the rest is pretty shaky even the trade up in the draft was balls but Jeff overvalued the rest of his drafts and 2013 selections to make a reach on a guy who will develop when Jeff isn't here (hopefully)

We got abused trdaing for BM and then trading him, we giot abused selecting VD and then trading him - we get abused at the no.2 selection year after year.

 

[Mogwai]

I don't understand how anyone thinks this is a well constructed team. Here's how I see it:

OL: total disaster. Mike Pouncey is the only NFL quality starter here. Bryant McKinnie is an acceptable backup. Nate Garner is an acceptable backup due to versatility. Sam Brenner might be okay.

RB: total disaster. Lamar Miller sucks, Daniel Thomas sucks, and we got nothing after that.

WR: decent unit. Mike Wallace looks like he's making an earnest effort to fit into the offense and become a more complete player. That's huge. This could turn out to be a great signing. Brian Hartline is who he is. Rishard Matthews and Brandon Gibson are solid.

TE: almost disastrous. We have a very good H-Back in Charles Clay and.... that's it. Dion Sims is a good blocker. That's it. Again, Clay isn't even a traditional in-line TE. And after him, we got NOTHING.

DL: good unit. Even with Starks and Soliai likely gone, this is a good unit overall.

LB: total disaster. Total and complete unmitigated disaster. And there's nothing we can do about it until after next offseason.

Secondary: big money contract to Reshad Jones, who isn't very good. Drafted two rookie corners who can't even get on the field. Chris Clemons is a free agent. Brent Grimes is a free agent. I think even Nolan Carroll is a free agent.

Right now the one bright spot for this team is that we have a QB who looks (to some of us) like he's going to be very good. And that QB is getting crushed behind the worst OL in football.

And I'm not even going to go into the fact that we drafted a kicker who is worse than the kicker we had before.

I don't understand how folks are excited about 2014 for this team right now, considering all of those things. We are flat out stuck with bad linebackers and our defense is likely to regress. All we have to hang our hat on right now is the hope that Ryan Tannehill takes another big step forward and that we can somehow fix the OL in just one offseason.

Now that is an honest appraisal of our team. Grim, yet honest.

You can cherry pick positives from any roster in football. Success is about having a complete team with elite players (QB) to lead it. It would be real easy to highlight HOU and MIN's roster, but that wouldn't be an honest appraisal of their ability to be competitive.

 

[tcdrover]

To say that they look like morons would be unkind to morons.

Look at the Dolphin's record right now, they are better than last year.

Look at the OTHER TEAMS with that SAME RECORD.

Don't the Ravens also share that record?

NO GM drafts perfect every year, most do not even come close. It's easy to 2nd guess every single tiny little move AFTER you've seen how everything has played out.

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

I think that if anyone on this board honestly thinks Jeff Ireland is the man to fix this OL -- after Jake Grove and Justin Smiley and Tyson Clabo and John Jerry and Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin....

... then God help us all. Because Steve Ross might be dumb enough to feel that way, too.

 

[roy_miami]

NO GM drafts perfect every year, most do not even come close. It's easy to 2nd guess every single tiny little move AFTER you've seen how everything has played out.

Yes but thats why Ireland gets paid millions of dollars a year, because he's supposed to be one of the top 32 people in the world with amazing foresight with respect to football players. The job Ireland has done can probably be duplicated by half the posters in this thread, that doesn't mean he's the worst in the world but he's nothing special.

 

[JTC111]

Ireland's problem is ,he keeps finding medicore 4th talent in the first two rounds.

:lol2:
That isn't fair. You're knocking him on the one thing he's really really good at, probably better at than any GM in the league.

 

[flynryan15]

I don't understand how anyone thinks this is a well constructed team. Here's how I see it:

OL: total disaster. Mike Pouncey is the only NFL quality starter here. Bryant McKinnie is an acceptable backup. Nate Garner is an acceptable backup due to versatility. Sam Brenner might be okay.

RB: total disaster. Lamar Miller sucks, Daniel Thomas sucks, and we got nothing after that.

WR: decent unit. Mike Wallace looks like he's making an earnest effort to fit into the offense and become a more complete player. That's huge. This could turn out to be a great signing. Brian Hartline is who he is. Rishard Matthews and Brandon Gibson are solid.

TE: almost disastrous. We have a very good H-Back in Charles Clay and.... that's it. Dion Sims is a good blocker. That's it. Again, Clay isn't even a traditional in-line TE. And after him, we got NOTHING.

DL: good unit. Even with Starks and Soliai likely gone, this is a good unit overall.

LB: total disaster. Total and complete unmitigated disaster. And there's nothing we can do about it until after next offseason.

Secondary: big money contract to Reshad Jones, who isn't very good. Drafted two rookie corners who can't even get on the field. Chris Clemons is a free agent. Brent Grimes is a free agent. I think even Nolan Carroll is a free agent.

Right now the one bright spot for this team is that we have a QB who looks (to some of us) like he's going to be very good. And that QB is getting crushed behind the worst OL in football.

And I'm not even going to go into the fact that we drafted a kicker who is worse than the kicker we had before.

I don't understand how folks are excited about 2014 for this team right now, considering all of those things. We are flat out stuck with bad linebackers and our defense is likely to regress. All we have to hang our hat on right now is the hope that Ryan Tannehill takes another big step forward and that we can somehow fix the OL in just one offseason.

Post of the week!

 

[Danny]

I don't understand how anyone thinks this is a well constructed team. Here's how I see it:

OL: total disaster. Mike Pouncey is the only NFL quality starter here. Bryant McKinnie is an acceptable backup. Nate Garner is an acceptable backup due to versatility. Sam Brenner might be okay.

RB: total disaster. Lamar Miller sucks, Daniel Thomas sucks, and we got nothing after that.

WR: decent unit. Mike Wallace looks like he's making an earnest effort to fit into the offense and become a more complete player. That's huge. This could turn out to be a great signing. Brian Hartline is who he is. Rishard Matthews and Brandon Gibson are solid.

TE: almost disastrous. We have a very good H-Back in Charles Clay and.... that's it. Dion Sims is a good blocker. That's it. Again, Clay isn't even a traditional in-line TE. And after him, we got NOTHING.

DL: good unit. Even with Starks and Soliai likely gone, this is a good unit overall.

LB: total disaster. Total and complete unmitigated disaster. And there's nothing we can do about it until after next offseason.

Secondary: big money contract to Reshad Jones, who isn't very good. Drafted two rookie corners who can't even get on the field. Chris Clemons is a free agent. Brent Grimes is a free agent. I think even Nolan Carroll is a free agent.

Right now the one bright spot for this team is that we have a QB who looks (to some of us) like he's going to be very good. And that QB is getting crushed behind the worst OL in football.

And I'm not even going to go into the fact that we drafted a kicker who is worse than the kicker we had before.

I don't understand how folks are excited about 2014 for this team right now, considering all of those things. We are flat out stuck with bad linebackers and our defense is likely to regress. All we have to hang our hat on right now is the hope that Ryan Tannehill takes another big step forward and that we can somehow fix the OL in just one offseason.

Agree with most of what you said. I hope Ireland gets fired too but one thing about the TE position which he always seems to ignored. He did get Keller but he got hurt so I can't blame him on that but he passes on a few great ones in the past. As far as the D-line, they looked overated yesterday and for the whole season they have not played the run very well. They're our best unit but that's not saying much. The only player who's been consisten all year game after game is Grimes imo.

Ozzy rules!!

 

[Danny]

Ireland is Jay Fiedler all over again when you really think bout it. For a few years people on this board ould defend Fiedler over and over again. While they (alongwith Wanny)were doing that, we were wasting a very good defense tha JJ had put together. Everyone waned to give him more time and look how far that got us. Now people want to do the same with Ireland.....'give him more time and more time" They guy sucks. This team ha been stucked in the middle of the pack forever and people on here want us to thinkthat everything is great.

Ozzy rules!!

 

[Spesh]

I think that if anyone on this board honestly thinks Jeff Ireland is the man to fix this OL -- after Jake Grove and Justin Smiley and Tyson Clabo and John Jerry and Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin....

... then God help us all. Because Steve Ross might be dumb enough to feel that way, too.

For all the spin and mental gymnastics people go through to defend Ireland, im not even sure how Ireland can be defended when it comes to the offensive line. Damned if people still dont try though.

Its really uncanny when you think about it. No matter what Ireland does, that unit gets worse every single year. It went largely unnoticed yesterday, but we set a franchise record: most sacks in a season. And we still have 1 game to go. I thought we had hit rock bottom with Marc Colombo. I was mistaken. Again(and i repeat this because even im shocked), its really uncanny how bad that unit gets no matter what Ireland does.

That being said, smart money says people will still defend Ireland by saying "after he fixes the line we will be a contender!" for the next 6 months.

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

For all the spin and mental gymnastics people go through to defend Ireland, im not even sure how Ireland can be defended when it comes to the offensive line. Damned if people still dont try though.

Its really uncanny when you think about it. No matter what Ireland does, that unit gets worse every single year. It went largely unnoticed yesterday, but we set a franchise record: most sacks in a season. And we still have 1 game to go. I thought we had hit rock bottom with Marc Colombo. I was mistaken. Again(and i repeat this because even im shocked), its really uncanny how bad that unit gets no matter what Ireland does.

That being said, smart money says people will still defend Ireland by saying "after he fixes the line we will be a contender!" for the next 6 months.

I'm not really a 'Fireland' guy. If we are stuck with him as our GM, I will hope that he learns from his mistakes and does a good job for us. I don't hate the man personally or anything.

But it's simply absurd to say that he has done a good job overall or to trust him to fix the OL.