Wow, the number of additions

[BlueFin]

And this has, what exactly, to do with this discussion?

Saban wouldn't have been able to do half of what he's done so far, had he not been set up by Rick Speilman's longterm plans for the franchise.

Saban's paranoia probably cost him a good right hand man. No one ever questioned Rick Speilman about his loyalty, his hard work, his tireless effort or his dedication to the franchise. It's a shame that Saban couldn't find a way to use such obvious attributes to his advantage

You make a lot of assumptions there and none of them carry any water.

A paranoid Head man would not be hiring Randy Mueller, a man with substantially more clout in the NFL and a long term record of success in drafting and trading than Rick Spielman...... contraire, Saban has shown himself in assembling a terrific staff including now a bonafide GM in Randy Mueller to have one objective, winning football games.

Spielmans longterm plans? Thats a good one InFins, I'm sure Saban just loved how Spielman traded away 2 of the top 64 picks in this draft for a backup runner and backup quarterback. Great longterm planning Rick, its clear why your jobless.

 

[inFINSible]

You make a lot of assumptions there and none of them carry any water.

A paranoid Head man would not be hiring Randy Mueller, a man with substantially more clout in the NFL and a long term record of success in drafting and trading than Rick Spielman...... contraire, Saban has shown himself in assembling a terrific staff including now a bonafide GM in Randy Mueller to have one objective, winning football games.

Spielmans longterm plans? Thats a good one InFins, I'm sure Saban just loved how Spielman traded away 2 of the top 64 picks in this draft for a backup runner and backup quarterback. Great longterm planning Rick, its clear why your jobless.

...and he also loved how he left him with a way to recoup one of those picks along with a strong second year player to take over for Surtain.

Yes, it's clear...he's jobless for following orders to WIN NOW, when it was an impossible dream and a no win situation.

You assume that Saban hired Mueller. If that were true, then how in the world is Wayne and company going to prove that the GM hire was from the same search as the last GM hire, which is a claim that they must prove in order to avoid the fallout of dodging the off shoot of the Rooney Rule that they are currently being grilled over by not including a minority in the recent " GM search".....Apparently Saban read a bunch of old interview transcripts and settled on Mueller sight unseen....unless of course there was some sort of impropriety and Saban actually did interview new candidates on the sly, which is going to lead to more negative pub for the franchise.

Hmmm, maybe that's why no one was made available for questions at the hasty press conference that they tried to slide in under the Heat/Pistons 7th game mania.

Certainly they knew that one of the first questions would be, who's idea was it to bring Randy on board.

 

[Merman]

You guys just don't seem to get it..how does one get in cap hell, overspending..in other words contracts backended into the next year where a team can't function without throwing away half their roster..i.e., Tenn. Titians.

The GM makes the decision on doing that, the cap guys just make sure that they're in compliance that year and advise the GM.


:shakeno:

Miami actually projects payroll for three years and I expect everyone one in the league does too. Ever notice that contracts terms are analyzed for the first three years.

And yes salary cap jail is by design. Just like the Dolphins did in 1995. The decision is consciously made to win. The Raven are an example too.

Yes there are bad decisions and Spielman made more than his share in the only year he had final decision making power. It was still the money men who told him his options and as I said it is the same in every business.

As for Spielman making good salary cap decisions you are deluding yourself. He made poor personnel decisions that were made to fit Team Salary.

I won't bother with all of Spieman's mistakes because it is already well documented on this board.

 

[inFINSible]

Miami actually projects payroll for three years and I expect everyone one in the league does too. Ever notice that contracts terms are analyzed for the first three years.

And yes salary cap jail is by design. Just like the Dolphins did in 1995. The decision is consciously made to win. The Raven are an example too.

Yes there are bad decisions and Spielman made more than his share in the only year he had final decision making power. It was still the money men who told him his options and as I said it is the same in every business.

As for Spielman making good salary cap decisions you are deluding yourself. He made poor personnel decisions that were made to fit Team Salary.

I won't bother with all of Spieman's mistakes because it is already well documented on this board.

If it was the money men that told him his options then how is it his fault that he was handcuffed into finding players that were cap friendly?....The very definition of cap freindly involves low pay players, which of course means, low play players..... OR young unproven players with undiscovered potential....out of those two classes, which would you choose from? The ones who are and never will be anything or the very small group who could possibly still be something for the future?

 

[BlueFin]

...and he also loved how he left him with a way to recoup one of those picks along with a strong second year player to take over for Surtain.

Yes, it's clear...he's jobless for following orders to WIN NOW, when it was an impossible dream and a no win situation.

You assume that Saban hired Mueller. If that were true, then how in the world is Wayne and company going to prove that the GM hire was from the same search as the last GM hire, which is a claim that they must prove in order to avoid the fallout of dodging the off shoot of the Rooney Rule that they are currently being grilled over by not including a minority in the recent " GM search".....Apparently Saban read a bunch of old interview transcripts and settled on Mueller sight unseen....unless of course there was some sort of impropriety and Saban actually did interview new candidates on the sly, which is going to lead to more negative pub for the franchise.

Hmmm, maybe that's why no one was made available for questions at the hasty press conference that they tried to slide in under the Heat/Pistons 7th game mania.

Certainly they knew that one of the first questions would be, who's idea was it to bring Randy on board.

I personally see no way anyone other than Nick Saban makes this decision, he was given total control of football operations and that certainly would include his personnel man.

 

[Dolphin North]

If Speilman didn't maintain the budget and panicked like you guys said, would Saban have had the cap space to get these FA's..Speilman's gone now, but I just wanted to thank him for what he was getting ready to do...I wished he had some real coaches last year..I think we'd be set this year. I will slight Saban in a heart beat, he didn't know these players as well as Speilman...I'm sure Speilman did nothing to help Saban transition on board here..


:shakeno:

Saban hung in there and got a good return for Surtain, and dumped his cap mess. He also got rid of guys he could replace cheaper or let guys like Boston go, then got them back cheaper. He made a couple of steals, (Carter, Holliday, Traylor (even though he's older). Basically he did what he said. Got guys who could add value through some shrewd shopping and dealing. Saban deserves rthe credit for making the best out of a mess that was geared for the present, not the future. Imagine how much more he will do over the next 2 years with the cap under control.

Jeese, the only glaring problem he left unadressed was the O-line because he doesn't have the room to fix everything. That's because of his predecessors. Don't thank them. Thank them for being outtahere!

 

[Aquanator B1000]

He's gone man, let it go. He gets a bum rap from a bunch of hind-sighted, second-guessing, short-memoried band waggoners, but it's over.

i don't think it's so much the players he got, but more of the amount he gave away to get them.

 

[Merman]

If it was the money men that told him his options then how is it his fault that he was handcuffed into finding players that were cap friendly?....The very definition of cap freindly involves low pay players, which of course means, low play players..... OR young unproven players with undiscovered potential....out of those two classes, which would you choose from? The ones who are and never will be anything or the very small group who could possibly still be something for the future?

Cap freindly also includes not much or no cost to release like trading for players.The problem is you have to make good trades.

All teams look for the low cost players to compliment their core of high priced players. It's called the draft and undrafted players.

As for the money men giving options, that is just the way it is. Saban is making his decisions with the options available too. He decided to make one bold move and trade Surtain. It could have been handled differently. Or Saban would have different options if Spielman had made better decisions.

Did it occur to you that Madison could have been traded or released and we would have had Surtain now instead of Madison??? What if Wilfork was drafted instead of Carey??? After all we all knew Tim Bowens' back was a major problem last year.

It is over now and trying to defend Spielman is a lost cause. Though not as lost as thinking that the people in charge of Huizenga's football team don't really run the show.

 

[Bonedoc7777]

how about adding pot head also

 

[WindyCityDolfan]

But the GM is the one who makes the decison on Salary and how many players and how much..we could have pushed salary cap last year and been in cap jail this year. I'm just saying thanks to Spielman for not signing the overpriced players and ensuring we could do something this year and Saban benefitted..that's all I'm saying. Speilman's gone now, but still thanks, we get to change the team more and push in the future. Could you imagine Saban going to Tenn. ??? -- We still have most of our core and able to add this many players, the GM did a good job last year setting up this year. At least acknowledge that much..

Whew, some ppl..
:shakeno:

I should probably read the rest of these posts first, but I have to chime in at this point because I can't take it any longer. This is Saban's team....speilman was an assistant to him this off season. Saban gets credit for everything that has happened. Speilman may not have put us in cap trouble...thanks rick. But they way he screwed us is with draft choices...based on what saban did this draft.....could you imagine what we could have done with a extra 2nd, 3rd and 6th. And regarding the cap, it was saban's decision to trade surtain that put us in great cap shape.....tough decisions like that have to be made at times.

 

[MDFINFAN]

I should probably read the rest of these posts first, but I have to chime in at this point because I can't take it any longer. This is Saban's team....speilman was an assistant to him this off season. Saban gets credit for everything that has happened. Speilman may not have put us in cap trouble...thanks rick. But they way he screwed us is with draft choices...based on what saban did this draft.....could you imagine what we could have done with a extra 2nd, 3rd and 6th. And regarding the cap, it was saban's decision to trade surtain that put us in great cap shape.....tough decisions like that have to be made at times.

Spielman's draft choices were sound last year, the one questionable thing he did was trade a 4th to move up one slot...Saban may get the credit, but the opportunity was set up by Spielman. We would have only gotten an extra 2nd. And I'm not sure what we would have gotten. I'm not sure what we have right now, since none of our drafees have played a down of football in the NFL. I do know that Speilman''s choices played pretty good last year and we love Bua, Pope, Hadnot, we're interested in Carey, no one questions Poole, and Papa is playing good in europe and still on the team, that's all of his draft picks making some noise to date. Right now only the 1st 4 of Saban draftees are mentioned as maybe contributing this year by HIM.

Let me make this simple for everyone. Last year we signed Howard, drafted poole, didn't extend Surtain after redoing Madison. Surtan's destiny was sign and sealed last August. He was going to be traded period..even a blind man could see that. We were not going to spend that kind of money on D again this year. Speilman was defintely getting some return off the D, to upgrade the O....i.e, Ogun for Booker and a 3rd. Ricky did put a little monkey in his plans by retiring and we spend that extra 3rd on a RB from St. Louis, but we had no other everydown RB. We ended up adding one of our Fullbacks to the halfback side of the house. (remember Morris was brought here as a FB). I don't think Speilman should apologized for trying to upgrade the QB spot by getting Feeley either. I know we all will disagree, and you guys think Saban's God, I think he's a good coach and that's all right now..hopefully in time he will gain my respect in other ways. But this organization ran by Spielman last year could have overspent to Woody, Tait, and others to get to the promise land, but he didn't and by not redoing Surtain, he set himself up to do what Saban ended up doing this year. Speilman's decisions and non decisions by not totally panicking in the situation he ended up with, could have over did everything and we ended up doing a Tenn, and Balt..it's that simple, and I'll say it until I'm blue..saban benefitted PERIOD.

 

[Roman529]

Good Saint Nick delivered the toys that all Finheaven fans have been waiting for. :)

 

[inFINSible]

Cap freindly also includes not much or no cost to release like trading for players.The problem is you have to make good trades.

All teams look for the low cost players to compliment their core of high priced players. It's called the draft and undrafted players.

As for the money men giving options, that is just the way it is. Saban is making his decisions with the options available too. He decided to make one bold move and trade Surtain. It could have been handled differently. Or Saban would have different options if Spielman had made better decisions.

Did it occur to you that Madison could have been traded or released and we would have had Surtain now instead of Madison??? What if Wilfork was drafted instead of Carey??? After all we all knew Tim Bowens' back was a major problem last year.

It is over now and trying to defend Spielman is a lost cause. Though not as lost as thinking that the people in charge of Huizenga's football team don't really run the show.

We all knew Tim Bowens back was a major problem? Yeah, I agree, once the season started we ALL knew. At the time of the draft it wasn't common knowledge that TimBo was going to miss the whole season. Re-writing history is not going to make it change or convince me that you're right.
Now please, I respect your cap knowledge so, can you show me in detail how we could have kept Surtain and traded Madison?....

Saban "decided to make one bold move and trade Surtain".... Saban was lucky that Rick set him up to make that one "bold" move huh?

 

[inFINSible]

I personally see no way anyone other than Nick Saban makes this decision, he was given total control of football operations and that certainly would include his personnel man.

Then there has been a second GM search, right?

 

[BlueFin]

Then there has been a second GM search, right?

There is no penalty for not interviewing a minority for the GM position, that only applies to the head coaching position. Obviously the candidates interviewed last year(minus Spielman) were the most qualified men out there, so from a PR standpoint the Dolphins can fall back on last years interviews as a front.

But make no mistake, nobody but Saban made this decision, he is well connected throughtout the NFL and is obviously very familar with Randy Mueller.