How do you place blame?

It's easy to say that it's a collection of things.

It's easy to say that several components were not doing their jobs or working well.

But that's almost avoidance. Even when you have a bunch of problems, you have one test you can employ.

That test is that even given the totality of mistakes, if you were able to eliminate JUST ONE and you would still win, that is the element you choose to blame.

Quite simply folks, you've been wondering why I'm picking on the coaching staff in light of the poor offensive line play, Tannehill getting sacked, Pass incompletions, dropped balls, and even failure to tackle running backs.

It's comfortable to say, "well it was all of those things."

To me that is only true when you if you eliminate each of these things one at a time, then you would lose anyway because of the others.

NOT TRUE WITH US.

We have THREE LOSSES.

Ravens Loss. Take away the decision to have Tanny passing when we were already looking at a 51 yard field goal to go into overtime and thus takeaway the fact that Tanny gets SACKED and Sturgis is now looking at a 57 yard field goal which he misses and we WIN despite all those other ugly parts of our team.

Bills loss. Take away the decision to have Tanny back passing on 2nd down when we had a one point lead and were trying to run the clock out with the outside hope of even kicking a field goal and going up by 4 points AND THEN Tanny gets sacked and fumbles and we WIN despite all those other ugly parts of our team.

That would make us 5-1 instead of 3-3.

Now one could argue that the general failure to make half time adjustments in the Saints game was a problem there also but then I would be committing the same sin I just condemned because that was only ONE part of our problems. Take that away and we may have lost anyway.

So, I'm not becoming what I myself have accused dolphin about concerning Tannehill.

I'm just trying to get you guys to see that despite all of our warts, we could be 5-1 but for coaching.

In that other thread, it talked about Philbin's cool confidence. To me it's the confidence of someone who has FINALLY been given a head coaching job and it has "gone to his head."

I think the one and only important thing to Philbin is that he is in charge and that everyone else understand that and when he is criticized, he is not going to evaluate it honestly for the betterment of the team, he's going to give you "the finger" and do it again just like the game that he picked the ball BACK FIVE YARDS on a 4th down and an inch AND HE DID IT AGAIN IN THE NEXT GAME DESPITE CRITICISM IN THE MEDIA.

I think he knows he has an owner (Ross) who really doesn't care what the team does in terms of winning and a general manager (Ireland) who has his own problems and is in no position to cast stones.

Similar to the application foreseeability and proximate cause. "But for" this, than that.

You must have some legal training, Colonel. That is precisely what I am talking about although I'm keying on one play in each instance of the two losses.

When everything is stripped away, usually the team with the better players wins. Not always the case, but for the most part, I think that this is true. There is always going to be some element of luck that will benefit one team or another. Belichick had NO idea that Brady would work out the way he did (because if he did, he wouldn't have waited until the 6th round to draft him). But, whoever is in charge of the draft and free agency is going to have a much bigger fingerprint on the success or failure of the team than anyone else. At this point, I think Philbin is almost irrelevant. I doubt Vince Lombardi, Don Shula, and Bill Walsh combined could make chicken salad out of our chicken shit offensive line. So, I then ask the question of who is responsible for putting an inept group of lineman on the field as starters with the fairly significant task of keeping what the organization as a whole has said is your "franchise QB." Jeff Ireland has the final say on personnel decisions and he needs to put his big boy pants on and acknowledge that the last two losses are mainly on him. Ross then has to finally stop throwing money at free agents and chasing the coaching flavor of the month and first throw it at a GM who knows how to build a winner and can recognize talent. Ireland is the main problem right now. Until we fix that, we won't be able to accurately evaluate anything else.

It was no mystery that we needed OL

- We had the chance to fix it at the 3rd position in the draft and opted for DL instead.

- We had several other OL FAs all be it not top shelf ... but no one added.

- We had trade material during the draft

- etc etc

This was well known by all but not acted on ... not sure why, but it stinks now ... too late to get quality help

ChyrenB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How do you place blame?
>
> It's easy to say that it's a collection of
> things.
>
> It's easy to say that several components were not
> doing their jobs or working well.
>
> But that's almost avoidance. Even when you have a
> bunch of problems, you have one test you can
> employ.
>
> That test is that even given the totality of
> mistakes, if you were able to eliminate JUST ONE
> and you would still win, that is the element you
> choose to blame.
>
> Quite simply folks, you've been wondering why I'm
> picking on the coaching staff in light of the poor
> offensive line play, Tannehill getting sacked,
> Pass incompletions, dropped balls, and even
> failure to tackle running backs.
>
> It's comfortable to say, "well it was all of those
> things."
>
> To me that is only true when you if you eliminate
> each of these things one at a time, then you would
> lose anyway because of the others.
>
> NOT TRUE WITH US.
>
> We have THREE LOSSES.
>
> Ravens Loss. Take away the decision to have Tanny
> passing when we were already looking at a 51 yard
> field goal to go into overtime and thus takeaway
> the fact that Tanny gets SACKED and Sturgis is now
> looking at a 57 yard field goal which he misses
> and we WIN despite all those other ugly parts of
> our team.
>
> Bills loss. Take away the decision to have Tanny
> back passing on 2nd down when we had a one point
> lead and were trying to run the clock out with the
> outside hope of even kicking a field goal and
> going up by 4 points AND THEN Tanny gets sacked
> and fumbles and we WIN despite all those other
> ugly parts of our team.
>
> That would make us 5-1 instead of 3-3.
>
> Now one could argue that the general failure to
> make half time adjustments in the Saints game was
> a problem there also but then I would be
> committing the same sin I just condemned because
> that was only ONE part of our problems. Take that
> away and we may have lost anyway.
>
> So, I'm not becoming what I myself have accused
> dolphin about concerning Tannehill.
>
> I'm just trying to get you guys to see that
> despite all of our warts, we could be 5-1 but for
> coaching.
>
> In that other thread, it talked about Philbin's
> cool confidence. To me it's the confidence of
> someone who has FINALLY been given a head coaching
> job and it has "gone to his head."
>
> I think the one and only important thing to
> Philbin is that he is in charge and that everyone
> else understand that and when he is criticized, he
> is not going to evaluate it honestly for the
> betterment of the team, he's going to give you
> "the finger" and do it again just like the game
> that he picked the ball BACK FIVE YARDS on a 4th
> down and an inch AND HE DID IT AGAIN IN THE NEXT
> GAME DESPITE CRITICISM IN THE MEDIA.
>
> I think he knows he has an owner (Ross) who really
> doesn't care what the team does in terms of
> winning and a general manager (Ireland) who has
> his own problems and is in no position to cast
> stones.

**************************************************

No doubt about it, coaching has been/is/will be a problem with this team.

Our OLine is bad, no question. But, as has been said on numerous occasions on this board, and you, Chryen, just pointed it out (above) it is the same OLine we had last year (except for Clabo), so what happened? I also highly doubt that this OLine played well enough during training camp and the preseason to allow the coaches to think that this was a good group of starters. RT has been getting killed since the first regular season game.

The defense is giving up plays at the most inopportune times - why?

If Miami let Philbin go after the season, who would really be available to right the ship? There will be at least 5-6 other teams who would be looking for HCs. Not gonna be easy.

If Ross remains the owner, he really needs to bring in a "football guy" who can get things straight, and quickly.

If there is no real candidate out there for HC, then let's hope Philbin can improve in his third year and Ireland (or whomever is GM) can bring in the right players.