BREAKING NEWS: Flores fired!!

JMP wrote:The part about Ross wanting respect is definitely believable...

as difficult and egotistical as Belichick is - and even with all his SB trophies behind him - i bet that is ONE thing that he has never done...disrespected Robert Kraft.

I just heard Cowherd saying that Flores fixed the defense and Grier couldn't get the QB or the O-line fixed. If Flores was in on all the decisions, then that sorta destroys the whole "The Dolphins must be crazy" narrative IMO.

Cowherd. LOL. This is so transparent. He LOVES trashing the Fins and when Tua displayed the first sign of trouble Cowherd pounced on him as "not good enough and never will be."

Grier couldn't get the OL fixed or a QB? I thought Flores and Grier were collaborating on every decision, including the drafting of Tua? So which is it?

JMP raised the point about players regressing this year under yet another OL coach and yet another co-OC led staff. Is that Grier's fault also?

"Fixed" the defense sounds nice until you see our games against Buffalo and Tennessee. I'm sorry but an elite defense doesn't feast on bad QBs and then get blown out that often. Look at the Giants when they faced Tom Brady, that's what an elite defense looks like. At some point you need to get pressure on the QB without scheming smoke and mirrors that a good or very good offense can exploit.

I'm not bashing Flores and his defense but hanging the OL and QB on Grier is just not accurate. Flores was gaining power every year and had tons of influence in staffing that side of the ball. The clear and obvious problem was constant staff turnover. The one time he got a veteran OC (Gailey) we scored the most points for the franchise in something like 10 years (I forget the high water mark). And even that lasted all of one season.

The problem is, other coaches are going to see this situation as follows: if the last coach got fired after winning 8 of his last 9 games, what chance will I have? They'll also look at Grier and wonder why he keeps staying on while coach after coach falls by the wayside and conclude that he's a backstabbing betrayer who will throw them under the bus the first chance he gets. And they may be right. This is a very real issue that's going to ultimately be the reason why Ross and Grier won't get the level of coach they want and will have to settle yet again. Will the next coach have the mastery over the Jets and Belichick that Flores did? Will he win 7 straight games? Will the D get significantly worse while the O stays bad?

Also, if Grier keeps hiring coaches with oversized egos then that's on him. Of course if you keep hiring the same sort of person as the last guy who failed because he was that sort of person, you'll only get another failure. Let's not pretend Grier has no issues or is blameless just because Flores had warts.

HOWEVER...I will and still say (and you can look it up if you forgot or don't believe me) that Flores bullied Grier into the Iggy pick.

white1 wrote:

I heard it was Flores that yelled at Tua. Which is ironic, since Flores's coaching staff is the one that decided to throw the ball 80% of the time in freezing rain and didn't bother to prepare for those conditions.

This times a thousand.

Tennessee had the correct game plan, they didn't ask Tannehill to throw the ball all over the field in those conditions.  Yet that was our plan coming in.  Why? Because we were so afraid to try and run the ball.  Which, in fact, was actually working pretty well for us if we had stuck to it.

As I said seemingly an eternity ago now, it reminded me so much of the '94 loss at Barfalo where the Fins refused to run in 20 mph wind despite averaging 6 yards a carry and having their most rushing attempts in a decade against the same team in the same stadium just one season before! When asked why he called 43 pass plays to just 19 runs, OC Gary Stevens said, "I don't like to respond to the kind of idiocy. Do you think for one minute that the Miami Dolphins are going to Buffalo and they're going to beat them with Bernie Parmalee running the football?" All Parmalee did was get 91 yards on just 15 carries and proceed to set a franchise record for rushing yardage in consecutive games the next two times out. The Bills BTW ran 48 times and had more yards rushing (214) than Marino did passing (212). The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I continue to stand by what I said earlier in this thread.  Grier needed to be held accountable for the "relationship" just as much as Flores.  Also, he needed to be held accountable for the lack of talent on offense leading to a lopsided team that could only win if the defense was turning in a championship caliber performance every week.  No team can bank on one side of the ball carrying the team all season.  Especially against the high powered offenses in the league.  Yes, I consider Tennessee a high powered offense fueled by an extremely reliable running game.  And big play receivers when they want to take a shot.

I thank you for not suddenly acting like Grier is secretly a genius or a saint. SOMEBODY around here has to. HOWEVER...the Steelers just made the playoffs scoring just 2 more points than the Fins, and the Titans were just 15th in scoring. Last season the Fins were 15th in scoring and averaged more points per game than the Titans. I will say that none of the 10 teams who scored less than the Fins made the playoffs this season so there's that. (The Herberts BTW were 5th in scoring and missed the playoffs, hmmm...)

Overall, I would be in a much better place and could look at this a lot more objectively if Ross had swept out the entire front office.  Like the Bears and Vikings did.

This to me is the REAL problem. For whatever insane reason this team refuses to ever fire both the coach and GM at the same time. It's always one or the other and then the new guy comes in, starts feuding with the incumbent, and a year or two later one of them is gone. Rinse, lather, repeat. The Bears and Vikings did it the right way, which is something Ross never gets the hang of.

EDIT: And the Giants part ways with their coach and GM in one fell swoop. Seriously, why can't the Fins ever do this???

DolFan 316 wrote:

white1 wrote:

I heard it was Flores that yelled at Tua. Which is ironic, since Flores's coaching staff is the one that decided to throw the ball 80% of the time in freezing rain and didn't bother to prepare for those conditions.

This times a thousand.

Tennessee had the correct game plan, they didn't ask Tannehill to throw the ball all over the field in those conditions.  Yet that was our plan coming in.  Why? Because we were so afraid to try and run the ball.  Which, in fact, was actually working pretty well for us if we had stuck to it.

As I said seemingly an eternity ago now, it reminded me so much of the '94 loss at Barfalo where the Fins refused to run in 20 mph wind despite averaging 6 yards a carry and having their most rushing attempts in a decade against the same team in the same stadium just one season before! When asked why he called 43 pass plays to just 19 runs, OC Gary Stevens said, "I don't like to respond to the kind of idiocy. Do you think for one minute that the Miami Dolphins are going to Buffalo and they're going to beat them with Bernie Parmalee running the football?" All Parmalee did was get 91 yards on just 15 carries and proceed to set a franchise record for rushing yardage in consecutive games the next two times out. The Bills BTW ran 48 times and had more yards rushing (214) than Marino did passing (212). The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I continue to stand by what I said earlier in this thread.  Grier needed to be held accountable for the "relationship" just as much as Flores.  Also, he needed to be held accountable for the lack of talent on offense leading to a lopsided team that could only win if the defense was turning in a championship caliber performance every week.  No team can bank on one side of the ball carrying the team all season.  Especially against the high powered offenses in the league.  Yes, I consider Tennessee a high powered offense fueled by an extremely reliable running game.  And big play receivers when they want to take a shot.

I thank you for not suddenly acting like Grier is secretly a genius or a saint. SOMEBODY around here has to. HOWEVER...the Steelers just made the playoffs scoring just 2 more points than the Fins, and the Titans were just 15th in scoring. Last season the Fins were 15th in scoring and averaged more points per game than the Titans. I will say that none of the 10 teams who scored less than the Fins made the playoffs this season so there's that. (The Herberts BTW were 5th in scoring and missed the playoffs, hmmm...)

Overall, I would be in a much better place and could look at this a lot more objectively if Ross had swept out the entire front office.  Like the Bears and Vikings did.

This to me is the REAL problem. For whatever insane reason this team refuses to ever fire both the coach and GM at the same time. It's always one or the other and then the new guy comes in, starts feuding with the incumbent, and a year or two later one of them is gone. Rinse, lather, repeat. The Bears and Vikings did it the right way, which is something Ross never gets the hang of.

EDIT: And the Giants part ways with their coach and GM in one fell swoop. Seriously, why can't the Fins ever do this???

The Herbert's had one of the statistically worst 4th quarter defenses in NFL history giving up the 3rd most points all time. Their offense was the 8th best statistically in the 4th quarter. Herbert had over 5000 yards and 38 touchdowns. Team game though.

DolFan 316 wrote:The problem is, other coaches are going to see this situation as follows: if the last coach got fired after winning 8 of his last 9 games, what chance will I have? They'll also look at Grier and wonder why he keeps staying on while coach after coach falls by the wayside and conclude that he's a backstabbing betrayer who will throw them under the bus the first chance he gets. And they may be right. This is a very real issue that's going to ultimately be the reason why Ross and Grier won't get the level of coach they want and will have to settle yet again. Will the next coach have the mastery over the Jets and Belichick that Flores did? Will he win 7 straight games? Will the D get significantly worse while the O stays bad? I just can't see it.

Also, if Grier keeps hiring coaches with oversized egos then that's on him. Of course if you keep hiring the same sort of person as the last guy who failed because he was that sort of person, you'll only get another failure. Let's not pretend Grier has no issues or is blameless just because Flores had warts.

HOWEVER...I will and still say (and you can look it up if you forgot or don't believe me) that Flores bullied Grier into the Iggy pick.

I really don't think Flores getting fired will deter other coaches from taking a job in Miami. All these guys understand that it is a business, and it's a very limited business - there are only 32 teams. If you have a chance to get a head coaching job and you think you can handle it, you take it. Most of these guys don't have the luxury of picking and choosing.

Grier obviously deserves a lot of the blame, no denying that.

I don't know that Flores "bullied" Grier into taking Iggy (maybe, but who knows?), but for sure it was a Flores-endorsed pick.

CarsonChris wrote:The Herbert's had one of the statistically worst 4th quarter defenses in NFL history giving up the 3rd most points all time. Their offense was the 8th best statistically in the 4th quarter.  Herbert had over 5000 yards and 38 touchdowns. Team game though.

CC, what are you doing bringing FACTS into a post about how sorry Herbert is.

Let's not be bringing any of that "objectivity" into these posts.

finfanatic wrote:

CarsonChris wrote:The Herbert's had one of the statistically worst 4th quarter defenses in NFL history giving up the 3rd most points all time. Their offense was the 8th best statistically in the 4th quarter.  Herbert had over 5000 yards and 38 touchdowns. Team game though.

CC, what are you doing bringing FACTS into a post about how sorry Herbert is.

Let's not  be bringing any of that "objectivity" into these posts.  



 

Herbert deserves a good amount of blame for the Chargers missing the playoffs too. As good as his overall numbers are, he is wildly inconsistent and misses tons of open receivers. He often makes up for it with great throws afterward - but not always. No one ever wants to talk about that because he is apparently untouchable, but it's true.

But the main culprit for the Chargers' failure to make the playoffs this season is of course Brandon Staley, who might be the worst head coach I've seen in a long time. His decision-making is just godawful and he single-handedly lost at least 2-3 games this season. I know he's a rookie head coach, but I would have shit-canned his ass the second that Sunday night game ended.

JMP wrote:But the main culprit for the Chargers' failure to make the playoffs this season is of course Brandon Staley, who might be the worst head coach I've seen in a long time. His decision-making is just godawful and he single-handedly lost at least 2-3 games this season. I know he's a rookie head coach, but I would have shit-canned his ass the second that Sunday night game ended.

I agree about this. Clock management and game-time decisions are not his strong-suit it seems.

finfanatic wrote:

JMP wrote:But the main culprit for the Chargers' failure to make the playoffs this season is of course Brandon Staley, who might be the worst head coach I've seen in a long time. His decision-making is just godawful and he single-handedly lost at least 2-3 games this season. I know he's a rookie head coach, but I would have shit-canned his ass the second that Sunday night game ended.

I agree about this. Clock management and game-time decisions are not his strong-suit it seems.

Being a west coaster I see more chargers games. That coach absolutely lost games this year with his moneyball statistics approach. Take the points when you have them. Punt if it's 4th down on your own 18. I understand going for it from the 40 to the 40 or when you're down and need to score.