So I was listening to the Dan Le Batard show yesterday when Dan read a letter from a listener about Jeff Ireland. And I as I heard it read, I was like, "Daaaamn" and "Oh shit" and "What?" and "Mmmhmm."
So what would possess me to instantly turn into a black lady at a beauty salon? The fact that the letter was on-fucking-point.
Not that we haven't heard any of this before. Shit, it could have been written by myself or DRK, except without the words FUCKNUTS or DICK KNOB peppered throughout each paragraph.
The main thing that struck me, however, was how the media wrongly interprets the fans' perception on Ireland. It's almost in the same vein as the way zombies all think anti-Irelanders are morons who couldn't tell a football from a shoe. The media thinks our ire towards Ginger McDipshit is rooted in reactionary anger. That we need someone to blame. Well, fuck you with a Schticky, media. Don't confuse our anger with stupid.
The letter also points out Ireland and the front office's lack of focus -- something we've known about, but which has really been personified this off-season.
Anyway, I tweeted out how the letter nailed it. Then a bunch of you bugged the shit out of me to find it. And then I found it because I'm fucking Sherlock Holmes. And by that I mean, our very own Adam Smoot happened to be the guy that wrote it and told me so and then e-mailed it to me.
The letter is after the jump.
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You oversimplified a point yesterday when you argued that Jeff Ireland hasn't done anything during *this* free agency period that warrants an uprising, that if you wanted him to go, you should've wanted him to go when Tony Sparano was fired. Well, yeah, but that's the thing: everyone *did* want him fired then, only he wasn't. So, it's not like fans watched him swing and miss on Matt Flynn and decided that that one action was worthy of dismissal. It was more just another sprinkle placed on top of this turd sundae the Dolphins have been shoving down fans' throats for the better part of a decade, but more specifically, the four years Ireland has been here.
I think the biggest issue most Dolphins fans have has been the organization's obvious lack of direction.
I can understand being concerned with Dez Bryant's character and not wanting that kind of baggage on your team, but they had *just* signed a crazy person in Brandon Marshall two weeks earlier, so which is it?
More recently, the Dolphins decided to try and get Peyton Manning, which tells me that they're interested in winning now, and that's fine. Manning falls through, so they turn their attention to Matt Flynn, which tells me that they're interested in rebuilding, and that's fine, too. Then Matt Flynn falls through, so they turn their attention to…Alex Smith? Now I'm confused, because signing Alex Smith is neither "building for the future" nor "trying to win now." He's 9-7, personified. So, what exactly is the ultimate plan?
If they didn't think Matt Flynn was good enough, didn't they know that before the Redskins moved up for RGIII? And if that's the case, shouldn't they have tried to overspend to ensure they got RGIII first?
Right now, the plan seems to be "Wait for something to happen and then react," which is how you wind up with Joey Harrington and Matt Moore. And it's how you occasionally luck into Chad Pennington. But, it's never a long-term solution and it always winds up setting the franchise back, somehow. And I have a feeling that that's what's frustrating to Dolphins fans, that this team's plan always seems to be "Do just enough to not suck."
And Jeff Ireland seems perfectly content in continuing the trend.
To put this whole "plan" thing into perspective, the Falcons and Dolphins started in more or less the same place four years ago. Atlanta now has impact players at QB, RB, WR1, WR2 and TE. And that's just on offense. The Dolphins have Reggie Bush. That's it.
Also, can people like Stugotz stop with the idea that this was Ireland's first year as "the guy?" He's been on the payroll as GM for four years. We can't be so naive as to decide that all of the bad decisions were Bill's and all of the good decisions were his. Was he out getting coffee every time a bad decision was made those first three years? He deserves some of that blame, too, and to absolve him of that is borderline idiocy.
Anyway, that's what I think Dolphins fans are thinking.
-Smoot
