10 years later: PhinPhanatic is 10 years old!

Sometimes you just have to “man-up” and say, “I did it”. Such is the case with former Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland. While many in the world of Dolphins fandom dropped coin to some slacker site to fly banners over the stadium begging for his removal, I stayed the course and supported him until the end.

Ireland was not well liked by the fan base but the fan base never really got Jeff Ireland. Oh look, here I go again. I’ve met Ireland on several occasions and can tell you the man you think he is not the man he actually is. Far from it actually.

Ireland was misunderstood but some of that was by his own doing. Where some fans were turned off by his “Was your mother a prostitute” to then incoming rookie Dez Bryant, I was more interested in the answer. To this day I think it was a fair question to answer if his father, by his own admission was a pimp.

Others were turned off by his calling a fan an “asshole” under his breath when confronted in the stadium halls while he was on his way to the owners box. Hey at least he said it under his breath and frankly that fan was an asshole for feeling it was his place to stop the man while he was working to complain about him.

The real stuff was simply that despite his intentions and attempts, Ireland couldn’t buy the right players for the Dolphins and his spending was doing nothing to improve the team. Adding to the mess was his ill-fated flight to San Francisco, his fractured relationship with Tony Sparano, and eventually an internal feud with executive Dawn Aponte and head coach Joe Philbin.

It’s too bad the Ireland that I knew wasn’t the same that appeared to the public. Then again, I admit he wasn’t the right man for the job in Miami and his decisions did indeed set the franchise back. But hey we got Adam Gase and Chris Grier now! So maybe Ireland and Philbin not working out actually, you know, worked out in the end!