Dolphins Fans Raise $1,500 To Fly "Fire Jeff Ireland" Banner Over Jets Game

Fins Fans Raise $1,500 To Fly 'Fire Jeff Ireland' Banner Over Sun Life

Hell hath no fury like Dolphins fans sick of losing -- unless, of course, you're talking Phillies fans with batteries or the Marlins faithful tussling over legumes.

But writers and readers of a Dolphins blog, incensed over general manager Jeff Ireland keeping his job, are taking their hate mile high: they've raised $1,500 to fly a banner over Sun Life Stadium before the Dolphins-Jets game on New Year's Day, demanding Ireland be fired.

"He's the reason we're in our third straight season of at least nine losses," FinsNation.com proprietor Chris Joseph told HuffPost. "Ireland's one claim to fame is asking a player if his mom was a whore....His talent evaluations leave a lot to be desired, and we fear he'll just keep blowing it."

Joseph said the idea for the banner plane started as a joke between FinsNation writers after owner Stephen Ross sacked head coach Tony Sparano on Monday, but kept Ireland on staff.

"We just lost it," Joseph said. "We just thought it was ridiculous you would lose the coach but not the architect. We thought, 'What can we do?' And 'maybe we could fly something' became a joke, and we took the joke to Twitter but our followers took it deadly serious.

"We were like, 'Oh my god, we can pull this off!' We were overwhelmed with responses."

Four hours after putting a PayPal donations link on the site Thursday, fans had donated the entire $1,500 cost to hire a banner plane to tow "MR ROSS: SAVE OUR DOLPHINS, FIRE IRELAND" over the stadium from 10 a.m. to noon while fans tailgate January 1.

"It just blew up," Joseph said. "The guy's just a mess, he's a horrible GM. People are expressing their anger through their wallets. We're a week from Christmas and people are still giving."

While Joseph and his giddy donors don't anticipate the stunt will have much effect, the statement is entirely the point.

"This situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part," wrote a supporter on Twitter. "We're just the guys to do it."

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