But wait... the guy coaching him - who was also the guy that argued for him to be drafted (over Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Nick Foles, etc.) - continued to start him for every single game that he was in a position to make that choice. In fact, during Philbin's time in Miami, the ONLY QB Miami ever drafted was... Ryan Tannehill. He never even tried to draft a developmental QB. So are we supposed to believe that he wanted to replace Tannehill, but only with Derek Carr?
Philbin's actual actions seem a lot more relevant than some CYA backchannel whispering after he had been fired; I view Philbin's "I wanted to draft Carr" claims with the same gravity that I view Nick Saban's "I wanted to sign Drew Brees but the Dolphins' medical staff wouldn't let me" claims, which is to say none at all.
More important than all of the above: if Joe Philbin proved anything in Miami, it's that he was a terrible evaluator of which players to keep and which to get rid of; probably the worst this team has ever had. This is the same guy who repeatedly promoted Billy Turner and Dallas Thomas until the day his coaching duties were stripped from him. So his opinion of a player is worth less than nothing IMO, and should not be considered at all. I'd rather go ask the octopus that predicts the Super Bowl.
At the time the information surfaced that Philbin had wanted to draft Carr, Carr's trajectory as a player hadn't yet become significantly distinct from Tannehill's. That's occurred only this year as a function of the 2016 season taken as a whole, long after the information surfaced.
So if Philbin was indeed engaging in CYA -- which is plausible -- he was taking a risk by doing so in that manner, given that there was no guarantee Carr would ever become distinct from Tannehill. He would've been better off saying he wanted to draft Russell Wilson in 2012, given that Wilson had distinguished himself from Tannehill long
ago.