The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I wanted to post this yesterday but haven't had the chance . Kind of funny if you ask me.

... one day after receiver Kenny Stills ripped Jay-Z for his decision to do a deal with the NFL without regarding to the ongoing unemployment of quarterback Colin Kaepernick, the Dolphins dialed up eight straight Jay-Z songs at practice.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/08/21/dolphins-seem-to-troll-kenny-stills-after-he-rips-jay-z/

Rumors from camp is that Flores doesn't like all the "extra attention" Stills is bringing to the team. Considering Flores is definitively a team first person one has to think this was a message being sent to Stills and others. 

In b 4 the SJWs and their hypocrisy show up. LMFAO...

Can't stand this slacktivism in sports. You do nothing but kneel, you bring attention only to yourself and accomplish nothing. Send the President a tweet and he'll probably grant you a meeting to discuss your concerns.

I'd rather be invited over to the White House for a beer.

Right on time, Belichick disciple starts alienating best players on the team.

This is the only thing Belichick teaches any of his coaches: treat the media like garbage and your players like meaningless cogs.

hahaha ... "best player on the team" is choosing to alienate himself instead of being team player. No one would be talking about him if he wasn't being a distraction.

I love how you criticize the best coach and system in the league only because it goes against "your" agenda. The funny thing to me is it's not even a new one. It's pretty much old school team football and as BB has proven ... it works.

Belichick is the greatest coach of all time.  Developer of coaches....meh.

And like many of his disciples, this isn’t really something he would do.  When was the last time BB trolled one of his players?  Cut, trade, bench - sure.  Troll - no. 

I'm surprised that there are still people who think that athletes (or actors or whatever) should just shut up and play.  We're past that.

They are public figures who are using their platform to enact positive change.  This has been happening since there have been sports icons.  It should continue.  Attempts to silence this are antiquated relics of days long dead.

Particularly being those same people often idolize the actor who played George in the film Knute Rockne, All American and his political activism.

Really? That's the motto of the most successful team of our era. While I see many bad examples the ideologies of BB and Tom Coughlin have shown to work well in the modern era.

Most of the board is probably too young to appreciate the reference... ;)

Damn you’re right.  I am getting freaking old.

I got the reference but have never seen that old ass movie

So you're saying that the owner of a sports team shouldn't discipline a player who brings attention to himself and the team with his opinions, beliefs, and politics?

I fail to see how this is different from working at Subway or Home Depot. What would they do if you started spouting off to customers about your personal, political, or religious opinions? What is he being paid to do? Give opinions or play a child's game?

There are hundreds of millions of people qualified to work at Subway or Home Depot.  There are maybe 3000 qualified to play in the NFL.  And an NFL team generates many, many times more money than a Subway restaurant or a Home Depot store.  This is why NFL owners usually don't treat players like disposable cogs.

And this dynamic goes both ways.  There's a reason why Subway employees aren't signed to contracts prohibiting them from working for a competitor, which is another thing that distinguishes them from pro athletes.   If a schlub like you or me gets a higher-paying job offer to do the same thing we are already doing, we can quit on the spot and accept that new job.  Pro athletes under contract cannot.

If you're arguably the greatest strategic mind in the history of the game, you can pull that off.

If, instead, you are Eric Mangini, Josh McDaniels, Romeo Crennel, Bill O'Brien, or Matt Patricia, you cannot.
Guess we'll see about Brian Flores!

Makes no difference.   Only a third of those qualified guys are actually on NFL rosters.   There will be no shortage of receivers who would love to have Stills spot if he keeps running his mouth like that.   He is paid to play football, not be a distraction by taking his political beliefs public.   He needs to shut the fuck up or risk ending up like his buddy Kaepernick.

It "makes no difference" whether a competent employee is easy to replace or incredibly difficult to replace?

Did you pick up some pointers from Jon Gruden's personnel management seminar?

NFL players are not as difficult to replace as you make them out to be. 

So you're saying that in your opinion that an owner should not discipline or fire a player for pushing their opinions and/or beliefs to the public? What if the public doesn't agree and sales decline due to a boycott or something? Do you think an owner should lose business and take a loss or cut ties and fire the offending player?

I say that they should do what they're payed to do. However, I guess if the owner agrees and approves it's a moot point.

If an owner thinks that the negative PR impact of employing this player outweighs their positive contributions to the team, then yes, they should cut them and let them seek employment elsewhere.  But in a league where Mike Vick, Ben Roethlisberger, and Greg Hardy all got contracts after the fact, "I fired him because he silently kneeled during the anthem" might not be the PR coup you think it is.

That being said, this decision bears no resemblance whatsoever to firing an employee at Home Depot, who provides virtually zero irreplaceable impact to the store.  I mean, the Dolphins had, what, 6 receivers on the roster last year, and all of them were worse than Kenny Stills by a sizable margin... so that tells you what kind of capacity the Dolphins have to replace Stills with someone that's as-good-or-better.

Multiple reports over the weekend that Stills is being shopped along with Kiko. Jones too but he said the Dolphins have told him he would not be traded this year.


Modified to add this comment from today's press conference

Armando Salguero
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@ArmandoSalguero
 14m14 minutes ago
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Flo is asked by @AdamHBeasley if he can give assurance Kiko and Stills will be on the team. Flo does not give that assurance. "Players need to focus on today," he says.

Silently kneeling during the anthem is totally different from calling out the owner publicly for how he runs his business and/or who politically supports. 

I haven't looked them up and I could be wrong. But off the top of my head if I had to guess, Amendola had better stats than Stills. And if not, Stills stats weren't better by a sizable margin

Means nothing. 

BB is asked if Tom Brady will remain on the team.  does not give that assurance. "Players need to focus on today," he says

That's a surprising take.

The argument you were just making is about an employee who expressly an unpopular opinion that causes public discontent, not an owner who has his feelings hurt.  In fact, that's been the explicit argument against Kaepernick (and most other protesters) for the last 3 years.  But now "disrespecting the flag, the troops, and everything this country stands for" is totally different from criticizing the owner?  So which one is worse?

Always remember that the only things Belichick teaches his disciples are:

1) the media is your enemy, so treat them like an enemy
2) all players are expendable; make that clear at every opportunity

What's that trope about the definition of insanity?