Dolphin Executive Management - Same Old Story

[ethurst22]

This is going to be a rant because I am mad.

The moment that I saw Steve "Urkel" Ross taking over as the majority owner of the Dolphins, I knew that we were going to struggle this year.

After next year, I can see Bill Parcells leaving. Parcells is not a "celebrity" type of guy. Steve Ross isn't a football person at all. I hate the idea of all this celebrity stuff when we should be concentrating on the product that is put on the field. And if Parcells leaves, Ross will surely hire Carl Peterson (YUCK!)

This whole "experience" thing is B.S. We haven't won anything in almost 36 years. Dolphin Management act as if we have won 10 titles and we only have two. I was lucky to be alive and witness those two championships. You don't see this kind of "experience stuff" in New England or Pittsburgh. Those franchises care about one thing and that's winning.

Make no mistake about it. The Dolphins are one of the NFL's flagship franchises and are worth a lot of dough. Ross says that he wants to enhance the fan experience. Ross wants to make MONEY! That's what he is about. This whole "Dolphin" experience is not about the fans. It's about Ross getting the Super Bowl every four years. By winning the Super Bowl, the Dolphins get certain tax breaks and revenues from Miami-Dade County.

It's not fun when your team can't even qualify for the playoffs year in and year out!

I believe the team follows the spirit of the owner. Joe Robbie was tough as nails. Cheap but tough. Wayne H. had vision but didn't have the football people to pull it off and now we get Steve Ross who looks as soft as Charmin.

Right off the bat, he's done some dumb things which I believe filters down to the play on the field.

- Change the name to Landshark Stadium? Dolphins and Sharks are natural enemies! Can you say confused identity?

- Celebrity owners! Who gives a damn! They don't block or tackle. You need people with a passion and knowledge for football. Marc Anthony probably never threw a football in his life!

- Spending more money to upgrade Um Landshark! I'd rather have a winning Dolphin team in the old Orange Bowl on hard seats.

I don't think Parcells is gonna bolt after this year but he will in 2011. The Dolphins are resorting back to being circus clowns and more attention should be paid to the field product instead of all these other side projects. The celebrity stuff isn't Parcells' style and I think all the other hoopla really filters down.

My rant is over!

[Brian Fein]

{Stands and applauds}

I always agree with what ethurst has to say.  You hit it right on the head this time, my friend.  I wish, for once, we could get a football guy to hold the purse-strings, rather than an investor, a tennis player, or a pop singer.

[YoFuggedaboutit]

Ethurst,

Do you really think that the stuff Ross is doing is having any effect on the team whatsoever??  I honestly don't.  This type of stuff may create a "circus atmosphere" for the fans, but I don't believe the players are distracted by it.  Parcells is still in charge of football operations, and will be for as long as he stays in his position.  Comparing what Ross is doing to what Parcells does is like comparing apples to oranges.  As long as Ross takes care of the business side of things and lets Parcells have complete control of the football side, this team will eventually be built into a winner.

[jtex316]

Not a chance, Tommy. On the field product and especially on the field output is directly related to ownership.

Let's take some sample teams as the example:

Detriot Lions
They are total losers for the last 15 years. William Ford Clay (whatever his name is) is a 90 year old man who comes from an era when World War 2 and mass production were en vogue - and so were the Detriot Lions. He doesn't translate well into a football owner and his team blows, year in and year out. Any moron who keeps Matt Millen for what, 8 years, deserves to go 0-16 in a rotten town with a rotten Mayor with a rotten fan-base.

Buffalo Bills
An owner - Ralph Wilson - is actually 90 years old...how many NFL Super Bowls have the Buffalo Bills won? They are the biggest losers ever who could never get over the hump in a miserable, cold, icy town. And, every year, they wind up sucking due to their sub-par coaches and sub-par players and over-the-hill bums (T.O.)

Jerry Jones
Jerry Jones is a "big show" owner. Consequently, this either can be extremely successful (3 Super Bowls in the 90's) or miserable (Tony Romo's inability to win a big game and no playoff wins since 1997). So the Cowbys are a complete reflection of the owner - a total roll of the dice, like a big-sized Texas game of Texas Hold 'Em.

Al Davis
Al Davis was cool...in 1976. After a certain point, Al Davis's brain froze in time and every single oakland raiders team has to fit in the same formula over and over again. Too bad it doesn't work like this in the NFL, so the oakland raiders suck over and over again every year.

Daniel Snyder
This is the reason that fantasy football players shouldn't become NFL owners. He is horrible, spending frivilous amounts of money on over-rated players (jason taylor, albert haynesworth, bruce smith, etc etc etc over the years) and not spending enough to replace total bums (head coach bums like Jim Zorn and Steve Spurrier, QB's like Jason Campbell, WR bums like Santana Moss and Randel EL, etc...)

--------

Now some good owners:

Robert Kraft
Great owner - Great team, year in and year out. Bum reject players from other teams come to the Patriots and are successfull, time and time again.

Bill Polian
It's like a mini-farm system that they have in Indianapolis. It's fantastic. Players like Pierre fucking Garcon and Anthony Gonzales can come from nowhere and produce. This isn't just "coaching". Bill Polian helps make it happen.

The Rooney Family:
A great family (not like Ted Ginn) who cares about football and loves the Pittsburgh Steelers. Result? 6 Super Bowls and a tough, hard-nosed competitor year in and year out, regardless of personnel or apparently coaching.

The Mara Family:
They give players and coaches a chance (Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Phil Simms, Hostetler, Tiki Barber, Strahan, Kerry Collins, Eli Manning, Plaxico Burress, and Tom Couglin to name a few) and what happens? They win super bowls or get really damn close. Wellington Mara and the Mara family know how to run the business of football, and the Giants are winners. Not a coincidence.

I can go all night on this but I am tired but you should get the idea now. And please don't tell me I stacked the deck and used carefully selected teams to prove a point...no shit sherlock.

[DZA]

What i dont like about some of u guys rant... is that you always contrast and compare...

New England,  before those 3 super bowls,  they were not doing shit.

Pitt --- ya ok what whappen when they had kordell stewart , tommy maddox .   Were they  shaking up the world then.   Big Ben came along and they started winning.

Dallas -  still living off the sucess they had in the Emmit , Irving, Moose, Aikman era...  Come on!

What many of you fail to realize that it takes time and the right pieces to be successful.   Ya ok so we fans of the great Miami Dolphins  have been waiting  36 years for  Championship Gold.  Its going to happen someday but what this franchise need is stability  and you not gonna get that when you change staff every 3- 5 years.

[CF DolFan]

If what's going on around the stadium is affecting what's going on in the stadium then we need new players and not a new owner. When Ross starts making football decisions then you can blame him.

[Phishfan]

I am tired of hearing people complain about celbrity owners. This ownership group is not making any field decisions so get over it. Put some blame in a useful place such as the coaching staff and players. This ownership complaint has been old for quite some time.

[Brian Fein]

I'm wondering if the money and effort being spent to promote this circus can be better spent to improve the team.

[YoFuggedaboutit]

I'm wondering if the money and effort being spent to promote this circus can be better spent to improve the team.

Good question, but I doubt it.  Parcells is free to pick the players he wants. 

[Phishfan]

^^^ Two things to consider

1. The money. Since the NFL has a hard salary cap you can only spend so much money on the team. From what I hear the complaint isn't with money spent. The problem is with talent on the field. Spending all the money in the world doesn't necessarily improve the talent base.
2. The effort. The people putting in the effort to for these "improvements" are not responsible for the football operations.

These are exclusive things as far as I am concerned. The field product and the fan experience are not related (other than it is more enjoyable to watch the team win).

[Sunstroke]

Blaming Ross for anything that happens on the field right now is ridiculous... I haven't heard of any secret complaints from the players that listening to Jimmy Buffett being played in the stadium all the time is messing with their rhythm and timing...or just depressing them in general.

The problem is with expectations. This is a team that was at ground zero of a total rebuild job two years ago. We were worse off than the Lions...remember? Miami's record (and turnover ratio, and overall health) last year was a mirage at best and an excuse for many to become delusional about this team in general. Next year will be better and the one after will be even better than that. Such is the way that a Parcells rebuilding job goes.

I expect more out of Henne in the next few weeks, as he takes all of the first-team snaps in practice every day. I didn't expect this team to be a playoff contender (I predicted 8-8), so I have no problem with getting as many of our young players out there as possible and seeing what they can do under fire.

[ethurst22]

I gotta go with JTex on this one.

It's true the Pats were not winning under that guy before Kraft (I think it was Victor Kiam, who hawked his shavers on commercial TV). Kraft changed the nature of that team.

Parcells has full control which is good but owners, just like people on I-95 are crazy. It's not like the old days. Even though Parcells has full control, I don't see Parcells dealing in an environment that remotely resembles a circus. Sooner or later, I believe that a clash is coming with Ross with his best friend King Carl Peterson waiting to step in.

Parcells bristled in Dallas because of Jerry Jones talking about deals and celebrities with the ultimate being the T.O. fiasco. When Parcells steps into the building, all he wants to do is talk football. Even though Parcells is a celebrity he possesses an anti-celebrity nature. Jerry would have celebrities on the sidelines and just like in the days of Jimmy Johnson, Parcells hated the concept.

Now I for one, blasted the Dolphins when they went after Parcells and I've been eating crow for the past 18 months. I believe in his plan but I know that he's all football.

I'm not blaming Ross for everything that happens on the football field because he doesn't catch and tackle but CEO's set the tone for any organization. Its like the military. Get a crappy commander and you hate him. Get a general with a good colonel and you would take a bullet for them any day.

And the NFL salary cap issue is FALSE. If a player wants extra money, it can be laundered through. I sat in Jerry Jones brother in laws office back in 1993 and the phone rang. It was Nate Newton requesting 150,000 dollars. Jerry's brother in law said "no problem" and hung up the phone laughing saying that big Nate needed some money.

But I do agree with Sunstroke and the other guys. It's too early to tell and we won't know until year five of his ownership if he really has it all together.

Can somebody shed some light on the Steelers ownership. Didn't they just sell giving the majority of control to owners outside of the Rooney family? There goes their traditional running game!

[gocowboys31]

Seriously, Ross is not to blame for what's going on here. The blame falls on one man, William Duane Parcells. Parcells got all the credit for the turnaround last season, so know he deserves full blame as well. Parcells has failed the dolphins fans this year by not upgrading at the skill positions and resting on his laurels from last season. I've seen this act before . In 2003 he went 10-6 in Dallas made the playoffs, then sat on 25 million dollars of cap money and didn't upgrade. We went 6-10 that year and his grand upgrade that offseason was Marcellus Wiley who was washed up.

This offseason they're were WR's for the taking. Boldin, Marshall, Chad Johnson were all being shopped. Boldin couldve been had for a second round pick in fact. In this years draft he passed on hakeem nicks who will be a consistent playmaker for the giants. When Davone Bess is your best receiver your in trouble.

Parcells BLEW a second round pick on a guy who's playing less than 30 percent of plays. The dolphins   
aren't at a point where the waste a pick on a player like pat white. Terrible pick. Defensively, the minute Brian Dawkins hit free agency I wouldve signed him. Dawkins is a leader and a playmaker.

The problem with parcells is he still thinks the game is still played in the 80's where he won a super bowl with a good running game, great defense, and average WR's. The game has evolved and parcells is still stuck in his old school ways. Some of his fundamental philosophy's still apply to today game. The game is still won in the trenches and you must have a strong defense, but you also need big plays on offense. When I wacth the dolphins defenses have shrunk the field to about 20 yards, because their is zero big play threat.

Parcells will be gone so like I predicted, but not because of the owner. He'll leave because the fans will continue to expect more and when he can't deliver he'll move on like a chicken. I'm glad Jerry jones got rid of him. Parcells will always leave you better off, but he's living off of his reputation. If I'm a dolphin fan my anger is pointed at parcells, because it was him not Ross who failed the fans this offseason.

[Brian Fein]

What is there blame for?  We lost to three teams that ARE BETTER THAN US!

THESE ARE THREE OF THE LEAGUE'S ELITE TEAMS

...and we hung in against all of them.  The biggest loss was 10 points.  Its not like we're getting trounced by the Browns here, people...

What's all the gloom and doom?  We're gonna be just fine.

[jtex316]

Brian I don't know about the Dolphins being just fine.

Let's give them the win against Buffalo. That's a 1-3 record. OK, not the end of the world, there have been lots of good teams that were 1-3 at a point (not started 0-2 or 0-3, but maybe started 1-1 and then lost 2 more).

But now let's take the next 3 games. Vs. Jets, @ Saints, @ Jets. That can very easily become 1-6 right there at the end of that 3 game stretch alone, 2-5 if you're lucky. 2-5 or 1-6 are not very good football records and would not classify as "being fine".

There are still plenty of good, capable NFL football players out there available for the Dolphins if they want them. Jeff Garcia comes to mind right off the bat. If the Dolphins want to run the wildcat, why not do it with Jeff Garcia? He's a reliable veteran who can give you 10-12 solid games, he's a leader in the clubhouse, and even though he's getting old he's very agile and mobile. He can also throw the ball down field better than Pennington, so why not take a chance on him?

There is also Marvin Harrison out there. Yes, he wants a lot of money, but if the Dolphins have a badly needed upgrade at a position, it's at WR. Harrison can show by example how to make clutch catches, run routes, etc. (he won't do it vocally that's for sure, but this WR corps needed something).

How about a cheap "sleeper" prospect? Tom Santi: http://www.nfl.com/players/tomsanti/profile?id=SAN765374
He was cut this month by the Colts and is a young TE who can send Fasano Packing.

So the Dolphins can do some moves here if they want.