I will also look back on it as though we blew a golden opportunity, but also as the cycle of things. You have to remember we had at that point 30+ years of winning football, and things just sort of went downhill from there. It's perhaps best summed up in a year by year examination.
2002- we had a legitimate shot and blew it.
2003- shitty luck. That's part of sports. We won 10 games but lost 4 at home, fucking ourselves out of a playoff spot in the process.
2004- a waste on two levels. Ricky retires and the entire team gives up, Wannstedt finally admits he doesn't know what he's doing and we compound the mistake by not keeping Jim Bates, which didn't look like a big deal at the time.
2005- Slow start but we get on a roll and win our last 6 games, we start to look like a superbowl contender again.
2006- another waste and we see why not keeping Jim Bates at least as a trial period was a mistake.
2007- we bring in Cam Cameron. We're still not sure if it would have turned out or not, and I was in favor of the hiring until about week 13 when I saw that the team had no idea how to adjust.
2008- we surprise everyone.
Keep in mind we spent each of these years trying to replace our quarterback either because the coach didn't like him, or the ones we had on the roster sucked or both.
I agree. After 30 years of constantly winning, things had to bottom out sooner or later.
The opposite can be said about the NO Saints. After so many years of mostly losing seasons, this could be the year they hit it big.
There were two decisions that set this franchise back. The first was JJ not taking a quarterback to secede Marino or trading Marino altogether when he became coach. I know some people don't like it but Dan was past his prime by the time JJ came on board. Miami could have got a FA quarterback and a QB of the future and by 2002, could have been playing in the SB. They had a championship defense but an old QB.
If you want to kill a franchise? Call Dave Wannstedt. He had the fluke 11-5 year with Lamar Smith and Jay Fiedler but was a horrible GM and a more horrible game day coach. What made Wanny look good was Chan Gailey as OC who knew what he had and worked with it effectively. When Chan left, Wannstedt bought his buddy Norv Turner in and the rest was downhill.
Wannstedt panicked and started making stupid moves and giving away draft picks which made it hard for Nick Saban or Cam Cameron to really do anything. Wannstedt is the worse Dolphins coach that ever walked the sidelines in Miami.
At least the inaugural coach, George Wilson, drafted most of the players that would play on two championship teams. Shula , who was an assistant under Wilson gets a lot of credit for those players but most of them were here when he got in Miami.
At least Shula had Scott Mitchell who somehow bombed at Detroit. A Dolphins player years ago stated that Shula was going to trade Marino because Marino had become to big to listen to anyone. Shula wanted to get back to the running game. It was Wanye H. that decided against it because Dan sold tickets. Jimmy Johnson ran into the same problem with Wayne H. and Marino.
Jimmy missed with Yatil Green, Randy Shannon and John Avery (I never understood that pic) and passed on the guy that killed us on Sunday.
We should have traded Marino in 1999 and went with Huard for a season (who was decent when he was young) and drafted a QB.
I'd like to thank Wanny for Eddie Moore and Jamar Fletcher.
Lack of a groomed QB and a moron as a coach set the Dolphins back. 2002 to 2007 has been a nightmare especially seeing that the patriots have three trophies and I remember when we would beat the snot out of NE annually.
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