Miami deserves better: understand these are my sincere personal opinions on what we need to do to compete @ the higher levels of the NFL not a rant. I am not angry but concerned, very concerned. in order of importance: 1) need to fire Sparano, Henning & respectfully part company with BillParcells completely 2) need to find a franchise QB in the next draft, the best available @ whatever cost 3) need to rebuild the interior offense line, starting with a pro-bowl caliber center 4) keep Nolan & Ireland, promote Pennington into the coaching ranks 5) need to find another starting RB & TE 6) need to find a kick return specialist 7) need to revisit Marshall's contract or have an inspirational talk with the guy. 8) what should have been done in three years will probably take five. the reconstruction has collapsed in the incompetent hands of Tony Sparano I believe: 1) our initial success with the first season was very much the direct result of a player-coach, Chad Pennington 2) Sparano did one good thing in his tenure & that was build the offensive line. ironically, the worse thing he did was to destroy it. 3) we could have had Ryan or Joe Flacco & went with Henne. a very bad move that has come home to haunt us. there were several quality left tackles available to us in that particular draft. 4) I believe Parcells walked off because he saw the mistakes his organization made were not fixable & he wanted to distance himself & his reputation from the failed reconstruction
Oh, I forgot about that clause in Marshalls contract that allows us to dump him after this year. Perhaps he's seen enough and is trying to get out of this chickensh*t outift. It worked for him in Denver.
Very good list. You really need to get over Henne. I don't think anyone was annointing Thigpen, but Henne has shown the fans, coaches, and other teams defenses what he has or has not.
This team couldn't have been more banged up on short-rest and more unprepared (short week to get in rest and work) than they were for yesterday night.
The only thing I don't agree with is keeping ireland.He can't draft for ****.Overall an honest post and you apparently don't live in fantasy land like 90% of these other dreamers.
sean smith, long, henne, john jerry, langford, clemmons, davis, reshad jones, misi, odrick, edds......all good picks. im missing some as well. every team hits and misses. i dont think hes drafted for ****
Out of all of those players you have 1 star and its jake long.And if these picks were so great how come we are 5-5 probally going to finish 7-9 einstein? To tell you the truth the jake long pick should have been matt ryan.
What this team lacks are 1)Speed and 2)Playmakers. Ireland hasn't drafted either. This regime seems to like middle-of-the-road starters with not a lot of upside but very little risk. I should point out Pat White as a risk, but that was such an unbelievably dumb risk I'm not sure I should count it. He's also added one playmaker in his tenure here, Brandon Marshall. That's it in three years. While Dansby has been solid, he's not much of a game-changer on defense. I've said this before, but Cam Cameron had the right idea. You need guys who can bring you explosive plays, which is why he went after Ginn and Lorenzo Booker. Unfortunately, they were the wrong picks but his philosophy was a good one.
ask yourself two simple questions: 1) who would be of more value to the team Jake Long or Ryan? there were three franchise quality left tackles available @ the time. 2) why did we pass on Flacco? to make the whole draft even more ridiculous, we could have still drafted Long & picked Joe Flacco in that draft & we didn't, we went with the hen instead. think about it. incompetent drafting cost us dearly, right from the get-go. no more excuses
cameron had the best schemes i've seen on this team since the shula days. he had no talent to work with but the schemes were brilliant. just proves this game is about talent acquisition more than coaching. The GM is the most valuable person in a football organization. You live and die by his decisions
How many stars do the patriots have? Or the colts? We have standout players on both sides of the ball and GOOD young players with the potential to be great. We have drafted REALLY well, and have a large number of legitimate starters out of the last 3 drafts. Drafting is NOT the problem. Perspective... Wanny and Cameron drafts. THOSE were BAD drafts. *****ing about drafting and QB makes me question the health of your memory. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
For real. If we're going by what the city and the fan base deserves, we should start talking a move to LA or hell even contraction.
Friend 23rd, Agree with this. Especially the part about our success in 2008. I'm now completely convinced that had more to do with Chad Pennington than Tony Sparano. A Jets fan friend once told me that Sparano was nothing but a cheerleader. I wouldn't go that far, but I'm starting to doubt his technical coaching skills. The same rehashed motivational locker room speech can only carry a team so far...
the naked truth is obvious to anyone who cares to look upon it with dispassionate eyes. it is what it is. the reconstruction must be reconstructed. the only real positives I see: Nolan, the defense & the WR Stable. the offensive line & QB are priory one, right after firing Sparano (the parcellian experiment in coaching gone bad), Henning, then officially & respectfully getting away from BillParcells
Colts, manning,clark,freeney,mathis,wayne. The pats have not drafted as well as the colts in recent years.Brady,wilford,mayo. This also makes another point of mine a great qb will make his team around him better.You do not pass up a franchise qb for any other postion including left tackle.
Oh I forgot a young player with 21 starts couldn't learn anymore than he already has. How silly of me. Ed Reed said Henne wasn't aggressive, and Henne comes back the next week and gets aggressive. It's called learning. Do you really want to start this debate again?
Sick I think he has been just average so far. And with Parcells supposedly guiding his hand in 3 drafts, frankly I expected more. He has made some good moves, but he has really wiffed on a few, and they have been spectacular (White & Turner). And his FA signings have been less than stellar, actually rather bad. I think what we got was a guy that was inexperienced and it shows. Unfortunately I can see this ending with Sparano & Ireland being dismissed, and then learning for this experience and going to another team and being spectacular. Just our luck, as it has been for nearly 40 years. Never the bride, always the bridesmaid.
Our defense is young and talented. We need to pick up a few more players for depth reasons and maybe a fast...really fast safety. All of you bashing Henne are either being unrealistic or just plain arguing for the sake of arguing. With all of our injuries last week and during the game, not even P. Manning could have played much better. There was absolutely no blocking, no rushing, and other than Hartline no WR's could catch a cold. If Thiggy wasn't scooping up a bad snap he was trying to dodge 6 players within the first 2 seconds after the snap. I watched so many Bears just run right by the O-line without even being touched. Last night was not a good game to judge Thigpen. We need a center and a few more O-linemen for depth reasons. Ricky, if he still wants to play next year, should be kept. However, only if Ronnie is gone and we have a back who can shoulder the load, is fast and tough. Ricky is a change of pace back at this point and Ronnie is done. I was against getting rid of Ronnie this season, but now I wish we would have because we're going to be lucky to get a 5th rounder for the guy. ST's still need a lot of work. Henning needs to go. Sparano, Ireland and Nolan need to be retained.
Because our fans have stuck with this franchise now going on 38 seasons without a championship. In just the last 18 years more than half the NFL franchises have at least made one conference championship game (Buffalo, Chicago, NY Jets, Minnesota, Denver, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Atlanta, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Dallas, NY Giants, Seattle, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, New England and San Francisco). This is just off the top of my head. I think that's 21 teams, two-thirds of the league. And we have only had one game as a non-sellout & not shown locally in that period. Did anyone see the attendance earlier this year at the 1st couple of Raiders home games ? Less than half a 60,000 seat stadium was filled. And this is from what is supposedly one of the better fan bases in the NFL - Raider Nation. I think we DolFans have been patient and understanding. Unfortunately it looks like we will have to be patient for at least 3 more years, if not longer because a new regime is coming after this year I believe. Yet another "rebuilding" project. I swear we are the Cubs fans of the NFL......I mean they always tease but never deliver. Detroit, well that is a whole another level of horribleness, just like the Pittsburgh Pirates.
so by this logic we are behind the Lions, Browns, Falcons, Jets, Chiefs, Vikings in terms of fanbases who deserve to see their team in the Super Bowl. Maybe it has nothing to do with "deserving" anything. Maybe its just about supporting your team through good times and bad
I don't know how old you are, but I am 42 and I can count the number of "great" Jets moments on one hand. As much as I dislike the Dolphins, you have had more enjoyable moments during my lifetime than the Jets have had. You are FAR from the Cubs of the NFL. Step off the ledge
Friend DolfanJake is right on the money. absolutely nothing to contest within his argument. the jests & age are irrelevant to the thread. it is simply what it is.
Quality post. Thank you for this. I am however going to disagree with a couple of things near the end of this post though. 1. I believe our initial success with the first season was indeed alot to do with Pennington, and also very much to do with having one of the easiest schedules in the NFL that year. A Brady-less Patriots team really helped as well. - while I agree, Something else to consider though is the fact that both Grove and Smiley are injury prone, and had injury issues. Grove was well for the most part of his time here, still surprised we let him go, but Smiley was inevitable IMO. If I remember correctly, Flacco was picked before Henne. It wouldnt surprise me one bit if the FO actually wanted Flacco over Henne, and that was probably their plan all along. Take Jake early so you can protect your investment in a QB. Baltimore surprised everyone and took Flacco earlier than anyone really expected didn't they? (Im struggling to remember). Which left us to take Henne. I still think Henne can work for this team, with a completely different offensive philosophy anyways. Probably true. That's his ego. That's the problem you get when you hire Parcells. Will he get your organization on the right track? Probably, yeah. Will he finish the job? Nope. Never. That would mean he may have to admit to some failures along the way. I sure hope though, that any franchise looking to bring this guy in realizes what Parcells will do, and passes on him. That being said, Shame on Miami for writing in the contract that we would allow him to walk at any time, with his salary fully earned. Desparate times call for desparate measures I suppose.
Well In the Meantime this is what needs to be done 1. Resign Free Agents Grove and D.Thomas to re-sure up our o-line 2.Active Roberto Wallace instead of Marlon Moore on Gamedays 3.Get Rid of Mr.Conservative Henning 4.Run The Ball Like The Old 11-5 dayss
words cannot express my level of profound disappointment who is responsible? an inexperienced & mediocre Sparano & his mini-me Henne? the unmanly betrayal of Parcels walking away from an affair of his making? just too many mistakes to count from the first draft to the last game in every great love there are expectations often times unfulfilled what to do? cut your losses, then do it again & again until we get it right I've been a Dolphin fan since day one of the Shula Regime the team has become a part of my family, those things don't change
This doesn't make any sense, because this team will always be known as the one Parcells built. In fact, he'll linked with this team more than any other he has been with, because his people remained in power. No matter how you cut it, if Ireland and/or Sparano fail, then Parcells fails. There is no distancing. If he thought there was more left to be done, he would have stayed. His future in this league is dependent on the success of this team.
Henning I agree with, his offense doesn't fit the players we have, Henne especially. But fire Sparano? For what? What do you think our record should be right now? Has the team quit on him? What's the fireable offense, and more importantly, who's the replacement? Nonsene. We have a decent young QB, he's no Peyton, but he can be an Eli type guy, and that's plenty good enough. It's certainly a better option than trading our entire draft and some of 2012s picks to move up and pay 50+ million to Luck/Locker who MIGHT, I repeat, might, be a franchise QB. We just rebuilt the OL. Henning didn't notice b/c he kept calling plays as if we still had the best pulling guard in the game, when pulling is obviously not the strength of this group. We signed a Pro-Bowl caliber Center for big bucks and he's now out of the league, I don't think we'll go that route again. We can't draft a good center because you just traded our entire draft to Carolina/Buffalo for the chance to draft a "franchise QB". Ireland is the one who makes personnel decisions, i.e. blew up the OL. Why does he get to keep his job? What position(s) is Pennington qualified to coach? Are we going to fire David Lee to make room as well? Totally agree. Our RBs are 4 yards and a cloud of mediocrity. Mastrud/Nalbone is/are a joke. A WR who can stretch the field is needed also. Yep. I think Carroll can do the job though, he won't break any for scores, but he can get us to the 40+ every once in a while. Marshall needs an offensive system/philosophy that takes advantage of his skills, I think that'll motivate him just fine. I fail to see how we're going to fill all of these holes when you just traded our whole draft and some of next year's for a QB and paid him all of our free cap space for the next 5 years. We've also got to pay Sparano for the life of his contract, as well as a new coach. It'd be a lot easier if this were Madden 2011 and not real life. LMAO. Sparano isn't exactly Andy Reid, but he's no Wade Phillips either. IMO he is 100x better at coaching than you are analyzing coaches. Fans always want to fire everyone, because they don't have to choose, much less pay for, replacements. People would love for a big name guy to come down here. Like Cowher, who left and the Steelers immediately won the Super Bowl. Billick and Gruden are offensive coaches who rode their all world defenses to the title, but they have big names. Shanahan is doing a bang up job in Washington isn't he? Sparano may not be an X-O guy, but the team plays hard for him EVERY week, which is more than I can say for 75-80 percent of the league's coaches. Bottom Line, our talent level isn't on par with the teams we're losing to. But 90% of our good players are babies, Dansby, Carey, Ronnie, Ricky & Bell are the only exceptions and even those guys can give us a couple more good years. We don't have an aging QB like the Pats, or a overpriced roster that's soon to be blown up by free agency like the Jets. Our guys are young, cheap for the most part, and under contract. Depending on the new salary cap, we should have plenty of $ do bring in a few play makers. The list of free agent WRs is awesome. We need a RB and a 2nd TE, we need a corner who can put Sean Smith on the bench where he belongs. You alluded to much of that. What we really deserve though, is better fans. Fans who don't overreact to losses or think firing the whole team is an answer. We deserve fans who don't nitpick and second guess every single decision, because after all, player acquisition will never be an exact science. Fans who have the patience and perspective to see that building a consistent winner doesn't happen over night. That's what we deserve. The foundation of this team is solid if not spectacular. With a few additions, we'll be in position to contend for several years a la the Eagles, Chargers, Steelers, Ravens, Pats, Colts, Packers etc. It's past obvious that our roster needs to be tweaked, as does our coaching staff, but they do not need to be blown up, regardless of how satisfying it may be for the peanut gallery.
