Just thought I'd post this for the sake of mental health - my own and anyone else's who might feel the same way... :D
The changes brought to the Dolphins FO, coaching staff and personnel staff might be the biggest changes in a good while. Yes we've had changes before, even not too long ago, but this time, especially with Ross hinting at a re-building, it feels especially significant.
Of course, the work coaches do, especially less visible ones, is less accessible to us. Personnel work even more so. So we see hear about the name changes, but we don't expect to physically see anything, so the change feels smoother, easier.
Players, though, are the guys we see on the field week in and week out. We can review film, check out stats, we can watch them do what they do. We can love/like/hate them. When players get cut, when new ones get brought in it feels a whole lot more significant. It feels like it will hurt more. What we know is changing, and that which we don't know scares us.
Soon enough we'll start to see changes this year. Maybe some major, major changes. The 2019 Dolphins may not look anything like the Dolphins from the past few years. Quite a few us will cheer at the thought of it. Still, change can be scary, especially when you watch it happen.
If you like control and micromanagement, and you're interested in all the possibilities then you might love it. If you're not, though, or you're not quite sure what all the details mean, then it might be something like watching a builder remodel your house starting with a demolition job. Seeing your house get knocked down, in whole or part, generally doesn't feel good, unless you hated it. It is, however, an important part of building something new.
If you're not the sort of person who wants to watch that, then my recommendation it, focus on what's coming, not the demolition job.
Know that something new is being built, surrender yourself to that, and set your heart on seeing the new thing that will be. Wait to see what the 2019 Dolphins actually look like rather worrying about what they were or might be. And remember that the process will take longer than one season to complete, maybe 2 maybe 3 seasons, so maybe the front porch, roof, and living room get destroyed this off-season and the garden gets ripped up. Then only the basic framework gets rebuilt with no decoration. Try to enjoy what there is, look at the newness, rather than what's missing or ugly. The architect/builders are going to need time and they're going to need to be able to knock things down and make a mess. Let's give them that time. Maybe even enjoy the chaos a bit. We're going to be living in the spare room for a while. Let's just roll with it.
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Phin McCool, Irishman and Unlucky 13 like this.
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Personally I think that's more rhetoric from Ross than anything else. I think Ross's "rebuild" is no bigger in magnitude than the past few. I mean.. when Philbin came in people thought we'd get the Green Bay offense, this occurred after that Suck for Luck talk AND we picked a QB high in the 1st round for the first time in forever (first time we even picked a QB in the 1st since Marino!!). Can't fault the team for trying.
That 2011-2012 "rebuild" was big.. no smaller than what's coming IMO. And when Gase took over he gutted the roster of a ton of key players and brought in new ones. I bet Flores won't cut as many key players as Gase did. We have some key pieces to build on.
I'm just happy we're trying again. You keep trying until you succeed. But no, I don't think this "rebuild" is anything special.. unless of course Flores succeeds LOL!RevRick, KeyFin, Tin Indian and 1 other person like this. -
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I expect the Jets to kick our butts twice next year.
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Jets are a pretty bad team. It's no accident they won 5 or fewer games the last 3 years in a row. And Gase never demonstrated he's better than an average coach. Even if we "unintentionally" tank I think the most realistic expectation is 1-1 vs. the Jets next year.Dorfdad likes this.
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Here's the thing- Ross said he's going to build the team "the right way, the smart way" like he has any clue at all what that means. I mean, if he did, then why are we on coach #4 and offense #4 in his short tenure? The man is a buffoon, and our fate is SOLELY tied to him hiring the right people for the job. And once again, I'll point out that he's 0-3 so far....although I did think (and still do think) Gase was the right guy for the job.
Ross was too dumb to realize that you can't win in the league with a 2nd string offense and fired the guy.....hence 0-3.
Additionally, we haven't heard a single shred of an actual PLAN- how do you build a team the right way? We assume it's through the draft but again, that comes back to having the right evaluators in place. We had a few pretty solid drafts recently and got some talented youth...and then we fired the guys who made those picks. Again, was that the correct move? We have no idea because in two months we haven't heard a single shred of an actual plan. Remember, Ross wanted Lamar Jackson over Fitzpatrick....84.5 rating Lamar Jackson. Thank God Gase trumped him on that pick since we grabbed a 10-year all pro.
We hired an entire staff without a direction, decided to move on from our starting QB without a replacement, and now we're floating rumors that we're scrapping some of the offensive and defensive line without suitable replacements.
So far, all we've done is make holes in an already lopsided roster...the team that when healthy went 3-0 last season and looked really freaking exciting at times. And I'm sorry folks, that doesn't give me confidence that things will magically work out because Ross dropped words like rebuild and consistent, long-term contenders. We've seen NOTHING that indicates round 4 will be any better than rounds 1, 2, or 3 because our owner is a complacent idiot.Last edited: Mar 2, 2019 -
By your own deductions, you said that there was an unknown x-factor in play the past few seasons in Miami....something that made us 2 wins better than our stats would indicate. So I don't see how you conclude that Gase was average when he was above average in the only stat that truly matters....wins with 2nd stringers and backup quarterbacks on the field.
We were 5-1 against the Jets under Gase. I have a feeling they sweep us this season. -
Gase gave us an estimated 2 more wins than expected given point differential. But he was also responsible for that bad point differential. So being well below average in point differential and well above average in wins given point differential cancels out to = average.
Also, that 2 wins more than expected is over all 3 years, so any injury excuse has to apply over that entire period. I've said before that there isn't really a good injury metric for the NFL, but when people say our injuries were so bad that Gase should get a pass, it's IMO mostly due to them primarily following the Dolphins and not all other teams with similar interest.
Now, there are some injury metrics out there (many of which aren't really "metrics" but just numbers disguising subjective assumptions), and a whole bunch show we were average injury-wise. For example:
That's two "metrics" right there: 1) total games missed by players due to injury (which is a true metric), and 2) approximate value of those players (not even close to a metric lol). Total games missed has the problem that you don't know the relative value of the players, but as you can see we're average there in 2018. AV is not even close to a metric so I'd dismiss it anyway, but even with AV we're average.
Point is.. a lot of this "our injuries were way worse than average" is IMO due to simply not following non-Dolphin injuries.Last edited: Mar 2, 2019Mexphin likes this. -
There wasn't a lot to find positive about that 3-0 record. All smoke and mirrors. Last year's team was unfortunately very bad, and much worse than their final record.