...and he has turned this once proud franchise into the laughing stock of the league. With his celebrity owners and his looking for a new coach while still having a coach. God I hate what he is turning this team into.
You're complaining about Ross "looking for a coach while we still have a coach". That is, you're complaining about Ross making secret contact with someone. So why is secret contact from teams to players during the lockout passable, but secret contact from a team to a coaching candidate detestable? They're both not supposed to happen, but one gets a shrug of the shoulders and the other gets threads like this. It's even more puzzling because Sparano is going to be fired. There is no ambiguity here; he's gone, it's just a matter of time. So why is Ross an idiot for attempting to line up the next guy ASAFP? That's smart, not stupid.
Then fire the guy and do the search properly. Quit looking like an idiot. Obviously he needs to either surround himself with with people who know how to keep their mouth shut or stop be so clumsey when doing things he's not supposed to. I'm not going to debate this with you. You obviously see nothing wrong with the way Ross operates and I am never going to agree with that. Quite frankly, I don't understand how you don't see how bad Ross looks. As far as contacting players during the lockout, that gets over looked because every team did it. Some were just better at it than others.
Just find it hard to call a multi-multi millionaire an idiot. He may not conduct football related moves like you would like, but he`s far from stupid.
He doesn't look like an idiot unless one already thinks he looks like an idiot, in which case everything he does is filtered through the prism of "this guy is an idiot." Evidence: this thread. Because there are far bigger idiot owners out there, and I don't blame Ross for doing what he needs to in order to turn a profit. You hold the minority ownership and orange carpet against him, and you leap into loathing from there; I don't. I couldn't care less if he sells 1% ownership to singers and actors. Now, if he sold 1% ownership to Casey Anthony, we'd have a problem. Oh, okay. So it's fine as long as they aren't caught. Which means it's okay if Ross contacts Cowher as long as he isn't caught, right? The triple standard here parodies itself.
It's not like Tony is on the hot seat, he's on the ejection seat while running an 0-6, soon to be 0-7 team. Yes The Harbaugh thing has been beat to death and it's old news. People act like Ross is the only owner to ever make bad choices. People tend to forget their history. The Rooneys the Maras have all made bad choices and they are considered two of the finest run organizations in the NFL. Infact Rooney had decades of bad decisions..the biggest was passing on Marino in 83. That could have made the Steelers undeniably the greatest franchise ever. So you're frustrated, understandable. But PSG you're *****ing about the owner running this franchise into the ground while being the 1st person on ur SFL sig. A lilttle hypictitical maybe? Happens to the best of us.
Can't believe you're still defending this guy. There really is no defense if the allegations are true. If he bumbles us out of Cowher or other big name coaches again, we'll be ****ed forever.
Getting Andrew Luck trumps any bumbling that Ross may or may not have done. Period. Oh, and Ross has already shown that he doesn't interfere in football decisions, so even if he is a bumbler, it doesn't mean anything to the prospective new coach and GM. They'll know that Ross will allow them to build the team the way they want. Evidence: Ross didn't lift a finger to prevent a roster this bad from being fielded. It's not about defending Ross, it's about maintaining perspective on events.
Ross may not be an idiot but he has made his mistakes since buying the team.Let's hope he learns from them and get the right people in place .
Ross is IN CONTROL of us getting Andrew Luck???? I am willing to continue to give Ross the benefit of the doubt, but he has to stop allowing or putting himself and this organization in the news by continued mistakes and missteps. That still on him, even if he is using "middle man", a leak exists that IS NOT helping his cause. He is coming off the fool, over and over. We all need that to stop. As far as if getting Luck.....its not Ross doing....he may benefit, but unless its a negotiation/money thing where he finally STEPS UP CORRECTLY to secure Andrew Luck willingness to come to Miami IF the record says we have the #1 pick, then fine. Ya know, if we dont get the #1 pick, and ROSS approves the TRADE UP, then he gets my full support of earning it. Until then, Ross is a big part of our current problem (on and off the field) and this franchise's image.
So that's your defense of Ross? It doesn't matter if he screws us out of name brand coaches because a couple of other guys a decade ago didn't work out? Ok.
And every owner who is considering a coaching change makes indirect contact with candidates for the job to guage their interest in the team. Wayne did it with Jimmy Johnson when Don Shula was still the coach. Mike Holmgren and the Browns were putting out feelers when Mangini was still in place. Heck, Bill Parcells knew when he took the job that he wasn't going to retain Cam Cameron. Was it deplorable on his part to keep Cam dangling in the wind when it was a forgone conclusion that he was hiring Tony Sparano? If anything, Bill Parcells is the guy that has given this franchise a black eye. It was his hand picked GM that asked Dez Bryant if his mother was a prostitute. It is his hand picked GM that is considered to be the ******* of *******s for NFL GM's. It is his hand picked head coach that is totally overmatched. It was Parcells that advised the Jets to hire Rex Ryan. Ross only inherited this situation, and rather than make a short term coaching change in a lock out season (Cowher and Gruden weren't interested in coming back during the lock out), he simply stayed the course when he couldn't land Jim Harbaugh. Yeah, he should have fired Tony before talking to Harbaugh. Had he done that though, we would be stuck with John Fox or someone like that right now while considering a coaching change.
His point is, it's not the end of the world even if you are right and no big names want to come here.
I will be curious to see how some folks react if we win a few games... It appears that there are folks that will jump off the bridge if we don't finish out at 0-16. God forbid, what if we don't get that #1 overall pick...???
Okay, let's catalogue the reasons why people dislike Ross: 1. Minority owners - This is probably the stupidest reason to hate him. It's irrational. This doesn't affect the football side of the team AT ALL. There are NO good reasons to dislike him for this. What happens is fans are probably saying he's promoting B-list celebrities instead of focusing on football. I bet you the Raiders, Cowboys, and Redskins would have killed for a decade or two of an owner not focusing on the football. What the hell does Ross know about football for him to start making decisions? 2. Not getting Jim Harbaugh - Reports are that Jeff Ireland's presence caused Harbaugh to pass. At that stage of the game, it would have been extremely hard to replace Ireland when you had no plans on replacing him in the first place. You just have to chalk this up to a loss. There's almost nothing he could have done save for give a rookie NFL coach control over his entire franchise's football operations then try to bring in a GM later. 3. Gator Day - A team that has literally no connection, financial or otherwise; other than they play in the same stadium, to an NCAA team honors another NCAA team because they're in the same state and have some overlapping fans. No one bothers to mention that the Hurricanes turned down an offer to honor the 2001 Miami Hurricanes team. But hey, "this makes me feel things and I want to express them" is apparently a good enough reason to disregard facts. 4. The team is bad - He doesn't put his hand in the football side. He's been working with some inadequate employees that he met in place. But he's on the verge of firing them anyway, so he'll be evaluated after Tony and Co., leave. 5. Talking to Cowher - God forbid the man secure a replacement to his assuredly fired head coach before he's hired away by someone else. I mean, what sense would that make? It'd be like what happened in 2007. The player vs. coach dynamic is pretty interesting though. Vince Young was under contract with the Titans this off-season but most people knew he would be cut. Matt Hasselbeck had already talked and reportedly agreed to go to the Titans basically before the lockout was even over. Why is no one crying about Vince Young's feelings who's younger, and has actually shown some emotional deficiencies compared to a grown *** Tony Sparano?
Ross' net worth is $3.1 billion, but that's tied up in real estate, which means he doesn't actually have that sort of cash on hand. He had to borrow money and pay in installments to buy the team.
Where did I say that? I said that Andrew Luck's presence > Stephen Ross' reputation, both here on this board and in the wider NFL community. Meaning, if we wind up with the #1 pick, no one we can hire will care about Stephen Ross. They'll care about being able to hit the ground running with Andrew Luck.
Fair enough. He's no idiot when it comes to being a businessman. But he leaves alot to be desired when it comes to owning a football team. JMO.
I guess I don't really have a problem with the minority ownership thing. Doesn't really matter. It's just a publicity stunt. I do believe he could do a better job handling the coaching thing. You can't argue he and the teamed looked bad last January when he was flying around all over the place trying to lure a coach to coach a team that already had a coach. Now he's doing it again. If you want Cowher or Gruden or whoever, fine. But fire the coach you have before you go looking fo a new one. It just looks bad on the organization. I guess when it really comes down to it, that all that bothers me when it comes to Ross. I was probably to harsh in my original post. I guess EVERYTHING is just adding up and getting to me. And it exploded in one post directed at Stephen Ross. BTW Desides, Have ever, ever agreed on a football related topic. We always seem to have opposite viewpoints. In the real world we'd either be best friends or hate each others guts.