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http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/breaking-news/story/617893.html

Parcells tears down to build back up

BY ARMANDO SALGUERO
Miami Herald

Not since Don Shula put on those polyester shorts and black cleats and led his band of castoff and wanna-be players onto the Biscayne College field on July 12, 1970, have the Dolphins been in a situation like this.

On that day 38 years ago, Shula began to rebuild from the ruins of Miami's first four unfulfilling professional football seasons. Joe Robbie's fledgling franchise had taken flight in 1966, but after soaring on its first play, a 95-yard kickoff return by Joe Auer, the team crashed to four consecutive losing seasons.

Out of that wreck, Shula rebuilt a champion.

And the Dolphins haven't really rebuilt ever since.

Until now.

Shula never tore the thing down once he got it built. He obviously didn't see the need to start again from scratch, and who could argue with a record that included playoff appearances in 16 of his 26 seasons?

Successor Jimmy Johnson, for all his draft-day dealings and personnel acumen, never tore up the foundation Shula left him. After all, Johnson inherited Dan Marino and O.J. McDuffie, Trace Armstrong and Tim Bowens, Richmond Webb and Keith Sims, so he gladly mixed those veterans with some draft picks of his own.

Dave Wannstedt never saw the need to start from scratch, either. He was too busy systematically destroying all that he was left.

Nick Saban? He talked about starting over but never really did it. He was too addicted to winning right away, which is why he added free agent veterans such as Kevin Carter and Vonnie Holliday and Will Allen and gave up valuable draft picks for Daunte Culpepper and Joey Harrington.

The folks last year came closest of the entire bunch to actually, seriously starting over. But that happened only after the 2007 season was pretty much lost and everyone realized Cam Cameron's New Day was really the franchise's day of reckoning.

So despite discarding veterans such as Randy McMichael and Carter and Harrington and Culpepper before the season, it wasn't until midseason that the Dolphins jettisoned Chris Chambers and finally started playing youngsters such Ted Ginn Jr. and Jason Allen.

But even that new start was had its limits. Cutting Zach Thomas and trading Jason Taylor? That was never Randy Mueller's plan. Had he remained Miami's general manager, Mueller would have kept those veterans and used the salary cap room he had been saving on a half dozen or so other veterans whose assignment would have been to make the Dolphins a playoff team this season.

But Mueller never made it out of the 2007 season. Bill Parcells was hired and he fired Mueller and Cameron. Parcells brought in his own coach and his own general manager and his own ideas for recasting the Dolphins in his image.

And that is where we begin Saturday -- at the beginning.

When the Dolphins open their 43rd training camp, they will start only the second rebuilding process in team history.

Parcells, coach Tony Sparano and general manager Jeff Ireland decided -- for better or worse -- that this team needed to be taken off its chassis and pieced back together part by part.

Yes, there are some veterans from previous regimes still in place. Joey Porter was signed by Mueller. Ronnie Brown and practically the entire starting defensive backfield was drafted, signed or promoted to a starting role by Saban. Ricky Williams and Vernon Carey are the remaining vestiges from the Wannstedt error.

But the defense Jimmy Johnson built and the offense Don Shula put on the field have passed into memory. The only leftovers from those playoff teams of the 1990s are in Dallas and Washington now.

It is, as the Dolphins marketing catchphrase suggests, a New Beginning.

There is some hope in this new start. Parcells says he's building the Dolphins from the inside out, meaning the grunts on the line of scrimmage come first, then everything else will follow.

No wonder left tackle Jake Long was the first draft pick of the Parcells era. He's big, he's tough and his job is to dominate the line of scrimmage at arguably the offensive line's most demanding spot.

The Dolphins have drafted or signed 47 new players so far. Of those, 21 play directly on the line of scrimmage.

Remember these names: Shawn Murphy, Justin Smiley, Anthony Fasano, Kendall Langford, Phillip Merling, Randy Starks. They are all new parts in this first phase of rebuilding.

There will be growing pains as these Dolphins try to rise from the ashes of 1-15. It is possible this team will be more disciplined, better conditioned and more competitive and still lose three times as many games as it wins.

Yes, 4-12 is not out of the realm of possibility for the 2008 Dolphins.

But if that happens, it will come in a season meant to serve as a foundation rather than one falsely billed as reloading for a playoff push. If these new Dolphins fail, it doesn't mean that rebuilding was the wrong thing to do, but rather the hard thing to do.

That is why no one has tried it since 1970.

I just got into Miami and all I can see are billboards everywhere with the "A New Beginning" slogan.  They really are pushing the fact that this will be a rebuilding year.