The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

It could be a missed draft opportunity, a free agent that got away, a particular play, a bad hire, or a guy that we let go but shouldn't have.

Wow...out of all the mistakes, which has been the most crippling?

Hiring Wannstedt has to be right up there.  It led to 6 solid years of bad drafts, from which we are really still recovering.  Further, his hiring and subsequent bad drafts led to the waste of a team that had been built around a solid, if not necessarily spectacular, young defense.  Had six straight drafts not been botched so badly, Miami might have built an offense to match its defense, and been in position to be the dominant AFC East team this past decade.

^^^^

Not to mention his poor coaching cost some of our talented teams

Hiring Wanny and hiring Cameron were the two biggest mistakes I can think of.  I'll have to lean in favor of Wanny because he did a lot more damage.  Management realized the mistake they made and dumped Cameron after one year.

I'll list my top four:

Instead of acquiring Drew Brees as a free agent, Nick Saban's deciding to trade a second round pick for Dante Culpepper, because Brees was damaged goods as a QB with his shoulder injury. Brees turned out OK, as we all know.

Certainly this is the worst call personnel wise of the past decade, if not in all of dolphin history. The fins struggled for years with lousy QB play, and we can only hope Henne turns out to be the answer Brees would have been.

Another candidate for awfulest mistake in dolphin history might be Joe Robbie's penny pinching in 1975, which led to Csonka, Kiick and Warfield leaving for the WFL, resulting in the end of the early 70's dynasty.

 I agree with JVides that hiring Wannstedt and letting him take charge of drafting, with horrific results and the resultant decline of the team, ranks highly (or lowly).

Fourthly, Don Shula great coach that he was, insisted that he could evaluate player talent better than any player personnel man. His poor drafting year after year, particularly on the defensive side (Shipp, Brophy, Bosa, Graf, Kumerow, etc) during Marino's golden years, led to no championships due to those lousy defenses. (and let's not forget his letting Tom Olivadotti stay employed coaching those awful defenses)

Each of these four issues led to years of deterioration and misery for the team, with pervasive and long lasting multi-season consequences.

"LACES OUT DAN!"

I'm only going to speak about the years that I've been a knowledgeable fan:

Choosing Culpepper over Brees is my #1, I think.

Honorable mentions:
Drafting Jamar Fletcher (not only a bust, but at a position that we didn't need)
Keeping Wanny around.
Letting go of Wes Welker (something I supported at the time.)
Letting Mike Westhoff get away, only to watch our special teams turn into a turd.

I agree with everything you say there Dave, except the Wes Welker thing.

We got a 2nd and a 7th I believe for a guy that wanted a big contract...it sucks that we blew those picks on guys who aren't on the team anymore, but still...we got good value for him (hindsight is 20/20, blah, blah, blah), and to tell you the truth, if he doesn't have Moss or Brady, he's still just above average.  At New England, he has the perfect storm, and that's something that wouldn't have transitioned at Miami if he would have stayed here.  Miami still doesn't have that #1 WR and our QB of the future is still transitioning.

I agree with everyone about the Wanny shit...but I'm going to throw this out there....I'm going to get shit for it, but oh well.....

Drafting Ted Ginn........

You got one more year buddy....one....more....year. ...after that you are gone unless you go over 1,000 yds or get double digit TD's.

I think that Welker has a lot of value.  He gets a lot of catches and is really helpful for bringing along new QBs.  He runs good routes and finds ways to get open and get YAC.  That's hard to come by.

Looking at our receiver situation for the last several years, a guy like that would be invaluable.

A small but related hijack here...I don't think the Welker thing was a management "decision".

If I recall the sequence went something like this......

1. Welker become restricted free agent.....
2. Patriots offer contract which guarantees significant amount of salary for playing x games in Florida a poison pill making it ridiculous for Miami to match.
3. Contract also includes a high salary
4. Spotting the obvious benefits to both teams, the Patriots negotiate a trade so they get Welker with lower salary and negotiate from there, and Miami get draft picks out of it.

I may be wrong, but we were left between a rock and a hard place and took the deal that on the face of it appeared better.

You didn't have a big choice on Welker - he was a restricted and the Patriots added a poison pill -something about playing more than 4 games in the state of Florida during that season makes the entire contract guaranteed or something along those lines.

There was no way that would have occurred with the Pats, as they were only scheduled for 1 trip during the regular season (Miami) so even if they had three playoff games in Florida, they would have been at the 4. The Fins, of course, play 8 home games in Florida

Yea, but they could have offered him the highest tender instead of the one that only cost a second rounder.

Had Welker stayed in Miami, he surely would have been a very good and valuable player. But in New England, with  Tom Brady throwing to him and Randy Moss to draw defensive attention, Welker achieved statistical excellence far beyond what he would have attained in Miami. The same player, but in a much better setting to showcase his talent. I don't see the Welker trade as something yielding multiple season destruction, not along the lines of the four items I posted above.

I really didn't want to comment on this,because I think  about What Philly pointed out in one post about, well if we would have drafted Drew Brees,he sort of a bust the first few years in S.D....That type of argument....(Here we go I'm opening Pandora's box) I think it comes down to 2 simple factors in recent history....


Wayne Huizenga trusting....
A.) too many people that knew nothing about football,that hardly knew the difference between a jock strap,and a goal post....(Other than possibly being hung by their jock strap on the goal post)

B.) People that knew about football,but didn't give a shit about the organization,or weren't thinking what was best for the Dolphins Organization (better phrasing)

My example, Jimmy Johnson Was trying to quit,Hire Dave Wannstedt to keep him,and succeed him...Wayne Trusted Jimmy,then after Jimmy Quit, Kept Bringing Jimmy to consult on the draft.

Welker could have been signed to an extension before he became a free agent.  They picked him up off waivers and probably didn't think he was worth it at the time.  I don't think this ranks ever top 10 of the Dolphins all-time mistakes.

The problem with the Welker trade (for the Dolphins) isn't that it just made Miami weaker but it made a divisional rival much better. 

I think Miami greatly underestimated Welker's value and that is why they didn't offer a higher level offer sheet, which would have either discouraged NE from going after him or gotten the Dolphins a 1st round pick instead.  In BB's opinion WW was the Dolphins greatest weapon and the most problematic player to game plan for of all the players on the three AFCE rival teams.   

Semi -unrelated - I think the NFL should change the rules to disallow the poison pills.  NE wasn't the only nor the first to do what they did with Welker, but poison pills basically change the RFA rules into mini-franchise tag rules instead of the rules RFA intended. 

Yeah, I was playing it safe...the life of a Mod, don'tcha know. ;)

As far as the "real" biggest mistake, I think that Wannstedt being named head coach is the worst move the franchise has ever made, for a laundry list of reasons, many of which have been noted above.

^^ I'd take it one step further.  I'd say naming Wannstedt ASSISTANT head coach under Jimmy Johnson was the biggest mistake in franchise history.

wanny

I know Tommy has a thorn in his side over Cam Cameron, but I don't even qualify this as a mistake.  The guy was here for 1 year with an absolutely abysmal team.  He had a questionable draft, in picking Ginn.  ...but even then, the jury is still out on the guy, and at least he's playing and making some plays here and there.

I think that Cam is so insignificant to anything that has happened to this team.  He barely even registers as a scratch on a team that was a complete train-wreck.

Wannstedt. Hands down.

Hiring Jimmy Johnson set this team back so far we haven't had a chance to catch up.  Miami needed a coach that would have been able to build a decent defense AND take advantage of Marino's last years.  Johnson drove this team into the ground.

#2 is the Drew Brees thing.

I can't fault Johnson too much, he made the team a contender by building a top-five defense.  The problem is that he never had a good running game to go with it and wouldn't let Marino do his thing either.  So, he handed off his top-five defense to a buffoon who insisted on Jay Fiedler at QB and later brought in a top RB in Ricky and just when things got rolling, Ricky quits and the team goes to shit.

Who's to blame for all this?

Hiring Jimmy Johnson.  He promised a superbowl, failed to draft a running back, then punished Marino by taking away his ability to audiblize at the line.  I can see changing the offense but not taking away any quarterback's ability to audible. 

To make matters worse, he retired for 24 hours and you could see it was almost like the team said oh well screw it at the end of the 1999 season, especially down the stretch and in the playoff game in Jacksonville.  It also allowed Dave Wannstedt in the door.

Wanny then took a pretty legit football team and ran it into the ground.  He walks in the middle of '04.  Then when it comes time to pick a new coach, Jimmy Johnson recommends Nick Saban to Wayne Huizenga when the players choice at the time was interm coach Jim Bates. 

Saban leaves, we get stuck with Cameron for a year which we'll never know how that would have turned out, thus leading to the worst season in Dolphin history and the entire restructuring of the front office. 

Jimmy Johnson's hiring at UM also led to the hiring of John Olivadotti, because he was Schnellenberger's DC prior.  Doesn't excuse the fact that Olivadotti's a moron and couldn't coach a beer fart if you spotted him a 12pack but still all events tie into the existance of one Jimmy Johnson.

My God.  Wannstedt. I'm sure no one needs an explanation. 

as much as i hate saban, the brees thing was just bad luck. the guy had the tendons in his throwing shoulder shredded away from the bone.

it does say this about nfl qb's though, accuracy is the most important skill trait that you need at the position. much more so than just pure arm strength.

biggest mistake in the history of the dolphins has to be the wannstache. the fact is that he was a horrid personnel guy and that ultimately was his downfall. i'll never forget "with the ___ pick in the draft, the miami dolphins select... eddie moore". what a freaking nightmare

You know what, everyone blames PronStache but no one points toward Rick Spielman.

Why?

Maybe because of what Spielman has done with the Vikings.

Welker?  Really?

I mean, it's not like we passed on him in the draft.  We saw what he was doing for the team; it was good, but nowhere remotely near what he's doing in NE.  Do you really believe that dumping a bunch of money in Welker's lap was the only thing holding him back from playing as he has in NE?

As far as Wanny goes, I can't honestly say that hiring him was the worst decision.  At least he won a division title; Jimmy couldn't even do that.  But I do think that keeping him was a bad move.

If I had to pick a single worst decision, I think it would be the choice to go with Jay Fiedler after Marino retired.  I'm not saying he's our worst QB; far from it.  But he was just good enough to keep us from being great, and he had a very low ceiling.  When he became entrenched as a starter, that was the nail in the coffin.  Even with a top-5 defense and a top-5 running attack, Fiedler's lack of talent hamstrung us and kept us from putting it all together.

Dave Wannstedt, but I have to admit A.J. Feeley would be another good choice.

I gotta say about the Welker trade:

Good trade for Miami.  Welker is only good because he is in NE.  Look at this year.  The Pats picked up some guy off the street to replace him for the playoff game and he got 2 TDs.

Camarillo is almost as good, if not as good.  He'd have similar numbers in NE as Welker.

We got a starting center out of it (Grove).

Good trade for Miami. 

 Running shula out of town!!!! Marino 2!!! (he advocated 4 huard not fiedler) ginn/j. allen. How bout' culpepper? drew was ours twice-fletcher ahh!!! Brown's always hurt could b stevie jack but not focused. He and the 'caddy' (no brains no headaches) its a maxim at auburn!!!