The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

An excellent piece written by my buddy Mike:

You know the history: rewind to the beginning of 2008.  Bill Parcells comes to town, bringing Cowboy protegees Tony Sparano and  Jeff Ireland.  “The Triumvirate” arrived on the heels of the team’s worst record, 1-15.  Recognizing that lack of talent was an issue, Parcells & Co immediately gutted the roster.

All offseason Miami preached a code of bigger, stronger, tougher.  Conditioning and toughness would make injuries and losing a thing of the past.  Opponents would know they were in for a street brawl when Miami rolled into town, and that’s exactly how Miami played.  That toughness coupled with the surprising Wildcat resulted in the league’s biggest turnaround and a division title.  Oh, it was good to be a Miami Dolphin again.  2009 was looking good with Parcells & Co at the wheel and a boatload of draft picks.

Only the fairy tale ended with that playoff loss to the Ravens.  What went wrong?  Well, the first three issues are obvious.  However, there are two more reasons that I want you to consider.

First: Parcells and Fireland failed to get Miami a franchise QB.  We could argue all day about the alternatives and whether or not they would have turned out better.  The fact is Miami still doesn’t have a franchise QB.  In a passing league that’s just stacking the deck against yourself.  McNown, Pennington, Henne, White, Thigpen, and Moore equal failure.  Parcells will leave this team not much better than he found it.

Second: bad drafting. Outside of Jake Long show me a superstar player. No need to elaborate, everyone has already beat this horse to death.

Third: bad coaching.  Sparano jettisoned both his defensive and offensive coordinators.  While I agree he needed to it, in both cases he did it too late.  Despite getting upgrades at coordinators Sparano himself isn’t good enough.  Sparano didn’t realize this until Ross publicly humiliated him by pursing Harbaugh.  Sparano forced a change (this time to himself) only once again he was too late.

Nothing thought provoking so far, right?

The fourth issue should also be fairly obvious, but I think it gets overlooked or discounted: when Wayne Huiezenga completed the sale of the team to Stephen Ross, Parcells took one step out the door.  Oh, he hung around, lurking in the shadows to lend support to Ireland and Ross, but he was no longer a powerful presence in the locker room or on the field.  Hit that rewind button to 2008 – it was Parcells bullying, cajoling, joking, and coaching the players.  Parcells the legend, Parcells the no nonsense disciplinarian tough guy.  The 2008 Miami Dolphins were a manifestation of Parcells and a Parcells team:  bigger, stronger, and most of all, tougher. Where did those tough Miami Dolphins go?

The hard edges of those tough warriors were worn smooth by grinding, conservative, close losses in 2009 and 2010 – and without Parcells there to resharpen the edges.  What former defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni and offensive coordinator Dan Henning  lacked in effectiveness on game day they may have made up for in the day to day preparation of the team:  teaching the Parcells mantra of toughness. This much is certain: nice guy Tony Sparano isn’t the disciplinarian Parcells was.  Can you imagine Parcells fistpumping excitedly over a field goal?


At first the addition of defensive coordinator Mike Nolan translated into more aggressive schemes and better play calling, but the departure of all the disciplinarians, Parcells in particular, has resulted in a team that is soft, weak in the trenches, susceptible to injury, and doesn’t have the guts or wherewithal to come up with big plays when they need it.  Do you know the good cop-bad cop routine?  Well Sparano is the good cop and without Parcells there to play the bad cop, the good cop isn’t particularly effective by himself.

Last but not least, I think another spark that really ignited the downfall was none other than strong side OLB Matt Roth. Roth was a tough run-stuffing DE playing OLB who managed to chip in 5 sacks in 2008 – second on team.  By all accounts Roth was a Parcells warrior.  But something bizarre happened in the offseason.  Suddenly he couldn’t practice.

First Roth said he was ill.  Then his groin was supposedly injured, except the leading specialist in the country couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him.  Roth continued to sit out, saying his groin was sore.  Miami put Roth on the PUP list for the first 6 weeks, and when Roth returned his productivity for 4 games was atrocious – 4 tackles and no sacks.  Miami subsequently cut Roth, only to see him sign in Cleveland and get 28 tackles and 4 sacks in 6 games – clearly Roth’s health really wasn’t at issue and he forced his way out of Miami.

We will likely never know all the truth behind this story, but what we do know is that it was weird and that the team hasn’t exhibited the same level of toughness as it did in 2008.

If I had to bet money, Parcells & Ireland promised Roth a new contract and then failed to deliver.  2009 was the final year of Roth’s rookie contract and, according to Roth, in 2008 he played through a groin injury. Suddenly, before training camp, Roth underwent surgery for the groin and the drama began.  Neither side roasted the other in a strange showdown that ultimately led to Roth being cut 10 games into the season.

His new DC in Cleveland, Rob Ryan, had this to say about Roth upon his arrival: “He’s a smart, tough guy, with an emphasis on the tough part. That really is what he stands for. “  I think I would agree with that, which made training camp and Roth’s reticence to play all the more interesting.  Starting at the moment Miami management canned Roth they essentially told the players that it doesn’t matter if you sacrifice yourself – Miami wasn’t going to reward it.  What motivation do players have to play through injury, to “go to war” for the franchise?  Especially when the disciplinarians were no longer there cracking the whips.

So Parcells came to town to build a bigger, stronger, tougher team.  Unfortunately they didn’t do the best job drafting, the coaching was suspect, and the toughness eroded after the disciplinarian left the building and Miami showed the players they wouldn’t be rewarded for extensive sacrifice.  Oh yea, they still need a QB.

So at some point in the next 5 months Miami should be looking for a new coach and hopefully a new GM.  Hopefully the new guys appreciate football history and understand enough not to repeat the errors of the past.

Very interesting, indeed.  Good read.  Thanks for sharing.

Incredible.  Well played!!

Sorry to oppose, but I disagree. 

The Parcells era went bad because we dicked around replacing players just for the sake of getting younger.  And we used bigger, stronger, tougher when it should have been stronger, faster, smarter, tougher.  We upgraded at some positions with good drafting like Long, Langford, Odrick, Clemons, Davis, Hartline and we will throw in Bess and Carpenter.  We will wait to judge Pouncey and Thomas but they appear pretty solid.  But in many cases we replaced players that were just as good.  The biggest misses have been at QB and O-line.  Henne, White, Donald Thomas, Jerry and subpar free agents like Smiley, Berger, and the other center I can't remember.  And finally we just got injury bit with Pennington who had red flags up when we got him.

There was a lot of talk about Roth in the article.  But Misi does the same thing Roth did.  He sets the edge and stops the run.  Misi is a miss because he was supposed to set the edge, stop the run and add pass rush (which hasn't happened).  But Roth was replaced with a healthier version of himself.

And while we started with a bad OC in Henning and indeed waited too long to get rid of him, Pascaloni wasn't really all too bad.  He did well taking over last year in Dallas and he did well his first year with us.  Nolan was an upgrade, but Pascaloni wasn't a bad coach.  Pascaloni had too many changes to deal with in the secondary and Wilson and Bell played like shit that year.

We still have good cop, bad cop in Ireland and Sparano.  If a player underperforms, they are gone.  If a coach underperforms, they are gone.  Examples include Sapp and the special team coach.  There is still a good bit of fear to keep the praise in check.

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The second part...  It isn't all for not, it is just taking longer than expected.  We have some good young pieces to the puzzle out there but it only takes one week link to screw it all up.

1st - WE MUST GET A QB and won't have a chance till we do.
2nd - Fix the right tackle.  Later we can groom replacements for our guards.
3rd - Get smarter players at safety and replace Bell with more speed.
4th - We can live with Smith as the #2 corner and if he improves, fine.  Otherwise trade or pickup a quality free agent if available.

We are set at running back.  We are set at D-line.  We have a few cornerbacks that we can work with if we get quality safety help.  We are ok for now at linebacker and need to draft some players to develop.  We need one more tight end (which could be Clay).  Our O-line is not far from sufficient.  We are good enough at receiver with better QB play.

WE DO NOT HAVE TO BE GUTTED!  I KNOW IT LOOKS LIKE EVERYONE SUCKS, BUT IT ISN'T EVERYONE.  Bad safeties make a defense look bad.  A bad tackle can make an offense look bad.  A good QB can hide problems and ok corners with a good safety can hide insufficiencies.

The era went wrong with 2 decisions

1) Long over Ryan
2) Pat White in Rd 2

You can't F' up on the QB position!

Too many wasted early friggin draft picks. White=Garbage. Turner=Garbage. Sean Smith=Garbage. Chad Henne=Garbage. Jon Jerry=Garbage. In rounds 1-3 you need STARTERS we draft GARBAGE!!!  Combine with the fact they BOMBED in free agency with guys like Grove, Wilford, Green...etc and If you don't know talent, you can't win in this league. Parcells doesn't know talent.

1. Pat White
2. The fact that there was very little Parcells in the Parcells era.  He essentially disappeared halfway through 2008 and took his guaranteed contract and ran.
3. They keep trying to play musical chairs at guard, and the defense's ups and downs I have to think were at least somewhat preventable.

Hiring Parcells. Every place he goes has seen a regression in his success. But its not just him. Its the vicious cycle of trying to emulate the Cowboys.

As much as I disagree with some of what you wrote, this is pretty spot on.

Too many draft picks that didn't pan out.  The draft where they pulled Patrick Turner and Pat White was an embarrassment, and has crippled the franchise.

I am on the fence about Long/Ryan.  I think Jake Long is a franchise player and when I think of who we would have had at LT had we picked Ryan, Matty Ice would have been carted off the field after 3 games of getting hammered from his blind side.  So, I still think Long was the right pick, but it would have been nice to see something addressed in subsequent drafts...

If you still think Long over Ryan was right you think like Parcells. Which is OUTDATED!

NO team has won a Super Bowl because of a franchise left tackle. We could have drafted Ryan #1 then taken a left tackle later on, hell we had 2 picks in Round 2 that year or found a stop-gap for one for a year and taken a big name LT the following year

Pretty much ANY other scenario than the won we did! Which failed miserably.

What is this obsession with Matt Ryan (and no MikeO, it's not just you)?  He has a 0-2 playoff record.  In those 2 playoff games he has thrown 3 TD passes and 4 Ints.  Doesn't exactly sound worthy of a 1st round pick, let alone all these "experts" who are now saying we should have drafted him and not Jake Long.

He also has maybe the best tight end who ever played the game, recievers who can fly (and catch) and an above average defense and running game.

Yet his record is 11-5, 0-1 playoffs, 9-7 missed playoffs, 13-3, 0-1 playoffs.

Jees, double digit wins 2 out of 3 years and over .500 every year. I also think he has only lost like 3 or 4 home games in his NFL Career. Who wouldn't sign for for that? I think THAT is the fascination with him.  Nobody is going to kill him cause he hasn't won a Super Bowl within the first 3 years. But he looks like he is on his way to getting one eventually.

If you don't think Matt Ryan is worthy of a 1st round pick, you DON'T know NFL Football!