Tony Must Go.

[Pappy13]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/sportsnation/coach?coachId=65

Don't wait, do it now. Let the healing process begin. It's not about getting in a new coach, it's about letting go of this one. Make it official. He's a lame duck coach at best right now and it's hurting the team the longer he stays. He must go and the time is right. If he had any balls, he would resign, at least Wanny got that right.

[tubba marxxx]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/sportsnation/coach?coachId=65

Don't wait, do it now. Let the healing process begin. It's not about getting in a new coach, it's about letting go of this one. Make it official. He's a lame duck coach at best right now and it's hurting the team the longer he stays. He must go and the time is right. If he had any balls, he would resign, at least Wanny got that right.

agreed 100%

[masterfins]

The Fins are in a major Funk, they know Sparano will not be back next year so some are coasting.  Need a fired up coach to push them to play.

[Jim Gray]

I agree that Sparano needs to be let go, but I don't see the value in getting rid of him before the end of the season.

Reasons to let Sparano finish the year

• If you dump him now, you get another interim coach that just clouds the picture.  This isn't like Wade Phillips where you have your next coach waiting in the wings.
• If you dump him now, you let the front office off the hook.  It's a built in excuse for the team to do poorly.  Looking at the front office, they are as much to blame as Sparano (perhaps more) and should share his fate.
• I don't believe a "new lame duck" coach will fire up the players.  The team lacks talent as well as coaching.
• Dumping Sparano for an assistant that casual fans have never heard of isn't going to put butts in the seats.
• (for the cynical) If you really want Luck, why mess with the formula we have?  Under Sparano, this team has a very good chance of getting the number 1 pick.

[Pappy13]

Reasons to let Sparano finish the year

• If you dump him now, you get another interim coach that just clouds the picture.  This isn't like Wade Phillips where you have your next coach waiting in the wings.
• If you dump him now, you let the front office off the hook.  It's a built in excuse for the team to do poorly.  Looking at the front office, they are as much to blame as Sparano (perhaps more) and should share his fate.
• I don't believe a "new lame duck" coach will fire up the players.  The team lacks talent as well as coaching.
• Dumping Sparano for an assistant that casual fans have never heard of isn't going to put butts in the seats.
• (for the cynical) If you really want Luck, why mess with the formula we have?  Under Sparano, this team has a very good chance of getting the number 1 pick.

Top 5 Reasons to let Sparano go now.

• It's the right thing to do. 7 losses in a row is grounds for dismissal. Like I said, it's not about finding his replacement now, it's about letting Tony, Jeff and the fans know that the job they have done to this point in the season is unacceptable. Tony is an employee. You don't let an employee that's doing a crappy job stay around and possibly screw things up more just because you don't have their replacement hired. You let that employee go and you start looking for their replacement. In the mean time you give someone else their responsibilities and you move on.
• Sparano did it to Henne. You remember last year when Sparano didn't know what else to do so he benched Henne just to see what would happen? Same philosophy here. Let's find out what will happen. Sparano didn't think Pennington could do any worse than Henne, well time to find out if someone else can do any worse than Tony. Personally I don't think so.
• It's not a distraction yet, but it's going to start becoming a distraction real quick. No firing him won't really fix much, but at least it changes the media questions from the pointless "When does Tony get fired?", to the actual pointed "Who is the next head coach?".
• It's decisive and it has a direct bearing on the direction of the club. One of the problems that Ross has had is that when it comes to decisions that really effect the club, he's been indicisive. Take a stand for once. Go out and say "I screwed up. I screwed up by not firing him last year which probably cost me being able to bring in Harbaugh and then I screwed up again by granting him an extension to his contract. Well I'm admitting I made a mistake. I'm taking responsibility. It's time for a new head coach".
• It's what the majority of fans want. A 92% unapproval rate are enough facts for me to claim that. Again it may not fix anything, but I really don't see any way it hurts.

[Sunstroke]

It's not a distraction yet, but it's going to start becoming a distraction real quick. No firing him won't really fix much, but at least it changes the media questions from the pointless "When does Tony get fired?" to the actual pointed "Who is the next head coach?"

The moment this franchise makes "any" decision based on what questions the media may or may not ask, they've fucked up worse than anything that Sparano has done himself.

... Go out and say "I screwed up. I screwed up by not firing him last year which probably cost me being able to bring in Harbaugh...

As a Niners fan who has listened to virtually every soundbite to come out of his mouth since taking over in SF, I can tell you that any possibility of Harbaugh coming to Miami existed solely in the minds of Dolphins fans and front office folks. Harbaugh had SF targeted the entire time, and merely used Miami to test the waters.

It's what the majority of fans want. A 92% unapproval rate are enough facts for me to claim that.

92%, eh? That sure seems like a pretty specific number...especially to post-label it as a "fact." Can I ask where you got that figure? Because I've already had to make one post today to chide someone for making up numbers just to make their opinion look more legit, and twice would seem excessive...especially since 87.6% of the world thinks that once should be enough

(see what I did there in that last sentence?)

[jtex316]

50% of these figures are 95% mentally made up.

[Sunstroke]

^^^ Exactly, and it annoys me 100% of the time.

[dolfan13]

i hope this owner just stays rational, and level headed. at this point we don't need another over-reacting, knee jerk, reaction from the owner. everyone is watching, including andrew luck whom by the way has another year of eligibility left.

if the dolphins somehow did end up with the first pick, and luck sours on the fact of how this owner treats people based on irrational fans / media /etc... , he could royally screw us.

[Pappy13]

The moment this franchise makes "any" decision based on what questions the media may or may not ask, they've fucked up worse than anything that Sparano has done himself.

You missed the point. It's not so the media is asking a different question, it's so that the Dolphins start figuring out the answer to "Who is the next Dolphins head coach?". That's all that matters now. Tony Sparano is a lame duck coach, everyone knows it. Spending 1 second answering questions about him is pointless and a waste of time.

As a Niners fan who has listened to virtually every soundbite to come out of his mouth since taking over in SF, I can tell you that any possibility of Harbaugh coming to Miami existed solely in the minds of Dolphins fans and front office folks. Harbaugh had SF targeted the entire time, and merely used Miami to test the waters.

Fair enough, but it was still a mistake to do what was done. Admit it.

92%, eh? That sure seems like a pretty specific number...especially to post-label it as a "fact."

See the link in the first post. It may not be 92% now, that's where it was last time I checked. And yes it's a completely unscientific poll. The fact remains that at the time I checked Sparano's unapproval rate was 92%, worst in the NFL.

Edit: Just checked and it's now at 91%. Tony thanks you for the support.

[jtex316]

^^^ Exactly, and it annoys me 100% of the time.

Actually, it annoys me 101.5% of the time (with a 1.5% margin of error).

[mecadonzilla]

I'm still bothered that coming into week 1, 52% of those who answered had confidence in Sparano.  That's 52% of people who have no idea what's going on.  I hope those people never vote for anything that ever matters.

[CF DolFan]

Wouldnt it make more sense to get rid of Jeff and company and then llet the new guy hire a coach?

[Pappy13]

Wouldnt it make more sense to get rid of Jeff and company and then llet the new guy hire a coach?

That works for me too, but just know that the decision as to who replaces Jeff and Tony next year is a completely different question from who replaces Tony for the next game.

[mecadonzilla]

Wouldnt it make more sense to get rid of Jeff and company and then llet the new guy hire a coach?

Winner winner chicken dinner!  Getting rid of Sparano means nothing if Ireland is left to replace him.  Ireland may even be more clueless than his ill-fated coach.

Unlike Sparano, however, I don't think it's important that Ireland is let go right away.