This is a moderated phorum for the CIVILIZED discussion of the Miami Dolphins. In this phorum, there are rules and moderators to make sure you abide by the rules. The moderators for this phorum are JC and Colonel.
Too many moving parts. I doubt it. No mention of the offensive line. No mention of experienced tight ends. No mention of the defensive line or linebackers.
There'a also an article titled, "Five reasons the Bills will make the playoffs." "Five reasons the Jets will make the playoffs." A pretty generic rose colored article high on "best case" optimism. We'll know soon enough.
Wow, what a bunch of "glass-half-empty" pessimists! So, if you are really this down on this team, why do you watch this team?
As for me, until-and if- reality intrudes, hope springs eternal.
dolphan4545 Wrote:
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> Wow, what a bunch of "glass-half-empty"
> pessimists! So, if you are really this down on
> this team, why do you watch this team?
> As for me, until-and if- reality intrudes, hope
> springs eternal.
I can't speak for others that post here, but I'm not a glass half empty person. I'm a realist. This is a bad roster and there is no way it's going to be a realistic playoff contender. Why I'm a fan? I've been a fan since 1970. I'll always be Dolphins fan. Would never root for any other team. I am, though, sick and tired of the brainless decisions that are made that keep this team a bottom dweller. This off-season has been one of the worst in recent memory. Productive players traded or released and mediocre players rewarded with extensions. This is quite likely the worst front office in the league. I'd have said the Browns last year but now, I'm not so sure. The only saving grace would be when they flame out this year (and they will flame out) will it get Ross to pull his head of his ass and hire someone who knows something about football and how to evaluate talent to replace the incompetents that are there now. Honestly, how Ross can he be this frigging dense is astounding.
I got to see first hand some transformations of terrible franchises that got converted into good ones many times. It's sad but losing season after season embeds a sense of hopelessness into fan DNA. Once the winning starts up again- the flow of positivity returns but if you've followed this particular franchise for a long time... The reality and negativity is likely running rampant in your season expectations. It's almost like a defense mechanism against failed expectations. You can only be Charlie Brown so many times before you give up on Lucy letting you kick the ball. But here we are once again!
Maybe that's what it is for me. I've been watching this game for a long time, and I grew up watching a hopeless team in Philadelphia. When I got to SoFla, this team was so good that we got used to winning- so much so that every year, the season was almost a foregone conclusion and was just a prelude to the playoffs. Hard to believe now, but that was the attitude of all of South Florida in those days. I'm not blind to the frustration of recent years, but in the grand scheme of things I believe that the Dolphins recent cycle of losing will return to the winning ways one of these days. I will say one thing, though- I knew that the cycle was on a downswing the day that Wayne Huizenga and some impatient and noisy fans forced-yes, forced- Don Shula out.
ChyrenB Wrote:
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> For me, it was when Ross obtained the team.
I don't see that. Nobody has a crystal ball to be able to see into the future what will happen when someone comes in, but its easy to see that when the winningest coach in NFL history is going out that things are probably going to get bad.
Our biggest issue is that we have been on a coaching carousel for 20 years...you show me a team that changes coaches and thereby schemes, rosters and front offices every few years and I will always show you a bad team.
You have to hire guys and give them a minimum of 5-6 seasons to fully realize thier vision, fans and what they want be damned.
We've changed one or more of those things far too often since Shula departed.
Ken Wrote:
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> You have to hire guys and give them a minimum of
> 5-6 seasons to fully realize thier vision, fans
> and what they want be damned.
>
I tend to agree with that Ken, but it becomes a chicken and egg thing. Fans, Owners and Players get impatient midway through year 2, then it goes south from there. Coach gets fired, entire staff turns over, and we start all over again. Nobody has the patience to let a regime 'develop' this team over that long of a time span.
Ken Wrote:
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> Our biggest issue is that we have been on a
> coaching carousel for 20 years...you show me a
> team that changes coaches and thereby schemes,
> rosters and front offices every few years and I
> will always show you a bad team.
>
> You have to hire guys and give them a minimum of
> 5-6 seasons to fully realize thier vision, fans
> and what they want be damned.
>
> We've changed one or more of those things far too
> often since Shula departed.
I agree that continuity is important, but it's also important to identify why you haven't been successful and then address the problem. I don't think keeping on a particular regime for the sake of continuity is a good idea if they keep making mistakes that make the team worse. I think that if Amendola and Wilson aren't an adequate replacement for Landry's production, that has to be viewed as a failure of Gase and Tannenbaum. If the run defense gets worse this year because the DT and linebacker positions regress even further from last year, that has to be addressed as a failure of this regime. At the end of the day, coaches and personnel people are judged by wins and losses. If the moves they make actually make the team worse, then waiting to pull the trigger on firing them only delays the inevitable. There's no doubt in my mind that the decisions made this off-season on free agency and the draft are not what many other NFL coaches and GMs would've made. We've lost a lot of star power with the moves that have been made. If the history of this team shows anything, it shows that finding players with the talent of the likes of Landry, Ajayi, Suh, Pouncey, isn't easy. Getting rid of them is fine as long as you have a plan to replace them that works. If you don't, then it makes sense to find someone who does.