Miami Dolphins: The Mess in Miami, what’s wrong in South Beach

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There might not be a team that had more hype than the Miami Dolphins going into this year and yet here they sit, 1-3 with a fired head coach. His replacement, TE coach Dan Campbell, was drafted a year AFTER QB’s Matt Hasselbeck and Peyton Manning, who will start this week for their respected teams. What brought Miami back into the foray of a rebuilding team with a new coach yet again? What has caused their inability to find stability in a franchise that was considered one of the best in the first part of the Super Bowl era? It all starts at the top, but here are five instances that show why they are still years away from contending:

Lack of consistency in regards to coaching. There might not be a more prima donna owner than Stephen Ross, who is too involved and has made awful hires for his head coaches (Joe Philbin, Tony Sporano, Cam Cameron, and Dave Wannstedt) and GM’s (Jeff Ireland, Nick Saban (who was both HC and GM). By constantly going through unreliable, unestablished coordinators as their coaches and then forcing Saban back to the college ranks is why this team has not gotten ahead.

Poor decisions regarding drafting and free agency. The biggest blunder, of course, is trading for an injured Dante Culpepper instead of signing Drew Brees. The trades for AJ Feely and Brandon Marshall also backfired. Drafting Jake Long over Matt Ryan, and the first round busts of CB Jason Allen, Dion Jordan and WR Ted Ginn. Also, giving up on CB Vontae Davis, who is now one of the best CB’s in the league, is something that still haunts them. Also, paying DT Ndamukong Suh $100 million and WR Mike Wallace a lot of money for less than desirable results. All awful decisions.

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The development of Ryan Tannehill has been troubling. He is someone that got paid a lot of money for not really doing much after having a good 2014 (albeit statistically). He looks to have regressed (his completion percentage went from 66% last year to 56% so far this year)and now with recent reports of berating practice squad players for intercepting him shows that he has a long way to go when it comes to be a leader.

So, bad leadership from the Top down to the Quarterback shows that Miami is an organization that has a lot of deep seeded issues. All of these factoids show that they are a team is trending down and due to consistent mistakes in every facet of the organization. If they are to fix the issue, they need to a complete overhaul and try to build a team with a coach/GM that have the same mindset and an owner that will stay out of their way. Kraft learned this in New England in regards to Bill Parcells and due to Stephen Ross’ arrogance, I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

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