If ross is going to make a move, he needs to decide on Ireland first. If he is retaining Ireland, who will have personell authority, then Ireland needs a say in the process. If he is blowing everybody out, then you need your President/GM first who would then ideally choose the coach, or atl east narrow down the options for the owner.
If we do a college coach, my choice would be Harbaugh. But Peterson is intriguing. My only drawback with Peterson is a West Coast guy, and that also means his family are West Coast people. There would a great culture shock for them, and if they aren't happy here......well we saw what all the b*tching about living down here from his wife and daughter did to Saban. He either had to leave or they were going to leave him.
I could certainly deal with Jim Harbaugh as my Head Coach. Absolutely. I think the world of him. Brian Schottenheimer should not be in this discussion.
I think there may be a few more variables when evaluating a coach, where as players it is usually pretty clear when they are not performing. Not to say that the buddy system is not being used.
I'm not ready to ditch Sparano. I think he got stuck with Dan Henning at Offensive Coordinator, thanks to Bill Parcells, and he's remained pretty loyal to Henning because of what he did in 2008, much like he remained loyal to Pennington because of what he did in 2008. But this seems to be Henning's M.O. is to operate a really keen offense right away in his first or second years with a team, and then for things to get stale and highly predictable until he's run out of town. I would like to see Tony Sparano get a better opportunity to hire his own coaches, much like he hired Dave DeGuglielmo as the offensive line coach.
Who would he hire though? He seems to be completely on board with the conservative, stay in the 15 round fight and win at the end mentality. I think he just wants a younger Dan Henning
Gonna be tough to sell that one at this point. Lee hasn't been quite the QB development wizard he was made out to be and his signature creation has been put in moth balls.
I don't know about the coach but I have concerns regarding the owner. As a long time season ticket holder. What I have observed regarding Ross is that he is more interested in bringing celebrities and other forms of entertainment to the stadium then he is in providing the fans with a quality football team. He seems to think that having celebrities as part owners of the team and music concerts before the game will bring more fans to the games. After over forty years as a fan of the Dolphins. The one thing I am sure of is that football fans could care less about anything other then putting a winning team on the field. It is time Ross takes more of a interest in what is happening on the field if he truly is interested in providing the best experience for the fans of the Dolphins. Providing the fans with a real championship quality team is all that is needed to keep the seats at the stadium filled on a weekly basis.
He's tried to do that. Since he became the owner he signed Marshall and Dansby to huge deals and has seemingly given Ireland/Parcells/sparano everything they need. Plus he's satyed out of the football side. Ross is being let down by the people running his team, not the other way around.
hey i'm against it myself but if henning is released we're replacing him with the same type of philosophy. we're not changing our style of ball. sparano comes from the parcells football philosophy of protecting the ball and eating up the clock. so if we want to change the offensive philosophy we will dismantle this team, start another five year project and hire a new GM and new coach becuase if we just make henning the scapegoat the offense will stay the same with whoever replaces him and it will probably be worse. maybe we'll hire jeff davidson from carolina lol after fox is fired
there is a rumor that ross demanded the front office cut the salaries of our backups to save money. probably wont know till parcells writes his next book though
Based on the backup offensive linemen on the team. You have to wonder about the Dolphins decision to cut veteran starters and replace them with young linemen who obviously are not ready to play in the NFL. Whether these moves were made by Ireland and Sparano or because of a demand from Ross that salaries be reduced. Whoever is responsible should be held accountable. Allowing Parcells and Ireland to sign Marshall and Dansby was nice. But paying bottom dollars for backups who can not be relied on when they are in the game is the reason the Dolphins are in the situation they are in now. If Ireland and Sparano are controlling the dollars spent and it is their fault. They should be fired. If Ross is the one demanding salaries be reduced on backups. He should sell the team and let someone who wants to bring a winner to miami buy the team.
I don't really think you can say Ross doesn't want to build a winner. It's been pointed out several times but he did agree to shelling out for Dansby and Marshell, he's stayed out of the football side, would you prefer Synder? While it's true you bring people in by winning I think trying to improve the fan experience is a good thing and what he should be sticking his nose into.
agreed on Brian. I think down the road he can be a good head coach, but I don't think he's completely ready.
I have been a season ticket holder for nearly 40 years. I can truly admit that all I ever care about is the product on the field. I could care less about the food in the stadium. I don't want singers and dancers. I never cared that the seats in the Orange Bowl were uncomfortable and it was hot. I go to the game to watch football. Plain and simple. If I want good food and entertainment. I'll go someone else. I remember in the early 1970's when the Dolphins went to the Super Bowl three straight years. Over 70,000 season tickets were sold yearly. Fans expected nothing but great football from the organization. They didn't care that the bathrooms were awful and the stadium was old. The Dolphins were a great team and that is all the fans cared about. If Ross really wants to improve the fans experience. Bring a winning team to Miami and see how happy the fans can really be. All this hype about improving the fan experience is nothing more then admitting that the product on the field is not good enough to fill the stadium each week.
While I'd like to agree with you, I can't. Actually Ross has seen higher attendances since his takeover. I am afraid that has confirmed his ideas that the "orange carpet celebrities" and z-grade act rock concerts actually have helped sellout and fill the stadium. I think he gets a wakeup call for the next homegame, which is Cleveland I think. If the stadium is half full I will be surprised.
No way, he comes as a HC or not at all. He has his college team in the top 10 and vying for a BCS game. No way he leaves that to become a 2nd fiddle here.
I would love to see Cowher as the next Dolphins coach, but I think that is unlikely. He lives in North Carolina and it looks like the Panthers will be looking for a new coach after this season. Unless Ross is willing to pay him far more then the Panthers . I just don't see Cowher coming to Miami. Jim Harbaugh might be a nice selection. Of course he has shown he can coach at the college level. But as we have seen all too often. College coaches don't always make it in the NFL. All I am sure of is that I would love to see the Dolphins bring in a new head coach that bringssome offensive productivity to this team. Between Wannstedt, Saban, and Sparano. I have have had enough of coaching to keep the game close and hoping to win it at the end of the game.
I am not sure about all the sellouts. While all the home games have been televised. I was at the game last night and I can assure you that there were thousands of seats occupied by air. It appears that many of the holders of tickets decided to stay home and watch the game on TV. Instead of coming to the stadium. This says more about the product on the field then anything else. I see the same number of empty seats at games today that I have seen for the last several years. Just because the games are shown on TV doesn't mean that all the seats are filled with bodies in the stadium. It should be noted that a regular season Miami Dolphins game has not been blacked out in years. In fact even when they went 1-15. All the home games were shown on local TV. So the fact that there have been no black out of games under the Ross ownership does not prove that his celebrities and concerts have increased attendance at all. I go to all the games. So I am very aware of the large number of no shows each game. I don't go to see celebrities or concerts. I go to see football. If the football product doesn't improve drastically soon. I will just stop buying season tickets and join all the fans who watch the games on TV and don't go to the stadium. If Ross thinks I will continue to buy season tickets for the concerts and celebrities and disregard the fact the football team is bad. He is sadly mistaken.
Actually I think Pennington would be an excellent coach. I just don't know he is quite ready yet to step from the field to a head coaching job. I would love to see the Dolphins hire him as the OC and perhaps in a few years. Elevate him to the head coaching job. He is extremely intelligent and as a former player; respected by those he has played with through the years. He seems to have all the qualifications needed to be a success. If he decides to go into coaching when he retires. We can only hope his coaching is performed in the Dolphins organization.
I would think that since he played professional QB that he might be a little different than the ones who played in college, failed in the pros, and began working their way through the college system.. He might know a little more about how pros behave.
Slim to none. He's tasted being a highly successful Head Coach. I think that's the route he's going to continue to take. He wants to lead, not be led.
Kirk Ferentz is always a guy whose name comes up because his Iowa teams are so fantastically well coached but he always seem to end up the bridesmaid and never the bride. I can't think of a tie he has to Ireland or Ross or even Peterson but he always makes my shortlist. Leslie Frazier is another guy on the permanent shortlist around the league but I don't want the Tampa 2 being installed here. We'd literally have to turn over 90% of the roster on defense. The name that scares me is Mike Nolan, though. I can just see them explaining how well he's turned around the defense and what happened in San Francisco wasn't his fault and he's determined not to let it happen again.
I think he would do well as the head coach. If he was given an opportunity, I think he would excel as head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Good post.
I'm posting kind of late in this thread. I think it's too soon to be talking about new head coaches. Personally, I don't think the head coach is the problem more than it is the coordinators. I've said it time and time again, Dan Henning is calling ****ty games. We have 2 all pro running backs and he keeps calling passing plays. We are making ourselves one dimensional and teams know this. If I had my way about it, Dan Henning would be fired immediately and my "dream choice" for offensive coordinator would be Mike Martz. He would know how to use the talent we have on offense to resurrect the "Greatest Show on Turf". Everyone screamed up and down and jumped for joy when we hired Mike Nolan as DC from Denver, heralding his defenses with the Broncos, but the problem with Nolan's defenses, they start of great out of the gate and quickly fizzle down the stretch. If his defenses were so great, then Denver would have been in the playoffs at SOME point during his tenure as DC. My "dream choice" for DC, Dick Lebeau or Rob Ryan. Now as for the head coach. Like I said, I tink it's too early to talk about replacing the head coach, but if we were, I would want Bill Cowher, hands down but only on the condition that he WANTED to be here. I wouldn't want another Nick Saban, someone we begged and pleaded with to become our head coach. In addition to having Bill Cowher, I'd want him to have the complete faith and confidence of the organization to do what he wanted, how he wanted and not have the organization interfere. Cowher was the longest tenured head coach in the NFL prior to his leaving the Steelers. He was established and he maintained continutity, which is why the Steelers were so successful. Now with that said, continutity is the key to success. Think for a moment of some of the more successful teams in the NFL and ask what they have in common? Continuity. Don Shula with the Dolphins Marv Levy with the Bills Joe Gibbs with the Redskins Cowher with the Steelers Belichek with the Patriots Tom Landry and the Cowboys Fischer and the Titans/Oilers These teams were perennial playoff teams and regular Super Bowl attendees. We NEED continutity. We can't keep changing coaches every 3-4 yars just because we don't have the instant success we're looking for. Remember, it took Cowher, how long before he got the Steelers to the Super Bowl?
Dick LeBeau is a Steeler till he dies, and Rob Ryan is Browns DC until someone hires him to be a head coach. Neither are remotely viable, or needed. The reason Nolan's D faded in Denver was age and also because the offense sputtered down the stretch and couldn't sustain plays. He was only there for one year btw. His Niners head coaching gig wasn't very good, but his early 00's Ravens Ds were brutal and helped lay the road for Marvin Lewis and Rex Ryan. We are fine with Nolan, just need the D to mature (they are overall quite young/inexperienced) and learn how to catch a goddamn interception. Dan Henning absolutely needs to be fired though, and frankly I am disappointed we didn't go all Bonamego on his *** this week. As I mentioned, I think Kubiak (if released by the Texans) would be an ideal candidate - a good offensive mind, aggressive and knows how to develop a QB (see Schaub, Matt). As for continuity, a lot of that comes with success. So far we peaked in year one and each subsequent one has been worse. Depending on the rest of the season I do still stand behind Tony for another year, but if we throw up more **** like this last week's dud then I have to question if he is capable of handling the job.
I'm all for Jon Gruden......just the kind of coach we need for a bunch of young players. Cowher would have a close second place. I personally think that Sparano is a good coach, just think he has held on to hope in Henning for far too long. Outside of that I wouldn't be too upset if we kept Sparano and got a different OC........but who???
At least an offensive coordinator change is due. I don't think Henne is capable of the Air Coryell's timing routes nor the WCO.
This isn’t true at all. You’re basically implying that a franchise has to choose between having glitter and glamor or having a high-quality football team. These are not mutually exclusive options. One does not automatically rule out the other. Ross does not interfere with football operations. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to field a winning football team. He’s trying to bring season ticket sales and attendance back up after a disastrous 1-15 season was followed by an economic recession. Can you really blame him for simultaneously getting a little bit of his money back through minority ownership sales while simultaneously bringing a little star power to the franchise? He should be commended for trying to get butts in seats without directly interfering with the football product. Please elaborate on the aspects of Ross’ football resume that has led you to believe he is better equipped to shape a championship contending roster than Jeff Ireland. Let me save you the trouble: he lacks any such qualification, just like every other owner in the NFL. (Jerry Jones and Al Davis would disagree with this assertion, and once upon a time Al Davis would have had legitimate standing, but right now those two are emblematic of owners who think they know more about football than their football staff.) Ross is contributing to the building of a championship by getting the hell out of the way. His concern is making sure there are butts in the seats during the journey. Judging by the population of Steelers and Bears fans in the stands for our recent home games, he has a lot of work to do.
