The Season is Over - What Now?

Our season isn't over because we're 0-4; it's over because everybody in the world, and more importantly everyone in the locker room, knows that Tony Sparano is officially a lame duck coach. Sparano will not be our coach next year - that is a certainty. The only question is when the axe falls.

The unfortunate thing for Sparano is that this season is not totally his fault IMO. Say what you will about Sparano - he's got plenty of faults and likely would not have made it past this year regardless of our owner's public flirtation with Harbaugh - but if you've watched the Dolphins the last three years under Sparano you know that this doesn't look like a Sparano coached team. This team has no focus, no drive, no hunger...I could go on and on, but the point is that the players, intentionally or not, are responding to the fact that their coach has been a lame duck since the offseason.

But really all that is unimportant now. The question is where do we go from here?

It's impossible to tell how bad the final W/L record will be this year, but regardless of where we finish I'm convinced that this team is not nearly as bad as their record will indicate.

The defense is much better than it has played. It may not be as good as we thought it would be in the offseason, but it's much better than we've seen thus far. There are simply too many good players for the defense to be this bad.

The offense has pieces. Marshall, Bess, Pouncey, Long, and maybe Thomas are guys that are valuable no matter who is calling the plays.

The point is that this isn't the kind of rebuilding project that we have unfortunately endured too many times over the past decade. This should be a team that can win fairly quickly if the right decisions are made. A lot will be riding on this offseason.

What move do you think NEEDS to be made? We all know Sparano is a goner, so no points for that. If you know who needs to replace him, though, that's worth telling. Or any other moves that will be integral to our success.

My key move:

* Fire Ireland - Ireland doesn't really deserve to be fired based on his personnel decisions alone. In fact, I think he's been solid in terms of acquiring personnel. Ireland needs to be fired because he contributed greatly to the terrible environment that exists this season. Whether he pushed Ross to go after Harbaugh or not, the fact that he was on that plane was poor judgment. Which means that this season is probably as much his fault as it is Sparano's. It also still bothers me that he asked Dez Bryant if his mother was a hooker. Maybe those incidents don't really matter, but to me it cements that fact that he's not the type of person that should be in charge of our roster.

If he was an outstanding GM, maybe you overlook everything else, but I think he's been nothing more than solid. We have some good players, but we also have some glaring weaknesses that are crippling our team. I think sometimes we forget that being a GM is about more than picking good players. It's also about deciding where to allocate the limited resources that are at your disposal. In other words, was Odrick the player that would help us most in last year's draft? Was Bush the missing piece on this team? I don't think so. A good player does not necessarily make a good acquisition, and I feel like that has been the glaring weakness in Ireland's tenure.

And finally, and probably most importantly, Ireland quite simply doesn't understand the importance of the QB position. I say that because even the biggest Henne supporters would confess he's not the long term answer for a contending team. Ireland knows this. But he does nothing. Not reaching for a player that's not worth the pick is sound strategy unless you happen to be a team that doesn't have a quarterback - in which case you do everything you can to find one. Five quarterbacks went in the first round last year (I think the number was five...), and nobody believes that there were 5 first round talents in the draft. But in today's NFL more than ever if you don't have a quarterback, you don't have a good team. So while Ireland worked to get our team from bad to mediocre, other GMs were taking chances to create a great team. By not taking a quarterback we assured ourselves that greatness is at least one more year away. And that is why Ireland needs to go.

That's my take. Anyone else feel passionate about something that needs to happen for us to turn things around?