I've actually addressed that. You really haven't. And show me this FACT, that we were turned down because we had a coach already. And before you go to the Cowher story, remember he didn't turn us down because of that. He said I won't talk to you while you have Sparano on payroll. We fired Sparano, and he talked to us. Point is, you have not a single piece of actual evidence or fact that anyone turned down a job because we had Sparano on payroll. None. Stands to reason, since you think that kind of thing doesn't happen anywhere, when it happens all the time. But hey, if you cared about facts, you wouldn't be arguing right now. There was also a bunch of buzz we were going to hire Fisher. Or the Colts were. Again, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha You want me to prove a negative. Tell me Sport, how do expect me to prove this? Its you who needs to prove it actually. Give me one FACT (I know, its a scary word for you), that a single coach, FA, FO position, turned us down because we are "embarrassing". It hasn't happened. Just because Jason Cole says we are an embarrassment doesn't mean its actually affected us in any tangible way. Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony. You realize you showed up to a gun fight with a stick, right?
I don't mind Ross so far he seems to be trying the only thing he did that really had me mad was the Tebow day I still don't understand how they let that happen
That's a fair criticism. I get having a Florida Gators day. But doing it when Tebow is there is a little weird. FTR, I don't think it hurt us in that game at all though.
Pay attention to the timeline. Cowher was basically willing to turn down the Dolphins job on the basis of how they handled it. By refusing to interview with a coach(Which is supposedly standard practice!), he basically took himself out of the running that year. This year they didn't even get beyond him telling them they had no interest... Which he could have done originally if it were true. Why would he say he wasn't going to talk to them with no head coach and string them along thinking he could be interested if they fired Sparano if he wasn't? "Sport"? By no means is the first time I've seen someone use condescension in place of an actual point but "Sport"? Really? Do you really think trying to patronize someone in a mildly hostile fashion is best communicated by acting like a father from a 50's television show? I don't know how you're going to really argue your point, because you don't have one. You could try to advance your point somehow by putting together a tangible reason why my support is invalid, but that would probably be punching a little bit above your weight class so to speak. Again, they've showed up on the screen at games two or three times live to general apathy within the stadium. What exactly is their draw supposed to be or demonstrable with?
I have brought up the timeline. So you're basically saying the only reason Cowher isn't our coach is because we approached him while we still had Sparano? That's completely ignoring every fact out there. Cowher isn't coaching for anyone. Either you're right and every other team that needed a coach approached him the same way as Miami did or you're wrong. Now if you get past your emotion, you'll see you're wrong. Not that I'm holding my breath. Oh yeah, as I pointed out in the OP, Jerome Bettis says Cowher wants to coach the Giants. Please tell me why you know Cowher's intentions better than Bettis does. This ought to be good. It is impossible to prove a negative. That's why I'm talking down to you, because you don't even understand basic logic. The only thing I need to say is that what you said happened, never happened. I cannot prove something that never happened. Do you understand? Probably not. Tell you what, why don't you prove it did happen? We'll wait. I already explained what the draw is and how it works. Your lack of understanding of basic marketing principles is not my, Ross' or anyone else's responsibility. Do you understand nuclear physics? I bet you'd probably tell nuclear physicists they were wrong for doing things you don't understand. Or fine, come at it from the other direction....how exactly did it hurt us? Back it up with facts.
Steven Ross is not a bad owner. He seems to legitimately care about the franchise and winning but that doesn't mean he hasn't screwed up. That doesn't mean no fans have a right to be irritated with some of the things he's done. The minority owner thing is silly, let's be honest here. I get what he's thinking but it's silly. There weren't hispanics in south Florida in the 70s and 80s? I don't think there were any game attendance issues then. I always thought it was smart watching the Augusta Green Jackets class A baseball team [owned by Cal Ripken Jr. fun fact] lure people to the ballpark by offering one dollar beer on Thursdays. Half of the people there couldn't tell home plate from the pitcher's mound but that was OK. They bought a ticket and most importantly, it's a small minor league event. When I see a professional sports team I expect the fans to be in their stadium/arena because they are passionate about the game and about their team. I wouldn't want to see that a third of the 'fans' at a Dolphins game are actually just there to catch a glimpse of Jennifer Lopez or go to a dance club. That's just me. Twenty minutes down the road from me lies M&T Bank Stadium. They sell out every home game with ease. No celebrities, no dance clubs, just football. I know that Steven Ross and everybody else knows the reason for that. I know that Steven Ross' priority is building a team that competes like that. But in the meantime did all of this other silly stuff really help with attendance that much? Wasn't he still giving away tickets for free every weekend? For the record I was extremely irritated that he didn't fire Sparano last offseason. I don't see how we can let him off the hook. To his credit he did a much better job this offseason but still. Yes he was a rookie owner but come on - he's never seen NFL teams fire and replace coaches before? Ever in all his years? He wasted a season by retaining Sparano because everybody outside of the biggest homers could see that 2011 was not going to be a good season for the Dolphins. I'll mostly leave the Tebow thing alone. I personally didn't care but it clearly pissed off a lot of people in south Florida.
Irritated I get. But, there's this under current of hate I've seen. Like Ross is going to drive the franchise into the ground. Nothing he's done is that bad, I guess is the point I've been trying to make. The minority owner is not silly though. It makes lots of sense actually and will pay dividends in the future.
No, nowhere in there did I suggest it was the only reason. It's why we got shut down, cold and immediately however. The initial indication is that he would be willing to talk to us had we not gone about it in such a bush league fashion. The second time around we didn't get that much. You're talking down to me because you don't have a point and are making it transparently obvious. It's not impossible to come up with supporting evidence for your point. In fact, it would be transparently obvious if there was any. We wouldn't be having this conversation, and you wouldn't feel the need to come up for excuses for everything Ross has done. There wouldn't be all these articles suggesting how embarrassing and unprofessional Ross has been at several points during his ownership here. Do I need to link reaction to the Harbaugh thing? To our minority ownership stuff? To the way the search this off-season was handled? You didn't explain how it worked. You claimed to have had some dubious authority and then said that it's quite possible it would work without any evidence. Given attendance, a general lack of interest, and the tepid reaction those individuals get at games, it's pretty clear it isn't. It's not something that has tangibly hurt the team, but it is embarrassing. Do I need to explain how TMZ style D-list celebrity gawking is incongruous with a football game? Or how there might be more fruitful avenues to pursue with those same resources?
Here's the thing, Ross is the owner of the Fins and as such is responsible for the organization. This is fact. 1) The team has not been successful on the field since he took over as owner. 2) He undermined the ability for Sparano to be successful by shopping for Harbaugh, publicly, and missing. 3) He had to 'make it up' to Sparano with a contract extension and additional personnel power. That affects us in that we now have to pay more for tickets than we would have had he not missed on Harbaugh and had to pay out an additional year of salary to Sparano. Likely tho, he will only have to pay the difference between what the jests are paying him and what his salary would have been here, so it could be worse. 4) He meddled in the personnel acquisition by nixing the Orton deal in August. I will also add, this was a good thing, imho, and the right thing for him to do, not strapping the organization to a mediocre QB and perhaps not even an upgrade to Henne. The fact is, he meddled... 5) FA this year, both Irish and Ross get a bye on given the shortened period and the CBA issues leading up to it... 6) After an 0-7 start, he doesn't fire Sparano. 7) After a resurgence of the team gets us to 4-9, Sparano is finally fired. The team is on an upswing, things are coming together and then he decides that he's had enough of Sparano. Had he fired Tony at 0-7, we might still have been in the S4L contest, who knows...but he lets Tony hang around long enough for some to question whether he should have been fired at all ?? 8) He again meddles and nixes a potential acquisition of Carson Palmer. It may or may not have been a good move, but it's meddling in something he shouldn't have in the first place. JJ may have put himself as the GM in Dallas and his results are questionable as to whether it's a right move or not, but no owner should be messing with the football side of the teams...Ross may very well be a great businessman, certainly he's earned enough money to make that claim, but he really doesn't know about football like he knows about the real estate world... 10) He makes overtures that he want's a splashy hire to replace Tony to get the organization back on track. It's reported he said he wanted a name brand guy. It's assumed that overtures were also made to Gruden and Cowher, as the bigger name brand guys who, for whatever reasons, rebuffed us. Fisher is the only other guy who fits that bill. He courts Fisher, knowing that he would not give him personnel power and also knowing that Fisher wanted a degree of personnel power in the hierarchy. He knew this all along, but let the Fisher thing play out, dragging the organization thru the muddy waters of the media. Fisher chooses the Rams/is passed over by Ross (whichever report you want to believe), but the bottom line is he didn't get the 'name brand' guy he led fans to believe he'd hire. The one thing that Fisher represented while perhaps not the best of candidates, was his known ability to build a foundation for this team to be successful on, moreso than any other guy that was available. Philbin may be that guy, but he's not a proven commodity at this point... 11) One of the first things he does as owner is complain to the league about the scheduling of games in Sept and Oct at JRS. He claims that fans don't come out to the games because of the heat. The reality still is that fans don't come to the games because the product on the field is not good. We lose one type of 'home field' advantage due to the change in league scheduling. He spends money on upgrading the stadium experience for fans. That may also help get the SB back in our venue as well. He adds several celebrity minority owners, again thinking that this might get more butts in the stadium. Unless they can get Fergie and JLo to sit in my lap, if the product on the field isn't very good, I'm not coming... He somehow still seems to think that these things make a difference in getting folks to the game. Put a better product on the field and 'they will come'...to coin a phrase...(said in my best James Earl Jones voice). 12) He fires Sparano, and Quicells is long gone now, but decides to leave Ireland on. I have mixed emotions about whether this is right or not. While you can say that Irish has done well out from under Quitcells, it's really early to tell that and some of these guys may not fit in our new schemes. He has certainly improved the talent level on this team since he's been here (some would argue that wasn't hard to do). But he has failed in several attempts to get a talented enough QB to right this ship. He has failed in getting the right OL in here, even tho he's made some good choices individually. He has not improved the TE situation since acquiring Fasano. While that in itself was not a bad move, we certainly need a 2nd TE or an upgrade to Fasano to get to the next level of play. He has failed to get another pass rusher opposite Wake. JT didn't work. He has not gotten a S to replace Bell in the lineup nor has he found a FS. He has failed to get any outside speed at the WR spot to complement Marshall and Bess' talents. He has done some very good things. We have some very solid players on this team. But not quite enough. Was this worth keeping him on and not sweeping the whole group out ?? I guess we don't know yet. One thing good Ross has done is put the bulls eye squarely on Ireland's back now, so we'll know soon enough... Now does any/all of this give reason for 'hate' ?? I don't know. I can't say I hate on him, but as a fan, I have the right to question his moves in regards to the organization....he's made enough disputable moves and decisions for any of us to question whether they have help or hurt the organization.... EDIT: BTW, Mr Ross, call me about the JLo and Fergie thing...we can work something out.......hehehe
Yes you did and still are. You are basically saying Cowher or Harbaugh aren't our coach because Ross approached them without firing Sparano. If that's not what you're saying then you have no argument. This isn't rocket science. No. Seriously, you need to learn some stuff. You cannot prove a negative. That is fact. You say, our franchise is embarrassing and that embarrassment has cost us signings. I said that's not true. There is no way for me to prove that, there is no evidence I can provide. Not because there's no validity to what I'm saying, but because there is no such thing as evidence that can prove a negative. You however, can prove your statement, by producing evidence. But you can't because there isn't any. And not because you can't prove what you're saying, you could if it were true, but it isn't. By all means, link away. Show me on these links were someone told us to piss off because we are, as you've said, an embarrassment. This ought to be good. I did explain it. Again, your inability to comprehend marketing isn't my responsibility. You've already proven your point is unfounded and bias anyway, by claiming all we've gotten out of it was Gloria Estafan who isn't relevant, while completely ignoring Jennfier lopez & Marc Anthony who are relevant and became owners after Gloria. Not only that, but you keep ignoring that many giant companies use celebrities. If they thought like you they wouldn't. So who is right, Nike or you?
It shut the door on negotiations. Would negotiations have gone much further? I've got no idea, but it pretty clearly shut them down. I'm not asking you to prove anything. I'm asking you to come up with something approaching reasonable doubt. This should not be a hard task if you had an argument. That's not what I said. Try again. I'm really doubting that you're in marketing in any capacity of importance whatsoever. An ad campaign is different from what the Dolphins are doing. There is virtually no exposure whatsoever beyond the initial announcements. I've gone to every game but one since this occurred, and there's been what, all of one official appearance as one of them singing the national anthem, with one or two momentary shots on the big screens a season. Have you seen any exposure outside the stadium, not just in hispanic markets? No. There isn't any. When it gets discussed, it's largely mockingly. And rightfully so.
The celebrity and nightclub stuff doesn't bother me. But I'm not sure how anyone could argue that Ross didn't undercut Sparano's authority. That was a pretty egregious error and I believe Ross has said so himself.
It's a little bit different if you go to the games and are sitting right below them. I'm bothered that I'm paying to go to games and they're importing obvious ringers like three years into having the club. It's constant, it's irritating, and it's frequently inappropriate. They were playing some awful dubstep song through the Jim Mandich honor roll thing. They've played music over virtually every single on the field event the last few years, from Don Shula to Jason Taylor speaking. Maybe it's not a nuisance for the entire stadium but it's really noticeable and really stupid in the west endzone.
I do have an idea. They wouldn't. All the evidence that exists, points to him not coaching us. #1 we have actually talked to him, and he said no. #2 He has said no to everyone else. #3 Jerome Bettis is on record saying he wants to coach the Giants or no one else. That is 3 pieces of evidence that point towards the fact you are wrong. You keep ignoring those. You have nothing, literally nothing. Do you actually understand what you type? You say that "embarrassment" of the franchise is costing us coaches or free agents and I say no it hasn't. The only thing I need to bring up for reasonable doubt is the fact that hasn't actually happened and there's been no evidence of it. Think about it..where exactly would I find a link to something that hasn't happened? Do you understand? The real question is, why haven't you proven your stance yet. Where are these links? Where is this evidence? C'mon, back up your bs for the first time on these boards with one single piece of evidence. You keep threatening it, then nut up and do it. Yes it is. Wait, so let me get this straight, a man who has dealt with marketing his whole professional life (successfully), takes marketing advice from Mike Dee who has successfully worked in sports marketing in the New England area, use celebrities to endorse their product like many other major companies from Nike to Gatorade to Apple to Microsoft, except they found away to get the celebrities to pay them to do it.....and Ross is an idiot? Wow. So, you call me out, provide not one stitch of evidence or rational argument then call me a liar by saying I don't do what I do for living? Pathetic.
No doubt about that. But is it really that big a deal? I don't think so. Especially if Ross recognizes it was a dumb thing to do. Does anyone really think Sparano would of done that much better of a job if Ross didn't do that? Really doubt it. As long as Ross has learned from that rookie mistake then I don't see any reason to be negative about our future.
No it doesn't. The thread is called, "Why the hate for Stephen Ross" not why the questions or why the mistrust or why the skepticism. I acknowledged that if it was a mistake is was only a mistake in the football/sports world made by someone making their first of those type of decisions in the sports world. He admitted it wasn't the right call and learned from it. Why hate the guy for it?
Its about as egregious a thing as any owner could do to his/her team. Whether that warrants "hate" or resettlement or mistrust is really a matter of semantics and ones personal attachment toward the team in general.
Really? Worse than moving the team in the middle of the night? Having Wanny be your coach and GM for all those years? Anything Al Davis did for the past 10 years? Firing JJ after him building a dynasty? All of that is worse than Ross trying to upgrade Sparano without firing him first?
It's pretty well established he originally said he wasn't going to talk to us with a head coach in place, and then when we asked again later we had no interest. Read between the lines. Why bring up the caveat about not with a coach under contract if you aren't actually interested in the job? Claiming you aren't actually interested in the job cuts out the middle man. And even then, the fact that we've got a guy we're trying to hire telling us no, you've got a guy under contract regardless of his other reasoning or if he was interested in the job should tell you how unacceptable it is. And listening to Jerome Bettis is stupid when he turned around and said that he thought that Cowher would coach the Eagles. He doesn't know anything, either. Yes, I do, but you clearly do not. I didn't say that the embarrassment has costed us coaches or free agents, because I don't know that it has. It certainly could have, and could in the future. You're having a hard enough time coming up for arguments on stuff I've said, you shouldn't be inventing other things to argue. And that's the point. If there was no issue, it wouldn't have been brought up in a myriad of articles and be discussed as commonly as it is. It isn't something spontaneously generated, people didn't come up with smear campaigns out of boredom. This is legitimately an issue because it's stupid and embarassing. Again, please focus on the argument I'm making and quit inventing ones for me. This isn't difficult. Copy and paste it, by all means. There's plenty of links that the way the Dolphins have handled their coaching searches have been embarrassing and controversial. You don't want that, you want me to post links I didn't claim to have. Yes. They are doing a bad job. Actual asses in seats attendance is as bad as I've seen it since 2007, and I've been going for a decade and a half. If you've got evidence they're attracting new people in the face of empty seats, I'd love to see it. I didn't say you didn't do what you claimed for a living. This is like the 5th time now I've had to correct you because you're misrepresenting what I'm saying to me. Do you realize how ridiculous that is? I'm not asking you to understand a tremendous amount of nuance here. I'm claiming you're probably not in any position of relevance if you think what the Dolphins have done is successful or meaningful in any way.
Because there is a lot riding on it and there's really no reason for him to have made some of the mistakes he has. He should have a pretty thorough understanding of what is and isn't acceptable business practices in the NFL...before he's even submitted his bid to ownership for vote.
Pay attention here, you said: You've claimed you haven't said that. You wanted me to copy and paste it. There it is. Read that again. You are basically saying, I don't care if it hasn't happened and that there is no evidence it happened, it could have happened. Therefor,e I disgustipate, am right. There real mystery here is why I've let myself get into this debate with someone who thinks like this.
Yes, and if you don't understand the difference between that and claiming it has happened for sure, then I'm not entirely sure what else I can do that doesn't involve hand puppets. It's not at all the same thing.
I've got a bunch of articles talking about how Jeff Fisher is a lock for Miami. I've got a bunch of articles talking about how Carl Peterson was going to take over as the head of football operations. I've got a bunch of articles talking about how the front office was divided over the coaching hire. I've got a bunch of articles that Philbin was only hired so that Jeff Ireland could have a yes man and call all the shots in the organization. I've got a bunch of articles talking about how Philbin was hired on the condition that he keep Bowles on as DC. And you know what? All those garbage articles came out in the past month. And they were mostly written by the same two *** hats you're trying to hold up as gospel. A few members of the South Florida media hate the Dolphins and have been printing garbage articles for a very long time. Notably Cole and Mando. And over the past couple of years they've been working really hard to get gullible fans to buy into this conspiracy theory that they've propagating. I guess they fooled you. As for the rest of your argument, Fin D has already dissected it perfectly.
We've been through two offseasons, hired a new coaching staff and have signed free agents all since he tried to upgrade the coaching position with Cowher or Harbaugh. The biggest name available coach was willing to come here....and this "embarrassment" stuff hasn't stopped any of it. It has not held us back yet, but you contend it might in the future as we get farther away from when it happened...and you base this on.....literally nothing other than a feeling you get. And, another owner did the same thing and was still able to hire a coach. How do you expect that to be taken seriously? Why would you even argue through all these pages on such flimsy and unfounded crap?
You're mistaking ignorance and ineptitude for malice. There's no grand conspiracy here, and the stuff written about Ross is by no means in any sense limited to Jason Cole or Armando Salguero. He's certainly dissected my argument, but I'm not sure he could expected to guess which end is which on three of four tries.
Once again, you do not fundamentally understand what my argument is. We're not going to know the exact reasons behind a lot of this stuff, and we've been turned down a greater extent than normal in both free agency and by coaching prospects as of late. It's not new, either. Signing Karlos Dansby and getting our third choice(for good or ill, I'm not knocking Philbin) as a coaching prospect over two years does not in any sense negate a problem that has been stemming back since we tried to find a defensive coordinator to replace Paul Pasqualoni. Even if I graciously step over your tortured attempts at an argument and play along and say it's not been an issue thus far, we're not even getting in to it being a continued problem.
No of course not, he insinuated that he won the argument and was condescending before I was. That certainly means he won it. Care to actually address any points?
I had decided not to reply, due to the replies and pm's I got over how its pointless to keep trying with you, but dammit I cannot let the crap and frankly lies you're spewing go without being challenged and summarily destroyed. You don't know what you're argument is. I have quoted it for you, and you still don't know what you're saying. So enough is enough. Provide a link of any evidence whatsoever (not from Jason Cole since I proved his bias 70 posts ago.) Show me one single FA or coach that didn't come here because of Ross is an embarrassment. Do it now or stop talking. Be a man.
But can't you see that you're fundamentally wrong about this in every way? A) We took the offer off the table to Harbaugh. And even if that's not true/you don't believe that, he wasn't leaving the bay area once San Fran came calling anyway. He was very clear about his desire to stay there. So, no, he didn't turn us down because Sparano was still on staff. B) Cowher may not have wanted to talk to us while we had Sparano on staff simply out of respect to Sparano. It didn't mean he was going to take the job if Sparano wasn't on the team. In fact, this off-season we didn't have Sparano and he said he wasn't interested. And apparently he wasn't interested in any of the other coaching vacancies. So if he turned us down because we're an "embarrassment" (and not because he didn't want to coach in the NFL right now) then by your logic of assuming unproven things as fact that means he didn't go to any other team because they are an "embarrassment." C) Jeff Fisher didn't come here, not because we are an "embarrassment" but because he wanted a say in picking his GM and an equal share in the talent acquisition process. What about that says he turned us down because we are an "embarrassment?" The truly embarrassing thing is giving a guy who's had 6 winning seasons in 17 years free reign of your organization. I don't mind if you don't like Ross or Ireland or the entire Dolphins team for that matter. I do mind if the reason why is a lie.
Once again, you're asking for something that I didn't claim was true. Call that "summarily destroyed" if you want, but my point really shouldn't be an object of any sort of confusion to you or anyone else.
I didn't at any point say that he did. Go read what I said. Regardless of why Harbaugh turned us down, interviewing him with Sparano on the payroll was ridiculous. That's not explaining why he didn't turn down the job or a chance to talk originally. There's a big difference between saying no outright, and saying that he wouldn't talk with a coach under contract. That would be leading the team on. Not to mention that after we got rebuffed for contacting Cowher with a coach under contract, we reportedly did it again this off-season. I didn't say anything about Jeff Fisher not taking the job here. Again, you and what's his face have absolutely knocked the **** out of straw men here.
I've really got no obligation to prove anything that I didn't claim was true. Playing games about it really doesn't change anything.
