Commentary: Pre-season Dolphins forecast proves to be dead wrong The list of things I don't know would require several trucks of expensive newsprint in the telling, so we'll focus today on what your friendly neighborhood sports columnist has gotten dead wrong so far on the 2008 Miami Dolphins. Mind you, this too is a condensed version, edited to its skeletal essence. 1. My training-camp prediction of a 6-10 season is mathematically kaput and there's still a month left in the season. Thinking back, there was a fair amount of anxiety, too, with picking such an optimistic number.
Well this season was a real unknown for everyone. There plenty of discussion on so many topics prior to preseason and there were just as many opinions on how each would play out. I remember a poll where we predicted our season record. The predictions were all up and down the poll. I don't remember what finally won our for our final record, but I picked 11-5 (I think) which was way overly optimistic (which I tend to be). So at least I'm still mathmatically in it!
When he says at the end he doesn't mind being wrong, that tells me he's a bit of a closet fan, or enjoys watching the team he covers win, even if he isn't a fan. Some other writers in So Fla should take note!
i also predicted 6-10 in the preseason and thought i would be happy with that. also predicted pennington would be nothing special. really happy to be wrong on both fronts.
I sure am glad he was wrong on all counts because if he had picked them right we would be having another miserable year. If the Dolphins go deep into the playoffs it will leave a lot of sports media types scratching their heads.
In my opinion, we don't even have to "go deep" -- we just have a winning season and the media should all be scratching (and eating their hats).
Yep, your right. Especially all of the media persons who wrote off the Dolphins and considered them irrelevant.
If before the season you said we would go 6-10 I would have been reasonably satisfied with that. Not thrilled or anything, but reasonably pleased after the catastrophe last year.
Not just the media. I'd estimate the majority of posters here didn't predict anything close to even 8-8.
Like him, I am very happy to have been wrong on my preseason predictions. What this team has done is damn near miraculous. They aren't perfect, and I still don't like Henning's constantly resorting to an increasingly ineffectual Wildcat, or the poor performance of some of our DBs, but those are criticisms I make from the standpoint of a fan wanting our team to go far into the playoffs...from a separate, long-view perspective of a fan of a team that very nearly went winless last year, I am thrilled with what they've done. It's amazing what a competent front office, a good coach and a heady QB can do for a team.
These 3 areas you highlighted are the exact reasons to a tee why the franchise degraded into a complete disaster the last decade. I am a firm believer now that a teams Front Office is the absolute most important thing there is. Get a good GM/Personnel staff and you can turn any team around. That one competent piece will bring you a competent coach, talented QB and all the other pieces you need, which they have. Ignore the importance of that and give complete power of Personell to any coach hot off the bus and you've got the makings for disaster. This franchise is a glaring example of it. You are so right mentioning what you did because this FO staff is the single biggest reason we are where we are right now.
And it wasn't as if most people didn't realize it at the time either...how many times did we say "WHO?" when we heard the Fins' first round draft pick in the last ten years?
