And Losers lose. I'm more and more convinced there is a huge mental component to winning. For the last decade the moments when games have been decided have almost always resulted in the other teams making plays and the Dolphins not making plays. Only exception was '08 when Pennington, and surprisingly Joey Porter made plays in the 4th quarter to win games. Not a coincidence we won a bunch of close games and went 11-5.
They have changed the culture in that locker room. They believe they can win. They have all bought into what their coaching staff is telling them, and they have that mental edge at this point. Will it last? I don't know if they have enough talent to make it last in the long haul, but right now, they are a very well coached team that believes in themselves.
I get what the OP is saying. There is a huge component, when it comes to crunch time, that the opponent can, but our guys just can't. They drop balls, they get called for penalties, they can't move the pile, they can't hook up with each other. The kind of "can't" that you see when kids who are just not athletic try to play a game. So what is wrong? Did these people who excelled at football in high school and college all of a sudden become mentally and mobility challenged? Clearly not. The disaster is structural. It pervades the thinking and the morale of everyone involved. It begins with our choosing the wrong personnel, acting as though either we are the only ones who know something when everyone else thinks the opposite, or thinking that common sense and conventional wisdom don't apply to us. Like leaving the tight end and secondary unaddressed when everyone knew there were gaping holes there, even though we had cap room, and instead signing an aging situational back and assigning him a role he has never been able to play in his whole career. Like bringing in the coordinator of a losing franchise to be our offensive guru. in general, doing things, starting with the owner last offseason, that the entire world but our front office and coaching staff can see are boneheaded, but doing them anyway, and then announcing to the world that we have no answers. It's as though even common sense has been suspended. How can a player give his best in an environment like that? Welcome, fellow Fin fans, to perennial doormat status; to passing through the ridiculous to becoming objects of pity. Parcells saw how monumental a ratscrew he had orchestrated and bailed out like a rat deserting what is clearly a sinking ship. Someone has to be held accountable, the house has to be cleaned out and fumigated, and we have to start from scratch.
Gailey said when he took over the Bills, "I don't hope to win. I expect to win." and this week, "We don't have a chance to win. They have a chance to win." That culture is important and if the team doesn't believe they will win then it is difficult to actually do it.
Yeah, this blind belief in their own superiority in making draft choices I believe was first expressed by DaFins on this message board over a year ago. The Power lifting regimen they installed at workouts in order to make them more powerful, Ultimately failed them and led to those injuries on the O-line years ago. Not tackling in practice has definitely proven to be a double edged sword, as well. However, the winners win theory I believe is a circular argument that is impractical. It's a violent sport and you just can't be certain of the outcome. I remember back in the '90's, a younger Bill Parcells intimated a story when he was a rookie head coach with the Giants. He went out to talk with then Minnesota Head Coach Bud Grant. He said Bud told him that to be an NFL head coach was like being a fighter pilot flying one mission per season. That's just the success rate you're looking at as a head coach.
And not a coincidence we got to play the easiest schedule we could including against the NFC West and having 4 West Coast teams travel to Miami in which Miami barely won the games. Penny was not so good the next season before he went down with an injury...schedule, schedule, schedule!!!
