Not Pretty

It would be easy to sit here and take the wagon train that each week finds more and more people climbing on.  Even after yesterdays glaring example of a team that will in all likelihood finish the year winless, I still will not allow myself to sit here and place the blame on Cam Cameron entirely.  Yesterday was a very bad game, but it is the Miami Dolphins themselves are not pretty these days.

When you enter the game missing 3 additional starters to an already depleated team, Marty Booker, Matt Roth, Channing Crowder, you rarely stand a chance to win, let alone stay competitive.

Cam Cameron yanked John Beck early in the game after he dropped the ball on a pass attempt and was intercepted for a touchdown.  Beck had been harrassed most of the game.  The oline protection was not the best and the fact that the running back couldn’t help out made it worse.  Cleo Lemon came in and took Miami to it’s first points in almost 4 weeks.  Yet even Lemon made critical errors and turned the ball over.  It was an ugly day that was made worse by the fact that it was against the Bills.  You would think, that members of this team would have learned from last weeks Jets game.  They didn’t.

This team,  they quit.  They quit a long time ago, and they have no drive to win.  Should I sit here and blame the coaches here for veterans who not only have no faith as though Cam Cameron is miraculously going to pull victory out of his rear, no, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.

This team no longer has the makeup to win a game.  Starting rookie after rookie and then when a rookie isn’t available, they start the free agent signing of the week.  How do you build a team with that chemistry?  How do you find a way to win?  You don’t.

There has been grumblings going on for weeks now of players pointing at each other, players saying the “I won’t say who it is, but some are here for reasons other than winning a game.”

A few weeks ago, prior to the Pittsburgh game, I was informed by the writer over at “Nice Pick Cowher” that Joey Porter said on one of his friends Steelers radio shows that the “only day players look forward to here are Tuesdays.  It’s our day off and we get paid”.  That is the kind of attitude that rips the fabric of a team in half.

There are many messages being sent throughout the training center and to the team by a variety of players, however it is the message of “it’s o.k. to quit”, that is being heard by the teams youth, that carries the probability of incurring damage.  It goes back to winning attitude and this team not only does not have it, but for the most part, it’s core of 2 to 4 year veterans have never really experienced on the NFL level.  That is something else that Cameron has to endure.

Yet fear not all you “Fire Cameron” fans, the hot rumor du’jour out of ProFootballTalk is that Cameron is almost assuredly gone, perhaps before the season is over.  There is talk of desention in the lockerooms and team meetings with players cursing at the head coach.  That should be enough to convince Wayne Huizenga that the coach and not the prima-donna player should go.

The underlying problem here is losing, something that this team has been doing for all of one season in 4.  Yes, one game would be nice, but seeing a program that has been severely needing an overhaul finally grow enough to turn the whole program around would be better.  This is not about continuity.  This is about reality.  This team is a losing team.  From Jason Taylor to Zach Thomas, to John Beck and Ted Ginn.  Actually, if you add up the wins for Beck and Ginn over the last 3 years and compare them to the previous two, hell the rookies should know how to win more.

Cameron will now likely see his coaching career end in Miami any week now.  It will be yet another mistake in a long line of mistakes.  Wayne Huizenga will go through the “coaching” search, he will talk with Bill Cowher, Bill Parcells, maybe even Marty Schottenheimer.  He will fly out to California or maybe Central America and try and lure USC head coach Pete Carroll.  Maybe he wins and brings in yet another top name in the business.  Then, like most said this year, we will wait.  We will wait one year, maybe two and maybe even three to see this franchise compete for a playoff spot.  Maybe they don’t.

The first thing that needs to happens, is this team needs to focus on the now.  This head coach.  No, the veterans are not buying into the Cameron system.  A system that Jason Taylor says preaches above all else…”Team”.  Yeah, why would any self respecting football player not buy into that?  And to think, when it really comes down to it, Cam Cameron will not lose his job because the Dolphins have failed to win a game, he will lose it because his “Team” couldn’t act like one.