A Dave Wannstedt Picture You Need to See

With our beloved Dolphins going through the “rebuilding” mode and trying to get back on track, I find myself thinking a lot about Dave Wannstedt these days. Not because I miss Dave, but because I blame this mess almost entirely on him.

Some people will look at Wannstedt’s record at Miami and they’ll think he did a good job. And I admit, on the surface it actually looks decent. 11-5, 11-5, 9-7, 10-6, 1-8 to go along with 2 play-off appearances and 1 division title might mislead some, but we know better. We know how horrible Wannstedt was during his tenure.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail because it will make my mood worse, but I’ll just note some of his lower moments.

• Wasting valuable draft picks by giving up a 2nd rounder for A.J. Feeley, a third string quarterback and hastily giving up a 3rd rounder for Lamar Gordon, a guy that played a whopping 3 games for us.

• Drafting horribly and wasting the picks that we actually had. In 2001 they pick Jamar Fletcher in the first round while the likes of Reggie Wayne, Drew Brees and Chad Johnson were still on the board. He did pick Chris Chambers in round two, but Chambers never fully reached his potential by the looks of it and was traded yesterday.

• Other notable draft whiffs include picking Eddie Moore in the 2nd round in 2003, while Anquan Boldin was still there.

• The annual late season collapses. The best example being 2002 when Miami was 9-5 and primed for a play-off spot only to lose to Minnesota and give up an 11-point 4th quarter lead against New England. They finished the season 9-7 and missed the play-offs.

• The 2003 season which had an inexcusable opening day loss at home against Houston. What should have been an automatic win was the difference in missing the play-offs for the second year in a row.

• Speaking of play-offs, let’s not forget about the two brutal losses when he did manage them to the post season in 2000 and 2001. There was the 27-0 trashing by Oakland in 2000 after Wanny almost killed Lamar Smith the week before against Indianapolis. 2001 brought the 20-3 pounding by Baltimore, a game lost in Miami.

• Wannstedt also gave up 2 first round picks for Ricky Williams and while it seemed like a good move for a while, especially after Ricky’s first season in which he put up monstrous stats, we all know how that ended. Ricky bolted in 2004 and that’s where everything came crashing down. 2004 also saw Randy McMichael’s arrest, David Boston’s injury and the awful Lamar Gordon trade after Ricky left the team.

That was Wannstedt’s tenure in short and that’s a big reason why we are in this position right now. So you can imagine that this picture made me extremely happy today. Look at it, enjoy it, save it somewhere and look at it some more. Wannstedt has had knee surgery earlier and now ruptured his achilles, something that will force him to ride a motorized scooter and coach from the booth this week for Pitt.

Bravo SimonOnSports. Bravo indeed.