The Phins are 0-56 NOT 0-7

The Miami Dolphins are not 0-7, the Miami Dolphins are 0-56. Do you sit and blame Cam Cameron for this mess, for his one off-season of decisions? What about Randy Mueller and his first year as a real General Manager? Do you blame Nick Saban for running to Alabama? Who do you blame? You can start with the man pictured to the right. You can pretty much end it there as well.

The answer to the woes of the Miami Dolphins is actually pretty clear. It is a culmination of bad drafts, worse trades, and some very very bad cap management. It is Dave Wannstedt.

According to Sports Illustrated‘s Peter King, the demise of the Dolphins can be summed up nicely in the number 56.

The above numbers do not lie. The Dolphins have managed ZERO in a 6 year span.

Sure there was a spattering of players in there, most recently Chris Chambers, but realistically, the above numbers are about as real as you can get. And fans wonder why we can’t compete, why we are sitting where we are at today. The Dolphins have a coach who inherited more than a mess, they inherited nothing. They are rebuilding from nothing. And to do it, they had almost nothing to spend.

Sure, some mistakes have been made, but when you try and build a team to compete you grab at players you probably wish you wouldn’t have, guys like Porter and Green. Green may help Beck prepare for life in the NFL and if that happens, then a 5th rounder is worth the education. Porter could have a resurgence if the team actually starts to use him the way his talent is supposed to be used.

This team has a lot of holes and a lot of issues, but blaming Cameron and blaming Mueller isn’t going to cut it anymore. The numbers just don’t lie. What amazes me the most about those figures is the fact that not only do we have nothing to show for them, but our cap structure has been such that we have to cut people yearly just to get under it. What exactly were we paying for?

For what it is worth, compared to those years, the numbers since have improved. We have 3 players from the 2004 roster, and 2 of those are starting on the offensive line. Vernon Carey and Rex Hadnot, the other player is 7th round LB Derrick Pope.

In 2005, 5 of the 6 players drafted are still on the team and 4 are starters. 3 picks in that draft were traded away by the previous management staff.

There are 4 players remaining from the 6 drafted in ’06.

If you want to know what kind of difference that makes, look north to New England, I would do it myself, but I’m just too sick to bother.