Clean House?

I just saw the sobering news that Chad Henne “may” remain the QB for Miami for the 2011 season.  So let’s see…we have a 7-9 season, and in many ways are fortunate to have that. A more fair, and accurate, call in the Pittsburgh game may have given us a win that may have provided some needed momentum for the remainder of the season.  But, as professionals, the players all know that you can’t pinpoint what you did wrong to one call, or one game.

 So, essentially, very little has changed.  Are we counting on the draft to bring us to playoff status for 2011?  Henning is gone, replaced by Daboll (the jury is out) which I believe is a change that no one will question.  But that’s where the so-called “housecleaning” has stopped.  The addition or change of assistant coaches isn’t going to solve the problem. Jeff Ireland? Still GM.  Tony Sparano? Still Head Coach.  Steven Ross? Still owner.  And now: Chad Henne? MAY still be QB. 

The fact that this is even a consideration is confusing to me.  There was a time when I believed that Henne might be able to function under the proper offensive system (which, by the way, was not Henning’s).  But I have questioned, and then discarded, that belief as the 2010 season progressed. You can coach a player all day long, but is that going to change the player’s decision-making ability?  Chad Henne didn’t seem calm in the pocket, in fact, at times, he appeared downright scared.  Of course, its not all on him.

 The play calling was atrocious; I am relatively certain that even I could have put together a better game plan.  The fans called for blood, and each week, all we received were empty promises to do “better”.  Doing better called for a total revamp of each and every level of management, supervision and decision-making. Yet the only change we have seen is the departure of Dan Henning. Does anyone in the Dolphins organization really believe that the fans would be stupid enough to accept his departure as the equivalent of an actual overhaul?  Do they think that if they make just one announcement at a time as to who is staying, that we will have forgotten that everyone else will also be returning for 2011?

 For me, a total housecleaning involves removing the dirt from top to bottom, not simply leaving it in place or rearranging it.  We received the equivalent of a broken feather duster that dislodged only a minute amount of dirt.