Dolphins Fail To Hand Out Playbooks

Even when there is no football to be had, the Miami Dolphins can’t get it right.  When coaches have little to do this off-season with no workouts, no weights, no visits, no nothing.  Miami Head Coach Tony Sparano has managed to fail. Some would say again.  Over last weekend, the NFL lost an appeal for a “stay” by Judge Susan Nelson and were ordered to end the lockout.  While the appeals court would grant a temporary “stay” over the weekend, teams had 2 days to contact players.

The Miami Dolphins did not.

Across the landscape of the NFL teams hurried to get players their playbooks.  In Charlotte where the Carolina Panthers call home, new HC Ron Rivera managed to get his new playbook from OC Rob Chudzinski to not only his rostered players but first overall draft pick Cam Newton.  In Miami?  Nothing.  No playbooks were distributed by Tony Sparano or Brian Daboll.  This according to Andrew Carter of the Sun-Sentinel.

Sparano simply said there “wasn’t enough time” to distribute the playbooks.  Something that sounds a bit like bull to me.  Considering that teams could assign the duties of passing out playbooks to assistant coaches if for whatever reason Sparano and Daboll were busy with the draft, there is little excuse not to have the books assigned in those two days.

With the Dolphins practically sitting idle for most of the draft, they gave up their picks in rounds 3, 5, and 6 for RB Daniel Thomas, it’s almost certainly possible that they could have walked down the hall and handed the incoming players their off-season reading material.  Oh, and yes, the draft is conducted in the same facility that the players work out in.  When you also look at the fact that the draft didn’t start until 6:00 PM on Thursday…what did Sparano and Daboll do with their vast amount of time sitting around the facility?  They had only 1 pick that night to make.

No matter what their reasoning is, the Dolphins lost what could possibly have been the only time to get the new playbooks into the hands of their players.  The lockout continues and barring an overturn by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, could continue over the entire summer while the litigation between owners and players continue.  When the teams are finally permitted to speak with each other again or meet, the Dolphins will have a roster full of players that have been learning the playbook from QB Chad Henne who received and earlycopy when the league did not permit that kind of contact prior to the league new year.

Miami is already put into a bad situation with the lockout given the fact that they have a new offensive coordinator and a new offensive system to install.  They failed miserably this past weekend when they lost the opportunity to reach out to the players and get those books into their hands.

Sorry coach, but there is no excuse for this failure.  It’s simply pathetic and a complete mismanagement of time.