Jeff Fisher Takes His Talents To The Rams
By Brian Miller
Over the next few days you are going to be hearing a lot of “Stephen Ross screwed up”. You will hear how bad our front office structure is and how piss poor the Miami Dolphins are that the premier HC candidate, Jeff Fisher, chose the St. Louis Rams over the Miami Dolphins. You are going to hear how anyone now is nothing more than the bridesmaide.
If that’s what you want to hear, then click over to the other sites that are going to be drooling about the sky falling. I however will obviously be doing a lot of defending here. Jeff Fisher was not my top choice. He wasn’t my second choice, and he wasn’t my third choice. I would rather have Rob Chudzinski, Marty Schottenheimer, or Brian Billick.
There are rumors and there is facts. We will not know the facts of what went down because the Dolphins will not discuss them. Jeff Fisher will not discuss them. So we turn to the rumors and the main rumor floating is that Stephen Ross would not give total control to Fisher over Jeff Ireland and insted threw more money at him to give up that desire.
If that is true, then the Dolphins basically chose not to hire Jeff Fisher instead of being turned down by them.
Let’s get this straight right now. Jeff Fisher has had six winning seasons in 17 years as a head coach. I like Jeff Fisher and I would have been fine with Ross handing over total control, but I am also perfectly fine with him not handing it over and Fisher leaving for St. Louis.
Four years ago, the Dolphins were searching for answers and then owner Wayne Huizenga pulled out all the stops and stole Bill Parcells from the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons went with Mike Smith eventually and the Dolphins got Sparano. The Falcons have been in the playoffs and the Dolphins are still looking for a new HC.
Sometimes the big fish or “Fisher” isn’t the end all to the teams solutions. Jimmy Johnson? Fail. Dave Wannstedt? Fail. Nick Saban? Fail. Bill Parcells? Fail. Sure, Sparano and Cam Cameron failed as well but that is not to say that a Pete Carmichael or a Rob Chudzinski will.
Stephen Ross wanted an exciting offense. An offense that would score points. That is not Jeff Fisher. He wanted someone to put fans back in the seats. Jeff Fisher would do that until the team finished 8-8. Two years of that plus a boring offense and you can forget about fan support.
This is not to say that any other candidate will provide the longevity, strength, NFL wide respect that Fisher would. They won’t. But that also does not mean that they will not or can not bring success to the team. It’s up to Ross to find that direction.
Jeff Fisher was the flashy name and Ross continued to up the money but in the end, Fisher likely played the Dolphins against the Rams to get the control from them he wanted. 2nd overall pick in the draft, Sam Bradford, a close personal friend in charge in Kevin Demoff, stays in the mid-west, and get’s to hire his own GM. Money doesn’t buy everything.
Time to move on. We lost nothing by waiting. Now, I just hope some of those guys I wanted start interviewing with the team. It would have been nice to have a name, but without the winning, who really cares.