Is Dolphins off-season going to be a joke…again?

The Miami Dolphins off-season has already started with the departure of Dennis Hickey on Saturday. Now reports are indicating that the next GM will in fact come from within the organization and that they will not look outside the team. Is this off-season going to be another joke?

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Whatever you want to call the Dennis Hickey parting, I’ll call it a firing only because it’s easier to write than, “mutually parted ways”, Miami set into motions their off-season ahead of Monday. Rumors of Hickey being gone started late last week and over the weekend Chris Grier, a 15 year employee of the Dolphins, has topped the list of rumored candidates for the job. So why is this a joke? Well not to be the “Debbie-downer” here but why would Miami NOT look outside the organization?

In his 15 years with the team Grier has been involved almost entirely in college scouting. The Dolphins either don’t listen to him on draft day or he isn’t very good at his job because the Dolphins drafts the last 15 years haven’t been anything to write home about. Grier however doesn’t make this off-season a joke and in reality could be the most sane decision of them all.

There are other candidates within the team that could be in line for the GM job if Grier isn’t the right fit which we hear is almost a 100% guarantee. Profootballtalk.com has reported that Dawn Aponte may be on the way out. They point to the fact that Mike Tannenbaum has the experience doing her job and therefore they can cut the number of power players by one. Yet when the Dolphins sent out information to season ticket holders regarding the head coaching search, Aponte’s name was one of those on the list.

So we have the Dolphins without a head coach and now without a GM. We have Mike Tannenbaum in full control, we have an internal look for a new GM where no one has experience doing that job, a report that the Dolphins will not be looking outside for a new GM, and the search for the next head coach will now be limited to coaches who don’t want or expect full control over the roster. See where this is heading?

No coaches names have been linked directly to the Dolphins, yet. Not with any degree of certainty. A late week rumor said that the Dolphins have Jim Mora, Jr. high on their candidate list. Mora currently coaches at UCLA. He has had two previous stints in the NFL as a head coach. One with Atlanta and one with Seattle. In all three stops his defenses were not very good and he is a defensive coach. As of Saturday, the Dolphins were one of three teams that were being connected to Chicago Bears OC Adam Gase. The rumors and connections end there.

It’s hard to tell what direction the Dolphins are going to go in but it appears that the final decision, while it will appear to be Ross’, will actually be Mike Tannenbaum’s. Tannenbaum has assumed control over this team whether by position or direction from Ross. What happens next will have his thumbprint all over it. And if that turns out to be another joke of an off-season, then that’s on him as well.