Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross should blow it all up
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins season is for all intent and purposes over and owner Stephen Ross shouldn’t need to see anymore to make a decision.
When the season officially ends for the Miami Dolphins in Buffalo next week, Stephen Ross should fire his head coach on the flight home. He probably shouldn’t stop there either. Miami needs to be overhauled as this effort just isn’t cutting it.
Many will say that the Miami Dolphins were gutted this year by injuries and I would 100% agree. It is hard to win while missing two big parts of your offensive line. Two key members to your receiver group, and your lone Pro-Bowl cornerback. While injuries are a reality, there is no excuse for what was displayed on the field today.
The Dolphins let a combination of Blake Bortles and Cody Kessler beat them. They looked so horrible on both sides of the ball most of the day that it was hard to see what exactly the game plan was coming in. The offense especially was poor.
There has been rumblings over the past couple of weeks that Stephen Ross is considering making sweeping changes. He should. In spite of the injuries, Adam Gase does not have his team ready to play every Sunday consistently and his play calling has been questioned almost every game since he arrived.
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The Dolphins have been stubbornly supportive of Ryan Tannehill despite his failure to grow as a quarterback. Miami bet that they could support him with strong additions to the offense but that did not have the desired effect, injuries or not.
When Ross sits back and thinks about what he should do, it will not be an easy decision. There are not a lot of good quality coaches available this year on the market. None that standout as potential franchise coaches and that same rings true for quarterbacks. Both in free agency and the draft in April.
That should not change Ross’ mind. In 2010 he gave a one year deal to Tony Sparano instead of simply firing him. A year later in 2011 Sparano didn’t make it through the season. In 2014 Ross gave a vote of confidence to Joe Philbin after a big win against the Vikings late in the season. Philbin would reward him by losing the next two and in 2015 he wouldn’t make it through the year.
Ross has always been one year too late. He should have stuck to his guns and fired both Sparano and Philbin a year before he did, this year he should strongly consider doing the same with Gase or he could find himself cutting him loose part way through 2019.
The effort today was ugly and with a potential playoff opportunity on tap, the lack of effort, execution, and urgency is the most disheartening of all. They simply didn’t show up to play and that is squarely on the shoulders of the head coach.