Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross makes sense of teams losing
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins are not tanking which is the popular media and fan driven narrative and owner Stephen Ross explained why they are making these decisions.
Speaking with members of the media, Stephen Ross made it clear that he was tired of losing and tired of seeing the same results year in and year out.
Ross said that the goal isn’t to “go” 9-7 while patching holes. He wants a championship team. He pointed out that in the last 10 years the Dolphins have won 72 games which if you do the math is only a tick over 7 wins per season. That is unacceptable to the fans and it is unacceptable to the team’s owner.
Ross further stated that he takes responsibility for the teams situation and he should. It has been his decisions to keep Jeff Ireland a year too long, His desire to hire and keep Joe Philbin. He approved the big trades and the big contracts. It all amounted to nothing. In the end the team was actually not much better than the team he inherited.
Ross also repeated the old cliché that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. There was little question that this off-season was going to be different. Ross said as much at his press conference after the season.
If we look back, Ross had a talk with Adam Gase about rebuilding the roster and Gase wanted nothing to do with it. The head coach had some words about Ross sticking to the business and Gase was fired a short time later. In the press conference announcing the change and the appointment of Chris Grier to the head of football operations, Ross made it clear this year would be different.
It has been a lot different.
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Now the Dolphins are seeing the results of their imploding the team and rebuilding. Last weeks 59-10 loss was the worst defeat in regular season history and today’s game against the Patriots could be worse.
Miami has amassed more picks in the next two drafts that they have ever had or at least it seems that way. Miami could have as many as 13 picks next year. The Dolphins may not succeed in this rebuild but at least they are trying and Ross knows that he has to do something different in order to turn around the franchise.
If nothing else he is correct about doing the same things over again and expecting different results but you have to wonder if Chris Grier has what it takes to make this team relevant or if he too is just part of that cycle of failure. After all, Grier has been around since the start of it all.
Ross says that the moves this year have been made in the hopes of building a championship franchise. He said they were designed to straighten out the salary cap, the roster, and pretty much everything in between. Now it is time to let the ship sail and sink if it must. While this season will be long, next year should be exciting.