Winning consistently in the NFL is not about having the fastest wide receivers and running backs. It's not about spending more payroll than the salary cap allows, and it isn't about who can collect the biggest names to play on the field. That is about selling tickets.
The Kansas City Chiefs are playing in the Super Bowl this weekend for the third time in a row and the Eagles will be there for the second time in three years. Sure, they both have stars on their roster, but they also have something the Miami Dolphins do not have, and Stephen Ross can only dream of having. They have a culture.
Patrick Mahomes is going to talk about the game and answer all the reference favoritism questions, and Travis Kelce will get peppered with Taylor Swift's proposal questions, but it's Chiefs backup tight end Peyton Hendershot who Stephen Ross should be listening to.
Earlier this week, Hendershot was asked by BloggingTheBoys.com's R.J. Ochoa what the difference is between the Chiefs and Dallas Cowboys since the tight end has played for both in his career. His answer should be shared by all the Dolphins executives, and especially their owners.
"I just feel like, when I came to Kansas City, and my first experience in the NFL was [with] the Cowboys, so that's all I knew, I just feel like here, it is strictly just football and winning. Nothing else but just football and winning.
I feel like with the Cowboys, it's a little bit more [about] the public image [and] the extracurriculars that come with it too, and here, it's just, 'let's just win football.'"
Strictly, football is not something that goes hand in hand with the Dolphins. Sorry, but for all the community good they do through the Dolphins Special Teams division, Miami is far more "look at what we are doing over here," rather than what they are doing on the field.
From appearances to promoting different team-focused priorities, like parading the players around for a Formula One race or the Miami Open. Offseason or not, the promotion starts in-season. The Dolphins spend more time during the season getting sound bites before practices and showcasing the autograph sessions.
Vic Fangio recently said there isn't a huge difference between the Dolphins and the Philadelphia Eagles, but said they are just different. What Hendershot is saying is that in Dallas, all the other stuff that went on beyond the practice field and games was, for lack of a better phrasing, not about winning football.
One of the reasons Bill Belichick found success with the New England Patriots wasn't just because he had Tom Brady as his quarterback. They had a no-nonsense approach to the games, and that winning identity and culture became the "Patriot Way." Ross tried to emulate that in Miami
Attempt by Stephen Ross to bring a winning culture to the Miami Dolphins was never going to work
You can't hire former Patriots' team personnel and expect the same results. It was always more than the coaches. Josh McDaniels couldn't succeed outside of New England any more than Romeo Crennel could. Ross was up against a wall when he tried to do it.
Why is it so hard to get that in Miami? It starts with a commitment from the coaching staff and getting the right mentally tough players. Mike McDaniel is a decent head coach, but he is weak. He is trying to be friends rather than a coach. His approach is not holding the players accountable but asking them to do it themselves. He has admitted that fining players simply doesn't work.
There are too many distractions for the Miami Dolphins to find consistent success from mediocre players
When a team is losing or not playing well, they can turn to outside distractions to cope. Miami is a hotbed of entertainment, and previous players have spoken about players heading out to nightclubs during a game week or even to casinos two nights before a game. I know the team themselves have held public events during the season where players were asked to attend.
If the Dolphins want to change the culture, then Ross needs to change his approach. He needs a strong head coach who can lead men. He needs to concentrate more on filling his stadium instead of filling prime lower bowl seating with high-end club perks.
Ross himself set the culture when he arrived. Bringing on celebrity owners was the wrong message from the start. Ross figured he could spend money to the cap, buy high-priced NFL players like Ndamukong Suh, and that everything would fall into place. It hasn't come close to falling into place.
Maybe DeShon Elliott is right, and there will never be a championship in Miami because there are far too many distractions, but the problem with that is it didn't hinder the Don Shula-coached teams who were perennial playoff contenders.
Winning in the NFL is not about who can collect the most talent, it's about maximizing the talent you have and building a work ethic that sticks to football and what it will take to keep the focus on winning. It's about strong executives, strong coaching, and mentally determined players.
Hendershot didn't take a stab at the Cowboys, he simply shared what he believes Dallas's priorities are. And he very well could have been talking about Ross's Dolphins.