If there was ever any doubt whether the Dolphins front office should still be running this franchise, it is gone now.
Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano (and the departed Bill Parcells) had a plan in mind on how to turn around a Miami Dolphins franchise that, for ten years, stalled and then imploded. Whatever the plan has been these past four years hasn’t worked. Sure, the Dolphins made the playoffs in the 2008 season, when the Wildcat caught the entire league off guard and Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams were able to run all over the stunned defenses. But that revelation lost its luster and the Dolphins went back to being the same, mediocre, stagnant franchise.
The Dolphins are a team built on a power running game and strong defense. Both have performed poorly thus far, despite having much-heralded talent. The offensive line features four players who are former first round picks, yet the unit has trouble pass blocking and run blocking. That means either the players aren’t good anymore, they cannot play anymore, or some combination of both. No matter the reason, it is a failure of the coaching staff to put together an effective game plan, a failure of the front office to provide the talent, or both.
The defense has likewise been ineffective. The Dolphins rank in the bottom half of the NFL in scoring defense, passing yards per game, total yards per game, interceptions, and are tied with the Buffalo Bills for the fewest sacks in the NFL with four. These numbers show that the Dolphins’ playmakers aren’t making plays and the unit is ineffective at doing its job: preventing the other team from scoring.
Fans in Miami have been used to blaming the team’s troubles on Chad Henne, and even though he isn’t the solution at quarterback, he is just the scapegoat for the real problem. The real problem is that Ireland and Sparano have combined to fail in the quest to take back the AFC East. There once was a time when talks of making it to the Super Bowl were bandied about in South Florida. Those days seem more and more distant in the rearview mirror and it is time to go back to the drawing board, because this team has some serious catching up to do if it ever wants to catch the New England Patriots, the New York Jets, or the upstart Bills.
The Ireland-Sparano experiment in Miami has failed and their exits need to be swift. The plan they brought to Miami has failed and it is time to see if somebody else can reverse the fortunes of this once-proud franchise.