The answer will be apparent before the season is over...
The question, is the issue players or coaches?
This team has not reached it's potential for the last umpteen years as every Miami fan is well aware. The coaching train just left the station leaving players like Cameron Wake, Mike Pouncey and Ryan Tannehill, bred into Joe Philbin's system to be the leaders of this football team.
I would have to conclude they failed as much as Philbin and his staff...
Wake disappears for entire games and most notably in crunch time when one play can make the difference between winning and losing. Let's face it, Tannehill has very little "IT" factor when it comes to rising above the situation and willing his team to win. Pouncey's impact is hard to determine because of the nature of the trenches, but I don't see the line fired up to win at the line of scrimmage.
The brain-trust brought in Ndamukong Suh to be a leader who elevates his teammates on the defensive line...
Is it is automatic to think, as our friend Mater (Randy) has written many times, that Miami makes stars ordinary?
Miami makes stars ordinary...
If I'm the coach of this team, or the GM, or the owner, I want to know why Miami makes stars ordinary. Do you think SF looks a little silly now for letting Jim Harbaugh walk? Was Ray Lewis really the incinerator for the Ravens? Did Don Shula really make that much difference? It almost seems greatness comes down to one man's desire being infectious enough to carry over to the rest of the team.
Personally I think it's Tom Brady and not Belichick, though having two is a damn sin!
Is this what's missing in Miami, a dynamic personality capable of making these players rise to the occasion. It's clear you can't buy it (Suh), it's clear you can't teach it (Tannehill). So it's not money, it's not talent, it's that special will inside of some men who can lead others to rise above their own expectations.
Football, more than any other factor, is a game of emotion. Think about the last time you punched someone in the face...
Think about how much emotion was stirred within you that led you to do something so drastic as to punch another person. Now relate that to the football field. The object of the game is to punch another man in the face and you better damn well have more emotion or you are going to get your ass kicked...
That is the missing key in Miami. The city may have a seedy underside, but the team, the owner, the players all walk among the rich and famous. The stadium is a catering ground for the opulent. Raw, I-will-punch-your-face emotion, is missing and in reality, frowned upon.
Somehow, the Dolphins must rekindle the emotion that leads to violence on the football field. Dan Campbell could be a step in the right direction, but when I think about Nick Saban, my overwhelming impression was that Saban could not motivate rich pampered athletes to make the emotional investment needed to win football games.
If you were given several million dollars and told to run out and risk your life and limbs, would you do it with the same passion as it took to obtain those millions of dollars? This is the quandary of professional football... It takes a special leader to make people do these things when they get paid whether they do them or not.
For the love of the game is the only answer...
Tom Brady loves the game of football, he loves it enough to will his team to win.
Ray Lewis loved the game of football enough to will his team to win...
Where are you ghost of Shula past?
When will you roam the sidelines again in Miami?
I invoke the great Gods of football and Riverdog looking down from above...
Bring a great leader back to Miami...
Make a star extraordinary
