Focus on front office
Dolphins’ issues begin with management’s decisions
Hyde: Fins must improve from top down.
When Mike Tannenbaum heard the first question in the first moments of the Dolphins offseason about a lack of team discipline this season, he answered with a generic non-answer to fit any first question.
“The season just ended,” Miami’s vice president of football operations said, sitting between coach Adam Gase and general manager Chris Grier. “We were 6-10, and the three of us are going to take our time, look back at the season. What went well. What we could have done to do better. And do a comprehensive evaluation and look at everything.
“We look forward to putting a better product on the field next year, and we’re going to look at all aspects of it.” Here’s the comprehensive evaluation: These three need to be better. Yes, another Dolphins offseason has begun with the usual blame-casting being thrown at assistants (five fired thus far) and the common question about what position needs to improve most. Tight end? Linebacker? Guard? Quarterback?
The simpler answer: Gase, Tannenbaum and Grier need to be better before anything. Better at evaluating talent. Better at assigning contracts. Better at making trades. Better at building a team. Better at working together navigating the mine field of assembling a staff, analyzing players and pinpointing problems before they come.
One example to discuss: Why was line coach Chris Foerster hired? Did they apply due diligence? Did Tannenbaum help Gase enough — or was Gase willing to be helped? Did they under-
Gase, Tannenbaum and Grier need to be better before anything.
stand he had loud character issues known in the NFL, as a source said? Even if those issues weren’t a drug problem that led Foerster to confess taking cocaine “eight or nine straight days” before all the videoed embarrassment last September.
One humbling truth is until this year Gase had success with whoever he’s coached, even if he only went to a Super Bowl with Peyton Manning. He fell into a young coach’s trap in the same way Pat Riley did with the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s. And evidently no one did or could help him.
“I didn’t think I needed help,’’ Riley once said years later. “I thought I was the reason we were winning.”
Another terrible truth is this roster isn’t any better than it was three years ago when Tannenbaum took over the personnel side with a long and lofty title. Let’s be real here. He’s the general manager. He’s in charge of the personnel side. He running the offseason with trades, contracts and final player decisions.
Tannenbaum spent $20 million on too old and too hurt tight ends Jordan Cameron and Julius Thomas over the past three seasons. New England spent $23 million on Rob Gronkowski in that time – and $8 million of that was in incentives for being named All-Pro and other such goodies.
Another example: Their linebacker decisions this season. They signed AWOL linebacker Lawrence Timmons ($5.5 million), needlessly upgraded Kiko Alonso (from $3.9 million to $29 million over four years), traded a fifth-round pick for Stephone Anthony, signed overweight and known partier Rey Maualuga – and they still had no answers (rookie Raekwon McMillan was hurt).
Much of that’s on Tannenbaum and Grier. The Thomas and Maualuga signings point to a different problem. Gase and his coaches wanted them despite obvious questions. So either the front office didn’t talk them off it or the coaches trumped them. Throw in Foerster and Timmons, and this team looks as undisciplined at decision-making as it was ranking 31st in penalties.
The prism of Matt Moore shows this front-office problem best. Everyone knew Ryan Tannehill had a knee issue exiting last season and entering this one. Gase, it turned out, had no confidence in Moore to be a starting quarterback.
Was this talked out last February? Was Gase put on the spot about how he felt? Did Tannenbaum try to convince him Moore was the best option — or, failing that, go over the best free-agent and draft options to get a backup Gase trusted? If so, signing Jay Cutler for $10 million would have been avoided.
Sixty percent of a GM’s job is finding the right quarterback. That leads to this draft, and the major decision of what to do with it. They’ll have a shot at a top quarterback. Do they take it?
That’s not the first issue this offseason. The three guys at the top are. It’s all good and fine to fire assistants and blame players. That’s part of any team’s offseason. But let’s not divert attention. This 6-10 season starts with Gase, Tannenbaum and Grier.
dhyde@sun-sentinel.com