FROM PAGE 13A SALGUERO
some retired at the end of 2018.
The Ravens have had one owner since 2004.
So consistency. And steadiness. And commitment have led to success in Baltimore.
The Dolphins?
The Dolphins used to be like the Ravens are now. Joe Robbie owned the team from its fledgling season in 1966 until his death in 1990, and his family kept the team until January of 1994. Don Shula was the head coach for 26 seasons.
There was stability in Miami. There was a commitment to one thing, and that was always winning.
But here we are in 2019, and this Dolphins franchise looks, sounds, acts nothing like that one from long ago.
Brian Flores is about to embark on his first season as the Dolphins’ latest coach. He is the team’s sixth head coach in the same time the Ravens had only Harbaugh on the job.
The Dolphins have had five men — Bill Parcells, Jeff Ireland, Dennis Hickey, Mike Tannenbaum and Chris Grier — head the personnel department since 2008 while Newsome alone remained in Baltimore.
So on Sunday what you will see is a case study in stability versus instability. And if you’re unsure which is better among these polar opposite ways of doing business, the Ravens and Dolphins have played eight games since that 2008 season.
And the Ravens have won seven of those eight.
With those results, you would think Dolphins owner Stephen Ross would have learned that instability and lack of commitment simply do not work in the NFL.
And then you would look at the owner’s record and see he has given each of his three previous noninterim head coaches an average of only 48 games on the sideline before firing each of them.
This year, after 10 full seasons as owner, Ross announced a new approach to how his franchise would conduct its football business. So, yeah, a course change.
“We’ve been operating under a philosophy that we had a good young roster and it needed maybe free agents and draft choices and we’d be very competitive,” Ross said the day he fired Adam Gase.
So having a young roster, adding free agents and more draft choices was apparently wrong.
Ross suggested the chase for expensive veterans was going to stop. It didn’t. The Dolphins recently tried to trade for Houston Texans franchise player Jadeveon Clowney. And the team had significant interest in New England free agent Trey Flowers until the price for him reached outer orbit.
Ross clarified his meaning last March when he said the Dolphins’ approach would be to draft good players and develop them. He made it plain the plan was about the future. And he spoke proudly about how the young players already on the squad would form a strong nucleus for that future.
“We have a good young nucleus to start with,” Ross said. “It’s not like we’re starting all over again. We have great players. You walk around [among general managers, coaches and owners at the NFL annual meeting] and guys say ‘Hey, I want [Laremy] Tunsil. I want this guy.’
“Yeah, so do we. We’re going to keep them, Xavien Howard and all of that kind of stuff. We have some real good ballplayers. And we are a young team, but there are positions we need to get better at. You’re not going to go buy those positions. You’ve got to draft and build them and grow them.”
Ross said this on March 26. On Aug. 31 the Dolphins traded Tunsil to the Houston Texans.
So in March the team’s brain trust was stiff-arming other clubs interested in bidding on Tunsil. Not interested, they said, because of a new philosophy set for the future. And within six months that changed.
This organization changes course more often than a bumble bee.
It starts at the top with Ross. And it seeps down.
So Ross says in November 2016 he has finally found the right coach in Gase. And in December 2018 Gase is fired.
The team is committed to quarterback Ryan Tannehill when it drafts him in April 2012. And thencoach Joe Philbin feels no longer committed in April 2014 when he asks general manager Dennis Hickey to draft Derek Carr.
Ross hires Hickey after an extensive GM search in January 2014. And effectively knee-caps Hickey by hiring Tannenbaum as executive vice president of football operations in January of 2015.
The Dolphins love Ndamukong Suh so much in 2015 they give him quarterback money to play defensive tackle. Then they push him out the door after the 2017 season.
They traded Jason Taylor in
2008. Brought him back in 2009. Let him leave in 2010. Brought him back in 2011.
These examples of the Dolphins failing to commit to something may seem more like a history lesson. So let’s focus to this year.
They hire offensive line coach Pat Flaherty in February. And fire him after two padded practices in July.
In March they promise not to sign other team’s used-up free agents because those almost never work out. Then they add offensive lineman Jordan Mills and tight ends Dwayne Allen and Clive Walford. And weeks later they cut all three because, not surprisingly, they didn’t work out.
The Dolphins conduct the talentgathering portion of the 2019 offseason as if they intend to pull back (tank) during the 2019 season. They get rid of dozens of players who need to go, but don’t do what all teams that want to compete do:
They don’t replace many of those players.
And they certainly don’t from any.
Defensive ends Cameron Wake and Robert Quinn are released and traded, respectively. But there is no chase of, for example, Za’Darius Smith in free agency.
Smith, who had 8 1⁄2 sacks for Baltimore in 2018, got a contract worth a whopping $16.5 million per season from the Green Bay Packers. And the Dolphins were probably not interested in paying Smith, 26, that much money when free agency opened in March.
But seven days ago they were interested in trading for Clowney, 26, and would have paid him $16 million for the 2019 season.
So is it we don’t want high-priced pass rushers? Or we do want highpriced pass rushers?
This is symptomatic of the franchise’s inability to commit to something and then stick to it. And that inability to stay the course, to stay committed, is no way to find success.
The way to find success is to have a moral compass and a conviction about things that are proven and true. And then sticking with those convictions.
And how should that work, John Harbaugh?
“If you’re teaching good principles, sound principles, from a perspective of being all in and you believe in it yourself,” Harbaugh said, “and you stick to it.” upgrade