Change in the air for Dolphins
Change in motion as Tannenbaum hires Grier, starts coaching search
‘WE CAN WIN’ New Dolphins GM Chris Grier, left, seen on Monday with Mike Tannenbaum, executive VP of football operations, wants competition for every position on the roster.
DAVIE — Like most starts, it promised an end.
“The talk of dysfunction within this organization is over,” Chris Grier said upon being introduced Monday as the new Dolphins general manager.
Well, that’s a relief. This franchise hasn’t made the playoffs in seven years or won a playoff game in 15 years. Why didn’t anyone banish dysfunction at the start of their era before this?
It was 11 years ago, in another new beginning, that Nick Saban stood in the same room at Dolphins headquarters and said, “I didn’t come here to lose.” It was nine years ago that Cam Cameron promised, “It’s time to start winning.”
It was eight years ago that Bill Parcells, who is treated like a patron saint around this current Dolphins management despite screwing up this franchise as much as anyone, was smart enough to simply say, “We’re going to give it our best shot.”
These are the ghosts around the Dolphins, and no one understands it more than Grier. He was in the building 16 years before earning Monday’s promotion. He saw the problems. He knows the heartache.
But if Dolphins fans have learned anything in this walk through the wilderness
“We’re either going to win or I’m going to die trying.” Mike Tannenbaum, Dolphins football czar
— beyond a greater appreciation for Don Shula — it’s that opening-day statements and loud proclamations have as much weight as the air they’re blown on.
Monday wasn’t about words or hope, anyhow. It was about football czar Mike Tannenbaum starting to put his people in place. The coach and his staff will come next. Player decisions will follow.
So after another disheartening season where everyone from the coach to both coordinators to the general manager were fired, what has been clear inside the organization for a year is now obvious outside it: This is Tannebaum’s show.
And here’s the question: Can someone finally get it right for the Dolphins?
Oh, everyone has other questions, most of them ones dripped in Dolphins angst more than knowledge. Take the coaching hire. The Dolphins have hired three consecutive first-time head coaches in Cameron, Tony Sparano and Joe Philbin.
Each has failed. Cameron and Philbin were train wrecks. So as one media question, a common one being asked across South Florida, came Monday to Tannenbaum: “Isn’t time to get a guy with proven NFL head-coaching experience?”
“We’ve done a lot of research on what makes a successful NFL head coach and tried to reverse-engineer the last 20 years liter- ally of every hire, from their degree to really almost sort of every variable,” Tannenbaum said. “And I can tell you that there’s a lot of different permutations, a lot of different answers.”
Here’s one answer that will shut up everyone: Eight of the 12 coaches in the playoffs this year are first-time head coaches with their current team. And a ninth, Todd Bowles of the Jets, had as big a turnaround as anyone before narrowly missing the postseason.
So the point for Tannenbaum isn’t whether he gets a coach with experience. The demand is to get the right guy in a way the Dolphins haven’t got one right in a decade.
That starts with Tannenbaum. He thinks he got the right guy to run the personnel side in Grier.
“He was going to be hired [by another team] in the next 10 days,” Tannenbaum said.
Grier will report to Tannenbaum. So will the coach. This is part of the learning process of Dolphins owner Steve Ross. Get a football man to run the football side. We’ll see where Tannenbaum takes it from here.
On Monday, as he introduced Grier and started interviewing coaches, Tannenbaum was asked about the pressure to win.
“I got two kids and the Miami Dolphins,” he said. “That’s all I’ve got. I’m a real simple person. We’re either going to win or I’m going to die trying.”
That’s an answer, folks. Now we’ll see where it leads.