Culpepper over Brees
Tua over Herbert
Tua over Flores
All Decisions aren’t created equal.
The above decisions are three significant choices the Dolphins organization has willingly made in the past 16 years that have put the organization in the place that it is today. And that isn’t a good place.
I won’t rehash the Culpepper over Brees debacle as it has been talked about for years, but from 2006 to 2020, it haunted this franchise and still haunts it to this day. With Brees, Miami would have been a consistent NFL playoff team, Nick Saban (the greatest college coach ever and one of the best overall football coaches of all time) stays in Miami and gives the organization stability and credibility. And odds are Miami has at least one Super Bowl championship, possibly more.
The next big decision came in 2020, and the call to take Tua over Herbert, which was a colossal mistake. The real mistake was Brian Flores playing Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2019 and winning meaningless games with players (the vast majority of) who were let go in the offseason and cost Miami the #1 overall pick in Joe Burrow.
The Dolphins gutted their roster prior to the 2019 season, created a boatload of salary cap space, and stockpiled draft picks but this was a house of cards because the key to all of this was landing a true franchise quarterback. Which thus far, Tua is not. Not only did Miami botch this once in just not playing Rosen in meaningless games, which gave them a chance to evaluate him, but odds are Miami loses a couple more games, landing them the #1 overall selection in Burrow. Mistake #1 was only then compounded by mistake #2 when they had the chance to take Herbert over Tua, and they did not.
I know hindsight is always 20/20; teams miss on draft picks or maybe hire the wrong guy, or maybe sign the wrong free agent. But this is what organizations, general managers, and head coaches get judged and graded on. And as I said, not all decisions are created equal.
Drafting Charles Harris over TJ Watt, yes, a mistake but not one that will set your organization back a decade-plus. Taking Tua over Herbert may. Taking Culpepper over Brees did. Some decisions are so important and so significant you just can’t miss on without having to suffer serious ramifications.
That leads us to the current Dolphins situation and the latest big decision the Dolphins have made. Going with Tua over Brian Flores. You can make the case (and wouldn’t be wrong) the Dolphins are doubling down on the Tua over Herbert decision (which was a mistake) and letting a good head coach walk out the door.
Numerous reports are out there Flores didn’t like Tua’s work ethic and that he thought he played golf too much. Flores wanted to move on from Tua, and because of that, he couldn’t work with or get along with anyone in the Dolphins organization or even on his own coaching staff, which he hired.
It came down to should Ross/Grier have given Flores what he wanted (a new quarterback) and tried to fix the last colossal mistake, OR did they do the right thing in siding with Tua and running Flores off?
Many feel Miami made the wrong decision, again!
Many pundits, analysts, and NFL insiders disagree with the Dolphins firing of Flores, and few have the faith in Tua that the Dolphins organization has.
We will see how this plays out, but history isn’t on the side of the Dolphins making the correct call here. As when it comes to big organizational decisions that shape the future of the franchise, the Dolphins have missed not on some of them but all of them the past 16 or so years. Hopefully, they will get one right one of these times, even if it’s by dumb luck.
EDITOR’S NOTE: DOLPHINS TALK IS PARTNERING WITH OUR GOOD FRIENDS OVER AT PICKUP TO GIVE AWAY FANATICS GIFTCARD ($20 VALUE) TO ONE LUCKY WINNER. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS MAKE YOUR PICK ON THE PICKUP PROP IN THIS ARTICLE AND FOLLOW THE STEPS TO VERIFY YOUR PICK FOR A CHANCE TO WIN.
[pickup_prop id=”18692″]
Sticking with tua was another mistake in a long line of dumb mistakes by tgis franchise..Hopefully when tua is gone so will Grier ross and all the tuaneers..
Flo got fired cuz his offence is pathetic
Flores got fired because he lost two games that kept Miami out of the playoffs last season and this season. Those two near misses hurt the dolphins nation too badly. Ryan Fitzpatrick would have taken Miami to the Super Bowl, had he been allowed to take over the rest of the season after that miracle win Fitzpatrick orchestrated against the Raiders on that Monday night. Someone had to pay!
The hurt will continue if Miami does not find a QB who can throw deep routes regularly and get a good HC. My choice for Head Coach is TODD BOWLES!!! Todd Bowles defeated the Patriots back in 2005 I believe when Tom Brady was in his hay day. Yet with Todd Bowles at the helm; Miami defeated the Patriots 21-0.
I’m so sick of people heaping praise on Brian Flores. Let’s not forget that they were 1-7 to start the year, and could have easily been 08. The fact that he won some meaningless games against some bad teams means nothing. He still lost when it counted and we did not get them to playoffs again. I’m not saying Tua is the answer, they should definitely draft another quarterback, but Brian Flores ain’t all that. And people need to stop thinking he’s some kind of great head coach. He couldn’t even communicate with a sorry assistants that he hired.
Agreed 100%. Everyone talks about the winning streak against terrible teams yet no one talks about the 7 game losing streak earlier in the season that cost them the playoffs. The loss the to Jaguars the worst team in the league being the most costly of all. That loss alone was a fireable offense Flores was outcoached by Urban Myer of all people and one of if not the worst head coach in the league. You cannot talk about the winning streak against sub .500 teams without talking about the losing streak especially the Jaguar game.
Correcto-mundo, Chuck. Flores got them to 1-7 for sure. The Jacksonville and Atlanta losses were coaching bombs. Win those games and playoffs are a cinch, even with their starting QB, love him or hate him, Tua, missing like 5 games ! Brissett was a certified disaster. Flores merry go round of coaches was a tell tale sign as well. The worst was selecting a rookie Oline coach to coach, what ? Rookies. Ridiculous move that was obvious throughout the year. Talent on defense made the defense, not all on Flo. Flo can go, period.
Great article. I’ve talked about this exact thing on other Dolphin websites. You can even dig deeper. Is it not fair to say Fitzpatrick over Tom Brady, Tannehill over Mahomes etc? We have to look deeper into the failure of the quarterback position to understand why this team hasn’t found a good one in over 21 years. This organization has not prioritized the QB position since Marino’s departure and is the main reason this team has been in purgatory for over two decades.
What did Miami see in Tannehill after his 3rd or 4th season with the team? He clearly wasn’t an elite quarterback and was going nowhere fast yet Miami chose to stick with him instead of drafting someone like Mahomes or Josh Allen. This is a monumental mistake in the draft process. Maybe they had one of them high on their draft board and chose not to select them because they had other “bigger” needs. Or they didn’t have them high on their draft board which is just as bad because that shows they cannot identify a franchise QB.
Then there is Fitz over Brady. Again this comes down to the same philosophy that has crippled this team. Miami had Fitzpatrick as their starter at the time. The thought process was they would stick with him another year after drafting a QB early in the first round which was Tua. There are two major problems with this thought process…
1) You are putting everything on the line possibly the next 10 years on a total unknown unproven quarterback which happened to be Tua.
2) They were content with Fitzpatrick when the greatest QB of all time was sitting there on the open market staring them in the face. IMO Brady wanted to come to Miami because his wife modeled in Miami for many years and had a lot of friends there which played the biggest roll in where he was going to play. I also believe he wanted to play in a warm climate so Miami must’ve been a huge draw to him. At the time Ross was asked about Brady’s interest in playing for Miami. Ross said and I quote “why would Tom Brady want to play for the Dolphins”. This shows two things 1) Ross had no interest in Brady whatsoever and even discouraged it and 2) he was perfectly content with Fitzpatrick over the best QB the NFL has ever seen.
This is the biggest reason this team has been so bad for so long and it’s not even close. The lack of priority for the QB position the most important position in sports is beyond mind bending. Again the two biggest reasons for this are the complete and utter failure to identify a franchise quarterback in the draft and free agency and being content with the current non elite if not outright bad QB on the current roster instead of drafting a great one in the draft or free agency.
I’m a phinatic fan from buffalo, and let me tell ya, these bills fans are the absolute worst in the league, this team hasn’t won Diddley and acts like they’re the classiest fans, gtfoh, throwing dildos on field, drinking booze out of women’s assholes right in front of 10 year old kids, Everyone Rips on New England, atleast patriots show class and respect. I can’t stand mahomes , but I sure as hell hope he humbles the buffalo fan hype train. If somebody did the stuff bills fans do at their home games, they’d be arrested. Get control of your team Terry pegula and win with f*ckin class. #BuffaloBlowhardts