The punishment facing the Miami Dolphins football organization and owner Stephen Ross shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was only a matter of time before Brian Flores’s revenge tantrum would cause enough ruckus to get the team in trouble with something.

Tampering with the greatest quarterback of all time, Tom Brady, and Super Bowl-winning offensive genius Sean Payton during periods of the past seasons that prohibited those conversations was downright dumb. Couldn’t those conversations wait for a little bit longer until the legal tampering period began? Or Couldn’t Ross or Bruce Beal do the right thing and ask permission from the Patriots, Bucs, or Saints to speak with said targets before going behind the opposing organization’s backs?

It was also dumb that he was the only owner to get caught doing such things. Actions in such a way that commissioner Roger Goodell used the words “unprecedented scope and severity” to describe it.

Many believe (and it probably happens all the time) that owners and team officials—through certain avenues— have conversations of interest (flirtations) with one another throughout the season. But they never get caught because they understand how not to.

Ross getting caught is just another example (out of many) of why he shouldn’t be an owner of the Miami Dolphins.

And his “ethics,” or lack thereof, that have followed him to this point started soon after he originally became the owner of the Miami Dolphins back in 2009. And it circled back to bite him poetically.

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But it’s not just his actions that cause a national embarrassment at times. It is also the trickle-down effect of the organization.

Let’s just say that one year after Ross took over as owner, the first infamous story broke — when general manager Jeff Ireland asked then top draft prospect WR Dez Bryant if his mother was a prostitute in 2010.

Regardless of how or why that conversation went down or started in the first place, Bryant left his meeting with the Dolphins irate and couldn’t wait to blurt that to the media. This led NFL media to question the types of interviews/tactics NFL teams used on college players leading up to the draft. And although the Dolphins needed a wide receiver in a bad way that year, needless to say, Bryant wasn’t coming to the Dolphins anymore.

Not ethical.

In 2011, during the NFL’s offseason, was it ethical to pursue Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh for the head coach before firing Tony Sparano, who was still under contract? Ross was behind Sparano’s back and (thanks to the media) essentially got caught cheating on his then-head coach. Ross couldn’t land Harbaugh and, in one of the most awkward press conferences in sports history, sat with Sparano and general manager Jeff Ireland to lie to the public to save face about why he was visiting with Harbaugh. He also gifted Sparano with a new shiny ring to make up for his adultery in the form of a 2-year extension.

In totality, Ross made Sparano a lame-duck coach for that upcoming season and quickly fired Sporano less than a season later after the Dolphins started 0-7 and eventually finished 6-10.

Was that ethical?

During that same season, while Tebow-mania was in full effect, Ross approved the idea of having “Gator Day” in Hard Rock Stadium to celebrate the Florida Gators 2009 National Championship team during a Miami Dolphins game at halftime.

Keep in mind that Hard Rock Stadium isn’t only home to the Dolphins and the Miami Hurricanes, who are interstate rivals with the Florida Gators.

It’s like celebrating the Jets 1968 Super Bowl team in Joe Robbie Stadium!

On top of that, the Dolphins just happened to be playing Tim Tebow (who was a member of that 2009 championship team) & the Denver Broncos that same day. Ross’s actions flipped a home-field advantage into a combination of Mile-High Stadium & the Swamp.

And in one of the most embarrassing, humiliating, self-imploding, self-destructive situations I’ve ever witnessed in my life, the Dolphins lost to the Denver Broncos in a Tebow-miracle comeback.

Was any of that ethical?

After Sparano, Ross hired Joe Philbin, and the Dolphins experienced the “Bullygate” scandal involving headliners, offensive linemen Richie Incognito (bully), and Jonathan Martin (victim). An investigation revealed multiple levels of harassment, inappropriate behavior, and racial/homophobic slurs directed towards another player and trainer within the locker room. The scandal led both players to be removed from the team & at least one assistant coach to be fired.

Ethical? HELL no.

After Philbin, Ross hired offensive coordinator Adam Gase in 2016 — formerly of the Bears & Broncos, where he was wrongfully credited with Peyton Manning’s 2013 record-breaking touchdown pass season.

At the time, Ryan Tannehill was the quarterback of the Dolphins, but his job wasn’t exactly secure. And early on, rumors that Adam Gase would trade Tannehill for Bears quarterback Jay Cutler began to grow.

To fully understand where I’m going with this, you have to know that Gase wasn’t known to be a people person or like big crowds. Questionable traits for a man who is the head coach of one of the most prominent stages in sports.

Cutler wasn’t known to be a people person, leader, or “care enough” as a quarterback at this stage (or probably ever) in his career. His original team traded him away, and multiple Bears coaches gave up on him throughout the years. But the chatter of him joining the Dolphins never went away.

The Dolphins never made that trade in 2016. Still, when Tannehill tore his knee towards the end of the 2016 season and again in the 2017 training camp, Ross allowed Gase to sign and overly pay the “retired” quarterback, who many outsiders disliked (but one man loved), to be the savior for a possibly lost season even though the Dolphins had a veteran backup in Matt Moore. The latter had been with the team since 2011 and was responsible for taking them to the playoffs after Tannehill went down.

They believed that an outside quarterback with no people skills, lack of leadership, questionable work ethic, and who was just retired (as short as it was) was going to galvanize the locker room and lead them to victory.

The 2017 Dolphins went 6-10, Cutler took his money and dipped, and the introverted Gase never recovered. Nor did he fair better on his next stop — the Jets.

I could’ve told you that was coming. (Oh wait! I did!)

But the football results may not have been as embarrassing as the scandal before the start of the 2017 season when a video surfaced of Gase’s o-line coach Chris Foerster sniffing a white substance and pledging his love to a “lady of the night.”

Does Ireland/Bryant, Bullygate, Cutler/Gase, and Chris Foerster reflect Ross’s ethics? Probably not. Perhaps if he were more involved and closer to the team, he would’ve stumbled upon these incidents before they became a National embarrassment. But his judgment and hiring practices are certainly in question. Which then calls into question his persona of being an “absentee” owner.

Ross literally had Brian Flores writing emails to senior club executives soon after he was hired expressing his concern about Ross’s integrity and tanking games.

Stephen Ross may not have built this house, but he is building it. His name is the first right under “Miami Dolphins.” He owns it.

And when people talk about houses, homes, family, legacy, and values — a person practices what he preaches. What makes this family strong?

Whether it’s Sparano, Philbin, Gase, or Flores, every coaching regime under Ross has faced some sort of scandal or controversy.

What makes Stephen Ross strong as the Miami Dolphins owner? (No, really. I’m asking.)

Ross missed out on Jim Harbaugh because he didn’t want to do it the right way.

And we learned that he missed out on Tom Brady & Sean Payton because he didn’t go about it the right way.

It cost the team more than him.

But it’s always one step forward and two steps back with this man.