ReutersThe Dolphins have a problem.? Actually, they have plenty of problems, but the purpose of this article is to focus on one problem in particular.
Owner Stephen Ross doesn?t yet understand many of the nuances of owning an NFL team, and he apparently has no one in his inner circles who is willing or able to point out to him the nuances he has yet to grasp.
The problem rears its head most glaringly when Ross talks to the media.? On one hand, Ross feels justified after years of building a fortune in anonymity to enjoy the fame that comes from diverting some of that fortune to owning an NFL team.? On the other hand, everything he says will shape the manner in which he and the team are perceived by the paying (hopefully) customers.
Last year, the bungling of the courtship of Jim Harbaugh, following by the bungling of the explanation of the bungling of the courtship of Jim Harbaugh, darkened the cloud that still hovers over the franchise.? And now that the team has a chance to create some blue sky, the Dolphins could be bungling it again.
For starters, he blurted out the ?young Don Shula? remark on Monday when explaining the kind of coach for whom the team is searching.? Unless this means that Ross plans to secure a lock of Shula?s hair and commission a team of scientists to create a clone, Ross has instead created a template against which the next coach inevitably will be compared.
In fairness to Ross, it was an off-the-cuff, harmless remark.? In fairness to the franchise he owns, off-the-cuff remarks can operate as tattoos on a team, and those words could now take on a Dream Team-style aura for the Dolphins.? (Moreover, the use of the word ?young? in any hiring context also could cause his employment lawyers to lose 75 percent of the fancy lunches that only the one percent can enjoy.)
Already, the remark has invited skeptics to suggest an answer to the ?Young Don Shula? objective:? Jim Harbaugh.
The comment advances no legitimate interest, so why say it?? The far better approach is to find a coach, hire a coach, and then tell the media and the fans that he?s the coach the team wanted.? Period.
Largely lost in this discussion has been the potential impact of G.M. Jeff Ireland?s ongoing employment upon the coaching search.? For starters, it takes out of the mix any of the A-listers with the options and the leverage to command the power that Ireland will still possess.? There?s a chance that this is one of the nuances that Ross has yet to grasp, and that he could fire Ireland if firing Ireland ultimately is the impediment to hiring, say, Bill Cowher.? There?s also a chance that Ross deliberately has retained Ireland in order to aim for a lower ? and inherently cheaper ? cut of coaching candidates.
The fact that Ireland widely was perceived as betraying coach Tony Sparano by accompanying Ross on the Harbaugh-quest in January will make it even harder to lure coaches who have options.? Many coaches believe Ireland has shown that, in the symbiotic relationship between G.M. and coach, he can?t fully be trusted.? That will make the next coach far more leery about taking the job.
Unless, of course, the ultimate candidate has no other options and simply wants to be an NFL head coach.
Remember, this business is more about entertainment than sports.? People need to be motivated to buy tickets.? In order to be motivated to buy tickets, they need to be inspired by the leadership of the team.? And Ross has done little to inspire anything positive for the fans of the Miami Dolphins.? His best move would be to hire someone who would do the talking for the team, and to otherwise enjoy the non-spotlight trappings of owning an NFL team.
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