Firing head coach Tony Sparano just a few games into the 2011 Miami Dolphins season won’t save it, but it’ll reassure fans this this failed season is the last in which they’ll have to pay the price for former team owner Wayne Huizenga’s Bill Parcells mistake. This season lost any hope of being a success when new owner Stephen Ross tried to fire Sparano after back to back losing seasons, but relented and allowed him to keep the job another year after failing to find a suitable replacement. Whatever power Sparano had prior to that, and whatever odds the Dolphins had of fielding a winning team this year, went out the window in that moment. Predictably, the team is suffering from what players admit are bad practices, and Sparano himself unwittingly admitted that he doesn’t have the team’s full attention heading into home games. Having lost its first two games, Miami is far from mathematically eliminated. But in practical sense the season is lost. The only way in which fans can now frame 2011 as being a “success” in any way is if they can be assured that it’ll end in regime change. And dumping Sparano now goes a long way to giving fans hope in that regard…
Not that the current Dolphins mess is all Sparano’s fault. Sure, the former position coach with no head coaching or even coordinator experience is in over his head by any objective measure. And if he hasn’t figured it out by year four, he never will. But other than being incompetent, you can’t blame Sparano for the organization being in a nosedive overall.
That dates back to when Huizenga brought in Parcells to run the organization, and Parcells responded by giving jobs to his buddies like Sparano, Jeff Ireland, Dan Henning, and Paul Pasqualoni jobs for which they were in hindsight clearly not suited for. The latter two have been fired already, Sparano has one foot out the door, and Ireland’s personnel moves have reached a level of comic ineptitude. Cutting veterans Will Allen and Channing Crowder has made the defense significantly worse, as Ireland had to admit when he subsequently brought Allen back a week later; Crowder, who made negative comments about Ireland after being dismissed, won’t be brought back. Ireland’s biggest move of the offseason was bringing in Reggie Bush for the sake of using him as the offense’s primary workhorse running back, something neither Bush’s skill set nor his fragility in the injury department make him particularly suited for. And then there’s the quarterback mess in which Ireland tried and failed to trade for Kyle Orton, only to see incumbent starter Chad Henne mildly outperform Orton’s efforts in Denver. And that’s before one considers the Dolphins’ disastrous offensive line, which Ireland has had four offseasons to get right. Ireland must go at the end of the year just as sure as Sparano must go…
But Sparano must go now. It won’t fix anything on the field. Defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, who would take over as interim head coach for the remainder of the season, won’t be able to do much more with Ireland’s botched 2011 roster. But it’ll be a sign to fans that, if nothing else, Sparano won’t be around to mis-coach the 2012 season.
And after years of diminishing returns which make clear that the entire Parcells Dolphins era was a waste bordering on scam artistry, it’ll move the franchise one step closer to putting that painful era in the rear view. After Dolphins owner Stephen Ross all but literally forfeited the 2011 season by pre-firing Sparano but allowing him to keep the job anyway, giving fans assurance that Sparano won’t be around to ruin 2012 is the least Ross can do in terms of beginning the road to atonement. Hope for 2012 might even convince fans, who are avoiding Dolphins home games in record numbers, to change their mind and start showing up in 2011 out of pure hope for next year amid this already-forfeited season.
