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Worst Wanny Move

Surferosa said:
His biggest failure was the second half of The 2002 season: The Phins most complete team since the the Marino led team of the early 90's failed to even make the playoffs. Here are his three biggest mistakes, IMO:

3) THIRD BIGGEST MISTAKE: His third biggest mistake was allowing Ray Lucas to throw the ball on fourth down in Buffalo instead of kicking deep into Bill territory right before the half. If he kicks the ball, Lucas doesnt turn the ball over which ensues in a defensive Bill touchdown. Lucas in turn doesnt comletely lose his confidence, turn the ball over six times and lose a game and that puts the Dolphins season on the brink.

2) SECOND BIGGEST MISTAKE: His second biggest mistake was in week 16 vs a weak Minnesota team. The Phins were a much better team and dominated the game. Fiedler - who was playing inspiring ball :eek: - led the team on long scoring drives every time he touched the ball. Problem was, the Phins couldnt gain possession in the second half. Instead, Wanny watched helplessly as the 5-10 Vikings meticulously held onto the ball and kept - gasp - the dolphins offense off the field. Eventually, a late 49 yard field goal resulted in an upset win. Absolutely gutless, uninispired defensive playcalling against a bad team. A complete sham.

3) BIGGEST MISTAKE: Despite all the massive disappoitnments until that point, Wanny's biggest mistake was yet to come. With the division on the line, he failed to close out the game vs the Pats in week 17. Despite dominating the LOS, and coasting to a 10 point lead with 5 minutes to play, the Dolphins - starting with the coach - looked petrified. The DEF suddenly went soft. Special teams was a disaster. Wanny once again looked like a broken man, whincing on the sideline as penalites, poor kicks and more unisnpired defensive schemes cost the Dolphins the game, the division and a chance to make some real noise in the playoffs. Sure their were some bad calls and dumb mistakes that were out of Wanny's control, but it was clear as day that we lost the game because Bill Bellicheck was inifinitely smarter and more prepared than Wanny that day.

In short, Wanny had a truly great team in 2002. Wonderful running game, sound passing game excellent offensive playcalling by Norv Turner and tremendous defensive talent. The team was on the brink of the playoffs and possibly even home field advantage. However, it was all for naught, as his coaching in the second half of the year was the reason that we couldnt make it over the hump. That was his biggest failure imo.
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Brilliant post....I will disagree with one thing though. I think the Vikings game was his biggest mistake.

Remember the "lobster trap"?

Wanny was going into the game telling his players they could lose the game.

When you are on the brink of a division championship, home field and should be preparing for the playoffs you DO NOT remind your team of the ways they could lose the damn game.

The Dolphins should have dominated that game. You come out early and bury teams like the Vikings. Instead Wanny let them hang around the entire first half.

He used his "play it close and win it in the fourth quarter" mentality even against bad teams.

I believe that was Wanny's biggest downfall. Never having the killer instinct. I'm not saying he should have run up the score or anything but when you are playing an inferior opponent you have to smash them in the face early and often and make them quit...Wanny could never grasp that ideal.

Even after that disaster we still had a chance to win the damn division and do damage...and we should have. I remember during the 4th of the Patriots game I was on my computer trying to figure out what would have to happen for us to get the bye week....we all know what happened.

Only Dave FREAKING Wannstedt could coach a team that had a top 5 defense, a running back who had almost 1900 yards, multiple Pro Bowl players and go 9-7 and MISS THE PLAYOFFS!

People can talk about the draft failures, the fact that he never added to the talent Jimmy brought in on defense, his decision to let Feidler run the team, his coaching staff decisions....the list goes on.

His biggest failure...and the reason I can not stand the site of the man....is the 2002 season. How the hell that team did not make the playoffs is beyond me....oh wait....they had Dave Wannstedt as their head coach.
 
another good one is when we played the vikings a few yeard ago....we were playing man coverage on their receivers. i was constantly seeing jamar fletcher on randy moss. moss had a big game of course!
 
How about the Monday Night game from 2000 against the Jets?

How do we blow a 23 point 4th quarter lead?
 
when he would jump on RW's back and hang on like if RW was a damn horse, another reason why RW started smoking weed!
 
A book could be written on this subject.

1) Offensive philosophy (play it safe, win it in 4th) did not agree with defensive scheme. Small, fast defenses can wear down at the end of games and at the end of the season. You need to be aggresive and get a lead with this defense - a major reason why we lost games late, and late in the season. Dallas did this in the 90s - got a lead first, ran the ball, force other team to throw and make mistakes. We did not.

2) Wanny did not place the correct value on many things (Draft picks, positions, coaches). Maybe his biggest problem. Almost all of his most-cited goofs can be traced to this.

a) drafting Fletcher:fire: , for example. You dont use a 1st round pick for a nickel-back. Another CB is valuable, but you can always bring in a veteran (Terry Cousin) to play the position for not a lot of money. Waste.

b) drafting Moore:yell: in the 2nd (also Greenwood in the 3rd:confused: ). OLB's in Wanny's defense were not set up to make any plays. They are just filler to pursue to the sidelines on 1st/2nd down. DL/CBs are the key to his defense. Why waste high round picks on positions not important in your defense?? Showed how clueless he was.

c) QB/offensive coordinator not valued. Turner runs plays to set up big passes later in the game. Of course, this is wasted when Wanny overrules the playcalls. A QB only eats cap room - we can get any scrub to take the snap. Just bad management skills from Wanny

d) Trading earlier picks next year for later round picks this year. I do not believe that a 2nd round pick next year = 3rd round pick this year, despite what Wannt says. Bad value to me. We did too much of this.

3) Wanny did not adjust to situations. Same vanilla game plan every game. Other teams schemed to make plays against us. UNfortunately, all it took was 1 or 2 plays because our offense was so poor. Let's not throw against that 29th rated pass defense, lets run against the 3rd rated run defense instead. Dont care if Mcmichael is a mismatch against their LB, let's keep running. Again, signs of a poor coach.

4) Poor handling of Marino after 1999 season alienated fans, and started him with 2 strikes. Everyone agreed Marino was winding down (even if he still made some great plays in 99 against Indy, Seattle, Denver). However, to replace him, you need a REAL OPTION - proven veteran, or a good young QB. If we had drafted a good, young QB, we could have kept Marino and groomed him. Instead Wanny gives Marino the boot:fire: , signs Fiedler to play QB:roflmao: , and signs Thurman THomas to play RB (a beaten up, old Thurman deserved a contract, but not Marino??!:yell: ). Like JJ threatening to bench Marino and play Huard - what a joke. If he had REAL young QB on the bench, maybe. When Griese (Bob) was finishing up his career, Shula had Strock to bring in (which he did in several situations when Griese struggled). We never had that with Marino. Can't bench somebody for nobody.
 
One Word. Fletch at # 21. When you already have madison and surtain and terry cousin at a solid # 3 corner. You pass on Drew Brees.
 
unifiedtheory said:
Brilliant post....I will disagree with one thing though. I think the Vikings game was his biggest mistake.

Remember the "lobster trap"?

Wanny was going into the game telling his players they could lose the game.

When you are on the brink of a division championship, home field and should be preparing for the playoffs you DO NOT remind your team of the ways they could lose the damn game.

The Dolphins should have dominated that game. You come out early and bury teams like the Vikings. Instead Wanny let them hang around the entire first half.

He used his "play it close and win it in the fourth quarter" mentality even against bad teams.

I believe that was Wanny's biggest downfall. Never having the killer instinct. I'm not saying he should have run up the score or anything but when you are playing an inferior opponent you have to smash them in the face early and often and make them quit...Wanny could never grasp that ideal.

Even after that disaster we still had a chance to win the damn division and do damage...and we should have. I remember during the 4th of the Patriots game I was on my computer trying to figure out what would have to happen for us to get the bye week....we all know what happened.

Only Dave FREAKING Wannstedt could coach a team that had a top 5 defense, a running back who had almost 1900 yards, multiple Pro Bowl players and go 9-7 and MISS THE PLAYOFFS!

People can talk about the draft failures, the fact that he never added to the talent Jimmy brought in on defense, his decision to let Feidler run the team, his coaching staff decisions....the list goes on.

His biggest failure...and the reason I can not stand the site of the man....is the 2002 season. How the hell that team did not make the playoffs is beyond me....oh wait....they had Dave Wannstedt as their head coach.
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Agree with you UT. How demoralizing is it when your team is up by 10 points with five minutes left, yet the opposing team is mocking you screaming from across the line of scrimmage saying - "we know what play youre going to run!". :mad: Also, I completely agree about the Vikes debacle- the game never should have been close. We should have put the game away in the first half. Argh.
 
he kept giving us bad drafts, stupid trades two conservative and affraid to attack aggressivly
 
The worst Wanny move was deciding to put 50% of our offense in the hands of Ricky Williams...when Ricky bailed on us, that took care of our team. :yell:
 
Whitedolphin54 said:
to be fair Fletcher was a good player in college--i think the problem was that wanny was probably out of his depth--and we cant blame all the draft picks just on him--He did want to win after all
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Fletcher didnt play poorly when he actually had a chance to play. The guy was an absolute ballhawk in college. He wasn't a bust. He held out then Wanny was a idiot about letting him play....he should have put the damn guy on the field - if we needed a damn cb so badly in the first round (w/ drew brees available). The stupid move was not resigning terrell buckley thus necessitating the need to draft fletcher in the first place supposedly.
 
Let me say this...

Part of me is glad I was at my aunt's for a Xmas party during that New England game in 2002. If I were at home watching this unfold, god knows how many things I would have broken. I probably would have taken every old golf club in the garage to the woods and slammed each of them into the trees.

Also came this close to punching a family member (relatively speaking) for trying to tell me its just a game and to not worry about it. Ugh people who don't understand sports trying to console you is not good when you are trying so hard not to scream your lungs out in anger in the first place. And worst of all watching the Jets trounce the Packers after which would have still let us in the postseason if the Pack had won made it that much more unbearable.

Those last two weeks of 2002 may have been the worst 8 days in recent memory.
 
finfansince72 said:
I agree completely. He was completely lost when it came to making adjustments. How many times did we lose games by small margins simply because Wannestadt refused to open the offense up? He also thought a 7pt lead was enough and shut down the offense to try and run the clock out in like the 1st quarter. He coached scared and not to lose. He just doesnt have the mentality to be a good headcoach.
Really, Wannestadt has always been the same guy, it was Wayne H.'s fault 110% for allowing JJ to "assign" his replacement. We should have been looking in a new direction to a guy like Saban 4 or 5 years ago, not taking JJ's handpicked buddy for a replacement. We knew what Dave Wannestadt was in Chicago and that was a poor headcoach. We wasted all the defensive talent's prime years (well most of them) by allowing the Wanny/Jay Fiedler era to hold us down.
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Couldn't agree more...the idiot just never got it. You cant sit on the f'n ball!!! :fire: I am so glad he is gone. I was so sick and tired of watching this team's ***** attitide (Wanny's doing). YOU HAVE TO BE AGGRESSIVE TO WIN. How often in the day did San Fransisco continue to pass the ball and pile on points when they had a lead. I loved it!!! made the other team quit!! Not us, we let them hang around... The damn jets can back on us 2 times after they were down at least 17 points maybe as much as 21 down. This is ALL WANNY's FAULT!!!:fire:
 
claytonduper said:
I believe Wanny's worst move(s) involve surrounding himself with "yes sir" coordinators. He got rid of Westfal which I thought was a horrible move. He replaced people who simply gave Wanny the answers he wanted to hear rather than honest assssments. I think Wanny was a good people person. A below average game-time coach. He could have hired someone to draft players as he was a poor drafter. Bottom line he could have succeeded if he had strong personal around him.
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NO HE COULD NOT HAVE!! :shakeno: Because the guy is a *****, and *****'s don't win in the NFL sorry!!!
 
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