The Miami Dolphins screwed up when they decided to honor
the 2008-2009 national champion Florida Gators football team during
the October 23 home game against the Denver Broncos. Gator rivals, the UM Hurricanes, are both our home team and in trouble with the NCAA.
surprise Dolfans.The franchise hasn't had its act
together since 1983, the year the team drafted Hall of Fame
quarterback Dan Marino.
So in honor of the Dolphins' front-office ineptitude, we give you the top five worst management moves by
Miami's oldest professional sports team:
5. Jeff Ireland asks Dez Bryant if his mom was a ho.
Before the Dallas Cowboys made Bryant
their number one pick in the 2010 draft, the former Oklahoma State
wide receiver was interviewed by the Dolphins general manager.
Ireland inquired if his mother had been a prostitute, which an
insulted Bryant flatly denied. After the story went public, Ireland
issued a mea culpa: "I used poor judgment in one of the questions
I asked him. I certainly meant no disrespect and apologized to him."
What Ireland really wanted to know if Dez's mom provided the full girlfriend experience.
4. Partnering with Jimmy Buffett.
In addition to renaming the team's stadium after Buffett's bitter-ass Landshark Lager, the
front office also agreed to stop playing the Dolphins fight song in
favor of a ditty composed by the crooner. Now every time we go to a
home game, we have to put up with that insufferable chorus line: "We
got fins to the left, fins to the right, we're at the only game in
town. Oh, oh, oh, oh!" We'd like to take a fin and jam it into
Buffett's guitar.
3. Hiring Dan Marino as a team executive.
In 2004, desperate to show fans he was
serious about turning around the team's mediocrity, then-owner H.
Wayne Huizenga hired the Dolphins' all-time greatest passer as
senior vice president of football operations even though Marino had
absolutely no experience evaluating football players. Bringing back
Marino was supposed to help everyone forget the Dave Wannstedt-Rick
Spielman era of ultimate suckage. But three weeks later, Marino came to his senses and quit. He's still enjoying a stellar career as an
NFL TV analyst while the Dolphins continue down the path of
consistent mediocrity.
2. Forcing Don Shula to retire.
Dolphins had acquired a plethora of free agents to get them back to
the Super Bowl, Huizenga decided it was time for the NFL's all-time
winningest coach to call it a day. He forced Shula out so he could
bring in Jimmy Johnson, the guy who turned the Miami Hurricanes into
a national powerhouse and brought the Dallas Cowboys back to glory. Three
years after taking over, Johnson led the Dolphins to the team's
worst playoff loss in team history: a 62-7 drubbing at the hands of
the Jacksonville Jaguars.
1. Moving out of the Orange Bowl.
In 1984, Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre
refused to cave in to original team owner Joe Robbie's demands for a
new stadium, so the Dolphins patriarch vowed his team would never play in the Orange Bowl again once the lease was up two years later.
Robbie paid for his own $100 million stadium, where the Dolphins have
been playing for the past 24 years, but he mortgaged just about
everything he had to get the place built. After Robbie died, his
family ended up selling the franchise to Huizenga, who ignited the
team's fall from perennial Super Bowl contender to perennial loser.
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