Dolphins fans have been more than patient, but it's clear the franchise is in disarray. The fish head rots from the top. It's time for a major change. That's right: It's time for Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross to fire himself.
Here are five reasons.
Stephen Ross is the reason the Dolphins will never be successful. Absentee owner
— Jake Stoneburner (@jake_STONEYY) January 10, 2022
He's an Absentee Owner
Being an NFL owner is as much about putting in place the right people to make decisions and having the pulse of your team as it is writing checks and ensuring the facilities are nice and shiny. Ross spends little to no time in Miami looking after his massive investment: He flies in for games and heads back to New York when they're done.You can't expect to be the owner of a Super Bowl-caliber team when you can't even be bothered to live less than 1,000 miles away from it. The Miami Dolphins are not a building in Tokyo to check in on every few months or make a couple of phone calls about; they're an organization that runs on people, relationships, and how they all work together.
That leads us to the next point.
Failed Hirings
Stephen Ross puts the worst people in charge of hiring other people, then he listens to them for far too long before he figures out he's getting bad advice. Jeff Ireland, Mike Tannenbaum, Chris Grier, and Tom Garfinkel — the list of people Ross has tasked with running his multibillion-dollar business while he's in New York talking about real estate or in Michigan fundraising for the university goes on and on.It would be one thing if Ross was an absentee owner who hired someone like Pat Riley to look after things. But he's gotten it wrong at every turn, abandoning his investment to poor management and even poorer employees.
Once again, the Dolphins are conducting a head-coaching search. It's nearing a half-dozen times that has been the case since Ross bought the team barely a decade ago.
The Embarrassment of the Brand
If the buck stops with the owner, Stephen Ross is responsible for not one, but two TMZ-level scandals on his watch. The NFL loves to punish players for "disrespecting the shield" and tarnishing the league as a whole, so it's only right Ross should take the hit for embarrassments that occur on his watch.The Richie Incognito bullying scandal and footage of coach Chris Foerster hoovering cocaine on camera are black eyes for Ross. But they'll also stick with the organization long after he sells the team and profits billions.
He Doesn't Get the Real Miami
Since the moment RossIt's high time a Dolphins owner invested in Miami as more than just a toy. Like the Miami Hurricanes as of late: For the good of the team, it's time for the Dolphins experience a leader who understands the people who support the team, the history of the franchise, and what it means to actually live in Miami.
Report: Stephen Ross tried to set up call with Deshaun Watson before trade deadline, but QB refused https://t.co/JbBMASSVhF
— Dolphin Nation (@Dolphin_Nation) January 18, 2022
The Deshaun Watson Embarrassment
The Dolphins' incredibly distasteful, untimely, and downright embarrassing pursuit of Deshaun Watson this past season has been well documented. But it bears repeating that everyone involved deserves to be fired over how it was handled, including Ross himself. Pursuing a player who isn't even playing for his own team owing to 22 sexual misconduct civil lawsuits would be cause enough, but doing so while you have a young quarterback — drafted number five overall — who hasn't even played a full season's worth of football is appalling.It seems that if Stephen Ross had his way, Watson would be a Miami Dolphin right now — and that's precisely the sort of flawed decision-making that has led to all of the previous mishaps and embarrassments.
