Some people are fans of the Miami Dolphins. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Miami Dolphins. This 2012 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read the other Why Your Team Sucks 2012 previews here.
1. They just can't wait to ruin Ryan Tannehill. There's nothing more enjoyable than watching an NFL team draft a project quarterback, swear to keep that project QB tethered to the bench for at least a year, and then IMMEDIATELY throw out those plans before the season has even started. The Dolphins reached to draft Ryan Tannehill because they didn't have the ammo to move up and draft shovel-ready QBs like RG3 and Andrew Luck. It's like drafting in your fantasy league, realizing you need a wideout, watching all the good ones get selected in front of you, and then settling for Doug Baldwin (NOTE: I tried to use a Dolphins wideout for this analogy, unfortunately the Dolphins have no wideouts. Literally. I'm told they'll be using inflatable wideouts for the majority of this season). No one is EXCITED to draft Ryan Tannehill. Drafting Ryan Tannehill is something you do after drinking too much and intentionally doing something to hurt yourself. NFL Network Mike Mayock said Tannehill is "at least a year away from being a functional NFL quarterback." Oh goody. Sounds fantastic. NEVER DRAFT A WHITE QB JUST BECAUSE HE CAN RUN FAST.
In an ideal situation, the Dolphins would let Tannehill ride the bench for a year and THEN let him go out and suck the way we all know he will. Instead, they've decided to stick him out there this season, with no one to throw to and no possible hope for success. NFL teams never seem to heed the lessons of David Carr. Time and again, they take a young passer and happily let opponents dismantle his psyche bit by bit. By the end of this season, Tannehill will be throwing passes with his eyes closed from the fetal position.
2. Dan Snyder Jr. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross is fucking terrible. Here's a man who spent last season trying to sell minority stakes in the club to celebrities as a way of boosting the team's profile. Because the average football fan is eight times more likely to attend a game if they know that Gloria Estefan is a one-percent shareholder. Ross also declared that he'd like to see the team change uniforms after watching the Marlins rebrand themselves. Because you should always take cues from the Marlins when it comes to things of that nature. I'm very excited for the team to erect a giant Carmen Miranda statue in the end zone. If Tannehill hits the statue, everyone at the stadium receives a free can of Fanta.
And those are among the more trivial of errors committed by Ross. He fucked up the Jim Harbaugh courtship. He left Tony Sparano out to rot in front of his players for the equivalent of a full season. He was so openly desperate to sign Peyton Manning that should have stood out on the Sun Life Stadium sidewalk in fishnets, flashing his rectal warts to passing motorists. He somehow lost out on Jeff Fisher to the Rams—THE RAMS! Have you seen the Rams lately? They're dying. They have a shit roster and they play in a shit stadium in the shittiest town imaginable. Jeff Fisher turned down a chance to live in Miami for THAT. That's how awful Stephen Ross is. At least when Dan Snyder makes an asshole move, he makes a BIG asshole move. He has asshole flair. Stephen Ross is a wannabe Dan Snyder, which has to be the single most pathetic thing a human being can be. But hey, at least the stadium has a nightclub. Jeeeesus.
3. The Ocho Experiment. Consider how desperate you have to be at wideout to sign a player like Ocho, who was so clearly washed up by last season. Every throw directed at Chad Johnson last season felt like an act of charity. Ocho may be gone now, but I promise you: If there's any team out there desperate enough to sign Donovan McNabb, it's these Dolphins. Jeff Ireleand can tell from the soup ads that his mother isn't a whore. The Dolphins' cluelessness is terrifying to behold. This is a team whose best offensive weapon—by far—is Reggie Bush. Reggie Bush was the 12th most important skill player in New Orleans. In Miami, he's fucking Superman. They're doomed.
4. Those goddamn '72 Dolphins. Does anyone like these people anymore? I don't think even Dolphins fans like the '72 Dolphins anymore. At this point, they only serve to illuminate the franchise's current atrociousness. All I think about when I think about the Dolphins now is A.) fuck the '72 Dolphins, B.) that Hootie song, and C.) EINHORN IS FINKLE, FINKLE IS EINHORN. That's the entirety of their identity right now.
And in many ways, that's the kind of team that Miami deserves. Miami doesn't deserve a hallowed football tradition. Miami deserves ANGUISH. I've been to South Beach. It's an overpriced strip mall. And I think you users of the Internet are already well aware of the dangers that Florida itself presents to modern society: zombies, serial killers, coke dealer massacres, eight-year-olds arrested for DUI, crocodile attacks... Florida is the waste product of America's digestive system. That's why it comes out of our bottom. It's not America's wang, as so popularly noted. It's America's turtle, poking out of our asshole until hopefully, one day, it breaks off into the water and gets flushed down. And hopefully, the Dolphins will sink with it.
5. Hear it from Dolphins fans!
Jeff:
Every two seasons or so, Miami trades away some practice squad hustler or third string overachiever to the Jets or Pats for next to nothing, only to have that fucker gleefully shred our penises in a meat grinder. If OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony had a baby, that kid would be a more popular Floridian than Jeff Ireland.
Eric:
FUCK YOU SABAN
Mike:
I bought season tickets last year (sadist) and ever since then have enjoyed some of the many "benefits" offered to season ticket holders. My favorite is where we get random automated telephone calls to our cell phones to remind us about a teleconference with season ticketholders and... Brian Hartline? As if having a horrible on-field product wasn't enough, now I can add the Dolphins to the long list of assholes that call my cell phone with automated messages (all I had to do was pony up $1000 for two seats for the privilege!!!!).
They also try pawning off god awful soccer tickets in the shittiest seats in the stadium to us as another "perk." I immediately claimed my free tickets because I'm a red-blooded American who wants everything that is free regardless of how much I actually don't want it. I immediately went on StubHub to sell the tickets but the four free tickets they gave me were only going to fetch me a measly $28. I hate you, Miami Dolphins.
Eric:
The worst part is that I started following this team in 1984 when they went to the Super Bowl. As a kid, you're thinking this is great. We can do this every year, right? Hell no. These guys have bumblefucked their way through the past 28 years doing nothing. I'm still a reluctant fan out of some misguided loyalty. But when do you stop caring about a bunch of fucking assholes that don't resemble the organization that you originally decided to follow for one reason or another? I feel like the whole Dolphins organization is being held hostage by Ray Finkle and there's nothing I can do but feel his gun digging into my hip. You got a t-shirt like that I can buy, Mr. Ross?
David:
Jeff Ireland is the Todd Akin of football.
Chance:
Hey, this Wes Welker kid is pretty good. I know, let's trade him to our most dangerous division rivals for a second round pick that we can blow on a halfway decent center who we'll just flip to the Raiders a couple years later for a sixth rounder!
I could go on about this team's god-awful trade history in the last decade (fuckin' A.J. Feeley), but it's late and I don't want to write a goddamn essay.
Ryan:
If you walk into a men's room at a truck stop and decide to stick your dick through a glory hole to see what would happen, you are clearly qualified to make the same sort of inept decisions that have plagued my team for decades. Let's take a look at a few.
1. Forcing your Hall of Fame coach into retirement for Jimmy Johnson, only to have him quit and hand the team over to porn-stache Dave Wannstedt.
2. Passing on Drew Brees TWICE! Oh yeah, Culpepper is the much safer choice. You fucking idiots, he was rehabbing at a 24hr Fitness for Christ sakes.
3. Using 2nd round picks on shitty QBs instead of a first rounder: AJ Feeley, Daunte Culpepper, John Beck, Chad Henne
4. Learning about Ricky Williams' hippy drum circle bullshit every game he played AFTER he quit only to return b/c he realized he need cash to travel to 3rd world shitholes.
5. Passing on Mike Tomlin for a guy whose parents named him Cam Cameron. This douche was fired from the football powerhouse Indiana for shitting down his leg.
6. Outside of Shula, our past coaches are horrible. Wannstedt, Bates, Saban, Cameron, Sparano. Little Nicky Saban realized that in the NFL, you have to wait your turn and draft players instead of recruiting them, so he took his ball and went home.
7. Finally, one more note on Saban. Employees were not allowed to look or speak to the coach unless spoken to, and he yelled at a admin assistant for buying the wrong Little Debbie snack cakes. No one can make shit like that up.
Lauren:
The Orange Carpet. Why is that a thing? It's the worst, literally the worst.
Dan:
In my lifetime alone, they have lost playoff games 62-7, 38-3, 29-10, 27-0. They have drafted players in the first round named Erik Kumero, Yatil Green, Billy Milner, John Avery, Jamar Fletcher, Jason Allen, and Ted Ginn. They have had Ricky Williams choose weed over them, then take him back like nothing happened. They employed Dave Wannstedt. They employed Cam Cameron as head coach and went 1-15 while fans cried in the stands when they finally won one game (I was there, guys were actually crying).
Carlos:
Here's our fight song. Fuck my life.
Click to view
Dylan:
Being a Dolphins fan is like dating a scumbag. It's like, right before every season, the Dolphins are like, "Hey, c'mon now baby, don't be like that. We just picked up Cameron Wake, see? I told you we can change." And I'll be like, "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry, baby." Then they have another losing season, and it once again turns into me packing an overnight bag and staying with my friend, who makes us both some tea and pats my back saying, "He's no good for you, Dylan. You have to leave. You have to be strong." And I know it's true, but I just keep going back. I should have listened to my parents and gotten with the Steelers when I had a chance.
Head Bee Guy:
This is, without a doubt, the single most boring franchise in the NFL. Other teams may be worse (not frequently), but it's almost as though the Dolphins intentionally structure their team to prevent their fans from having any emotional attachment.
Here is a list of interesting things that have happened to the Dolphins over the last decade:
2004: Ricky Williams retires
2008: Playoff appearance
2011: Brandon Marshall stabbed by his wife
Additionally, let's not forget that the Dolphins (presumably not under duress) allowed Dave Wannstedt to coach the team for five years. Dave Wannstedt's greatest achievement in almost 20 years as a head coach is a two-point victory in the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
Matt:
We are Cleveland with a beach.
Drew:
To be honest, I'm puzzled as to why the Dolphins never come up in the regular discussions of teams who may move to Los Angeles. The city is made up entirely of retired Jets fans and coked-up, paranoid Exiles who are too busy blaming the thrown rods in their rusted-out Tercels on fucking Castro to bother with the game. What little remains of the fanbase lives in Broward and Palm Beach
This is the state of the Miami Dolphins in 2012. The stadium has had more names than Antonio Cromartie has had kids. Our GM is primarily known for asking a potential draft pick if his mother was a hooker. And somehow this little ginger shit—the man who took PAT FUCKING WHITE IN THE SECOND ROUND—gets the reputation from the drooling morons who make up our fanbase for being solid on draft day.
Our owner looks like a gargoyle with Down's syndrome, goes after coaches and players he wants with all the tact of a sledgehammer, and apparently thinks he's marketing to 12-year-old girls in 2003 with all of his celebrity owners.
I've noted on more than one occasion to fellow fans that Dave Wannstedt remains the most successful head coach of the Post-Johnson Era. And it isn't even really close. Someone should die for that.
And then there are the quarterbacks. I've lost count of how many we've had. I knew I had reached the low-point of fandom last year as I watched Chad Henne throw another pick and thought to myself, "I miss Jay Fiedler." Our new coach apparently thought he'd throw fans a bone by taking a quarterback in the First Round this year. This was a mistake. We have traditions here. When we want to reach on a quarterback and saddle ourselves with incompetence for another two years, we'll do it the right way — drafting him in the Second Round and making him sit behind an aging veteran whose shoulder is made of tissue paper.
Tannehill's a nice enough kid, but a kid whom anybody with an IQ above room temperature knows is just a yokel-assed Chad Henne with a hotter wife. The truth is that Philbin and whatever poor bastard follows him in 2014 can bring in anybody they want. It won't matter.
This team isn't going to have a franchise quarterback again until Marino's dead, which is why from here on out I'm anxiously awaiting the day Marino and Sharpe at long last push Esiason over the edge, and Esiason finally goes postal on live TV.
David:
Brian Hartline has worse legs than the horses on "Luck".
Wanna be part of the Deadspin NFL previews? It's simple. Just email me and give me ample evidence of why your team sucks. I'll throw any good material into the post and give you proper credit. Next team up: THE BILLS.
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