Miami Dolphins waste no time in squashing their fans' hopes for better things in 2025
It was already bad enough for Miami Dolphins fans watching their team's gross end an underwhelming 2024 season on Sunday night. The rudderless, punchless Jets took control and dumped the Dolphins 32-20. It got even worse when Miami got to the locker room. Tyreek Hill all but said he was heading out the door and […]
It was already bad enough for Miami Dolphins fans watching their team's gross end an underwhelming 2024 season on Sunday night. The rudderless, punchless Jets took control and dumped the Dolphins 32-20.
It got even worse when Miami got to the locker room. Tyreek Hill all but said he was heading out the door and looking to move on from the Dolphins.
But then owner Stephen Ross decided it was a great time to take that pile of disappointment and bad news and plop an even bigger load of sadness on top for the fan base. Didn't even give the fans a night to even have a chance to decompress, swallow the ending, and hope for better things in 2025.
Just two hours after the Dolphins' loss, the Dolphins' social team issued the following statement on Twitter/X by Ross announcing the retention of general manager Chris Grier and head coach Mike McDaniel:
The retention of Grier is one that's really stuck in the craw of many Dolphins fans, and it's not hard to understand why. Grier just completed his ninth season as the team's general manager. Over that span, the team has won zero division titles and made the playoffs three times, losing all three games.
During his time with McDaniel over the last three seasons, Grier's obvious failures are on building a roster that's tough in the trenches and one that's led by with players who have the mental toughness to succeed in adverse weather conditions and against tough and physical competitors. That's earned the Dolphins the reputation from former players and others around the league as being "soft".
Hell, it's not even just former players and outsiders. Dolphins linebacker Jordyn Brooks said it directly after Miami's 30-17 loss to Green Bay this year.
"No, I felt like we let the elements control the way that we played. I thought we was soft. Simple as that. I thought we was soft today.
"I don't know if guys was too cold. I don't know what it was, but I felt like the elements played a part in how we played as a group., and so, and that was the result that we got."
A large portion of that lack of physicality as been found in the team's trenches, particularly on the offensive side of the ball in 2024. Miami's rushing offense was one of the worst in the NFL this season.
Grier, when questioned by media before the season about whether he was confident in the offensive line – which appeared shaky on paper – for the season, chuckled and quipped that the media was more worried about the group than he was.
Well, who's laughing now? Certainly not the fans, whose wait to see their team's next playoff win will now stretch to at least a quarter of a century.
The NFL is a business where continuity is often not granted where it should be for coaches, players, and even executives who are building, learning, and executing a plan. It's a demanding, win-now business run by billionaire owners who are used to getting things done as they command, and quickly.
But Ross' loyalty to Grier has passed beyond the time for a plan and has waded deep into the waters of head-scratching stubbornness. Once you get beyond what's fair as far as time to execute your vision, you have to be held accountable for failing to reach that vision. There unfortunately is no accountability by Ross for what's been an undeniable failure in South Florida over the last nine years.
And a lack of accountability can be the thing affects most the one thing that owners care about more than anything: money. Fan apathy can be a powerful thing, as that's the only area where the fans have any type of control. And fans who believe an owner doesn't hold those he's tasked with accountable for developing a winner may then ask themselves: if they don't care enough, why should I?
It's going to be an incredibly important offseason for this franchise, but at this point, it's one that might not have as many fans on board this time.
Because if this product and this nine-year track record isn't bad enough to warrant a change, why will anything be any different?
