My Father-in-Law is the Owner - Wheeler Dealer's Blog

Wheeler Dealer's Blog

My Father-in-Law is the Owner

Posted on September 2, 2011 at 03:43 AM.

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My Father in Law is the Owner - that must be how I got to be head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Or maybe nobody else would take the job! I'm certainly not qualified!

I had very little idea of how to approach free agency, the draft, the salary cap. So my first move was to forbid anyone on my staff from making a decision. Wouldn't want them making me look bad!

I read somewhere that a good team started with good linemen, And this team only had two good linemen out of 8 starters. Jason Taylor and Sampson Satele. I needed so many players I decided to only go after good players in free agency but to stay away from the top stars with the top price tags. For example I passed on bidding for Alan Faneca and went after the next tier of offensive linemen, looking only a players under 30. Looking for affordable, under 30 and OVL 80-85, I ended up with too many OL.

It really hacked me off that I would be high bidder and then the player wanted to negotiate a bonus and incentives on top of that!

There was one guy I refused to negotiate with and I never heard from him again!

I just shut down bidding when my cap room got down around $20M. I didn't know how much I needed for my draft picks but I read in Sports Illustrated once about a number one pick that got $60M over several years. I might need $10M just for that #1 pick!

I had no idea how to approach the scouting so I got me one of those Magic Eight Balls (but I didn't share that information with my staff). I decided to trade down and get more picks, hopefully less expensive, but I couldn't figure out how, so I just kept my pick and pretended that's what I intended to do all along!

I thought the draft went well. I had two firsts, two seconds, a fourth and a seventh. I got Jake Long, Kenny Phillips, and Andre Woodson who all turned out great. The other three picks all went for CBs and the best will be a useful backup! (Actually, entering the 2009 season, Terrell Thomas looks OK and Orlando Scandrick is a nice return man, not that I need another one).

My opening day starters were:

Pos Name Age/Ovl/Pot
QB A Woodson 22/80/93
HB1 R Brown 24/88/92
HB2 L Booker 24/82/88
FB A Mauia 24/81/88
WR1 T Ginn 23/84/94
WR2 S Parker 27/80/88
WR3 D Hagan 24/70/84
TE D Clark 31/77/77
LT J Long 23/89/96
LG S Andrews 27/90/92
C S Satele 22/87/92
RG J Scott 27/86/87
RT J Gross 28/92/93
-----------------------------
LE A Odom 25/85/86
RE J Taylor 34/92/92
DT1 R Moore 29/78/79
DT2 R Leisle 26/76/78
LOLB J Porter 31/88/88
MLB1 O Thurman 26/81/82
MLB2 L Williams 25/78/81
ROLB C Crowder 23/78/83
CB1 W Allen 30/78/78
CB2 T Thomas 22/73/80
CB3 I McGrath 23/72/82
FS D Smith 30/82/82
SS K Phillips 21/86/92
-----------------------------
K A Serna 22/83/92
P B Fields 24/81/83

I did get some inside skinny on Serna, an article I read on the internet!

This looks like a Superbowl squad to me!!!

After going 1-3 in Preseason, I was starting to think this might not be quite so easy! I even crawfished to the point I only promised Papa Singer I would win more than 3 games!

I lost a close game to the Jets to start the season. Then I nipped the Cardinals in a wild affair. I pulled up to 27-28 with a minute left vs. the Patriots and failed on a two point try. LT put 295 yards rushing on me as we lost to the Chargers.

After winning one of my next three games, I had a most frustrating game with Denver. My approval numbers were already low after the Bills (of all teams) knocked my record down to 2-5. The fans really wanted a win over the Bills. Well, I had 5 defining moments in the Denver game and none went well. I refused to onside kick with 9 minutes left down by 3. I had the ball, 4th and goal on the Denver 11 with 3 seconds left on the clock and they wanted me to go for it instead of tying the game with a FG. In overtime I was challenged to go for it on 4th and 14 on my 20! The really sad thing was that I had a 1st down on the Broncos 17 yard line at one point and I called a run. Booker fumbled and we eventually tied!

My approval rating was down to 9. Could it get so bad Papa Singer fired me during the season?

Then both Brown and Booker came up lame the day before the Seattle game and we got shut out 19-0. My approval went up when accepted some silly challenges out of desperation and a couple actually worked!

Things seemed to be getting better, winning 2 of the next 4. I should have won a crazy 46-43 OT game against the Rams but I came out 0 for 2 chasing 2 point conversions late in regulation. Steven Jackson was the only player to rush the ball for the Rams and he carried it 45 times!

I lost an embarrassing 31-3 game to the Jets to close the season at 5-9-1.

Toward the end of the season I thought we were getting the hang of it until the Jets kicked our teeth in!

On the financial side of things I wasn't happy. By the end of the year I had over $20M cap space left over in 2008 that did my team no good and only about $11M to work with in 2009. I had maybe 20 players who wanted to renegotiate their contracts. I resigned any remotely useful player who would take no bonus and no incentives. I figured I could always cut them and no harm would be done to the 2009 cap.

There were several players that were demanding contracts I thought were just silly. For example, R Leisle who I got off the scrap heap for $900K. He worked out well and I figured a 50% raise was about right. He wanted $10.5M for three years AND a $2.5M Bonus!!!

(Later my GM pointed out that the $10.5M included the bonus. I told him I knew that.

) I lost 4 starters who just wouldn't be reasonable.

Woodson was the Offensive Rookie of the Year and Phillips took the same honor for defenders. The 1st overall pick, Jake Long, worked out well so there IS some joy in Mudville.

Papa Singer decided I could keep my job another year and wanted me to keep my staff. I didn't feel so generous. Somebody has to take the blame for that wretched season and I can't think who else might be at fault!

Hired vs. Fired
OC Jim Caldwell 48 replaces Dan Henning 40
DC Mike Smith 56 replaces Paul Pasqualoni 19
QBC Chris Staymates 78 replaces David Lee 19
WRC R Fichtner 61 replaces K Dorrell 11
OLC Bill Laveroni 38 replaces Mike Maser 23
LBC Bill Bourbin 56 replaces Jon Rose 10
Trainer R Wyman 99 replaces R Rodriguez 14

I feel much more comfortable having better coaches to blame the bad stuff on. On the downside, they demanded I allow them to make some decisions. They even changed the way the team evaluates talent. I don't know how anyone can't know speed is the most important thing of all! And they tell me some of my guys are dumb. Duh, they're jocks!

The cap went up a bit so I had $14.6M to work with. I was determined not to have all that money left over at the end of the year (it felt like having timeouts left over at the end of a game) so I calculated very carefully what I should spend to get my cap space to almost nothing at the beginning of training camp. I hired TE B Patrick and OLB M Boley to fill two of my most obvious needs. After the draft and walk-ons, cap space was down to $1.03M.

Then Gil Darnell asked me how I would resign my veterans who were in the last year of their contracts.

I assured him he needn't worry!

This year's draft didn't go quite so well. My foolish new OC and WRC insisted that the receivers I had wouldn't do at all. I used both my first and second round picks on WRs, J Kidd and R Conely. The jury is still out, but they didn't wow me like Long, Phillips and Woodson did last year. In the third round I took a CB who didn't make the team. A LT in the 6th didn't make it either and a 7th round CB Is fighting for the 5th CB spot on the roster.

On the upside, I got 3 starters in trades for players who weren't going to make my team, along with a late (6th or 7th) pick in each case. I got 6 useful backups from the walk-ons, one has an 85 potential.

This team looked much better in preseason, winning 3 of 4 in a comfortable fashion. They don't make as many mistakes, they tackle better and catch better, they're just better. Then I compared this year's opening roster with last year's. It doesn't look any better. Now some of that may be the harsher preferences of the new staff members, but just looking at the rosters, I wouldn't expect much better results. Gil Darnell rates my talent 16th and last year he had my talent at 8th at one point!

At any rate, here they are:

Pos Name Age/Ovl/Pot
QB A Woodson 23/86/94 *
HB1 R Brown 25/89/90 *
HB2 L Booker 25/81/88 *
FB A Mauia 25/84/88 *
WR1 J Kidd 24/77/91
WR2 M Clayton 27/77/77 $
WR3 T Ginn 24/70/84 **
TE B Patrick 25/79/84
LT J Long 24/94/96 *
LG S Andrews 28/90/92 *
C S Satele 23/89/91 *
RG J Scott 28/87/87 *
RT J Gross 29/94/94 *
-----------------------------
LE A Odom 26/86/87 *
RE J Taylor 34/92/92 *
DT1 M Patterson 25/79/80 $
DT2 R Wright 25/74/77
LOLB J Porter 32/85/85 *
MLB1 O Thurman 27/81/81 *
MLB2 K Deas 23/78/82 $
ROLB M Boley 25/87/88
CB1 W Allen 31/81/81 * $
CB2 T Thomas 23/77/81 *
CB3 R Starks 23/73/81 $
FS D Smith 31/76/76 * $
SS K Phillips 22/86/92 *
-----------------------------
K A Serna 23/85/92 *
P B Fields 25/84/90 *

* returning, ** returning at different position, $ Contact up

So out of 28 "starters" 8 are new, 20 are returning, 4 are over 30

I have $2.26M in cap space. I consider the 6 starting players whose contracts are up to be my least important starters, well except for DT R Wright, he's expendable as well.

I'm predicting this team will do a lot better. I think the improved coaching staff and the continuity will be a big lift, but clearly the thing that will put them in the Superbowl chase is their head Coach!