the final word--kinda funny from Miami Herald day after
the final word--kinda funny from Miami Herald day after
Dan Le Batard
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Posted on Mon, Sep. 08, 2003
Dolphins talent? It must be hidden
COMMENTARY / DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@herald.com
Dan Le Batard
The oxygen masks have fallen from above, the alarm sirens are wailing and South Florida's hyperventilating masses have dialed 911 in search of heart paddles.
Because the Miami Dolphins have never started a season this way.
Not once in this proud franchise's long history has a Dolphins team as talented as this one opened at home against an opponent this bad and produced such an awful pile of stink.
The Dolphins picked up this season exactly where they left the last one, almost as if this dreadful story had been bookmarked.
Texans 21, Dolphins 20.
Huh?
You are kidding, right?
That's a typo, a punch line or a baldfaced lie, no?
It wasn't just that the Dolphins lost to the Houston Awfuls, either. It's that they were passive, inattentive, dumb, disorganized and sloppy in doing so.
The Dolphins have managed to become the anti-Hurricanes, our amateur footballers shaming our professional ones. The Hurricanes, as you know, set our expectations in an impossibly high place and then find creative ways to somehow exceed them. UM even loses correctly. But the Dolphins? They have copyrighted the idea of overpromising and underdelivering.
You are going to spend the offseason talking Super Bowl, and then you are going to open your season with this prodigious mountain of slop?
Fellas, quit telling us how talented you are, please.
Feel free any season now to show us.
''A Super Bowl isn't won in your first game,'' safety Brock Marion said. ``This doesn't mean our Super Bowl plans are null and void.''
After a pause, he added, ``It's crazy that we lost.''
You say the Tampa Bay Buccaneers began with a home-opening loss last season and everything seemed to work out OK for them?
Save it.
The Bucs are champions, OK?
The Dolphins have done nothing to earn that comparison.
Nothing.
Except lose their first game.
Feel free to criticize Dave Wannstedt's coaching or Ricky Williams' fumble or Jay Fiedler's last interception or Norv Turner asking Fiedler to throw that kind of pass in that situation, but please understand this was a total team collapse. Miami did not lose this game by some fluke in the last few minutes. Miami was fortunate to be leading this game at all.
The Dolphins scored touchdowns on the only three legitimate chances they had to do so. They, unlike the Texans, weren't getting close perpetually and settling for field-goal attempts. The Texans, meanwhile, missed two field goals and dropped a TD pass. Again, Miami made it into Houston territory a piddly three times all game, and scored touchdowns each time. Houston, meanwhile, made it into Miami territory three times as often. So one of the worst teams in football, on the road, spent three times as much time near the goal line as your alleged Super Bowl contenders.
This was the groom filing for divorce on his wedding day -- and running off with his best man. This was the hot, new musical act being introduced amid much applause and hype -- and the lead singer freezing, then wetting himself. This was the spark and chemistry between Jennifer L?pez and Ben Affleck somehow producing Gigli.
We're spoiled, yes. We haven't had a losing season around here in 15 years. But how does a team with seven returning Pro Bowl players lose to a team that didn't even have players less than two years ago? How do you talk for months about vengeance and eliminating the bitter taste and then swallow vinegar for four quarters until you gag?
''Disappointing,'' tight end Randy McMichael said. ``Very. Extremely. I'm disappointed to a level so low I can't even explain it to you in words.''
You didn't need words in the locker room afterward. You could see it for yourself. The money in pro sports tends to produce a country-club culture, opponents hugging amiably and exchanging phone numbers on the field after games, but the Dolphins appeared crushed in a way you rarely see after regular-season games of any kind.
You should have seen the half-naked defensive linemen still slumped in front of their lockers silently a full half-hour after the game. Tim Bowens, Jason Taylor, Larry Chester and Adewale Ogunleye sat side-by-side in chairs. Silent. Steaming. Heads in hands. Towels over heads. Staring vacantly ahead. Unapproachable. A portrait of suffering. Defeated, in every way. Given their combined weight, this was almost literally a ton of frustration sitting slumped in the losing locker room.
''We didn't show up,'' Chester said. ``This was a complete failure.''
All those offseason acquisitions? Other than perhaps all the missed tackles, there is no tangible proof that any of the new guys actually played any more than the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot did. Did Derrius Thompson get lost on the way to the stadium? Would somebody please go claim him from lost-and-found before the Jets game?
No big plays. No sacks against an offensive line as bad as any in league history. And, finally, spitting up a lead with a turnover at game's end. Bright spots? Chris Chambers. And, um, well, OK, that about covers it. Did we mention Chris Chambers?
There are worse ways Miami's season of renewed hope could have started, perhaps, but only if the team bus had arrived at the stadium and immediately been hit by a meteor.