After last week's demolishing at the hands of the Buffalo Bills, we wrote that the Dolphins should clean house and fire everyone on the coaching staff and front office. We still hold to that. Some
Fair enough.
But as it stands, the Fins are in
So what if it happens again? What if the Dolphins go into Sunday's game in London and fill the field with Jurassic Park dinosaur-sized poop all over again against the Jets? What if the defense makes Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Johnny Unitas and the offense continues to throw four-yard passes on third and 13?
Let's set aside the hyperbole and panic and look at this as something Stephen Ross should seriously consider if Miami drops another bag of piss this Sunday against their rival Jets in London.
Should the Dolphins actually fire Joe Philbin overseas four games into the season? Steel-toe his ass and make him buy his own ticket back to the States?
Here are two reasons why the answer is hell and yes (you really don't need any more than two):
1. The Fans Appear to Be Fed Up With Joe Philbin
Look, yes fans can be irrational and not very in tune to things. They can lack perspective and big-picture thinking. But sometimes — maybe not often — but sometimes, they're right. This is a fanbase that has seen the same Dolphin team crap into its collective mouth year after year going on two decades now. The recipe has been the same, regardless of who is in charge:
1.) A team that can score only field goals.
2.) A team that can't defend.
3.) Rinse and repeat.
4.) Throw up in pants.
Now, after much hype and expectations, Joe Philbin has managed to pull off the impossible: He's made the Dolphins look worse.
Well done.
Fans do not trust Philbin, and the frustration has bubbled over onto social media and inspired songs, like this fantastic track from @MNEMONIKOS_:
"Ah but fans don't know nothing," one might say. "They ain't never had their hands in the dirt."
OK... how about this:
2. The Players Appear to Be Fed Up With Joe Philbin
Again, the argument is that it's early into the season. But Philbin has looked out of his depth since day one when he was hired in 2012 (yes, he's been among us that long). He was hired mainly because all the better candidates turned Miami down. He had no real bona fides. He was a guy who was merely an assistant coach in Green Bay and was hired because Aaron Rodgers is the neo-god of quarterbacks.
More than anything, Philbin should have been given the heave-ho after last year's debacle. Not only because the team
In week three of last year, the cracks began to show, with anonymous players talking about how frustrated they were with the coaching staff's lack of any real game plan.
One source says Dolphins players are "beyond furious. Irate" at defensive adjustments and game plan. Not good. At all.
— Adam Beasley (@AdamHBeasley) September 22, 2014
Players then stopped being anonymous and began to keep it real, openly questioning the coaching staff in the media.VIDEO: LB Philip Wheeler throws a chunk of blame at coaches for the #Dolphins' disastrous final defensive play -- http://t.co/hhx6jeaDHk
— Sun Sentinel Sports (@Sentinel_Sports) October 13, 2014
And, most egregiously, they openly showed contempt toward Philbin and the coaches with middle fingers and backtalk, DURING GAMES.— Alex Ferrer (@AFFerrer_) September 21, 2014
This year alone, we've seen Ndamukong Suh coaching up Philbin on the sidelines during the Washington game. Another report a week later said that Suh decided to stop listening to the coaches altogether.
Then there was Ryan Tannehill coming out and publicly disparaging Philbin.
Tannehill is the most vanilla-coated bore of a player you will ever hear at the podium or during an interview. He's the poster boy for quarterbacks who lady-fart out harmless cliches and never show any emotion one way or another. He's like the clone of a clone of a person. He's actually Bill Belichick's wet
When Philbin inexplicably decided to not tell the media if Tannehill was his starting quarterback, Tannehill showed us that he's human and called bullshit on Joe.
"It creates a bunch of
3. SURPRISE! A BONUS REASON.
The Dolphins are terrible and appear to be outmatched every week. And this has been their identity since the Philbin era began.
This isn't about losing patience three or four weeks into a season. This has been ongoing for four seasons now. And this aggression will not stand, man.
Joe Philbin has been Gomer
No doubt he'll derp his way through another news conference on Sunday as he explains that his team needs to play better.