Showing posts with label Armando Salguero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Armando Salguero. Show all posts

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Insufferable, butt-kissing Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross seems willing to repudiate own fans, give up '15 home game vs Jets and play it in London for slight hypothetical possibility of landing Super Bowl. Someday. Maybe. With the right breaks

ICYMI: Butt-kissing Dolphins owner Stephen Ross perfectly willing to repudiate own fans, give up '15 home game vs Jets and play it in London for slight hypothetical possibility of landing Super Bowl. Someday. Maybe. 
With the right breaks.




Miami Dolphins In Depth blog
Bad idea: Dolphins yield Jets home game in '15,
Armando Salguero,
November 7, 2014 9:24 a.m
  
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2014/11/i-like-the-idea-of-the-nfl-playing-games-in-london-i-even-like-the-idea-of-the-miami-dolphins-occassionally-doing-their-leag.html

There are many positive and negative things I'll never forget about my time living and working in the Washington D.C. area from 1988-2003.
One of those was that regardless of whether the Redskins were Super Bowl Champs, a very competitive team or just plain mediocre-to-awful -the Richie Pettibon years!- there was never any doubt in the mind of anyone I knew that the team genuinely was THE focus of the community's
hopes and dreams every Fall.

Just like you've heard/read/watched for decades back when CBS used to do NFC games and you could predict that before a big game against the Giants, we'd see a segment lauding Redskins fans and making the point that they had a direct connection with their fans that most NFL cities never have. (And still don't have.)
But it's true.



You didn't have to take a poll when I was living there to know that the Redskins genuinely were THE glue that held the community together, regardless of race, gender, political party, ideology or economic class.
I saw that for myself for years in tangible ways that even the South Florida I grew-up in during the Dolphins' heady era of dominance in the 1970's could never possibly replicate.

I know because I saw I witnessed it everyday in the Fall and Winter when I was on the Metro train on my way into work in the morning, esp. on Monday mornings after big Redskin wins or Friday afternoons before big games, and looked at the faces of the other commuters around me.
And even though I'd lived in Chicago when the Bears won the title in the mid-1980's, and knew well of their decades of suffering, especially when I was at IU, it was even more tangible than what I saw every morning in the Fall when I'd board an El train in Evanston down to The Loop.

It was noticeable at the hot dog stand on K Street with a Redskins pennant flying above it that played the Redskins fight song on an endless loop on their boombox on Friday afternoons. 
Noticeable precisely because it didn't surprise you,
You simply took it in stride.



Noticeable, too, at the CVS on Eye Street near the NY Times' Washington bureau, where I'd frequently run into the MPAA's Jack Valenti heading there mid-afternoon to solve a sugar or caffeine fix.
And while that weekend's weather forecast was always somewhat iffy, what wasn't iffy was knowing that once you walked into that CVS, that 99% of the employees had on a Redskin cap or skullcap.
You could take that to the bank!

So, that said, in 2007 when the Dolphins gave up a VERY RARE Dolphins home game against the NY Giants -the Giants being the team the Dolphins have played THE LEAST in the team's existence, with just 5 games prior to that one in 42 years- in order to appease the NFL execs on Park Avenue and play the game in London, like many Dophin fans, I watched the game with more than a little anger, since every single legit Dolphins fan my age or older -esp. ones like me who were actually from South Florida- knew EXACTLY what that home game represented.
A very rare opportunity: completely squandered.

And also understood what a major customer slap in the face that decision was to Dolphin fans, given the unique history and peculiar demographics of South Florida.
To Dolphin fans who had already been stuck with a listless, punchless team for many years at that point, it felt like once again a decision had been made NOT for what was best for the team or for the fans but for... something else.
Once again stabbed in the back, even as we nursed our cold beers and chowed down on finger foods and pizza throughout South Florida.

Well, Friday's blog post by the Miami Herald's Armando Salguero suggests that clueless, disconnected-to-reality Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has really learned nothing at all from history...
It looks like decisions are once again being made NOT for the benefit of the team that's on the field or for the fans in the stands but for something else entirely.
For his benefit.

Do you honestly think the Baltimore Ravens would give up a home game against the Steelers so that Baltimore maybe, perhaps, someday, possibly host the Super Bowl? 
Or that the Seattle Seahawks would give up a home game against the S.F. Forty Niners for the same remote possiblity? Nope.
Neither do I.

The prescient statue dedicated to FDR outside The National Archives' entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington is very much to the point: "The past is prologue."
For most people, but apparently not Stephen Ross.

His insufferable ownership is just another burden for true Dolphin fans to bear who've already had to endure so many other indignities and embarrassments the past 15 years. 

To no tangible change for the better

Friday, July 29, 2011

Say hello to the 5-11 Miami Dolphins in Jeff Ireland & Tony Sparano's last year with the clueless, unappealing Dolphins

The worst is yet to come!
Above and below, just some of the dozen Chad Henne jerseys that were NOT flying off the shelves at the Aventura Target last year. October 9, 2010 photos by South Beach Hoosier.
Yes, "the Venezuelan Target," home of la bellessima!


The same store that presciently had the Ronnie Brown #23 jerseys on clearance months and months ago, even as the Dolphins were pretending that he would be coming back to the team this year.
Don't you hate it when retail outlets have a better grasp of the obvious with the team than the people who actually work for the team? The so-called experts.

As I've written here for years, and gotten abuse for saying in numerous Herald stories about the Dolphins, developer and Dolphins owner Steven Ross has no business owning the team, and is making the Dolphins a combination of the worst of the worst -the Bengals of the '90's and the Lions of just three years ago.

Ross may be the single-worst NFL owner around, which is really saying something given the miscues and screw-ups of Jacksonville and Carolina's owners.

Hey Mike Dee, how's that Club LIV at the stadium doing?

View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.


Club LIV Comes to Sun Life Stadium
First of its kind nightclub at a football game ready to debut
By Adam Kuperstein | Thursday, Sep 23, 2010 | Updated 7:45 AM EDT

See also:
LIV nightclub creators bring South Beach nightlife experience to Sun Life Stadium for Dolphins football season

What a f-ing embarrassment!!!

I've got a lot more to say about the dismal prospects for this once-proud team that has fallen into a black hole, but since today is the first day of training camp, the day that savvy Dolphin fans have been dreading since the lockout started, I'd have been remiss if I hadn't posted this Henne photo, which I've been saving for months just for today's post.
I'll likely have more this weekend, once Matt Moore has arrived from Carolina.
Yes, Matt Moore.

That was their back-up plan, after they refused to take a chance on Ryan Mallette or move up in May's NFL Draft, and then couldn't pull the trigger this week for someone else?
(Patriots snapped Mallette up!)
Yes.

Folks, this year, like a bad move that keeps repeating, Dolphin fans are stuck on the S.S. Titanic and this time, we passengers know the iceberg is out there, but they keep steering right towards it, anyway.
Over-and-over!

For once, almost six months ago, I actually agreed with Armando Salguero.

Miami Herald
Too many reminders of Miami Dolphins’ futility
By Armando Salguero
Posted Sunday February 6, 2011
It’s becoming something of a depressing yearly rite that we look at the Super Bowl teams and think about what might have been for our Dolphins.
If only someone with a functioning brain would have made this or that decision correctly, stuck with this player or that coach, then maybe, we say, fate would have been written differently and that might be our team playing for the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday.

Remember back in the late 1990s when the Patriots went to Super Bowl XXXI with Keith Byars and Jeff Dellenbach? Remember the Packers that eventually won that game boasted Keith Jackson as their tight end?

Remember when the Dolphins discarded all three players?

Last year, Dolphins fans watched in disgust as Drew Brees – the quarterback the Dolphins could have had but passed on twice – helped New Orleans win it all.

This year, the local lament is about coaching talent that got away.

When the Steelers and Packers play this Super Bowl, Dolphins fans can take absolutely zero solace in the fact Mike Tomlin once interviewed for the Miami head coach job and was passed over for someone far less capable of doing the work.

In the first month of 2007, the Dolphins were searching for a coach to replace Nick Saban and identified Tomlin as a rising star worth a visit. They talked to Tomlin. Probed him. Considered him.

Then they passed on him.

A bad choice“Too hip-hop,” one Dolphins employee who had a say in that decision would say of Tomlin weeks later.

Miami went with Cam Cameron instead.

Tomlin interviewed with the Steelers days after his Miami interview. He hadn’t suddenly gotten wiser. He hadn’t magically become a better coach. He was just himself – prepared, pointed, optimistic, realistic.

Tomlin got the job succeeding Bill Cowher.

If the Steelers win on Sunday, that would deliver to Tomlin his second Super Bowl ring as Pittsburgh’s coach and third overall because he’s got one from Super Bowl XXXVII when he was the defensive backs coach for Tampa Bay.

“Every day I go to work, I don’t think about things I have to do, I think about the things I can do to make my men successful,” Tomlin said this week in North Texas. “So I have a servant’s mentality in terms of how I approach my job, and I get that from coach [Tony Dungy].”

A Tony Dungy disciple with a servant’s heart.

Too hip-hop, the Dolphins decided.

I’m not saying Tomlin would have come to Miami and overcome a roster that lacked talent and certainly didn’t compare to Pittsburgh’s. I’m not saying he would have won a Super Bowl already in Miami as he has in Pittsburgh.

I am saying the Dolphins looked in this guy’s eyes and didn’t see what the Rooneys saw when they interviewed Tomlin. They didn’t find out what the Rooney family found out.

That is the difference between being great and being good. Teams such as the Packers and Steelers look at players or coaches other teams have similarly studied and see something special the others miss.

I remember a phone conversation with Saban in 2005 in which he told me he was about to hire Dom Capers. “He’s one of the best defensive coaches out there and he has been for a long time,” Saban said.

Within a couple of years of Capers’ hiring, very few folks in South Florida would have believed that he was among the best at anything. As defensive coordinator of the 2007 Dolphins, he managed to author the worst run defense in the league and the Dolphins ranked 30th in points allowed.

Capers was fired. This year, under Capers’ direction, the Packers were second in fewest points allowed which was an improvement over last season when Capers had his unit ranked seventh in fewest points allowed.

Did Capers become a terrible coach in 2007 after having proved to Saban previously he was an outstanding coach? Did he, becoming suddenly idiotic in 2007, regain his senses the past two years in Green Bay?

Or is it that Capers never stopped being an outstanding coach, but was simply victimized in 2007 by too many injuries ravaging a roster lined with far too little talent?

Great teams often recognize talented people down to their roots. They get a conviction about people. Then they stick to those convictions when crisis hits – which, in the NFL, is every week.

“Panic doesn’t seem to work. Let’s put it that way,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said. “There are enough people that seem to have gone through that mode and our feeling is that you pick good people and you try to stick with them if you have good people. There are ups and downs in any sport, but if you have the right people in place, you’ll always have a chance to be successful and that’s what we do. ”

Do you hear that Tony Sparano doubters?

Is Miami’s current coach the best head coach in the NFL this year? No. His team couldn’t finish strong or win at home.

But did the guy who led the Dolphins to perhaps the most dramatic turnaround in NFL history – going from 1-15 to 11-5 in one year – suddenly becoming incapable of leading and coaching his team?

Formula for successIt speaks well of club owner Stephen Ross that he didn’t knee-jerk and replace Sparano with an unproven Jim Harbaugh last month. The cautious approach might not be rewarded with a title next season, but it gives the Dolphins a chance to have continuity.

And the Steelers, a club with only three coaches since 1969 and having never fired any of them, have proven that continuity can bring success.

The hope is Ross sees something in Sparano, knows something about Sparano that convinced him to keep Sparano even while some were calling for the coach’s head.

The Dolphins have too rarely made us think they know something no one else does. They made us feel that way in 1983 when they picked Dan Marino late in the first round.

They made us feel that way lately when they plucked Cameron Wake out of CFL obscurity and within two seasons saw him go to the Pro Bowl.

But for the couple of decades now, the Dolphins have mostly been among those folks that weren’t aware or didn’t know or missed on a guy by just this much.

That’s not an indictment on the team’s current administration. That’s an indictment on administrations going back to Jimmy Johnson.

The Dolphins missed on Randy Moss, Anquan Boldin, and Brees twice. This isn’t second-guessing or playing the result. All of those players were favored, expected, supposed to join the Dolphins if the brainiacs leading the franchise had been thinking straight.

So where does that leave us?

The hope is Miami folks currently in charge can avoid the curse that obviously befell their predecessors. The hope is the folks running the Dolphins now know something other teams do not.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Worse than sad, it's true: Playboy's Hugh Hefner engaged to 24-year old woman who has never been alive when Dolphins were playing in Super Bowl game



Expressen TV video: Hugh Hefner friade till 24-å- ring

http://tv.expressen.se/noje/1.2269295/hugh-hefner-friade-till-24-aring

Worse than sad, it's true: Playboy's Hugh Hefner engaged to 24-year old Crystal Harris, a woman who has never been alive when Dolphins were playing in a Super Bowl game.

Perhaps that thought will sharpen in your mind the amount of time that has transpired since the Dolphins were very relevant to any serious discussion of elite NFL teams competing for the Lombardi Trophy.


Meanwhile, in other news affecting Playboy Enterprises...

TheWrap
Playboy to Go Private

Published: January 10, 2011 @ 6:06 am

By Dylan Stableford


Playboy is going private.


The board of directors for the iconic but struggling men's brand has agreed to 84-year-old founder Hugh Hefner's $6.15-per-share offer to take the company private.


Hefner first made a $5.50-per-share offer in July. The $6.15-per-share price represents an 18.3 percent premium over the stock price at close on Friday and a 56 percent premium over the closing price at the time of Hef's initial offer.


The new offer puts the value of the company at about $207.3 million. On Monday morning, Playboy's stock price jumped more than 16 percent on the news.


Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/breaking-playboy-goes-private-23768

Playboy's press release at:
http://www.playboyenterprises.com/home/content.cfm?content=t_template&packet=7006C185-E06B-679F-4140890A93180DBD&MmenuFlag=news&ArtTypeID=0002043D-FF53-1C7B-9B578304E50A011A&CFID=8461596&CFTOKEN=41304166


What's my Line? Hugh Hefner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrKJJge66YI

http://www.playboyenterprises.com/

See also:
New York Times Opinionator blog
Last Call at the Bunny Roundup
By Timothy Egan,
January 6, 2011, 9:00 pm

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/last-call-at-the-bunny-roundup/#more-76009,

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/playboy-enterprises-inc/index.html?scp=2&sq=Playboy&st=cse,

and

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/galleries/hugh_hefners_many_women/hugh_hefners_many_women.html




Above, May 1, 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez of Vince Lombardi Championship Trophies won by Miami Dolphins for Super Bowl VII and VIII, taken at Miami Dolphins HQ, Davie, FL.




Super Bowl Highlights, January 20, 1985, San Francisco 49ers vs. Miami Dolphins.
January 20th, 1985, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/123666/super-bowl-highlights-1985-super-bowl-xix-san-francisco-49ers-vs-miami-dolphins

Ten days from now will mark 26 YEARS since the Dolphins were relevant to the discussion of elite NFL teams. We got proof positive on Saturday that this isn't likely to change with the current Stephen Ross regime in place, as Miami Herald Dolphins beat reporter Armando Salguero confirms here:

The Saturday meeting with the media (w/ audio)

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2011/01/the-so-called-round-table-the-dolphins-planned-to-set-the-record-straight-for-what-has-happened-over-the-past-week-and-announ.html