Jeff Fisher, as if to underline his credentials for heroically rescuing those in need, stopped his vehicle the other night outside Nashville to lend aid to two teenagers who had been involved in a single-car accident. True story.

A few days earlier Fisher could have come to the rescue of two other men also involved in a wreck and perhaps in even greater need — Stephen Ross and Jeff Ireland, their wreck the Dolphins — but the coach of course chose the St. Louis Rams instead. Another true story.

The experience and the proof personified by Fisher headed west, bound for the Gateway Arch.

What remains, the let’s-hope and the might-be, is what the Dolphins are left to consider this week before likely naming a new head coach as soon as Friday.

One of three men will be chosen.

Oddly enough all three have the same name:

Not Jeff Fisher.

The burden welcoming the winner from among finalists Todd Bowles, Mike McCoy and Joe Philbin will be the perception, no, reality, that this was the best Miami could do after the big one got away.

That doesn’t mean the man hired won’t blossom into a great head coach. It just means, and understandably, that he won’t enjoy the benefit of doubt or the confidence of fans that would have been given enthusiastically to Fisher. (Or to Bill Cowher or to Jon Gruden or to anybody else who had not so much excelled at this job before but simply done this job before).

What’s troubling isn’t that Bowles, McCoy and Philbin are not solid candidates. They seem to be. Each has his selling point, which I’ll get to in a minute. What’s troubling is that once again the Dolphins are offering themselves as a proving ground for coaches who have not done this job before. Guys with their training wheels still on.

Save for Bowles’ three-game stint here as interim coach after Tony Sparano was fired, none of the three finalists has been a head coach at any level.

That is why, as fists are raised jubilantly in St. Louis, fingers are crossed anxiously here.

Let’s hope. Might be…

Ross said he wanted his next coach to be an experienced guy who would make a splash. He wanted a star hire.

He won’t have one.

With three finalists bereft of experience at this job you are rolling dice that you discover, say, the next Mike Tomlin. Odds are you’ll be as likely to be stuck with the next Dave Wannstedt or Cam Cameron or dare say Sparano — a guy meant to be ensconced in a film room, not out front leading a team.

Ross deserves credit for identifying Fisher as the answer and going after him hard. The owner also was on the mark a year earlier in identifying a coach (Jim Harbaugh) who turned out to be the real deal in San Francisco. The trouble is, “nice try” doesn’t quite cut it in the NFL. Ross is now 0 for 2 on preferred coaching hires, which puts him among league leaders in settling.

No, you cannot blame Miami because guys such as Cowher, Gruden and Tony Dungy wouldn’t be budged from the comfort of their TV studios. But neither that nor Fisher saying no-thanks absolves the Dolphins from all responsibility for now hiring a man without head coaching experience.

For example Brian Billick, 57, whose Baltimore team won a Super Bowl in 2000, was so eager to get back into the league that he publicly wooed the Dolphins. Marty Schottenheimer also was begging interest, claiming he still has the fire even at 68. Other guys who have done it pretty well at this level (Jim Haslett comes to mind) were out there.