Forget the Patriot Way. The 49ers are the team the Dolphins truly hope to copy.
The Super Bowl is in their home stadium, but it probably feels a world away for the Miami Dolphins.
Yes, they exceeded expectations with five wins in 2019, but their current roster isn’t close to being competitive at the highest level.
But there’s no reason it can’t be, and quick.
Just ask the San Francisco 49ers.
They are the greatest example yet of how strategic planning, elite coaching and a bit of luck at the quarterback position can flip fortunes fast.
The NFC representatives in Super Bowl 54 are basically two years ahead of the Dolphins in their organizational rebuild.
In 2017, the 49ers turned over their personnel department and coaching staffs, fielded one of the youngest teams in the NFL and started the season with a long losing streak. The Dolphins did all that in 2019.
But today, the Niners are the model for how to construct a 21st century team.
“I typically don’t sign up for things without the intention at least of becoming a champion,” third-year San Francisco general manager John Lynch said this week. “Fortunately, I found a great partner to work with in [head coach] Kyle [Shanahan]. We had the same belief that ‘Yeah. We can do this.’ We were doing it in a proud organization that had fallen on some dark times. It was our job to help lead the process of getting them back. We surrounded ourselves with some talented people that believed just like we did. Here we are three years later.”
The Niners-Dolphins parallels are too rich to ignore.
Proud franchise?
The Dolphins were once among the league’s flagship organizations.
Young hot-shot coach?
The Dolphins hired 38-year-old Brian Flores the day after his Patriots defense crushed the Rams in Super Bowl 53.
Dark times?
The Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game in 19 years and haven’t been to the conference title game since 1992.
But the Niners are proof that things can change, if the institutional vision and will are strong.
And yeah, lucking into a franchise quarterback helps too.
The 49ers likely wouldn’t be where they are today had Bill Belichick — Flores’ old boss — not felt compelled to trade Jimmy Garoppolo midway through the 2017 season. He was supposed to be Tom Brady’s successor in New England, but Brady wasn’t ready to get pushed out the door. Brady won an internal power struggle, and the Niners were the beneficiary, acquiring Garoppolo for only a second-round pick.
Talk about a bargain.
The Niners had lost 35 of their previous 42 games when Garoppolo was named San Fran’s starter before Week 13 of the 2017 season.
They’ve lost just five times in his 26 starts since.
“If you don’t have a quarterback who can win in big games and big moments, it’s really, really hard to get to this point,” 49ers owner Jed York said recently. “And Jimmy, obviously, exceeded any expectations in those games that you could ever ask for a player coming into an organization.
“And he’s continued to improve, he’s continued to work, he’s continued to get better. If you don’t have a quarterback, to me, you just don’t have a chance. It was a must.”
The Dolphins probably will need to part with more than a second-round pick to land their franchise quarterback, but with three of the 2020 draft’s first 26 selections, they are in position to make their own luck in April.
But that’s just part of the reason the Niners are on the verge of a world championship.
Smart drafting, key free-agent signings and a culture built during a trying 2017 season have also been a big factor.
Garoppolo joined what from the outside looked like a dumpster fire two years ago. San Francisco started the season 0-9 and Shanahan’s offensive magic seemed to be fading.
But Garoppolo discovered none of that was the case when he got a closer look.
“I think when I first got there, there was probably 80 percent rookies on the team, so it was a pretty young team,” he said. “But you could definitely see the pieces were there. There were parts of it that were missing, but Kyle and John did a great job ever since I got there bringing in the right people, good people and it’s transferred onto the field.”
Shahanan and Lynch knew the identity they wanted to form, and went about acquiring players who fit that mold. The most important signing that first season?
Fullback Kyle Juszczyk, who had free-agent interest from other, better teams, but sensed something special was brewing in the Bay Area.
“I had faith between Kyle and John that they were going to be able to put together a championship team like they have now,” Juszczyk said. “I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take. But I did think it would be cool to be part of that first wave of guys that really bought in and built that foundation.”
Only a handful of players remain from the Niners teams that pre-dated Shanahan’s arrival. Defensive end Arik Armstead is one of them.
The team’s first-round pick in 2015 knew only losing as a professional before this season.
“A lot of adversity over those years,” Armstead said. “I always thought we had a good team. The scoreboard wasn’t reflecting that. We set a record for losing a crazy amount of points by three points or less. We weren’t finding ways to win. We were finding ways to lose games. We continued to add talent and get better and stay the course and continue to grow together and I think it makes it that much sweeter the year we’re having this year.”
With a foundation in place, Lynch went about signing veterans who knew what it took to win. Cornerback Richard Sherman is the best example of that. The Seahawks cut him after four Pro Bowl seasons, in part of concerns that he’d never be the same after rupturing his Achilles midway through through the 2017 season.
The Niners were not scared off, however, signing Sherman to a three-year contract the day after Seattle cut him. Another smart decision. He’s only missed three games in the two seasons since, and was second-team All-Pro in 2019.
Shanahan and Lynch have been so charmed since they took over that even their greatest bit of adversity — when Garoppolo tore his ACL early in the 2018, ruining what could have been a playoff season — has turned out to be a blessing.
The quarterback-less Niners lost 12 games last year (including six by one score), which secured them the second selection in last April’s draft. They used that pick on star pass rusher Nick Bosa, who had nine sacks in a stellar rookie season.
Bosa has rounded out a fantastic defensive front and an elite defense. The Niners ranked second in yards allowed (281.8 per game), first in pass defense (169.2), sixth in sacks (48) and eighth in points allowed (19.4) in 2019.
“I remember watching [Bosa] three years ago during his freshman year at Ohio State and seeing what a magnificent football player he was,” Lynch said. “I would have had to have my head examined given that opportunity to have that No. 2 pick and he was sitting there and not to take him. There were some other fabulous players, but Nick’s special. He has been since he arrived with us as well.”
The Dolphins could use a Bosa. They could use an Armstead. And they could certainly use a Garoppolo.
They need the same boldness and breaks the Niners have had since Shanahan took the job three years ago.
But as the Niners have shown, there’s no reason for a fatalistic outlook. Just because an organization has been poorly run for years doesn’t mean it always be run poorly. And the turnaround can be fast.
Before his team flew to Miami for Sunday’s game, York likened his organization’s turnaround to Tim Robbin’s sewer scene in The Shawshank Redemption.
“Everyone wants to get to that beach at the end,” York said. “No one wants to go through what he went through to get to the beach. And we had to get through that.”
The Dolphins spent the last 20 years figuratively crawling through poop. And the good news is, they already live at the beach.
All they need now is the happy ending.
