Time for Dolphins to blow it up, for Ross to give team the attention he gives real estate
Stephen Ross the real estate magnate had another big week, reportedly inching toward a deal to acquire the 208-room “Ben Hotel” and the Clark Lake office building in West Palm Beach, adding to his portfolio of 3.8 million square feet of office, retail and residential space.
What about Stephen Ross the Dolphins owner? He had another negligent week, again doing nothing to fix 16 years of Dolphins incompetence under his stewardship, incompetence that was on full display in Sunday’s humiliating 31-6 loss to Cleveland that dropped Miami to 1-6 in a season that will assuredly prolong the Dolphins’ ongoing, league-worst 25-year streak without a playoff win.
You can talk for hours and hours about all of Chris Grier’s fumbled draft picks, about all the foolish penalties and undisciplined play and missed tackles, about Mike McDaniel’s inability to extract enough from a roster that’s flawed but not nearly as grotesque as it looked against another 1-5 team on Sunday. (He’s now 10-21 on the road as Dolphins coach.)
But here’s what everything with this woebegone franchise boils down to:
Unless the owner starts caring about his team as much as he cares about his real estate portfolio, nothing will change.
I’m not a fan of encouraging anyone to sell their team; that feels like a bridge too far.
But Ross, 85, is tempting us, because as an owner of a team, you’re custodian of a public trust, a guardian of a franchise’s legacy.
Ross has been delinquent in presiding over that trust, overlooking mistake after mistake by his general manager and his coach, consistently making the wrong hire, getting the franchise embroiled in a lawsuit alleging that he offered Brian Flores money to lose games (which Ross has denied) and watching his ownership group lose draft inventory for tampering with Tom Brady and Sean Payton.
Give Ross credit for spending on his plush facility. But that feels like complimenting the chef on the Titanic.
Dolphins fans have only one course of action at this point: Don’t renew season tickets. Stop showing up to games. (To be clear, we would never encourage a boycott; that’s not my place. But when the fan base stops spending money or marches outside the stadium with signs, that’s what gets any owner’s attention.)
At this point, Ross needs to make a decision before his fan base starts coming to the stadium with pitchforks:
1). He can get his estate in order and sell the team to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who has pursued the team twice before and might be willing to give Ross $10 billion for the team and Hard Rock Stadium.
2). He can ask his daughters, Jennifer and Kim — and Kim’s husband, experienced sports entrepreneur Daniel Sillman — to start running the team immediately so that he can focus on real estate. They’re in line to run the team in Ross’ succession plan.
3). He can look himself in the mirror, realize he has failed his fan base and franchise, and start making the tough and necessary decisions that were obvious to most everyone else a year ago.
Those tough decisions begin with removing general manager Chris Grier and overhauling his front office. Why is Ross spending money on sending Grier to evaluate college players in Columbia, South Carolina, this weekend?
Grier’s fingers shouldn’t be anywhere near next year’s draft, not after a litany of mistakes over 10 largely unsuccessful years as GM.
As we’ve written, Ross already should have hired the smartest person he knows to help him identify good candidates in a search for a new director of football operations. He should already have asked team president Tom Garfinkel to do the same.
The preference here would be for a new director of football operations to pick the head coach.
But if Ross decides to dump McDaniel, it would be justified after Sunday’s lifeless effort littered with penalties (11 for 103), foolish mistakes and the appearance of a team that was unprepared and disinterested. McDaniel is now 11-20 in his last 31 games.
Grier hasn’t given McDaniel more than mediocre talent this season, but what was on the field on Sunday should have been more competitive, and that falls on McDaniel and his staff. The same could be said for the 33-8 opening loss against the Colts.
Why do mistakes rarely carry consequences with this coaching staff? Why aren’t players benched for a play, or a series, after mindless penalties? That’s all on McDaniel.
Sometimes teams essentially stop listening to a coach when the results don’t lead to winning. Players sometimes need a new voice, someone who elicits a run-through-a-wall passion and a healthy fear (and a knowledge) that mistakes will carry consequences.
McDaniel — apparently unable to inspire or create a sense of healthy fear — likely has arrived at that point, which is unfortunate because he’s a good man and deserves credit for salvaging Tagovailoa’s career.
Ultimately, McDaniel will end up being undone by his poor personnel input on offense (he never should have advocated for the Tagovailoa $212 million extension), Grier’s personnel mistakes on defense, various injuries and an inability to maximize the offensive talent against good teams in 2023 and 2024, and most teams this season.
That the diminutive McDaniel didn’t look (or sound) the part of an NFL head coach hardly mattered two years ago, when his team was hanging 70 points on Denver.
But it’s an issue now, as Tedi Bruschi said on ESPN’s pregame show Sunday.
“Is that the one [you want] leading your franchise?” he said of McDaniel. “If I had to see that man in front of me, I don’t know how I would be able to play in that locker. The man I want to lead me, that would take you to a championship, is the exact opposite of that man in Miami.”
It doesn’t help McDaniel’s case that none of the problems that have plagued the team have been corrected. Not the pre-snap penalties. Not the unnecessary roughness penalties. Not the special teams miscues. Not the poor tackling. Not the team’s 14-month inability to solve defenses playing two high safeties.
But here’s the thing: Simply firing the coach isn’t enough. If Ross doesn’t dismiss his front office, there’s no path to any long-term success.
As for Tagovailoa, Sunday was an embarrassment, a performance entirely unacceptable for a $53 million quarterback.
“Maybe the worst game I’ve ever seen by a quarterback in the National Football League,” CBS-4’s Kim Bokamper said.
It has become increasingly clear that Tagovailoa is capable of leading a playoff team only if everything is perfect around him, only if he’s playing with very good or elite players at most positions. And in this cap era, that’s unrealistic.
He entered the day tied for third in the league in interceptions and 21st in passer rating.
He will climb up the interception list and down the passer rating list after Sunday’s stinker, in which he finished 12 for 23 for 100 yards, three interceptions, a 24.1 passer rating and a mortifying inability to pick up blitzes. (Blame the linemen and backs for the blitzes, too.)
Parting ways with Tagovailoa after this season carries heavy salary cap consequences, as explained here.
And that quarterback decision likely will be left to the new management team and coach, if Ross can momentarily stop trying to transform West Palm Beach into a mecca and focus on fixing a franchise that he has repeatedly failed.
Here’s everything notable that McDaniel said after the game; he said “everything is on the table” and there could be lineup changes.
This story was originally published October 19, 2025 at 4:06 PM.
