This feels like something someone says at one of those meetings devoted to making you sober. The first step is usually admitting your problem:
My name is E.R. Torre, and I’m a Dolphin fan.
The rest of the people in the meeting room react with extreme horror. There are limits to helping people, and clearly I’m in need of a lot of help.
Today, of course, was the first Sunday of the 2019 Football season and for those that don’t know, my Dolphins played the Baltimore Ravens and got their asses totally pounded. The final score was 59-10 and it was every bit as bad as that score implies.
There was no offense. There was precious little defense. The team is a mess… and it was pretty much designed to be that way.
See, the Dolphins, since the departure of Don Shula and, a little later, quarterback Dan Marino, have been in this unrelenting funk. When Shula was coach and Marino quarterback, the Dolphins were a year after year SuperBowl contender. They were always in the playoffs and always seemed to be a legit candidate to make it to the big game.
But that was a very long time ago. The Dolphins, since Marino’s departure, seem to always be 7-9 to 9-7. There are a few exceptions, including a season where they went a ghastly 1-15, but they seem to always be stubbornly mediocre. Just being cut out of the playoffs and being just good enough so that their draft picks usually amount to not all that much.
Its been a sad state of affairs and, it seems, the owner and new Coach decided it was time to stop being mediocre and start the team from the ground up. To purge it of everyone and built it up again, younger and through the draft.
Which means this year, for all intents and purposes, is a season where they’re not expecting to win all that much.
Thing is, there’s a point where you’re not very good and where you’re purposely become horrible.
Maybe this first game is an aberration and they wind up winning a few games, say 3-4, in the season. Still wind up at the bottom and get good draft picks which they use to build themselves up.
At this point, though, and based on this first game, it sounds like they’re be lucky to do even that.
As I mentioned above, the Dolphins once went 1-15.
This year, there’s a very real chance they go 0-16.
How many fans remain after that?