Well let's all rejoice!! The Dolphins coaching search is finally over and Cam Cameron is an excellent choice. In fact, he's the guy I've wanted here all along since Nick Saban's cowardly exit. Why? He's the great offensive mind that all Dolphins fans have been dying for the past few years. ESPN's Chris Mortensen said of Cameron on ESPNews today that Cam is considered by many to be one of the most innovative offensive minds in all of football. How great does that sound?? Hopeefully, he'll be able to ignite this offense in ways which previous coaches have failed. I also look for Ronnie Brown's role in the offense to increase, which we can all agree is certainly a good thing.
So, you want some more good news?? I got 3 things for you. First, Cameron has said that he highly respects Dom Capers. Since the hiring of Cameron, Capers has finally signed his contract extension, according to Jeff Darlington. Second piece of good news is that Armando Salguero is reporting that GM Randy Mueller's role will expand, with both Mueller and Cameron splitting the personnel decisions. This is a big step for Wayne Huizenga, who previously had liked the idea of having the head coach also be in charge of player personnel. And the last piece of good news? Well, Cameron has announced that, while Mike Mularkey has not been fired, he will not be calling the plays anymore. That job will be taken care of by Cameron himself!! THANK GOD!!! That's probably the best piece of news to come out of this whole thing. Cameron is an extremely good play caller and that, along, should improve this offense. Hopefully, with his power stripped, Mularkey will simply decide to leave the Dolphins to pursue other jobs. That may be wishful thinking, but at least he won't be calling the plays any longer!!
Now, onto some reading material. First, Armando Salguero discusses how both Dolphin players and alum don't really know too much about Cam:
''That's cool that he's hired,'' Dolphins tight end Randy McMichael said. ``But I don't know who Cam Cameron really is or anything like that.''
Former Dolphins guard Larry Little, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, intently watched Cameron's news conference, but did he know of Cameron before that 35-minute introduction?
''Not really,'' Little said. ``I knew he was a head coach at Indiana at one time and didn't have a lot of success there. But then again, who has success coaching football there?''
-----------------------------------------
''I'm glad it's over,'' defensive end David Bowens said of the coaching search. ``We have things as a team we have to address. My contract is up. Hopefully we get a guy in here that likes me and can make some decisions about me and other guys, and we can go from there.
``We didn't have a direction for a couple of weeks. Now, we've got a coach and we can figure out what we can do.''
McMichael is thrilled because he no longer will be asked questions for which he had no answer.
''I'm happy it's over, because no matter where you go -- in the grocery store, shoe store, wherever -- people want to know who the new coach was going to be,'' McMichael said. ``I didn't know. But now we all know he's the leader of our organization.''
It really doesn't matter that the players don't know too much about him. If anything, it helps because now they have no preconceived notions about their new head coach. And how about McMichael, despite not knowing anything about Cam, already calling him "the leader of the organization." That's certainly a good sign and I don't see there being any issues between the players and the new coach.
Next, Barry Jackson tells us about Cameron's upbringing and who he learned about coaching from. This is an excellent article. Here's an excerpt:
''I knew I wanted to coach when I was 14,'' Cameron said Friday evening, 2 ½ hours after he was introduced as the Dolphins' coach.
Cameron informed his basketball coach, Bob Knight, of that decision in 1984, less than a year after he graduated Indiana with a business degree. But Knight had other ideas.
''You're too smart to coach,'' Knight told him, as Cameron recalled Friday. ``You're not coaching. You're going to law school.''
Eventually, after very briefly exploring law, Cameron ''got the courage'' to tell Knight ``I don't want to go to law school.''
Knight wanted his assistant to get Dean Smith on the phone, but Cameron told his coach, ``I don't want to coach basketball. I want to coach football.''
This article gives a lot of information about Cam and his background and I highly recommend all Dolphin fans to check it out. And it's a great sign that so many of these all-time great coaches think so highly of Cameron. I think we may have found our leader for the next decade!!
The last article I want to point out is one from Dan Le Batard, who writes about how it will be the players who make or break Cam Cameron in Miami. Here's an excerpt:
No Miami Dolphins coach ever has begun his career here with less fanfare, or with expectations deeper in the gutter. And that's a very good thing for Cameron, because this particular job is a lot easier when you make your entrance to ''Who?'' instead of ''Him!'' LaDainian Tomlinson couldn't run across the gulf that exists between ''Surprise us!'' and ``Save us!''
Cameron isn't viewed as a savior or a genius, just a football coach inheriting a mess. That makes him a lot like whiz kids Eric Mangini and Sean Peyton about a year ago at this time, and you've seen where an absence of expectations carried them.
Fans today view Mangini and Peyton as brainier and better than most, simply because nobody was expecting anything from them or their teams. This even though most people would have yawned or yelled last year if either Mangini or Peyton had been hired to coach the University of Miami, never mind the Dolphins.
This article is also a very good one and brings up a valid point: the Dolphins right now have such low expectations that Cameron will have absolutely no pressure here in Miami, at least not in year 1. He also brings up the fact that Daunte Culpepper has the chance to make this hiring look brilliant. He says that if C-Pep plays above average, then Cameron will cerainly be considered above average as well. If Culpepper looks great, then Cameron will be considered great as well. And, in my opinion, if Culpepper stinks up the joint, Cameron will have the luxury of not being killed for it because, after all, it was Nick Saban who brought C-Pep in here.
So now we can all sit back and relax. The Dolphins have their next head coach. And according to most polls of Dolphin fans, this is the guy that was most wanted. Now we need not worry about Chan Gailey or Jim Mora. We can rejoice in the fact that this franchise made a wise move. Hopefully, it's a sign of things to come!