FanPost

The Watson Trade: A History Lesson

miamimmiaHere are my two cents on the Watson trade. It's not necessarily the trade itself that I have the biggest opposition to. It's the bigger picture and the direction of the team that worries me the most. If this trade does finally go through, and the Dolphins send 3 first round picks (all our 1st rounders for the next 2 years I believe), as well as an assortment of other 3rd round or later picks. This will officially end the rebuild, and we will be back in win-now mode again. Here's a little recap:

For those unfamiliar with the Dolphins over the past 28 years, that is the position we have been in for all but roughly 25 of those years. It all started when Free Agency began in 1993. The Dolphins had just lost to the Bills in the AFC Championship only putting up 10 points. So Shula decided to go out and get the best talent money could buy in free agency. We got Irving Fryar, Mark Ingram, and Keith Byars, but we failed to address a defense that went from a top 10 unit to a bottom 10 unit. As a result we went from 11-5 to 9-7 and out of the playoffs. But that wouldn't stop Shula from dipping big into free agency again. This time they went a little less splashy on the offensive side with Cleveland Gary and Bernie Kosar, but they went defense as well signing Geno Atkins and Chris Singleton. The result, the defense got slightly better, and the offense carried them to a 10-6 record and a playoff berth. Which most of us know as the heartbreaking loss to SD by a missed 49 yard FG by Stoyanovich. 1995 rolled around and Shula knew he was getting older and this could very well be his last hurrah. So we went ALL in. We signed Eric Green, Gary Clark, Michael Stewart, Trace Armstrong, Steve Emtman, and Terrell Buckley. And once again, the Dolphins fell short of their objectives and finished the season 9-7 and a quick exit in the playoffs. Shula retires, and JJ takes the reigns.

Now some of you might be thinking, well didn't we rebuild under JJ? We almost did, but not quite. The problem was JJ was hampered by two things. The first was all the bad contracts Shula left him after the 1995 spending spree, the second was Dan Marino.The first JJ handled by wheeling and dealing in the draft to try and unload some of those bad contracts, and eating the ones he couldn't. This tied JJ's hands as he was relegated to trying to rebuild the team through only the draft and cheap free agents. Then there was Marino. I honestly believe JJ took the job thinking Marino would retire within 2 years and he could continue his work with his hand picked successor through the draft. Instead JJ was stuck with Marino for the duration of his tenure and rebuffed any time he even considered benching or trading the future HOFer.

For the next 9 years the Dolphins went through 4 coaches, over 17 splashy FA signings/trades (Thurman Thomas, Dedric Ward, James McKnight, Ricky Williams, Cris Carter, Junior Seau, Marty Booker, Gus Frerotte, David Boston, Kevin Carter, Keith Traylor, Joey Harrington, Daunte Culpepper, Will Allen, Trent Green, and Joey Porter to name a few), all for 3 winning seasons, 2 playoff berths, and one playoff win. The Tuna came to town.

Bill Parcells came into town in 2008 with the hope that under his direct supervision and his hand picked HC, the Dolphins would be rebuilt into perennial contenders again. Things started out well. They bring in FA signee Chad Pennington to run a ball control offense, and Paul Pasqualoni turns the 30th ranked D into a top 10 unit. Then, in 2009, Stephen Ross became the owner of the Dolphins. Pennington suffers what was pretty much a career ending (he plays only 4 games over the next two years before retiring), Henne struggles in the starting role and the team struggles to score and the defense regresses. Tuna bails after the season. And the win now mentality is back.

Left to his own devices, Jeff Ireland, goes on a spending spree. Brandon Marshall and Karlos Dansby are given huge contracts, only to go 7-9 again. So he spends more, on Matt Moore, Reggie Bush, and Kevin Burnett to only go 6-10. But now they've spent too much, and can only afford guys like Jabar Gaffney and Legedu Naanee to go 7-9 again. Oh, but the saved money by not splurging in 2012, so they could blow it in 2013 on the likes of Brandon Gibson, Mike Wallace, Philip Wheeler, Dannell Ellerbe, and Brent Grimes so they could go 8-8. That's it, Ross has had enough. Ireland's out and Hickey's in!

So begins Dennis Hickey's long tenured stay as the Dolphins GM. It lasted two years, a 14-18 record, with the likes of Knowshon Moreno, Louis Delmas, Cortland Finnegan, Jordan Cameron, Greg Jennings, and Ndamukong Suh all making appearances. Once again, Ross has had enough, but this time he wants to stay in house and hire from within. Introducing, Chris Grier.

From there, it's 3 more years of win now football under Adam Gase. Which brought in such names as Julius Thomas, Jay Cutler, Mario Williams, Andre Branch, Byron Maxwell, Isa Abdul-Quddos, Kiko Alonso, Arian Foster, Frank Gore, Danny Amendola, and Brock Osweiler. But it did produce our first winning season and playoff berth since 2008. So there's that.

Is this really what we want to go back to? Trying to buy and trade our way to winning records and playoff appearances with teams that just aren't good enough to be there in the first place? Do we honestly think we have enough talent on this team, even with Watson, that we will be able to spend or trade enough to make this a Super Bowl caliber team before we run out of cap space? Which after Watson joins the team, will happen VERY quickly. Let's just look at this historically over the past 28 years. Every time we have attempted a rebuild (even half assed attempts) they have produced the only playoff appearances we have had during that time period. Even Wannstedt's playoff appearances are due to the defense JJ built, Wanny had ZERO playoff appearances after trading for Ricky. Gase is the only HC that led the team to a playoff appearance during a win-now regime over a 28 year period. No, that's not a kudos for Gase either. I think most of us realize that team had a lot go right for them to get where they did that year. Whether the trade happens or not, I'll still support the team I love. It's just so depressing that historically, the evidence shows that this is not going to end well for the Dolphins. That this trade could set the franchise back another 5 years minimum of becoming relevant again. I hope I'm wrong, and I'll still be rooting for them every week to do just that.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Phinsider's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of The Phinsider writers or editors.