MIAMI -- The Miami Dolphins didn't miss the NFL playoffs this season. And they have advanced to the conference championship games.
How is that possible?
The San Francisco 49ers, the NFC's top seed, are replete with Dolphins. The coaching staff includes six former Dolphins assistants _ John Benton coaches the offensive line as he did in Miami in 2014-15, Shane Day coaches the quarterbacks after coaching tight ends for three seasons in Miami, Kris Kocurek coaches the defensive line as he did for the Dolphins in 2018, Brian Fleury is a defensive quality control coach after serving three years in Miami as the director of football research, and Chris Foerster is the game planning assistant after serving previously as the Dolphins offensive line coach.
Former Dolphins receiver Wes Welker is the San Francisco wide receivers coach and Earl Mitchell is a defensive tackle for the team years after playing that position for the Dolphins.
That's not all for the Dolphins in the playoffs.
The Kansas City Chiefs have Matt Moore and Chad Henne backing up Patrick Mahomes at quarterback and former Dolphins backup running back Damien Williams is Kansas City's starter at the position.
Former Dolphins cornerback Sam Madison is the Chiefs' defensive backs/cornerbacks coach.
We all know Ryan Tannehill will be the starting quarterback for the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Championship Game, just as he was the previous seven seasons for the Dolphins. Interior offensive lineman Jamil Douglas is a backup in Tennessee much as he was in Miami for a couple of seasons.
And Terrell Williams coaches the defensive line in Tennessee just as he did in Miami from 2015 to 2017.
The Packers feature former Dolphins tackle Billy Turner as their starting right guard.
And now you're getting the point that, once again in these NFL playoffs, people who worked for the Dolphins and mostly achieved no grand success, are now enjoying success elsewhere.
But what's the point?
The point is this happens year after year after year. It has been happening for decades.
It's a thing.
As far back as I can remember, folks have been leaving the Dolphins to go on to greater things elsewhere. That's not all.
Sometimes folks have accomplished things elsewhere, come to Miami and failed and then left to do exploits again. It's the weirdest thing.
Examples?
Let's go way back: Keith Jackson got traded from the Dolphins in 1995 and won a Super Bowl with Green Bay. Former Dolphins Jeff Dellenbach and Doug Pederson were also on that title team.
Damon Huard, Larry Izzo, Terrell Buckley, Bryan Cox, and Terrance Shaw all left the Dolphins and eventually won a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots in 2001.
In fact, those New England guys took a group photo with their Super Bowl rings and mailed the snapshot back to former Miami teammates.
I could give more examples, but many of you know them already and that's not what this is about. This is about a theory. A hunch.
A knowing.
The fact this stuff has been happening for decades has caused me to search for a reason it happens. It's not about the people.
If it were that easy the problem would have been solved long ago because the franchise has gone through players, coaches, decision-makers and even owners as if they were meat through a tenderizer at a packaging plant.
It's deeper than that. And here is what I think it is:
I believe there is a curse on the team's training facility in Davie.
A lot of people joke the Dolphins play on a former Indian burial ground where Hard Rock is located, but I reject that. It's not Hard Rock. The Dolphins have had good seasons playing at that facility. They were 12-4 in 1990 playing at then-Joe Robbie Stadium. They went to the AFC Championship a couple of years later playing there.
But since the team's move from St. Thomas University in North Miami in July of 1993? Tough times. Seemingly cursed times.
As I've told friends for years, bright people come to Davie to get stupid. Great talent comes to Davie to fail. Clear-sighted people come to Davie and become blind.
And when they leave, all good again.
Consider:
Before moving the practice facility to Davie, Don Shula was all sorts of awesome. He pushed for excellence. He was full of spirit and vigor. The Dolphins were his priority 11 months out of the year, often at the cost of family time.
He still had his fastball, so to speak.
After the move? It took a year, but then he slowed. He got remarried during a bye week. I saw him one time struggle with his keys to open his car door for about two minutes before giving up and having someone else do it. He tolerated some assistants falling asleep during meetings.
Jimmy Johnson? He's a newly minted Hall of Famer. And he came to the Dolphins in 1996 with the reputation of having helped the Cowboys and the University of Miami win championships. I covered Johnson at UM when he won that title.
And it was stunning how different he was about a year after he arrived in Davie.
Johnson was fine his first year. But afterward, he didn't want Randy Moss. But he drafted Yatil Green, knowing he had an injury history. He signed free agents that didn't always pick up the offense very quickly, so he tied Dan Marino's hands with a simpler system.
He did weird things, too. He installed a fish tank in his office into which he'd stare to calm himself. He'd leave practice to check the stock market. He quit after the 1998 season before quitting again after the '99 season. He let his little dog run around the training facility, peeing wherever.
He also got remarried_at the start of training camp in 1999.
People came to Davie and fought the curse for a year and then succumbed by failing continuously . And then they would leave and be OK.
Personnel boss Rick Spielman came to Davie and was fine his first year, drafting starting right tackle Todd Wade. Then the curse kicked in and he drafted Jamar Fletcher and Eddie Moore.
Spielman left in 2006. He went to Minnesota and drafted Everson Griffen and Danielle Hunter and Anthony Barr while building a talented roster.
Nick Saban came to Davie having won a national championship at Louisiana State. And he was fine his first year, rallying the Dolphins to a 9-7 record. Then the curse kicked in by Year 2 and Saban picked Daunte Culpepper over Drew Brees and the Dolphins were 6-10 and Saban was unhappy and quit.
He then went to Alabama and now he will go down as one of the greatest college coaches of all time.
Bill Parcells built winners in New England and Dallas and came to Miami and it was good _ that first season in 2008. Parcells remade the roster and the Dolphins won the AFC East and went to the playoffs
And when the curse fully kicked in that second year? He drafted Pat White. And soon he was gone.
Jeff Ireland came to Miami under Parcells and enjoyed that good first season. But eventually his failures began to pile up, including the single worst offseason in team history in 2013. That offseason included the drafting of Dion Jordan at No. 3 overall and the signings of Phillip Wheeler and Dannell Ellerbe.
Then Ireland went to New Orleans and helped build one of the NFL's most talented rosters.
Ownership is not immune from the Davie curse.
The Robbies built this franchise literally out of nothing in 1966. It was a heroic feat that will forever be part of South Florida's history. But Joe Robbie died in 1990 and neither he nor his heirs properly planned for the tax ramifications of that passing.
So the Robbies were forced to sell the team in 1994 _ one year after moving the team's longtime training facility from St. Thomas University to Davie.
Wayne Huizenga, the new owner, took over the team and fell under the curse. He loved Don Shula. He was a fan of Shula. But one year after serving as owner in Davie, the curse kicked in and Huizenga basically fired Shula after his second season as owner in January of 1996.
And when new coach Jimmy Johnson wanted to quit after the 1998 season, Huizenga suggested he stay and only coach home games.
Huizenga also let Johnson name his successor even though Shula could not. Huizenga promoted Johnson's longtime fried Dave Wannstedt.
Later Huizenga, may he rest in peace, made aggressive moves to hire great football people. But the great businessman made dumb business decisions.
He hired Parcells and promptly offered to pay him for several years at the end of his contract, even if Parcells simply walked away.
The cloud didn't lift over ownership when Stephen Ross took over.
Ross bought a team in 2009 that had won the AFC East he year before. So he basically kept the status quo his first year. By the second year, he rarely was speaking with coach Tony Sparano and after that year got on that plane to the Bay Area in California to try to hire John Harbaugh in January 2011
Ross later said he was surprised that anyone would notice his Harbaugh attempt.
Ross hired Joe Philbin, which seemed like a smart move considering the coach had worked as Green Bay's offensive coordinator during the rise of Aaron Rodgers. Except soon after his arrival, Philbin admitted he had nothing to do with Rodgers developing.
Like, wasn't this question asked in the interview?
Ross has employed and continues the practice of forcing shotgun marriages of his general manager and head coach.
He fired Sparano but kept Ireland for the next coach.
He fired Ireland but kept Philbin for the next GM.
He knee-capped new GM Dennis Hickey after only one year, hiring Mike Tannenbaum.
He then hired Adam Gase when Tannenbaum wanted Doug Marrone.
Ross fired everybody after 2018 because he wanted a fresh start and a new direction. Except he kept GM Chris Grier who has been with the Dolphins 21 years now.
That's what happens at the top of the organization after they arrive in Davie.
But In the locker room and the coach ranks, it gets perhaps weirder once the Davie curse gets a full year to fully immerse itself in its new victims.
Sparano, a tough guy, was great his first year in Miami. The team went to the playoffs. Then the Davie curse fully kicked in and suddenly he was celebrating field goals like they were touchdowns. He wasn't able to win at home. He thought it was fine to keep Ross, his boss, at a distance and in the dark.
And he feuded with Ireland at the end.
Philbin, a cerebral guy, wasn't a great leader. But his first year before the Davie curse fully kicked in was probably his best. Then, in 2013, he suddenly couldn't make a decision without asking Dawn Aponte. And the bully scandal happened. And at the end he feuded with Ireland and later with new GM Dennis Hickey.
Adam Gase, who came to the Dolphins as the architect of a record-breaking offense in Denver, was great his first year. The Dolphins made the playoffs in 2016. Then the Davie curse kicked in and he started thinking guards didn't matter. And he tied himself to a quarterback who was injured three years in a row.
All this happened in Davie, folks.
In the locker room, we saw tight end Eric Green come to the Dolphins from the Steelers with a reputation for being an enormous mismatch. In Miami he was an enormous free agency bust.
Linebacker Karlos Dansby came here as a playmaker on defense. In Davie he let himself get out of shape and never performed up to his contract. And then he left and he was great again.
Brandon Marshall was better before and after he played for the Dolphins. Same for fellow receivers Mike Wallace and Danny Amendola.
Wallace is interesting. He recently tweeted to Tannehill that it wasn't "you bro it was that toxic [expletive] program" in Davie.
This is interesting because Wallace was part of the toxicity!
He didn't want to practice at full speed because he didn't want to wear out his legs before game day. He certainly didn't wish to work overtime on deep routes with Tannehill. So, of course, they rarely connected.
Wallace quit on his team in the 2014 season finale. Afterward he actually had Brandon Gibson stand next to him in the locker room and take questions from reporters. The questions _ directed at Wallace _ would get an answer from Gibson while a silent, smiling Wallace stood by.
I mean, bizarre.
And then Wallace, who had two 1,000-yard seasons before he signed with the Dolphins, had another one after he left Davie.
Look, I know the idea of the Dolphins being under a curse because of where they practice is unorthodox. Strange even.
But what has come out of that place has a pattern. And it has affected many key people and the direction of the entire organization.
This is the pattern: First year in Davie, usually not terrible. Afterward, people seem to lose their ever-lovin' minds.
And when those same people escape, they often prosper again.
I write this knowing you will think it's ridiculous and I'm crazy. But I have dealt with Dolphins people for 30 years and this thing has also affected many I've known within the organization that are not on any fan's radar. And those folks perform better early on and get progressively worse at their jobs.
It's not the people. It's that place.
So this leads me to a good-news, bad-news scenario ...
The Dolphins broke ground on a new training facility last year and expect to be in that facility by as early as training camp 2021. That's the good news.
The bad news? Brian Flores and the Dolphins will remain in Davie throughout 2020 and into the 2021 offseason _ which includes that draft. It will be the second year of the Flores tenure.
Word of advice, Brian: You did fine your first year as Dolphins coach, just like most who came before you. The second year is when the disasters began for your predecessors.
So you better find a pastor to pray and break that stronghold curse over that Davie facility. Do it ASAP. Do it today.
Your career as the Dolphins coach depends on it.
