The man with not much of a P.R. plan has designed to empower an angry fan base by acknowledging that he’s paying attention.
Who said the only circus is in New York?
But far bigger than the news that, according to Izzy Gould of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross actually called a disgruntled fan to explain the franchise’s haphazard offseason is the disclosure that Ross told 20-year season-ticket holder Jason Lawrence that the team would have cut receiver Brandon Marshall if a trade to the Bears hadn’t been arranged.
"[Ross] said they had been shopping [Marshall] for a couple weeks,” Lawrence told Gould. “Nobody would return their phone calls about getting him. If Chicago didn’t take [Marshall] . . . they would have ended up cutting him very shortly after that, and got nothing.”
Ross also told Lawrence that the Dolphins could have had quarterback Matt Flynn if they really wanted him, and that quarterback Tim Tebow didn’t fit the team’s offense.
To the former point: Duh. To the latter: Double duh.
Of course Tebow doesn’t fit the Miami offense. He doesn’t fit any offense. He’s a talent around whom you build an offense. As to Flynn, why did they bring him to town if they didn’t want him? Was new head coach Joe Philbin hoping to pick up some additional tidbit during Flynn’s visit that Philbin hadn’t gleaned during, you know, four years together in Green Bay?
As to the other quarterbacks linked to Miami this offseason, Ross said that Peyton Manning “wasn’t comfortable” with the Dolphins, and that the team didn’t want to pay Alex Smith $8 million per year in the event that Matt Moore won the starting job.
If Matt Moore is the starter again, look for Ross to be making a lot more phone calls to unhappy fans.