Sports Rant

It’s a sad time to be a sports fan in South Florida. We like winners. If your not winning then we don’t want anything to do with your team. In other words we’re fair weather fans. Lately all the professional teams have been stinking up the joint. The Miami Dolphins are 0-2, the Florida Marlins are in last place in the National league, and the Miami Heat was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Its time to examine what has gone wrong with these teams. Of course this is just an opinion. I in no way consider myself an expert. I just like sports.

Let’s begin with the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins are the crown jewel of South Florida. Lately, it’s been more like the sorry ass team of South Florida. It’s been six years since their last playoff appearance and thirty-three years since their last Super Bowl ring. How can a storied franchise become a laughing stock? You can only blame one person, Wayne Hunizga. Wayne Huizinga sucks the life out of sports teams. Please Mr. Huizinga sell the team to someone that actually wants to win. You could also blame all the lousy drafts they’ve had in the last twenty years. They’ve picked Jason Allen, Ronnie Brown, Yatil Green, Randall Hill, Billy Milner, Sammie Smith and John Avery all in the first round. Do you know what most of these players are doing now? Standing in the unemployment line or in jail as in Sammie Smith’s case. They haven’t had a running game since the seventies when Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris ran over their opponents. They haven’t had a passing game since the eighties when Dan Marino was breaking all the passing records. They haven’t had a decent coach since Don Shula. What I suggest they do is spend all their draft picks and salary money on offensive lineman. They keep wasting their first and second round picks on running backs and wide receivers instead on improving the offensive line. If they put all their effort on improving the o line they would solve ninety percent of the problems they face on Sunday afternoons.

On to my beloved Florida Marlins this is my favorite team in South Florida. Yet they get no respect from the fans or the media. I know Jeffery Loria is a dick and doesn’t want to spend money on the team, but they have one of the best GM’s in the league, Larry Beinfest. Year after year the Marlins are competitive and exciting. They’ve won two World Series championships in their short history. Their 2003 championship was the best sports experience I’ve ever witnessed. Man, that was a great team with Derek Lee, Josh Beckett, Brad Penny, Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera, A.J. Burnett, Luis Castillo, Juan Pierre, and Ivan Rodriguez. If they ‘d kept that team together they would’ve won at least four championships. Instead most of the players were traded away for younger and cheaper players. And that’s the story of the Marlins they groom them until they can’t afford the player then trade them away. As for this year it’s just been bad and there hasn’t been a silver lining this season. Most of the talented pitchers on the team have been hurt and the new manager has been a disaster, which has led them to a last place finish. At least with the Marlins I feel like they’re competent people on the top and they’ll turn it around unlike the Dolphins.

Next on the list of downward spiraling franchises the Miami Heat. They are the last team in South Florida to win a championship. There is one up side and a whole lot of down side. The up side is Dwayne Wade the cornerstone of the Heat franchise. The down side on the Heat is that it an old team and when I say old I mean really really old. The Heat showed their old and tired legs when the younger and more athletic Chicago Bulls eliminated them this past season. And what do they do to get younger and more athletic they sign Penny Hardaway. What is this 1996? I know they don’t want to pay the luxury tax but they have to do better than Penny Hardaway and Smush Parker if they want to be champions again. The Eastern Conference is no longer a cakewalk. Plenty of teams improved this off-season especially the Celtics and the Magic. Pat Riley has to come up with a better plan because Shaq and Zo are getting older and their bodies will give out in any minute. There’s also the possibility that Dwayne Wade will sign with another team once his contract is up. He like Lebron James signed a three-year contract extension expecting more money after they become seven-year veterans with the option of seeking a new contract as an unrestricted free agent. It will make them eligible to negotiate a maximum contract worth 30 per cent of the salary cap. If he leaves the Heat will screwed for a very long time.


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