It's Been a Rough Decade

As my first post mentioned, I am an avid Miami Dolphins fan. For better or worse, I have loyally followed my team (as if I have some stake in the franchise) for the last twenty years. The life of a Dolphins fan has been particularly tough. If you are of a certain age, you've lived through the best of times for the franchise and are heartbroken with how far the team has fallen. If you are a part of the younger generation, as I am, you came along too late to see the most successful days of the franchise. Miami holds the third highest all-time winning percentage, yet we have had the misfortune to have missed a great deal of those wins. We missed the great teams of the 70's, when the Dolphins were going to three straight Super Bowls and winning two of them. We missed the undefeated team of 1972, the No-Name defense, the record setting 1983 season from Dan Marino. The only thing that my generation has seen from this team is failure. We have seen a team from our division represent the AFC in the Super Bowl eleven times (seven total appearances for New England and four straight for Buffalo) since the last Super Bowl appearance for Miami. Since Dan Marino retired after the 1999 season, it's been one colossal disappointment after another. Even the good seasons, and believe me when I say there haven't been many, have ended up in disappointment. When Chad Pennington came to the organization for the 2008 season, hopes were high that we had finally found our quarterback for the post-Marino era.  In his first season with the team, he led us to a division title, the third seed in the AFC, and our first real hope for success in a long time. Those hopes were soon dashed in convincing fashion though, first with a 27-9 loss to the sixth-seeded Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the playoffs, then by not one but two ultimately career-ending shoulder injuries suffered by Pennington. Once again Dolphins fans were left without a quarterback and without any real hope for the future. The life of a Dolphins fan is perilous to say the least.

Now Miami is once again poised to give all of its fans some real hope for the future. We seem to have found our quarterback for the future in Ryan Tannehill, we have a bevy of selections in the upcoming NFL Draft, and currently have more cap space than we know what to do with. The future looks bright in Miami, here's hoping that we don't find a way to disappoint yet again.