Dolphins get caught in Tuna net

For those of you that follow football, you are probably well aware of how dramatic this Spring has been in South Florida regarding the feud between the Miami Dolphins new management and All-Pro Dolphins Defensive End and former MVP Jason Taylor. For those of you who haven't followed sports news, essentially what has happened is Miami's new management, namely Bill "The Tuna" Parcells, have been increasingly upset with Taylor for his lack of devotion to the team's voluntary spring training workouts as he chose to hang out in Hollywood for his casting in ABC's "Dancing With The Stars", among other things. The feud has caused concern for the future of Taylor, who has led the NFL in sacks since the year 2000, and his relationship with the Dolphins organization. So much so that trade speculation and even retirement have been mentioned by numerous football reporters as the most likely solutions for the problem.

After several months of he-said she-said, this morning Taylor held a news conference in which he announced his plan to remain a player in the NFL and to deny reports that he had requested a trade away from his tenure with the 'phins. Although Taylor did not specifically say he wanted to remain with the team, he did state that he was willing to do anything to help the organization, even if that involved him being traded away to another team, and on first glance this should be taken as good news for Miami fans.

Take another glance. We have seen this before:

It was 1966 and Jim Brown was the greatest Running Back to ever set foot on a football field. He had played nine seasons for the Cleveland Browns and made the Pro Bowl every season. By the summer of 1966 he was the all-time leading rusher in professional football and also held the single-season rushing record along with a half-dozen other records at the time. But, as fate would have it, numbers weren't enough to save his career with the Browns. Then-owner Art Modell publicly chastised Brown for his acting role that summer in "The Dirty Dozen", which was being filmed overseas in Europe while Brown was supposed to be practicing with the team back in Cleveland. Brown's historic and illustrious career seemed to hold no water with his organization's management.

Like Taylor, Brown requested to have extra time before returning for the regular season in order to pursue his entertainment business opportunities, and was then forced into retirement by Modell in what would become known as the first of many blunders Art Modell would make as the longtime owner of the Browns franchise (including firing Paul Brown, of whom the team was named after, and other Cleveland greats like Paul Warfield and Bernie Kosar). Jim Brown never played football again and Cleveland has yet to see a championship since him.

Although Jason Taylor is no Jim Brown, the parallels between the two situations are eerie. In both cases a hot-shot new manager comes into a situation with a storied franchise in which he has his back to the wall and feels the need to show muscle, publicly. As a result, the player's pursuit of future opportunity is viewed as poor leadership and a betrayal, although at least in Brown's situation it was excusable perhaps that Cleveland's management felt they could do just as well without him due to an entire roster of All-Pros. In Taylor's situation, not so much.

Jason Taylor is one of the best defensive players in the National Football League and has continued to produce for a defense long after the team had fallen from grace. If Bill Parcells and Miami's ownership has any sense they will allow Taylor his few months of vacation and bring him back to help jumpstart a young and inexperienced team. It has worked before, as both Michael Strahan and Brett Favre had very similar situations last year and led their teams to the Super Bowl and NFC Championship, respectively, last season. It could certainly work for the Dolphins as well. The team has a corps of good running backs, a solid offensive line, a few young stars, and new head coach that had done wonders at his previous team as a coordinator. Why not keep around a Pro Bowl defensive player and see what happens?

I am no General Manager, by any means. But take my advice, Bill, don't follow in the footsteps of Art Modell.