Dolphins swing and miss on Nick Caserio
The Miami Dolphins are developing a very bad reputation around the NFL. They are the team that no one wants to work for. The latest example of this came late Saturday when the Dolphins offered their General Manager position to Nick Caserio of the Patriots. The new job would come with a promotion and a much higher salary than Caserio was making in New England. He’d finally have a chance to be ‘the man’ in charge of a team’s personnel decisions.
Well, Caserio declined the opportunity to be the Dolphins new General Manager. Truly unbelievable. Caserio, as I mentioned on Friday, most likely used the Dolphins to get more money and a promotion from the Patriots. We’ll probably see reports of his new salary and title within the next few days.
The Dolphins meanwhile, still do not have a General Manager and again swing and miss on a candidate they were interested in. For those keeping score at home, the Dolphins have now been turned down by 6 different candidates. 4 candidates declined to interview at all, 1 candidate declined a 2nd interview after being deemed a finalist, and now the guy they ultimately offered the job to, turned them down.
Many times over the last few years, I thought the Dolphins had reached rock bottom….I thought things couldn’t get worse….but they have. The truth is that the Dolphins owner has some serious issues on his hands, not the least of which is the fact that the Dolphins don’t have a GM. The Dolphins owner is not learning from his mistakes. Remember when he tried to bring in big name coaches to work with Jeff Ireland in 2012? They all balked at the Dolphins because they didn’t want a GM forced on them. Now? The Dolphins are trying to force an uninspiring coach on a new General Manager (not even big name GM candidates).
The murkiness of the Dolphins power structure has certainly turned off a lot of candidates. In fact, the Dolphins are a bit of a joke around the NFL right now because of their handling of this GM search. It’s really quite sad. By this time tomorrow, the Dolphins might in fact have their new General Manager….but how can they possible spin it to say that the guy they hire was ‘their guy all along’? If they try that, they’ll compound the problem because we aren’t stupid….neither is the local or national media.
The Dolphins have said that they didn’t offer Caserio the job….but they did, they just don’t want to admit that he turned them down. The Dolphins next GM will likely be one of the other finalists (Gaine, Dawson, or Hickey). It will be interesting to see how the Dolphins announce the hiring and what type of spin they’ll put on it. Will they hold a press conference to announce that they’ve searched long and hard to find the perfect candidate? Let’s hope not, it would just add to the embarrassment.