Late last night the Miami Dolphins made it official that they had released linebacker Bobby Carpenter. The monkey in the room was finally acknowledged.
Carpenter, who failed in two straight games to block his man on punt coverage, which ended in two blocked punts, should have cleaned his locker out right after the game. He had been performing terribly on special teams all year long, and it really was a shame that Erik Walden, who had one special teams mishap the whole year, was cut so quickly, and the front office waited so long to cut this bonehead.
While he was decent in pass coverage as an inside linebacker, Carpenter's special teams gaffes were simply too much to overlook anymore.
To replace Carpenter, the Dolphins have signed yet another special teams ace in fullback Deon Anderson, who yes, is a former Dallas Cowboy.
Anderson has a reputation of being a special teams specialist, especially on kick returns, where he has made his name for his wedge-busting. Anderson will not be brought in to replace current fullback Lousaka Polite. No, Polite's job is safe. Simply consider Anderson as insurance in the case that Lou would be unable to play because of an injury.
Other news that was broken last night was the report that "consultant" Bill Parcells has been seen moving more and more of his personal belongings out of his office for the past couple of weeks now, ever since he stepped down as the teams vice president of football operations. Parcells was reportedly moving the last of his belongings out of his office.
While the "Big Tuna" has now officially stepped down into his consultant role, the "Trifecta", as I so affectionately liked to call it, is now disbanded.
Think about it. Exactly how much longer is Parcells going to stay around as the consultant of this Miami Dolphins team? Until the end of the year? Until after the draft? An even better question is how long Parcells should stay on? Is he even benefitting the team by lingering around during the off-season?
The team has clearly been handed down to general manager Jeff Ireland now. So would it benefit him for Parcells to stick around, and cause media controversy over Parcells staying on throughout the whole draft process? No, it would not. In fact, Parcells would only be a team distraction. All of the attention that he would garner would draw away from what Ireland and head coach Tony Sparano are doing during the off-season to get this team better. We simply do not Parcells arrogance around anymore.
Let's face it, Parcells was one of the most arrogant, and cocky people that ever walked through Davie, Florida. While he was a generally nice person, when he was in 'football mode', as I like to call it, he was arrogant and got right down to business the old fashioned way, which did not always work out in the Dolphins favor, especially the past two years. Releasing Jason Taylor? Trading Justin Smiley? The trade of Ted Ginn? Look at the facts, Parcells was arrogant and over-confident in his moves during his time here, and it seemed to have rubbed off on Ireland a little bit this off-season.
While I love Parcells, and am forever grateful as a fan to him, I cannot say that I am proud of some of the moves we made during the last two off-seasons, and even the first season that the Trifecta was together. No longer is more than 5 members of the Dolphins squad pre-2008 on the roster. While that may not be a bad thing, some of the players such as Ginn were decent ones that deserved a chance to excel. During his tenure as VP, Parcells showed that if you were not one of the Trifecta's 'guys', you weren't staying on the team very long.
Again, I wish Parcells luck in his future ventures with the team, I just feel that his time here is just about up, and he is no longer needed to manage this team. I truly appreciate everything he has done, and him bringing this team back from the grave. While I certainly do not agree with every move that the team has made under his watch, you cannot argue that this team is a new team now because of him, and for this, everything else can be forgotten in my book.
Goodluck Bill, this is my final goodbye to you. Wish you well in retirement or with any other team you would like to rejuvenate.
Written by:
