The Return of El Tigre

Hello All,

There once was a time where, for roughly 8-12 Sunday afternoons a year, my dad and I would sit in front of the television and watch Tiger Woods play golf.

Golf is a sport I find incredibly frustrating to play in person, and to be honest, boring to watch on television.

And yet, ever since the April weekend in 1997 when Tiger announced his presence to the world at Augusta, I have been unable to get enough of watching the Big Cat stalk the fairways.

He is a once in a lifetime type of figure. He made football fans jump up and pump their fist when he nailed a birdie putt because he played with the kind of fire and emotion that I had only ever known before in Michael Jordan or Michael Irvin... he made me want to pretend to hit holes in one just as much as I pretended to hit the game winning three or score the big touchdown.

Phil Mickelson was a nice dude, but give 14 year old me the choice between watching him play golf or going outside and playing football in the snow and it wasn't even a conversation.

Tiger was an event. He was greatness defined, the closest I would get to watching a Jordan in his

prime.

And then he fell.

The car crash. The women. The botched PR attempt. And the loss of his game.

Tiger Woods, the world's most marketable man, had become persona non-grata.

And it seemed to me like everyone was a little too happy to watch it.

I was graduated from college for about six months when the story broke. It was a story that I tried to ignore as much as possible, because the reality is that I pretty much knew what happened without having to hear what happened.

Tiger got married too young and didn't deal well with temptation.

Tiger made some bad choices. Choices I would like to think I would not put myself in position to make but in a way can understand. And so I didn't give up. Neither did my dad.

It is weird to think about, because looking back now my dad and I spent so much time together watching a golfer who was, it turns out, an AWFUL family man. The type of dad you tell your kids NOT to be like.

But he was still our guy. We never gave up on him. It just didn't feel right without him. Not The Masters. Not The U.S. Open. None of it.

So, much like we do with seemingly all of our teams right now (I see you Orioles / Dolphins / Hurricanes), my dad and I suffered through the lean years, waiting for the re-emergence.

And waited.

And waited.

We saw glimpses of the Old Tiger every now and then. Last year at the Masters, for about 9 holes, Tiger caught the course on fire again. He was drilling approach shot lasers and stalking the field (literally). The pack ahead of him on the leaderboard could hear him coming as the gallery exploded for every big make. He was pumping his fist. This was our guy.

And then, as so often has happened over these past three years, his putter failed him. It makes sense, given the emotional baggage he has carried, that the most mental part of the game would be his undoing.

Tiger kept wandering, trying and failing to find his game.

Until this weekend. At his favorite course, Bay Hill, Tiger vaulted to the top of the pack on Saturday and came in to Sunday with the lead.

The old Tiger did not lose on Sunday. His mere presence atop the leaderboard put so much pressure on the field that they crumbled around him. THIS would finally be a real test; was he back?

He answered immediately. Her smoked his first drive. He drilled approach shots. He hit ten straight greens in regulation to start.

The NBC broadcast team shared a great little nugget late in the telecast: Of the final 16 golfers to go off, Tiger was the only one under par on the brutal course.

That's right, folks: everyone else crumbled around him.

Our guy was back. The guy who we had spent so many afternoons on the couch cheering for, almost as hard as we would have a Hurricanes football game. The guy who, even when I was away at school, my dad and brother and I would exchange phone calls or text messages about seemingly every weekend as he chased down another win. Old Tiger. New Tiger. Who cares?

Hell, he was finally TIGER again, and that was good enough for me.

As the tournament drew to an end, you could see the swag returning. He was stalking the course like, well, a tiger.

Finally, there was only the 18th, and Tiger had a 5 stroke lead and his birdie putt. As he read the green, the cameras caught Tiger cupping his hands to the visor of his ballcap, as he often does.

And then, in an act that was perhaps the death of hard times and the rebirth of the most dominant athlete of a generation, Tiger looked away from the ball and smiled.

I would be lying if I said it didn't get a little dusty in Casa de Bro.

He rolled his birdie putt to within a couple feet. He tapped in the par for the official win.

I texted my dad and brother as I sat there uncontrollably smiling.

My dad texted me back "for Tiger and for all those who never lost faith."

I'll drink to that.

The Elephant Graveyard

Hello All,

The Miami Dolphins have officially become the Elephant Graveyard of the NFL.

I have been shouting (literally) about this for years, much to the chagrin of my poor father, who has had to listen to me rant and rave while I drive home through the Santa Monica Boulevard rush hour traffic for the better part of two years.

Only now, in what has become known by many people who know what they are talking about as the worst off season in the history of the NFL, are the masses joining the party. At this point,

The once proud franchise of Don Shula and Dan Marino has become the laughingstock of the NFL. Even the groundskeepers from Major League think this team is exceptionally bad.

They are no longer relevant or important.

Perhaps saddest of all: this is not a shock to any true fan of the team. We all kind of knew.

(But hey, at least I still have the gloriously owned and operated Baltimore Orioles to root on as they contend for World Series after World Series!)

This has not been a sudden drop like we saw with the Hurricanes, where one day they were national title contenders and the next they were playing Nevada in the MicronPC Bowl.

Nay; this has been a slow rot, like my grandparents’ old house just up the road in Boca Raton. It was great in the early 90’s and ever since has been falling to shambles. The best move at this point is to hit the reset button.

Let’s take a look at General Manager Jeff Ireland’s Worst Week Ever.

First of all, he traded star receiver Brandon Marshall (AKA our best effing player) for two third round picks. Which might make sense if Ireland was good at drafting, which he most certainly is not.

Ireland then got used for leverage by Peyton Manning and Eric Winston, the top free agents on the board at possibly (i.e. definitely) the team’s two biggest need positions (QB and RT). Nothing wrong with chasing a guy and missing, unless your pursuit of those two leads you to miss out on the remainder of the market at those positions. Which the Dolphins did.

A week in to free agency, Ireland cut veteran and team leader Yehemiah Bell. Bell has lead the Dolphins in tackles every year since the 70’s (possibly a slight exaggeration) and lead the defensive backfield. He is a good man and a great teammate. Ireland cut Bell after assuring Bell before the free agency period that he would not be cut.

As former NFL player Seth Payne said on Twitter, “releasing a guy one week into free agency is like making your kid go trick or treating the day after Halloween.” And this was the most liked / respected guy on the roster.

And then, to top it all off, on the day the Broncos agreed to terms with Peyton Manning the Dolphins signed…David Garrard’s Dead Body. The guy who was benched by the Jaguars in favor of a crappy rookie (no offense Blaine Gabbert fans) and sat out all of last season because nobody wanted him. Keep in mind that this is the league in which TJ Yates started two playoff games.

As pundits around the nation began to take notice of these hi jinks, voices from within the league started to perk up. Former players Joey Porter and Channing Crowder and former free agent target Ryan Clark all gave their two cents and the end result went something like this: Ireland is snake and an asshole and no one wants to play for him.

It doesn’t end with players either. In the past year, Ireland has made very public runs at two guys to be his coach: Jim Harbaugh and Jeff Fisher. Both toyed with the Dolphins. Both chose to coach elsewhere, despite money not being a concern.

Most guys would be fired for this kind of crap. Ireland, who came in as part of “The Triumvirate” with Bill Parcells and Tony Sparano, is somehow still around despite the other two leaving the crime scene. Not only that, but he has the support of the owner, Stephen Ross (a turd in his own right but at least a rich turd).

This is the same guy that asked a draft prospect if his mother was a hooker. The same guy that torpedoed last season by completely undermining the head coach in public. (Jim Harbaugh nods fiendishly)

This guy is the reason the Dolphins cannot fill a stadium. He has driven the organization in to the pits of mediocrity and somehow been rewarded for it.

The smart move here is to start from the ground up. This team is at least two years away from playoff contention IF the right moves are made. As we all know, it is really hard to make those moves in professional sports from the middle. So you bottom out. You burn the undergrowth in order to foster new life.

Ride with Matt Moore as your quarterback this season. Sign Jake Long and Cameron Wake, your two franchise guys at this point, to extensions. Draft the best player available. Save your money in free agency (which should not be a problem considering we can’t give it to any of the players we want anyway) and build through player evaluation. Find guys that work in your system. Start building the framework this season so that next season, when you finally draft the franchise quarterback (Matt Barkley, Tyler Wilson, etc.) they can hit the ground running. And of course, get rid of Ireland. Get someone young and hungry from an organization that knows what it is doing (like the Packers or Ravens).

Of course, this organization will almost assuredly do the opposite. They will rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic to try and save their jobs.

I just hope that Dolphins fans react by telling the ownership that you can’t piss on our heads and call it rain anymore.

I hope the stadium stays empty until Ireland is gone. Lucky for me, this started last season and I have no reason to believe it will be any different come September.

Rebuilding is not fun. One or two more bad seasons will suck to watch, but is it any worse than going 8-8 every year?

Is it worse than this offseason?

Always guard the inbound passer.