Tony Sparano
For most of the day, it looked as if Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh would take his talents to Miami as the Dolphins’ new head coach. But that’s all changed now, and the team is now intent on sticking with their current coach.
Jay Glazer of FOX Sports reports that the Dolphins will retain head coach Tony Sparano after pulling its name out of the Harbaugh sweepstakes.
After putting on a full-court press to land Harbaugh – arguably the NFL’s hottest name – which included offering the college coach $7-8 million a year, Miami withdrew its offer.
They blew away the 49ers financially, but what tripped the team up was the nonconpliance with the Rooney Rule. That and the fact that Harbaugh wasn’t “sold” on the Fins made them go to Plan B in Sparano.
It’s a bad situation all around in Miami. Sparano is now officially a lame duck coach and can’t have much confidence in his higher-ups these days. The team is 25-23 under Sparano, and finished 7-9 in 2010.
Though they are a talented bunch, the offense and quarterback Chad Henne’s sputtering performances throughout the season led to a year mired in mediocrity. Now that he’ll be back, Sparano will have to untangle a mangled situation at QB to compete in 2011, but not before smoothing things over with GM Jeff Ireland and owner Stephen Ross first.
