“I no longer have faith. I have eyes. Show me. Show us”

– Armando Salguero, Miami Herald columnist

This quote from Salguero, one of the most trusted and reliable reporters covering the Miami Dolphins over the past 25 years, has stuck with me since the end of the season. He hits the mark succinctly and accurately; we simply can’t trust the Dolphins front office any more, not after the Joe Philbin debacle and a seventh consecutive non-winning season under owner Steve Ross.

Folks, the well of goodwill is bone dry. And the actions we are seeing from Davie since the end of the season aren’t inspiring a wellspring of optimism.

I have been very reluctant to criticize Ross in the past; he is a good man with deep pockets who wants to win in the worst possible way. He just doesn’t know how. After eight seasons, Ross is still struggling to hire good competent football people or even find a competent consigliere who can take the reins.

I am not making this up. Mike Tannenbaum? We’ve been wary of him and his dubious history with the New York Jets ever since he was named Executive Vice President of Football Operations in January 2015. Nothing he’s done in Miami has changed that perception. His lone noteworthy achievement has been to consolidate power under his office and run off dissenting voices. Winning on the field? Not so much.

Truly, the referendum on this new regime began the day after the season ended. People want proof they know what they’re doing.

General Manager: Promoting Chris Grier was widely praised, though people did overlook the fact that the Dolphins haven’t won a single playoff game since his promotion from scout to national scout/assistant director of college scouting in 2003. Granted, we can’t hold Grier wholly accountable for this but he certainly had a hand in the results. Nevertheless, he is well-respected across the league. Fine.

Head Coach: Adam Gase built a solid reputation in the league as a young, up-and-coming offensive mind and a QB savant. This earned him an interview with the Dolphins. Unfortunately, he has no NFL or NCAA D1 experience being a head coach, which is a big worry as the Dolphins have been burned time and again by a string of novice coaches like Cam Cameron, Tony Sparano, and Joe Philbin. Common sense (and team history) suggested that a more experienced hand was needed this time around. Super Bowl winning coaches like Tom Coughlin and Mike Shanahan were available. Wise heads like Jimmy Johnson and Larry Csonka endorsed this approach. But Ross chose to ignore these factors and decided to fish in the same rookie pond again. Apparently the allure of Gase as a young QB whisperer for the struggling Ryan Tannehill was a major consideration. Did Ross remember that Gase was being hired as a head coach, not a QB coach? While we wish Gase all the best this upcoming season, logic tells us to expect him to suffer through the same growing pains and mistakes that his predecessors did.

Free Agency: Perhaps nothing has stirred up the scrutiny of fans and media more than the series of controversial decisions thus far in Free Agency.

Start with this: Jimmy Johnson, a great coach and personnel man, once published his list of rules for conducting Free Agency. At the top of the page is Rule 1: re-sign your own good players first. This makes perfect sense; you draft guys, develop them, and then keep the good talent in house as you build towards a championship. It’s what winning organizations do.

Not the Dolphins.

The decision to allow young, ascending DE Olivier Vernon to get to free agency without a long term deal is the sort of blunder that challenges the competency of the team’s leadership. Ross and Tannenbaum cannot credibly say they are building for a championship when they allow studs like Vernon to walk by failing to sign them early and then compounding the error by fretting over the relatively petty difference between the Franchise Tag and the Transition Tag they used (but later rescinded). In the end, the Giants signed Vernon for more money than the Franchise Tag would have required.

I am not making this up.

Yes, Vernon was commanding a mint and the Dolphins were cash strapped but this is the market for a young, rising player at a cornerstone position. Respected Giants GM Jerry Reese understands this, Tannenbaum does not. In fact, he and his front office consequently misjudged the situation not once, but twice. Now the Giants have a piece of a future championship team in place, and the Dolphins do not.

Would Franchising Vernon have cost the Dolphins flexibility in free agency? Yes of course. But the Dolphins aren’t close to a championship, so it really doesn’t matter. It’s a mirage.

And let’s be clear: inking consolation prize Mario Williams is a pure stop gap, so let’s enjoy his play for however long he can go. At 31, he and Cam Wake (34) are on the back nine of their careers and neither player would seem to be in the window of a championship team within the next 3-5 years. Furthermore, Wake is trying to recover from a ruptured Achilles tendon and Williams is coming off of a terrible season in Buffalo for whatever excuse you care to believe from him. But believe this: he was a cancer in their locker room and has earned a reputation for being a pain in the neck to deal with, a headache young Gase doesn’t need.

In addition to the loss of Vernon, the losses of other young, ascending draftees like RB Lamar Miller, WR Rishard Matthews, and DE Derrick Shelby sends a dark message to fans and players regarding the future of this team. As with Vernon, their situations should have been managed better by the Dolphins front office. No, you can’t re-sign everyone but you also can’t let your best young players get away like this.

Said respected Miami Herald reporter Barry Jackson, “The Dolphins lost three-in-their-prime 2012 draft picks in six hours, which is really hard to do.”

Yet Tannenbaum and his people managed it.

Wouldn’t it have been better to keep the foundation intact, and rely on the draft to continue to build on the good they already had in place? Again, this is what winning teams like the Broncos, Patriots, Seahawks, and Steelers do. Now the Dolphins are forced to commit resources to re-building the same positions all over again, resources that could have been committed to solving other gaps on the roster.

This, my friends, is the very definition of wandering in the wilderness!

Unfortunately we can no longer count on the 8th overall pick in the draft as one of those resources because Tannenbaum traded it away to Philadelphia for two injured defenders with performance issues in CB Byron Maxwell and MLB Kiko Alonso. Miami will get Philly’s first rounder in return (13th overall), effectively dropping them out of contention for the prime tier of talent in this year’s Draft.

I don’t have to remind you the negative history associated with trading down in the first round. Sadly, Tannenbaum doesn’t pay attention to such things.

When you study the deal, Maxwell is the more problematic of the two acquired players. He has a bad contract that calls for $8.5 million in 2016 which has reportedly been restructured somewhat, details forthcoming. He is also injured and is coming off a terrible season. As Jackson reported, Maxwell “apparently barely passed a physical, and allowed quarterbacks to post a 100 passer rating in his coverage area last season, albeit in a defense that didn’t suit him”. With all of that, the front office are still counting on him to win a starting job.

Again, I am not making this up.

In fairness, this deal does have a bright side: Alonso. He is the prize here, having passed his physical with flying colors and with a resume that validates his playmaking talent. The NFL’s defensive rookie of the year in 2013, Alonso put up numbers commensurate with those that Zach Thomas did his first season. If he can stay healthy, Alonso will fill an urgent need at MLB. And, if he’s Zach v2 as the pre-injury numbers suggest, the Dolphins win big and no one will question the value of the deal ever again. Let’s hope this comes to pass!

Back to Maxwell. While the trade is of questionable risk but arguably a reasonable gamble given the upside with Alonso, the bet was then raised by the Dolphins when they consequently waived Pro Bowl CB Brent Grimes. We understand the off-the-field reason why Grimes was waived, but Maxwell is not a like-for-like replacement. The net here is that a critical position of need has now been downgraded.

If you’re looking for a sign that the Miami Dolphins will be winners in 2016, your eyes will strain to see much optimism based on this series of moves. This team is not better today than it was a year ago or even a week ago. And if you don’t believe me, then listen to Jackson tell it.

“Let’s not sugarcoat here: Free agency, still in its early stages, has gone terribly for the Dolphins. Not catastrophically terrible, but terrible enough to feed into the negativity and cynicism that swirls around this franchise.”

Jackson continues, allowing his personal feelings leak in, “Look, as someone who grew up a Dolphins fan, I don’t want to be negative. But the Dolphins keep making it so hard, so very hard, to feel optimistic, and after one day of free agency, they still have more needs than they can capably fill.”

This leaves the faithful wondering ‘Where will the winning players come from?’ ‘Are Tannenbaum and his people capable?’

The referendum on him and this regime has begun.