There’s a way to peddle hope for the Miami Dolphins fan to live vicariously through another Super Bowl. But, come on, if you think I’m going to be a street pusher for an organization that’s only proven the past two decades it has no idea which way is up — excuse me, do you think I’m stupid? (Wrong answers only.)
I’ve stood on the elevator as it’s taken everyone down, and down lower, through team owner Steve Ross’ tenure with (long breath) Joe Philbin, Bullygate, White-Powder-Snorting Videogate, Tank-for-Tua, Tampering-for-Tom Brady, Brian Flores’ lawsuit, Star-Players-Late-for-Practice-Gate and, always, No-Playoff-Win-in-25-Years-Gate.
The primary stars of this game are the builders. They’re the two behind-the-curtain general managers who thrived in the unromantic existence of the clammy-palmed draft room or the dice-rolling proposition of free agency to build cusp-of-championship rosters. Remember when the talk was wasting Dan Marino’s career? What about my career?
So, there’s the surgeon general’s warning label to this column. Because here’s the thing about this Super Sunday. It really does show the way out for the Dolphins, if it comes with this latest regime.
That’s because the stars going into Super Sunday aren’t the quarterbacks since neither Seattle’s Sam Darnold nor New England’s Drake Maye have the developed pedigree.
Nor are the stars the coaches, though both the Seahawks’ second-year coach Mike Macdonald and Mike Vrabel in his first with the Patriots have shown their swaggering talent.
Still, the primary stars of this game are the general managers.
Seattle’s John Schneider and New England’s Eliot Wolf rose up from young nobodies to graduate from Green Bay Packers University, too. Just like new Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan. All three also were together for several years on different career timelines to learn in a sound organization.
There’s the lifeline, if you want to grab it.
“The Packer Way is at the core of everything I learned about football,” Schneider has said.
“The Packer Way to me is just sort of draft and develop, extend your core performers from within, and it’s about honesty, respect and treating people the right way,” Wolf once said. “It’s about people and developing people.”
Those are words, just words. But look at them in practice. Seattle drafted 20 starters or significant contributors over the past four years. That includes All-Pro players, first-round receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and fifth-round cornerback Devon Witherspoon.
New England’s roster isn’t as draft-developed considering Wolf’s tenure started in 2024. But two rookies start on the offensive line. Four rookies start in all and two more contribute on a Super Bowl team. Imagine that, rookies impacting right away?
Wolf’s defining pick of Maye in 2024 set up everything good about this team’s future, too. So, Maye was the last quarterback standing. So was Marino in 1983. Sometimes fortune smiles at you like that.
The quarterback philosophy is central to the Packer Way. It can be seen by Schneider’s previous Super Bowl teams in 2013 and 2014. He threw darts at the board with three quarterbacks to build that champion: an unproven Charlie Whitehurst, Green Bay free agent Matt Flynn and third-round pick Russell Wilson.
A quarterback competition? That’s been a no-no inside the Dolphins. But Wilson came out the winner, then a Super Bowl champion. But the other side of that is the Green Bay Way moves on from aging quarterbacks before they’re done to go with rising young ones — Brett Favre was dumped for Aaron Rodgers, Rodgers for Jordan Love.
Schneider traded Wilson to Denver rather than paying high money, picked up a good-not-great Geno Smith and then dumped Smith for Darnold. Voila.
Don’t oversell this Green Bay Way as only draft-and-develop, though. New England and Seattle set things up to have beaucoup salary-cap space before this season. New England spent the most in the league at $365 million ($198M guaranteed). Seattle spent a third-most $243 million ($131 guaranteed.)
That’s a big chunk of how New England rebuilt its defense and Seattle sprinkled stars on top its roster. But they spent smartly as opposed to … well, you know. They also traded smartly. Schneider, for instance, traded fourth- and fifth-round picks for Seattle receiver Rashid Shaheed. Think Buffalo wonders why it didn’t get Josh Allen help like that?
Schneider’s background is he pestered then-Green Bay GM Ron Wolf with enough letters and phone calls that Wolf finally let gave him a menial job. Eliot Wolf is Ron’s son, went to draft combines since age 10 and then started in the Packers front office learning a decade after Schneider in 2004.
Sullivan had just quit his real-life job to start at the bottom inside the Packers then, too. His dad, Jerry, was a long-time NFL coach. So he grew up inside the game like Wolf. He also grew up inside a winning Packers organization like these Super Bowl GMs.
Since Ron Wolf took over in 1991, the Packers have 25 playoff appearances in 35 seasons, including nine NFC Championship games and two Super Bowl wins (and one loss). They aren’t perfect. Why did Bill Belichick’s New England organization win six Super Bowls with Brady (and played in nine) while the Packers won one each with Rodgers and Favre?
Still, the Packer Way is the sub-story of Super Sunday. It drops some crumbs for what Sullivan will attempt with the Dolphins. That’s all the further I’m going with the idea. You want to inject hope? That’s on you. The past two decades demand some proof before going further.