Talking Dolphins with blogger Paul Picken of phinphanatic.com

MS: Last season the Dolphins finished 8-8. What makes this team different than last season?

MS: Should the Dolphins fire their coaching staff, what are their options? How do the Dolphins move on from this season’s shortfall?

PLP: If you’d asked me this at the end of last season, I would have said that all of the coaching staff needed to go.  This year, I’d take a slightly different approach.  I know it’s easy to just say “hit the reset button” in situations like this, but what people need to remember is that bringing in a new coaching staff brings a lot of philosophical changes with a broad sweeping impact.  If you hire a coach who has a particular style that they want to play, it can cause a need to completely revamp the roster and put the team in salary cap purgatory.  In the interim, coaches like that will try to put a square peg in a round hole, and put a bigger, slower player into a speed scheme (or vice versa) instead of taking the talent they have and building their scheme and philosophy to match the personnel.  The greatest coaches are able to do things with the talent at hand, or to find ways to utilize the “broken toys” that other teams have cast off. 

I know a lot of folks are high on Harbaugh, but I don’t want to hand the keys to the kingdom to him.  Some of the moves that he pushed for – like trading for Jonathan Martin and starting him – are moves I would not to see repeated in Miami.  I also think he’d be great at first and rapidly fade away and alienate portions of the fan base.  I would honestly love to see Todd Bowles return to Miami, retain Bill Lazor as OC and bring in Rex Ryan as a DC.  That would be an absolutely nasty coaching staff to scheme up the offense and the defense for this team with a lot of character – but in a positive way.  I’d really be a fan of this scenario.

MS: Tell us about your role in organizing Dolphins viewing parties. Why do you enjoy organizing the Dolphins fan contingent? What is it like being a fan of the Dolphins on the East Coast?

PLP: I wish I had the time and bandwidth to do what these folks do that organize the fan club groups.  I’ve had so many great experiences visiting with various groups to watch games or tailgate.  Getting to talk to them on a regular basis and help out where and when I can.  A lot of times it’s with helping get word out on something they have going on.  It means so much to me when I can truly help connect fans to a group that’s out there and I either hear from a group that some fans showed up that I told should go check them out, or when a Dolphins fan goes and has a great time and lets me know about it.  I love that.  Now that I’m in my second season of going to visit with a few of the various fan clubs when I can, I’ve gotten to see how some of the groups have grown – like with DolFans Rhode Island.  I’ve gotten to visit some new groups that I’ve been meaning to for a while, like the crazy group down in Northern Virginia.  Obviously it’s always a good time hitting things like the MetLife Takeover with DolFans NYC or hitting their bar for a game up in NYC, and I absolutely love helping get word out on events like that.  It’s cool getting to help get word out, and I do that in any way that I can.  Another example was the group out in Southern Arizona…  there are so many things.  Having Kim Bokamper buy a round of shots for me and a few of the fan club folks after the Chargers win was another really cool thing.

It’s also been cool for me that I was able to help the Dolphins rep Jamie Quadrozzi get in touch with a few fan clubs that the team didn’t know about when they started organizing their inaugural fan weekend this year.  Jamie has been so great to so many fans, and I absolutely love that the team did this.  I’m going to use this as a quick vessel, as Jamie is someone that has really upped the fan experience out there for both fans at the stadium and across the country, and she was in a bit of an unfortunate accident a week ago.  You can read up on that on the following link, and share it out – as well as comment to send her some love or donate to help her through the ordeal – to help Jamie as she’s recovering from some pretty serious injuries: http://www.gofundme.com/jamiequad

As far as being a Dolphins fan on the East coast, it was always interesting growing up.  I’m halfway between Jets and Patriots country, so I caught a lot of flack growing up.  I was lucky as a kid, as my dad and a friend of his who is a Pats fan split season tickets to the Patriots, mainly so we had a great seat and a guarantee to be at the Dolphins game every year.  I only missed one or two up here as a kid when I had prior obligations – like sports or something along those lines- but I’ll always appreciate the times that we went up there, and we were guaranteed a Dolphins game every season.

MS: How did the idea of the podcast-radio program start? What are the key components that allow it all to come together? Who have been some of your notable or more famous guests connected with the Dolphins?

PLP: Honestly, I’d love to tell you how the podcast/radio show started – but I wasn’t a part of it in the beginning.  Cat and Brian have been doing it for years, and I somewhat “fell into it” with the guys.  I had known Brian a little bit via writing for Phinatics and PhinPhanatic, but really didn’t get to know them until I went down to Web Weekend from doing the writing for those sites.  They had told me about a show they did every Tuesday night with their buddy James, and around the time I started calling in was when James had left the show.  The three of us had really good chemistry on the show, and after a little interim stint I wound up sticking around and I absolutely love every minute of it.

The three of us really look at it as a partnership and we each bring our own unique elements to the table.  Cat has a segment he does each week with someone who covers the opposing team, so we’ve always got that week’s opponent covered from someone that follows the opponent closely.  Brian really does a killer job with hosting and keeping the show moving, as well as keeping us on our toes while keeping the flow of things going.  I’m pretty good with the “random knowledge” and viewpoints, and also really good at the networking to get us some great guests. 

The guests this year have been insane for me.  I’ve loved the response that we’ve gotten from so many folks with the team. the alumni, fan clubs, super fans, agents… you name it.  We’ve had such a wide array of guests that it’s hard to single any one particular guest out.  I really enjoy having some of the alumni on like Offerdahl, Madison, Drayton, Stradford.  Deon Dyer was an absolutely awesome guest when we had him, even though he may be under the radar for a few folks.  David Canter is always absolutely fascinating to talk to.  We’ve also had some great current players on the show, and it was really cool getting Brent and Miko to come on the show together 24 hrs after he re-signed with the team.  I can’t say a enough good things about those two.  As far as from the team itself, having Tom Garfinkel on the show a couple weeks ago was a really cool thing.  We also had Jesse Agler come on before he left, and managed to sneak Greg Likens on our show to introduce him to some fans before he officially started with the FinSiders.  This Tuesday we have Nat Moore joining the show which I’m really excited about, as well as Hayle who works with the team from a guest relations standpoint (her dad is also a member of the DolFans NYC group). 

We’ve also gotten a great response from the fan community as well.  We’ve had folks from the fan clubs call in to various episodes, some of the “super fans” like the Dolphin Gorillas call in… it’s just really cool to see some of the response we’ve gotten to the show, especially since I’m really just a fan of both the team AND what a lot of these fan clubs and individuals are doing.

MS: If you are Steve Ross, what is your next move at season end? How can Steve Ross right this ship of a sinking season for his franchise?

PLP: I really think letting his GM call the shots on the football side of the house is the way to go for Steve.  I definitely think what we talked about earlier in terms of the approach with retaining Hickey and Lazor while finding the right coach to fit with the personnel that you want to retain is the way to go for this team.  I truly think that Todd Bowles, Bill Lazor and Rex Ryan and another year of Dennis Hickey could have this team competing for the AFC East next season.  I’d urge Ross to avoid the reset button, as anytime you hit that you’re going to put yourself another 3-5 years away from a championship, and I’m tired of waiting for one.

We thank Paul for his dedication and passion for the Dolphins.  Please join him tomorrow night with Brian and Cat as On the Fin Side will feature Nat Moore.  Feel free to chat with @Phinatic_Pick on Twitter and call into the show tomorrow night via @OntheFinSide on Twitter.