The Tony Sparano fan club membership roll is tiny these days, but its members include not a few players on his own team.
Winning for the fourth time in five tries on Sunday, the Miami Dolphins set out to convince management to retain the services of lame duck coach Sunday. His dismissal after the season seemed like a sure thing after the Dolphins lost their first seven games.
His players think owner Stephen Ross should ignore those seven games in favor of the last five when considering his coaching options.
"He needs to stay, man," LB Karlos Dansby said Sunday. "I'm going to push for him. We just started slow. We have a great coach. He knows what it takes now to put us in a position to win ballgames."
But if Sparano is so great, why did it take the Dolphins almost half a season to win one game?
"Rome wasn’t built in one day," Dansby continued. "Can't turn your back on him right now. Can’t do it. Got to let him stay."
The team has improved since the losing streak. You could argue that is because the Dolphins played three straight teams with losing records. Jason Taylor said it is because of Sparano's midseason adjustments.
"Tony has made a lot of changes, and I think from Wednesday through Sunday, our whole attitude has changed," he said. LB Cameron Wake also praised Sparano's coaching abilities.
But the question remains, if Sparano is so great at coaching, why were the Dolphins one of the last teams to get their first victory this year?
The team's spirits are high after winning 4 of their last 5, and no one should fault them for standing up for their coach. But if they asserted earlier in the season that they were better than the 0-7 record, they don't seem as credible when giving Sparano a bulk of the credit for their turnaround.
Dansby had perhaps the most mindless statement of the day, though. "I think it was much needed for us to go 0-7. Guys turned a lot of things around, and do things differently that needed to be done."
A good coach can convince his players to do things differently without the aid of a seven-game losing streak. Tony Sparano needed the losing streak.
