Not sure if it’s good news or bad news, but Dawn Aponte is leaving the Dolphins.
She will, however, still be on Stephen Ross’s payroll, as she transitions into his real estate companies.
Over the years, I’ve asked hundreds and hundreds of fans of all NFL a funny question. I always ask them if they know the person in charge of their team’s finances. They usually answer with the owner’s name. No, I say, I mean the actual employee who does the paper work. No one ever knows.
Except Dolfans. For some reason, Aponte’s name has been in the news the last few years as often as the Dolphins GMs. Almost as much as the coaches. We shouldn’t know the name of a middle manager. But because of the dysfunctional front office, we do.
I’ve been reading plenty of quotes and comments all day, and a lot of folks are disappointed with this, calling Aponte a salary cap genius who will be greatly missed. First of all, these guys are just repeating stuff that the Dolphins have been saying. Someone calls her a skilled numbers cruncher a few years ago, so it evolves into her being some kind of genius? Second, don’t all teams have accountants who know what the cap is and know how much to spend? I’m certain they all do.
Whether true or not, Aponte has been associated with numerous Dolphins rumors in the past few years, including alleged feuds with Jeff Ireland, Dennis Hickey, Clueless Joe Philbin, and more.
There were always assertions thst she had too much power. I tend to believe that, just for the fact that her name was always in the news, and the same position held by 31 other NFL teams was never in the news. There were always reports, true or not, of Aponte striving for more and more power. Some reports listed her as having more say in the Dolphins that the GM.
I can guarantee that Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft don’t allow middle managers to dictate financial terms to them. they just say “Here’s what I want; make it happen.” But, if we believe some of the reports about how dysfunctional the Dolphins front office is/was, the Dolphins did it backwards. The owner relied on the middle manager to tell him what he could do.
I have nothing against Dawn Aponte and I have no proof that she ever harmed the term whatsoever. But I am glad she’s gone, because I always felt she was a distraction. The more we can do to make Mr. Ross concentrate on the Miami Dolphins TEAM (and not its stadium or its corporate managers), the more cohesive that team will be.
You must remember Admin, when Ross first purchased the Dolphins he said in an interview he knew nothing about football and he was depending on the Dolphins organization and the fans to teach him all about it. Those words I’ll always remember because I went – Yikes! – after hearing them.
And we still say “Yikes” when we hear him speak today.
Although, I’m slowly beginning to feel he is a Dolphin fan and not just a businessman looking for a venture. I listened to him in the announcers’ booth in our last pre-season game, and he’s become more knowledgable. And he’s also more excited, and that shows me he’s personally involved in winning and not just making investments. He was excited to talk bout the Dolphins, and not his stupid soccer or racing leagues, and that is a first step!!
Yeah. Maybe after doing enough of clearing the house, Ross will finally get the Dolphins somebody like a John Elway for a GM.
I know I know, Jay is going to say “If Tannehill is still the QB, I don’t care who they hire for GM.”
The whole index card fiasco with her and Regis convinced me that she needed to go. How do you make an alliance with Clueless Joe unless you’re clueless yourself? I’m glad she’s gone, too. No more of this first woman GM politically correct garbage…I hope!
Evidently “Clueless Joe” wasn’t quite as clueless as we thought. After all he did wanna replace TanneBust .
And what happens if we find out that he was better than Gase?
Great, the Seahawks are planning a pregame demonstration of unity while Gase leaves Ajayi back in Miami. Bad move for team morale perhaps?. I’m sure Ajayi is unhappy losing the starting job to Foster. I don’t know folks, I have a bad feeling we’re going to get smoked on Sunday.
No shit Sherlock.
One coach is great and one coach is crap.
And Ajayi never looked like a starter.