Dolphins’ 2015 season was ruined last December by owner Stephen Ross

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross seemed to be the only person who didn’t see the relationship with coach Joe Philbin ending poorly. Or maybe Ross had another agendas and didn’t want to see it coming.

It was a surprise when Ross declared before last season even ended that Philbin would be back, much more of a surprise than his inevitable firing on Monday. Why was he so excited to bring Philbin back? Philbin seemingly barely survived a messy 2013 that included the locker room bullying controversy. Then in 2014 he was 8-7 with a game to go when Ross announced Philbin would return in 2015. Ross did so the same day the Dolphins were eliminated from the playoffs. The Dolphins promptly got beat in Week 17 at home by the New York Jets, and then started this season with four unimpressive performances.

Why did Ross declare Philbin was coming back after another playoff-less season, right after the Dolphins were eliminated from the playoffs? It’s worth asking how Ross’ love for the University of Michigan played into this mess.

Ross has gone out of his way to say the Dolphins never pursued Jim Harbaugh, and that’s probably true because it surely seems like Ross wanted Harbaugh at Michigan. Ross isn’t just an alum and a fan. He’s the program’s biggest athletic donor, according to MLIve.com, giving $100 million to Michigan athletics in 2013. When you donate nine figures to a school’s athletic department in a single year, you aren’t just a casual fan anymore.

It’s easy to piece together this story, right? Ross is a huge Michigan devotee, so much that it’s logical to think he was willing to retain Philbin to keep the path for Harbaugh to Michigan clear. Put another way, there’s really no logical reason why Ross wouldn’t have pursued Harbaugh, a Michigan legend with a 44-19-1 NFL coaching record who was obviously on his way out with the San Francisco 49ers. The Dolphins would have been much, much better off with Harbaugh, but Michigan wouldn’t have been better off. Perhaps Harbaugh preferred Michigan to the Dolphins anyway, but we don’t know because Ross is adamant he never reached out (“We didn’t try for him here,” Ross said, according to the Detroit Free Press). If you’re a Dolphins fan, you have good reason to wonder why this whole thing was botched so badly.

Maybe Michigan had nothing to do with Ross bringing Philbin back. Perhaps Ross just made a mistake. It wouldn’t be the first time an owner has been too patient with a head coach, only to quickly reverse field after it’s finally clear to him it won’t work out. But whatever the reason, that decision probably ruined the Dolphins’ 2015 season.

This is a talented Miami roster. They weren’t a bad team last year, and they added defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, one of the biggest free agents in NFL history, for $114 million. And somehow the Dolphins look worse. They have looked flat in every game. The defensive players had a meeting with defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle about his schemes. The offensive schemes have been insanely conservative, though quarterback Ryan Tannehill looks like he’s regressing when it comes to throwing the ball downfield. Now the Dolphins are four games in, they can’t really make wholesale scheme changes, and they’ll be led by interim coach Dan Campbell, who was a coaching intern in 2010 and a tight ends coach since then. That’s the extent of his coaching experience.

Maybe Campbell is the man to give the Dolphins a spark they didn’t have with Philbin, and Miami starts playing up to its talent level. Most likely, the seeds of failure were set when the Dolphins invested heavily in the roster in the offseason but didn’t make any changes to a shaky coaching staff. It’s hard to turn it around in the middle of a season. You’d like to think that the Dolphins would have had a better long-term plan.

Put it this way: It’s hard to believe the Dolphins would be 1-3 with Jim Harbaugh as head coach. They probably wouldn’t be this bad with any of the coaches they could have hired this past offseason. Sometimes you can ruin a season nine months before it even starts.

– – – – – – –

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab