MIAMI - This is a strange marriage, the wedding of Bill Parcells' blue-collar brand of football and Stephen Ross' glitz-and-glamour marketing scheme.
Parcells, the Miami Dolphins' football boss, is all about grit and effort and teamwork, the ingredients he believes are necessary to win games.
Ross, the Dolphins' majority owner, is all about bright lights and loud music and the flash of celebrity, the ingredients he believes are necessary to sell tickets.
So we can only wonder what Parcells thought about the media-lined, Academy Awards-like orange carpet and all the trumped-up buzz that welcomed some of South Florida's biggest sports and entertainment names -- some of whom now own shares of the team -- to Land Shark Stadium for the Dolphins' return to prime time.
Especially after his team lost.
And lost hard.
It was bad enough that the Dolphins allowed Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts to come from behind in the fourth quarter to win, 27-23, in Miami's much-anticipated return to prime time, its first Monday Night Football appearance in nearly three years.
It was even worse that the game closed with Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington's last-gasp pass being intercepted in the end zone.
But to fall to 0-2?.
On a surreal night when a well-played, hard-fought, must-see football game was treated as a sideshow to some celebrity night out? "It is really disheartening," Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said of the setback, not the scene.
Sure, it was nice to see the marquee likes of singers Marc Anthony and Gloria Estefan and tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams show up for the Dolphins' home opener, now that they own shares of the team.
Same goes for the great Jimmy Buffett, another of Ross' limited partners, who delighted the pre-game crowd with a beach-party-like concert on the plaza outside the stadium.
Even local NBA star Dwyane Wade, IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves and actress Jennifer Lopez (Anthony's wife) couldn't stay away from the glare of the Dolphins' spotlight.
Heck, there was so much attention focused on the lead-up festivities that nobody noticed Tiger Woods was in the house until a TV camera spotted him standing on the Colts sideline in the first quarter.
Yet, in an ironic twist, the Dolphins played through all the pre-game hype and nightclub noise and played the kind of old school, snot-knocking football Parcells loves.
Led by Ronnie Brown, who ran for 136 yards and two touchdowns, the Dolphins rushed for a whopping 239 yards. Converting 15 of 21 third-down chances, they dominated the usually pivotal time of possession by an absurd margin of 45:07 to 14:53. And they didn't turn over the ball until the game's final play.
"It is exactly the formula to beat that team," Sparano said. "But we cannot give up big plays on the other side."
Still, the Dolphins lost.
They lost because Manning, despite an injury-depleted receiving corps and a running attack that mustered only 61 yards, still found a way to throw for 303 yards and two touchdowns -- on his first and last passes of the game.
They lost because Sparano played too conservatively down the stretch, inexplicably choosing to run when he needed to pass in the final minutes.
They lost because, when it mattered most, Pennington didn't make the plays he made a year ago, when he led the Dolphins on a rousing turnaround to the AFC East title.
They lost a game they played well enough to win.
"It's a tough one to take on the chin," Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter said. "We're not good enough to give games away like that. When you're in position to put them away, you've got to put them away."
Now, the outlook isn't promising.
The Dolphins, with a brutal schedule ahead, will have a far more difficult time getting to the playoffs this season. They go to San Diego next week, followed by home games against Buffalo, the New York Jets and, after a bye week, the high scoring New Orleans Saints. Then they go back on the road to play the Jets and New England.
It's not beyond the realm of possibility the Dolphins could lose each of those games if they don't play better. And you can bet Parcells knows it.
"You know," Ross said before the game, "they're not doing this in Indianapolis."
No, they're not.
They're selling tickets the Parcells' way.
By winning football games.
(Ray McNulty is a columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers in Florida. This column reflects his opinion. He can be reached at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com.)
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