Parcells will make Dolphins his team

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There's no guarantee this will work.But if you're a Miami Dolphins fan, you've got to feel better than you did last week -- even after your team avoided infamy by beating the Baltimore Ravens.You've got to feel good about Bill Parcells calling the shots.You've got to believe better days are ahead.Because Parcells is, without question, the smartest football man to occupy the Dolphins' front office since Wayne Huizenga shoved Don Shula into retirement and handed the keys to the executive washroom to Jimmy Johnson.He's smarter than Johnson, who won big in Dallas only because the Minnesota Vikings were stupid enough to trade away all those draft picks for Herschel Walker.He's smarter than Dave Wannstedt, who, when it came to personnel matters, made more bad decisions than Isiah Thomas.And he's way smarter than Nick Saban, who always thought he was the smartest guy in the room, even though he was noticeably overmatched in the NFL.As for Randy Mueller and Cam Cameron, the current GM and coach? Let's face it: If they knew what they were doing, Huizenga wouldn't need Parcells.But he does.He needs Parcells' experience and expertise. He needs Parcells' toughness and tenacity. He needs Parcells' presence.Huizenga's Dolphins have hit bottom. They've gone through four regime changes since Shula, three in this decade, without sniffing a Super Bowl. They haven't reached the playoffs in six years. Now, they're the NFL's worst team.And, until this week, there was no reason to get excited about the future, either.The Dolphins will have the No. 1 selection in April's NFL Draft, but nobody trusted the Mueller-Cameron team to use it wisely -- not after their wrong-headed decisions to bring Trent Green and Joey Porter to Miami, waste a first-round pick on Ted Ginn Jr. and anoint second-round choice John Beck their quarterback of the future.Huizenga had to do something.Something dramatic.And he did.He got the best man for the job.He got Parcells to run his football operations.As a coach, he went to three Super Bowls -- two with the New York Giants and one with the New England Patriots, after turning around both teams -- and won two of them.He also enjoyed unquestioned success rebuilding the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys.In 1997, he took over the Jets, who finished 1-15 under Rich Kotite the year before, and won nine games.The next season, he guided the Jets to a 12-4 record and went to the AFC title game.Parcells then went to Dallas in 2003 and promptly turned around a team that finished 5-11 the previous season.The Cowboys won 10 games and made the playoffs.He resigned after a crushing playoff loss last season, but he'd already laid the foundation for this season's success: Thirty-six of the 53 players on the 12-2 Cowboys were acquired during Parcells' four-year stint in Dallas.Clearly, the man has an eye for talent -- which is exactly what the Dolphins need after too many failed drafts and bad trades.The Dolphins had 59 picks in the six drafts from 1998 to 2003. They used 46 of them to select college players; the other 13 to acquire veterans in trades. None of those players are on the current roster.Parcells will do better, especially with $20 million in salary-cap room and that No. 1 pick. He'll hire a "Parcells guy" to be his coach. He'll bring in "Parcells guys" to play for him, and convert the ones who are already there.He'll make this his team, the same way the Giants, Patriots, Jets and Cowboys became his teams.Again, there's no guarantee that this will work. So much damage has been done.But Parcells' presence gives Dolphins fans something they haven't had in years.Hope.(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. On the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)