Dolphins owner says Adam Gase has three years to make playoffs

The Miami Dolphins are getting tough on consistent losing and aiming up a notch for mediocrity, apparently.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross must know that his team's playoff winless streak is up to 15 seasons now, with their last playoff appearance after the 2008 season. So he's pledging that his team will make the playoffs again ... by the 2018 season. OR ELSE!

“After three years, if we haven’t made the playoffs, we’re looking for a new coach,” Ross said. “That’s just the way it is. The fans want it.”

Ross was talking on Monday, giving a speech at the Palm Beach Civic Association, when he said that according to the Palm Beach Post. In talking to about 100 people, Ross explained his head-coaching search to land 37-year-old Adam Gase — offering up some some high praise.

“Instead of getting a retread that really hasn’t had a great track record as head coach, I was looking for somebody that really could be the next, if you will, Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, you know, really great head coach, and I think we got one,” Ross said.

Belichick, for the record, couldn't make the playoffs in his first head-coaching job with the Cleveland Browns, starting at a Gase-like 39 years old. But he didn't win a Super Bowl in his second season in his second job, with the New England Patriots. Amazingly, Parcells took over four losing teams and made the postseason in his first or second year with all of them. He made a Super Bowl in Year 4 with the Patriots and an AFC championship game in Year 2 with the New York Jets.

Gase will be working with a team that has notched either six, seven or eight wins every season since that last playoff appearance. He has a talented quarterback to work with and a base of talent that could net a playoff appearance with the right additions. But Gase will be the fifth head coach (including interims) that Ross has had since talking over full time in 2009, and the rich and successful businessman admitted that he often has been overmatched in the NFL.

“It’s a lot easier to succeed in business than it is to create a winning football team,” Ross said. “I’m going to get it right yet.”

And in the wide-ranging, 30-minute speech he also made a fascinating statement when Ross said that you can chalk up the Dolphins' bullying scandal from a few seasons ago involving Jonathan Martin, Richie Incognito and others to racism.

“This bullying incident was really a product of racism,” Ross said.

That has passed, and yet the product on the field has not improved markedly — despite major free-agent forays, such as Ndamoukong Suh — under Ross' watch. Gase, though, has been served notice: He has a mere 1,000 days to make the postseason or his head will roll.