Miami Dolphins Curse: The Miami Dolphins, a professional American football team based in Miami, Florida, have been plagued by what is commonly referred to as the "Miami Dolphins curse" for several years. This curse has resulted in a prolonged period of underperformance and disappointment for the team and its fans. The curse is believed to have originated in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a time when the Dolphins experienced a string of failed playoff appearances and lackluster seasons. As the team struggled to regain its former glory, fans began to attribute these struggles to a curse that had befallen the franchise. One explanation for the curse is the departure of legendary head coach Don Shula, who led the Dolphins to two Super Bowl victories in the 1970s. Shula's retirement in 1995 marked the end of an era of success for the team, and many fans believe that his departure marked the beginning of the curse.

Are the Dolphins Cursed? The Case for the "Curse of the Tequesta"

September 24, 2014 Share this:

Times are tough for the Miami Dolphins. No matter what they do, nothing seems to go their way. Year after year, high hopes turn into epic disappointments. Now, with coach Joe Philbin in the hot seat and Ryan Tannehill's tenure as the Dolphins starting quarterback tenuous at best, the team seems to be on the brink of rebuilding once again. It's a vicious circle with which Dolphins fans have become all too familiar.

It's as if the Miami Dolphins are cursed. Actually, that explanation might not be as crazy as you think. The answer to why the Dolphins have gone from a perennial contender to an annual disappointment may have been right under our noses the entire time. Enter the Curse of the Tequesta.

First documented in this 1985 article from the Ocala Star Banner are details of the discovery of ancient remains in the ground broken during the construction of Joe Robbie Stadium. The findings were located in an area near the spot where team offices now stand. The remains were identified as most likely that of the South Florida Tequesta Indian Tribe, a native population wiped out in the mid-1700s by European diseases.

A few months before the grand opening of the stadium, the Los Angeles Times wrote an article detailing the construction and unique funding of the Dolphins' new stadium. The article also mentions the burial site discovery:

"Then there were the two acres that archaeologists claimed were an Indian burial ground more than 1,000 years ago. They said that the Tequesta Indians had used the site about 800 A.D., and the Seminole Indians in the mid-19th Century."

The discovery threw a wrench into the Dolphins' construction plans because they were faced with archaeological guidelines before they could continue digging. The Dolphins originally agreed to avoid clearing part of the southeast corner of the property where the remains were found but later received permission to remove the remains and artifacts. Because you don't just not build a football stadium because Native Americans happened to use your land to bury their dead centuries ago.

The Dolphins promised to pick through the site carefully and methodically, taking care to locate and remove anything deemed to be ancient remains or artifacts. Here's another detail from that L.A. Times piece:

"[The agreement] allows [the Dolphins] to clear in specified locations," said Tom Beck, at the time an administrator with the regional impact division of the Department of Community Affairs. "They just can't clear willy-nilly. It's a very limited authority for development. There won't be any mass clearing of any archaeological sites."

The Dolphins eventually excavated the burial grounds in six-inch increments, allowing experts to sift through the dirt slowly. Once the area was cleared of artifacts and ancient remains by Dade County archaeologists, the Dolphins were free to continue building the field that their offense would forever explore in six-inch increments. Really, it's a touching tribute that not enough people talk about.

So the story ends there, right? Problem solved, right?! Ha-ha! Nope.

Normally digging up ancient Indian burial grounds doesn't involve a happy ending. While the rest of us were drooling over Dan Marino touchdown passes in Miami Gardens, a select group was still pissed off at that whole "disturbing the dead" thing, and they wanted it to be known that the Miami Dolphins would be doomed for eternity for their sins. In 1989, the Sun-Sentinel documented a few odd phone calls that came into the sports radio station 610 WIOD-AM:

Consider this call that WIOD Sportstalk radio show host Rick Weaver remembers from November.
"I live across the street from Joe Robbie Stadium," snarled a Spanish-accented man's voice. "And I have put a curse on the stadium and the football games."

"Oh yeah? So what are you doing? Sacrificing chickens out there or something?" said Weaver, laughing. The caller said yes, he was.

"Boy, that was a really bizarre call," Weaver said.

Then he got his next call: "This lady called and said Joe Robbie Stadium needed an exorcism because it was built on Indian burial grounds."

Well, shit. Could the Miami Dolphins really have their own Curse of the Bambino on their hands? Could it be that we have found the root of all this pain and disappointment? Before you laugh it off, consider some of the facts:

- January 20,1985: Dolphins lose 38-16 to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XIX.

- May 1985: Tequesta Indian artifacts and remains are discovered on the land where the Dolphins now play.

- May to December 1985: The Dolphins hire experts to sift through the site, recover, and remove every artifact they find.

- December 1, 1985: Less than 11 months later, the Dolphins continue construction on what is now known as Sun Life Stadium.

- 1985 to present: The Dolphins have not returned to the Super Bowl since.

Spooky! Or is it just a coincidence? Could the curse have changed Drew Brees' x-ray, in turn making the Dolphins decide Daunte Culpepper was a better option? Did the curse send us Jeff Ireland?

You be the judge.

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Ryan Yousefi, a sports journalist and MBA holder in business healthcare management, has been a dedicated weekly contributor to the Miami New Times since 2013. Beyond his sports journalism career, he's held leadership roles in web3 gaming companies. He enjoys southeast Asia travel, pho, and whiskey, but most of all, being Lincoln's dad.

The Miami Dolphins Are Not Cursed

The Miami Dolphins are not cursed. That narrative needs to die.

The reality of it is the Miami Dolphins, for the past 20+ years, have made many poor decisions and have a bit of bad luck, but none of it is a curse.

Every time a player gets injured or the team loses a game, people run to “the team is cursed” excuse.” Stop. Enough.

Which is when the artifacts were found, the Miami Dolphins stopped construction on Joe Robbie Stadium immediately for many days, called in archeologists, and let them look at the land in question and do their jobs. Per a 2022 Miami Herald article on this subject...

“Archaeologists determined some artifacts were from the Tequesta, one of the first Native American tribes to settle in South Florida. The Tequesta tribe lived in the region until the mid-1700s. Other artifacts, including copper arrowheads, were made by Seminoles living on the site in the mid-19th century. While crews excavated by hand artifacts that would have been affected by the parking lot’s construction, a “major part of the site” was preserved and is still there, surrounded by the stadium’s parking lots, Carr said.”

It is also noted from the time span in which the stadium was being built, and this was discovered that the Miami Dolphins did not begin construction again until they received permission to remove the artifacts found in question. All artifacts found during construction were donated to a local museum.

Fans and some in the media make it sound like the Dolphins had no respect for the artifacts, just took a bulldozer to it all, and had the hired construction workers use the land as an open bathroom on their breaks. When nothing could be further from the truth. The land was preserved in one key area, and the artifacts were handled with care.

So can we stop with the curse nonsense?

The answer is very easy if you want to know why Miami never seems to catch a break. Since Don Shula retired, they have hired a long line of poor decision-makers who have made poor decisions which…wait for it….never work out.

Jimmy Johnson was very good in the immediate years after Shula, but his tenure started off with some bad luck as he wanted to hire Bill Belichick as his defensive coordinator. Belichick was very much interested and very close to accepting the offer, but at the last minute, he decided instead to go with Parcells to New England, where he got the Assistant head coach title. Imagine if Belichick was the person to take over for Jimmy when he retired. The last twenty years may have been very different for the Dolphins. That has nothing to do with a curse; that is just bad luck and Parcells giving a bigger title to Belichick at the end of the day.

Miami Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga talks to the media, Monday, Jan. 10, 2005 in Davie, Fl. about the change of name of Pro Player Stadium to Dolphin Stadium and in the team’s organization during a press conference. (AP Photo/J. Pat Carter)

Speaking of Jimmy wanting to retire, he wanted to retire after his third season as Dolphins head coach. Wayne Huizenga begged him not to and to come back for one more season. So, with half of his heart into coaching, the Dolphins had a so-so season that ended in a 62-7 embarrassing playoff loss. Again, not a curse; Huizenga, the owner, made a bad decision, not letting a man walk away when he wanted to and forcing him to coach when his heart wasn’t fully into it.

This leads us to Dave Wannstedt as Miami’s next head coach. Wannsted was actually 42-31 as coach of the Dolphins, which isn’t awful in hindsight; the issue was Huizenga gave Wannstedt total power and VETO POWER over then Dolphins general manager Rick Spielman. And during the 2003 NFL Draft in Round 2, Spielman wanted to select WR Anquan Boldin, and Wannsted used his veto power to select LB Eddie Moore. Boldin went on to win NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and was a 3-time pro bowl player in his 14-year NFL career. Moore was out of the league just two years after he was drafted.

Again, NOT A CURSE, a poor decision.

Then after Wannstedt came the Nick Saban era. Saban had recently won a National Championship at LSU and had huge success in the SEC. Per reports, Saban interviewed with NFL teams and Miami but wasn’t all that gung-ho about returning to the NFL. Huizenga (once again not accepting no for an answer) begged and pleaded for Nick to take the job as head coach of the Dolphins and kept upping the offer to the point Nick couldn’t say no and accepted the job on Christmas day 2004.

So once again, a poor decision by the owner, who didn’t have a head coach who was in love with the job. Poor decision.

I won’t dive deep into Dante Culpepper over Drew Brees; we know that backstory, but again, not a curse, just a poor decision.

Then Saban left and enter Cam Cameron.

Again…how is this a curse? It’s just hiring someone who totally is not qualified for the job.

Cameron goes 1-15 and puts the FOR SALE sign in his front yard a few months after taking the SOLD sign down when he bought the place. And then we have the Bill Parcells era.

Say what you want about Parcells, but he won in New York with the Giants with 2 Super Bowls, took the Patriots to another, then had the Jets in the AFC Championship game and as close as they have come to being a Championship team since the days of Joe Namath. And even in Dallas, he was 30 games over .500 with his record and had success there. In Miami, though, no such luck.

Jake Long over Matt Ryan was the first swing and a miss.

Parcells also hired Jeff Ireland as his general manager, which did not work out well.

We go through the team being sold to Stephen Ross, who then, behind the back of his current head coach Tony Sparano, tried to hire Jim Harbaugh, making the organization look low rent and lack of all class. And the downward spiral was really on here.

Again, none of this has to do with a curse, as the Miami Dolphins are not cursed.

They just continually hired poor decision-makers who were making poor decisions, which was in an office in Davie, FL, not even near the stadium or the burial ground.

Ross sticks with Ireland for far too long, which leads the organization into the abyss.

Fast forward, we get the Chris Grier/Brian Flores show. Grier has a vision of blowing up the roster, stockpiling draft picks, and getting the quarterback of his choice at the top of the 2020 draft. He executes the plan successfully with one mistake.

THE HEAD COACH HE HIRED IN, BRIAN FLORES, DIDN’T SHARE HIS VISION AND WAS TRYING TO WIN GAMES AFTER MIAMI WAS ELIMINATED FROM THE PLAYOFFS IN 2019, CAUSING MIAMI TO FALL TO THE #5 DRAFT PICK!

Then shortly after, Flores turned in the Dolphins into the NFL and sued the owner and team, costing Miami draft picks for tampering. I could go on, and on about poor decisions Chris Grier has made, but that isn’t the focus of this article.

The focus is that none of this has to do with Joe Robbie/Sun Life/Hard Rock Stadium and stuff happening on the field. Why? Because the Miami Dolphins are not cursed.

If you told me during games we had running backs fumbling at the 1-yard line or field goals constantly hitting the upright and missing in big moments, ok, then you can convince me there is a curse.

But honestly, I’m not buying into a curse when you constantly hire poor people for 20+ years who have made poor decisions in an office building in Davie, FL, for decades.

I actually wish it was a curse because curses have end dates. We saw that with the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. It may take damn near 100 years, but it will end.

With poor decisions, that is a viscous cycle that only ends when….wait for it…you hire people who make smart decisions.

So stop with the curses; it’s not real. The Miami Dolphins are not cursed.

Five Spooky Facts That Prove Miami's Football Teams Are Cursed

Dolphins fans have to be asking themselves where this franchise went wrong. Not so much why the team is 0-7 this season — because it's rather obvious that was the plan — but more so, how it's come to this.

October 30, 2019 The Curse of the Tequesta will forever haunt Miami's football teams. Photo by Monica McGivern Share this:

On this Halloween Eve, we're reminded that the decades of heartbreak, misery, bad luck, and pain the Dolphins franchise has endured since the early '80s was also the plan — just not their plan.

A little more than five years ago, this writer uncovered some startling news: The Miami Dolphins are cursed. More specific, the land on which Hard Rock Stadium is built was once an Indian burial site. Consequently, the "Curse of the Tequesta" is a real thing that is obviously the sole reason football in Miami has been an unmitigated disaster for any team that plays on that field.

At the time, the suggestion that the Dolphins and University of Miami Hurricanes were working against a paranormal opponent each time they took the field was scoffed at — even mocked.

Since then, however, more fans have come to believe something supernatural is indeed at play. Even T-shirts have been made. Pretty much everyone is beginning to come around to what we tried to tell you in 2014: The Curse of the Tequesta will forever haunt our football teams no matter the caliber of coach they hire or money they spend on talent.

If you still don't believe in the Curse of the Tequesta after all this time, we don't know what to tell you. Actually, we have five things to tell you. Let's hope they'll make you a believer.

5. Only days after construction workers found Native American remains, the Dolphins' bad luck began. In 1984, Dan Marino became a thing — tremendously awesome thing. He broke just about every passing record on his way to leading the Dolphins to the Super Bowl that year. Everyone thought Marino and the Dolphins would be back many more times, if not the next season.

Then the Curse of the Tequesta struck. It goes like this:

January 1985: The Dolphins lose 38-16 to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XIX.
May 1985: Tequesta Indian artifacts and remains are discovered on the land where the Dolphins now play.
December 1985: The Dolphins continue construction on what is now known as Hard Rock Stadium.

Problem is, all five championships happened, oddly, pre-Hard Rock Stadium.

Coincidence? Probably. Spooky? Definitely.

3. Neither the Dolphins nor the Hurricanes have had a big win since moving to Hard Rock Stadium. Part of being cursed isn't so much about never having success — it's that both teams have been close to doing great things at times but then lose in devastating fashion. It's almost as if, you know, something was working against them.

Here are the facts: The Dolphins have exactly one playoff win since 2000 and multiple heartbreak playoff losses before that. The Hurricanes have one bowl win — um, the Emerald Bowl — since moving to Hard Rock Stadium. Neither team has a signature win at home in decades.

Beating a nothing Notre Dame in the middle of the regular season doesn't count. Beating the New England Patriots in a game that means nothing doesn't count. Neither team has pulled out a big win since moving from the Orange Bowl. We're talking historical Super Bowl/Orange Bowl stuff.
2. The Fins and Canes have tried every way possible to circumvent the curse, and it's all failed miserably. The two Miami football teams have had a combined 19 head coaches since their moves to Hard Rock Stadium. There have been rebuilds of rebuilds and refurbishes galore. The Dolphins have had the top pick in a draft and screwed it up. Now they're losing every game on purpose to grab a single player they hope can fix it all.

None of it has worked or will work. Everything and everyone has failed, yet at the Orange Bowl, everything and everyone seemed to fall into success. Sometimes it didn't even make sense how good both teams were back in the day. Since changing stadiums, both are more often laughingstocks.
1. The Miami Marlins are one big Curse of the Tequesta troll job. One of the most common things disbelievers will say is "How could the Curse of the Tequesta be real if the Marlins won two World Series titles at that stadium?" Well, it's obvious to those who are woke: One of the worst parts about the Curse of the Tequesta is the Miami Marlins. Let's explain.

The Marlins won titles in 1997 and 2003 at what is now Hard Rock Stadium and years later moved to Marlins Park after robbing Miamians of billions of dollars so the team could — wait for it — tear down the stadium where the Dolphins and Hurricanes reaped all of their success. Now the Marlins suck on the ground the Hurricanes and Dolphins never should have left, and Miamians will be paying for the ballpark on that land for decades.

Checkmate, Tequesta Indians. A terrible baseball team stomps on the grave of the greatest stadium ever built in Miami, and the Dolphins and Hurricanes play on an Indian burial ground.

Shula's retirement in 1995 marked the end of an era of success for the team, and many fans believe that his departure marked the beginning of the curse. Another factor often cited as contributing to the curse is the continual turnover of coaches and front office personnel. Since the departure of Shula, the Dolphins have gone through a revolving door of head coaches, none of whom have been able to replicate his success.

This constant instability within the organization has hindered the team's ability to build a consistent winning culture and has contributed to their ongoing struggles. The curse has also been linked to poor decision-making in the draft and free agency. The Dolphins have made a series of questionable moves over the years, including drafting players who underperform or fail to live up to expectations. This pattern of poor decision-making has resulted in a lack of talent and depth on the roster, making it difficult for the team to compete at a high level. Furthermore, injuries to key players have also played a role in perpetuating the curse. The Dolphins have been unfortunate in recent years, with several key players sustaining significant injuries that have derailed their seasons. These injuries have further hindered the team's ability to find success and have added to the frustration felt by the fans. The Miami Dolphins curse has cast a long shadow over the team and its fans, causing years of disappointment and frustration. While the franchise continues to make efforts to break free from this curse and rebuild a winning culture, it remains to be seen whether they will be able to overcome the obstacles that have plagued them for so long. Only time will tell whether the curse will be lifted, and the Dolphins will be able to reclaim their former glory..

Reviews for "The Miami Dolphins Curse: A Heavyweight of Disappointment in the NFL"

1. John - 2 stars - I was really excited to watch "Miami Dolphins Curse" as a fan of football documentaries, but unfortunately, it fell flat for me. The pacing was extremely slow, and the storytelling lacked depth. The interviews with players and coaches seemed scripted and lacked authenticity. Overall, it felt like a missed opportunity to explore the rich history and struggles of the Miami Dolphins.

2. Sarah - 1 star - As a die-hard Dolphins fan, I was really disappointed with "Miami Dolphins Curse". The documentary barely scratched the surface of the team's history and failed to capture the passion and excitement of being a fan. The editing was choppy, making it hard to follow the timeline of events, and the narration felt forced. Instead of focusing on the curse, the documentary seemed more interested in sensationalism. Overall, it was a letdown and did not do justice to the team and its fans.

3. Mike - 2 stars - "Miami Dolphins Curse" had the potential to be a captivating exploration of the team's struggles and the perceived curse that has haunted them. However, it lacked a cohesive narrative and failed to provide any meaningful insights into the curse itself. The interviews felt disjointed, and the documentary relied too heavily on repetitive fan reactions rather than offering a comprehensive analysis. As someone interested in the team's history, I was left wanting more substance and depth. Disappointing overall.

The Miami Dolphins Curse: Is It a Result of Poor Management?

Is There Hope for the Miami Dolphins to Escape the Curse?

Breaking the Cycle: How the Miami Dolphins Can Overcome Their Curse