As anyone who has watched the NFL (or really, any professional sports league) for more than five minutes can tell you, no athlete, coach, or team executive should ever feel too comfortable in their role.
Sports are one of the last true meritocracies in this world, so it makes sense that there is a lot of employment turnover in virtually all leagues.
Success in sports breeds longevity. Failure breeds contempt — and pink slips.
This, up until about five minutes ago, was generally accepted as a part of the cycle of sports life.
Take, for example, the moribund Miami Dolphins. On Thursday, the team hosted the Baltimore Ravens in a critical game between two teams desperately searching for a way into the playoffs.
(Baltimore entered the game 2-5, while Miami entered 2-6.)
The Ravens actually played like a desperate playoff team, thumping the Dolphins 28-6 to improve to 3-5 and increase their playoff odds ever so slightly.
The Dolphins, meanwhile, played like a team that was already looking forward to next season — as they have done for most of the year.
Despite some modest expectations, the Dolphins have been one of the worst teams in football this year. The team is not healthy (their top receiver is out for the year with a leg injury), but even when it was, they weren’t exactly playing winning football.
Do you think Stephen A. Smith is smart?
In short, the Dolphins stink. They’re a poorly assembled roster, period.
Given that, it should come as little surprise that some heads needed to roll.
On Friday morning, the team announced that it had parted ways with general manager Chris Grier, who is the primary architect of this iteration of the Dolphins.
The Miami Dolphins and general manager Chris Grier have mutually agreed to part ways. pic.twitter.com/pEoBprg8cn
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) October 31, 2025
Grier, who is black, was let go for the Dolphins’ abysmal year thus far. For most, this was just a part of that aforementioned sports cycle of life.
Leave it to the very loud ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith to make this about more than just sports.
Take a look at a viral segment from Smith’s “First Take” show on Friday, courtesy of Awful Announcing:
WARNING: The following video contains language that some may find offensive.
“It was about Tua, it was about Mike McDaniel. And the brother gets fired first?” – Stephen A. Smith responds to Miami Dolphins parting ways with GM Chris Grier pic.twitter.com/r9A2B0VLyD
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 31, 2025
“This is BS,” Smith said of Grier’s release. “That’s the first [firing]? Really? That’s what we doing? With what we’ve seen?”
He’d continue, arguing that Grier had actually done a good job of putting together a roster, at least on paper: “The personnel that they have on their squad, although we’re not happy with it, we didn’t walk into this season thinking [Miami] was going to be trash. We looked at their roster, and we said they got some potential. We’ll see what happens.
“It was about [Miami starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa]. It was about [head coach] Mike McDaniel. And the brother get fired first?
“All I know is this: I better hear Mike McDaniel’s name today.”
There are a few things worth pointing out about Smith’s racially charged screed.
First, it won’t be easy to get rid of Tagovailoa. Smith knows that the NFL deploys a salary cap, and getting out of a massive contract (like the one Tagovailoa signed) comes with crippling cap penalties.
In fact, because of that cap structure, it’s always easier for NFL teams to fire coaches and executives before players.
Second, why does Stephen A. Smith want black people to lose their jobs? Remember how he said he “better hear” about McDaniels’ firing next?
McDaniels is biracial — white mother, black father — so Smith making this a race issue is all the more inane.
To Smith’s minimal credit, he did say that Grier is not above reproach, and very well may have deserved to get fired.
“I’m all for brothers as head coaches, GMs,” Smith continued. “We know what battles I’ve been fighting for 30 years. OK? I got it. Because when you don’t get the job done, you don’t get the damn job done. Period. I got it.
“Don’t tell me it’s just [Grier]. Don’t tell me we’re going to leave Mike McDaniels in place, and we just going to fire him, and we gon’ move forward. D*** that!”
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