PHOENIX -- Time has a way of uncovering facts and this morning has been a good one for that.

I take you back to January of 2012 when the Dolphins were conducting a head coaching search. One candidate name that flew under the radar then but surfaced in an ESPN article today is Bret Bielema, who was the Wisconsin coach at the time.

I'm told owner Stephen Ross was really high on Bielema at a time he was leading the Badgers to multiple Rose Bowl appearances. Carl Peterson liked him a lot as well. But the pursuit suddenly ... just ... stopped.

A day and a half into the meetings the sides, I'm told, had "personnel issues."

And now I understand the "personnel issues."

Bielema told ESPN that during his meetings with the Dolphins he promised them a Super Bowl in five years if they drafted quarterback Russell Wilson in the second round. Wilson was Bielema's QB at the time. And when the coach told the Dolphins he wanted his college QB with Miami, that drove a wedge in the interview.

"They all looked at me like, 'You can't say that.," Bielema said. "That's the difference between college and pro. He's undersized. He can't throw.' I was like, 'OK, all right,' and I honestly, that day, kind of pulled myself out of it."

Bielema told ESPN he couldn't work with people he could agree with on what players Miami should pick.

The Dolphins picked Ryan Tannehill in the first round with the No. 8 overall pick. Wilson was picked by the Seahawks in the third round with pick No. 75. The fact is Wilson was passed by the Dolphins three times because Miami used its second round pick for Jonathan Martin and its third round pick (No. 72 overall) for Olivier Vernon.

But, again, Wilson was not a secret to the Dolphins. I am told that Bob Griese, a Hall of Fame quarterback and part of the Dolphins broadcast team, told everyone within the organization that would listen that Wilson needed to be picked by Miami.

Griese told the Dolphins Wilson was, as one source put it, "far and away the second best quarterback prospect in the draft behind Andrew Luck."

Obviously, no one listened.

I will say then-general manager Jeff Ireland told me in a 2013 conversation that he "liked" Wilson. But he had decided Tannehill would be his guy and he wasn't about to double down at quarterback by picking Wilson as well.

And, obviously, we do not know whether Wilson would have had the same kind of success in Miami that he has had in Seattle. He is surrounded in Seattle by an outstanding defense and a great running game. The Dolphins no longer have an outstanding defense.

But none of that changes these facts:

The Dolphins were told at the highest levels -- ownership -- Russell Wilson should be their man. They dismissed the notion out of hand. Then a person of high reputation within the organization tried to convince people Wilson was a find. And he was ignored.

What might have been.