Dolphins Make Competent, Boring Draft Pick

The Dolphins have signed Jake Long, a bad sign for draft fans everywhere hoping for the normal Hater's Ball of ineptitude and misjudgment making up a truly great draft. Ted Ginn in 2007? A delightful overreach, the kind of thing you live for as a draft fan hungry for organizational disaster. Tony Mandarich? Matt Jones? Dewayne Robertson? Jets fans, you just tossed up your lunch, but everyone else reading just smiled a bit remembering the pure schaudenfreude of that magic moment.

Jake Long, though, is not gloriously disastrous. In fact, according to most analysts including the Dark Helmet himself Mel Kiper, Long's solid produce in the draft. A big, smart, and reasonably fast lineman to plug into the left tackle spot, a cornerstone for your offensive line, and a team leader during his time at Michigan.

Not glamorous, not sexy, but totally necessary, much like a nice pair of summer weight slacks: that's Jake Long, draft pick, in a simile Tim Gunn approves of most vociferously.

The worst thing you might say about Jake Long is that he's vulnerable to speed rushers, a complaint about offensive lineman comparable to saying you don't like a boxer in a fight because "he doesn't take knife wounds too well." Long's not a glam pick, but he's solid, and as bad as the Dolphins have been, avoiding disaster in the first round of the draft should itself count as great success.

We'll all have to wait until the fourth pick at earliest to get our first real taste of draft day disaster. That's when the Raiders pick, and though there's a thousand flaming variations on the theme, the results normally look the same when Al Davis pulls the strings on the pick: disaster, and more good television when Mel Kiper has a coronary strafing the pick the instant it happens.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.