I just wanted to make a quick post dedicated to all the "whiners." By "Whiners"  I mean Dolfans who keep crying about a "franchise" QB, and won't get off of Henne. 

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By this time last year many Dolphin's fans were picking sides between Vontae Davis and Sean Smith. It reminded me of the thinking of the average woman, because most were siding with Smith because he's tall. Anyway, Smith beat out Vontae last year because he was "on fire" and he made that one handed interception during preseason. None of the teams wanted to take a chance on Smith so they constantly picked on Vontae. However, by the end of the year,  Vontae had much better stats than Smith, with 4 interceptions and 53 tackles vs. 0 interceptions and 38 tackles. Vontae's year was better all around especially with those big plays in Buffalo and in New England against Randy Moss.

My point is this, I think that Vontae took his lumps last year, and that has helped him take the next step, where Sean Smith's progress was stifled because he wasn't challenged as much last season. This is not to say that Smith will not rebound from this funk that he's in, its just something that I saw coming.

Today was the unofficial commencement of a new season today. It was Tony Sparano’s first meeting with the media regarding the status of the team. First of all let me say that I love listening to Sparano. He never lies, but he doesn’t always tell the whole story. Among many other things he mentioned what we all knew; that Chad Henne is the starter, and Pennington is the #3. He never mentioned who the #2, & 4 QB’s were between Thigpen and White.

I think will be a pretty tremendous battle through training camp. Obviously the Triad likes both guys but they did sign Pennington and they’re not keeping 4 QB’s as we know. I can’t think of another issue that will divide us Dolphans more than this situation.

There’s much to like about Thigpen. While he’s had a limited number starts, he has done reasonably well. In the season finale against Pittsburgh he showed some skills, and gave many fans the idea that he is a decent player.  Then you have Pat White. Throughout the season, his presence in the game made fans nervous every single time. He didn’t complete pass but he did make some nice runs and generally had good command of the team on the field.

"We have to see how far (White, & Thigpen) have come" " We'll have a good old competition." "(Pat White) took snaps as a quarterback, he just happens to have another skill set - so does (Thigpen)."

 Coach Tony Sparano, NFL Owner's meetings. 2010

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Let's just say you were to meet an eccentric Dolphins fan who agreed to deposit in your bank account the exact salary match of the career-salary of either Chad Henne or Jake Long. He gives you 24 hours to make the decision. Obviously the first thing you do is look up their respective salaries and you see that Chad Henne was a second rounder who signed a 4 year and 3.5 million dollar contract which is small compared to Jake's hefty 5 year- 57.5 million dollar contract with 30 MILLION Guaranteed.

But this is your bank account we're talking about now and we are talking about career earnings. You're a Dolphins fan and you know that many of us believe that Chad has a bright future. Most of us expect him to be the guy for a long time. Good Quarterbacks can play well into their 30's or higher, with large contracts, well above 10 million per year.

This 4-year study concluded that the players from the 2004 combine had an average career span of 4.6 years and that only 7% had a career more than 10 years.

You have to look at the tax rate also. With all of the money in the early years you're immediately paying more in taxes that Chad even makes in salary right now. So you're getting wiped out early on where with Chad there could be more years to build up to that.

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I think the "Triad" are seriously looking at OLB with that 12th pick. One guy that is quite intriguing is Derrick Morgan. I don't like the player-comparison's too much but he could be similar to Demarcus Ware. It would be up to them to decide that, but he could be the guy.

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So Rolando McClain ran a 4.71, & 4.74 at his pro day. There have been way too many guys who were physical freaks that turn out to be complete busts. However, this guy is a total package kind of player. Maybe his 40 time doesn't pop off of the charts but the "40 time" of his mind sure does. Watching what he can do with screens is what originally sold me on him.

I do understand the people who want a WR but Dez Bryant will not be the guy for our team. But if we can solidify the defense with one who is a beast, then there are other ways of improving the offense like maybe adding a nice receiving TE.

My idea is to put this guy on the outside. He 6'4" and 260. I believe that he has the ability to do it. A linebacking corp of McClain, Dansby, Crowder, and Wake would be pretty nice, right?

I really hate the Jets. I hate everything about that team; I think the name "jets" is stupid, they chose the ugliest shade of green possible, and I hope they lose every single game.

I remember one year in the "Jay Fiedler" years when we played them on a Monday night. I was at a Dolphins bar called breakshot in Venice Ca. I was nice enough to invite a buddy there and the place was filled with 99% Dolphans. The jets won at the last second, I could look it up but I won't. Well, my buddy was jumping up and down cheering in front of the screen and we were all "pissed." I hate them!

Lets get some good hatred stories, statements anything. I want to know how much you hate this "team." :~)

I was thinking about the upcoming draft and I think its quite interesting that there are only 3 quarterbacks that are good enough prospects to go in the first 4 rounds or so.   

What if Chad Henne were in this years draft? Last year where there were several prospects to choose from, and he ending up sliding down lower than where many of us thought he would end up.I would not have been upset if he were taken with our 31st pick. Keep in mind that much of his descending had to do with injury problems in his senior year.

Comparing him to Stafford and Sanchez, two guys that will go very high because of the tools that they posses, I would say that Henne is right there with them. Also, Henne was a 4-year starter and they are both underclassmen.

With all that in mind, what kind of prospect do you think Chad Henne is at this point. Did we get a guy a year early that would otherwise be a top 15 kind of player, or did we just get a guy that went were he should have, late in the 2nd round? Where would Henne go in this draft?

Hey guys, I'm Ken, a member of The Phinsider. I was wondering, with your shortage at wr. due to recent events, would you want Wilford back? We were excited about him, but he was beaten out by an undrafted free agent and another wavier wire claimee. He never really played at all for us but he had some decent years for the Jags. It seems to me that you guys could get him back for a low round draft pick. Your Thoughts...

Thanks!

     First of all, obviously the Ravens made a very good choice when they made their trade during the draft and brought in Joe Flacco with the first round pick. I wondered how he would be in the NFL because he’s not very fast and he played in the shotgun for most of his college career.  As it turns out, it didn’t matter. This guy has a rocket for an arm and he kind of throws like a young Brett Favre. However, as I watched him during the last couple games of the year it occurs to me that the you beat this guy is to do to him what teams like Buffalo used to do to Dan Marino. Flacco is just like Marino in that you’re really not going to sack him. He has the great arm and crafty receivers just like Dan and the “Marks” brothers.
     Ok, so how were the Dolphins stopped in those days? The first thing was that we never had a chance to have a running game. Yes, we lacked talent in many of those years but we were almost always forced to pass especially on 3rd down. Secondly, what I remember was that teams would take away our short game and we would have to go down field further than we wanted to. This would frustrate Dan Marino, as he and the receivers wouldn’t be on the same page with some of the reads at times although they made spectacular plays as well. Lastly, teams would be successful when they controlled the clock. This Baltimore Raven defense has too much football IQ to get beaten by plays like the wildcat. The Dolphins will have to control the clock and try to win an ugly 13 to 10 game and live to play next week.

I watching the New Orleans Saints game Vs. the Houston Texans from this weekend. Other than the Ted Ginn draft,where I'm ok with that now because I like Ginn, I just thought we needed a QB to win some games. The Jamar Fletcher pick was horrible! 

I saw Drew Brees throw a TD pass over....Jamar Fletcher! UGGHH! Why did they draft Fletcher back in the day? What the hell was Wanstedt thinking? Also, they kept talking about how Brees was a top 5 QB in the league behind only Manning/Brady. Also Saban didn't sign the guy he chose to give up a 2nd round pick on Culpepper.

Its been rough, I'm just glad that we have the staff that's there now. :)

I have noticed that many writers around the country are still holding on to the Brady Quinn-Ted Ginn situation. They're making it seem like Dolphin fans are somehow not behind Ginn bcause of what happened last April. Personally when they anounced Ginn with the 9th pick I was pissed off. The reason was not because Ginn wouldn't be a pretty good player but because of the fact that we had a guy like Trent Green who could go down at any time, and once again it looked like we passed on a potential franchise QB who looked like he was ready-made to start as a rookie. Plus I knew we would be lucky to win any games and I was right about that.

We didn't draft Quinn so that's over. At this point no one knows how good he or Beck is or will be so right now I'm happy with Beck and Ginn. If neither Beck nor Henne isn't the answer we'll find another one and I'm fine with that. I just wish reporters would stop talking about that issue because that's history now; Ted Ginn is a Miami Dolphin :)