Back in January, I wrote an article discussing how a wide receiver's height/body mass index (BMI) combination is a critical component to their chances of developing into an elite player.  As it turns out, elite receivers come from four small intersections of height and BMI.

Here is a rough approximation of what those areas look like on a graph:

via static.fantasyfootballcalculator.com

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The job description of an NFL cornerback typically paints the picture of his working conditions as being alone on an island.  Unfortunately for Miami, those islands are looking mighty vulnerable these days.

I agree with the team's decision to forego overspending to re-sign an old, creaky Andre' Goodman whose great half-season in 2008 bears no resemblance to the rest of his 6 ½ year career.  However, the depth remaining at the position is paper thin, and apart from Will Allen, who will be 31 when the season begins, there aren't any proven players who can be counted on to start.

So how does the front office attempt to alleviate this problem?  By signing Eric Green and bringing in Demarcus Faggins for a tryout.

I bashed the team's signing of Jake Grove two weeks ago, and I stand before you again (figuratively, of course) to say that signing Eric Green is a bad move.  Signing Faggins would be mistake number three.

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On Tuesday, March 3, 2009, Jeff Ireland and Bill Parcells made the first blatantly questionable personnel move during their tenure as leaders of this franchise by handing over a five-year, $29.5 million contract to Jake Grove.

Sure, the Ernest Wilford signing looks like a huge debacle right about now, and the Boomer Grigsby acquisition was a failure, and it looks like the team may have botched the whole "trade up in the draft to take Shawn Murphy" thing, but those moves were at least logically defendable at the time they were made.

Giving Jake Grove $14 million in guaranteed money to become the Dolphins' new starting center, however, is not.

Let us count the ways in which Grove is inferior to the man he is replacing:

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With the Scouting Combine wrapping up earlier this week, I had planned to use the running backs' 40-yard dash data to introduce some of you to a really useful metric developed last year by the guys at Football Outsiders known as Speed Score.

Well, they ended up beating me to the punch.

Nevertheless, their article helps me because now I don't have to go through all the Combine data and do the calculations myself.  And of course, I'll be tailoring the conclusions to a Dolphins' perspective.

So without further ado, let me introduce the 40-Yard Speed Score.

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There's been some good discussion around the site the last few days regarding Vernon Carey's impending free agency.  I'd like to flesh that out a bit more by looking at exactly what we have in Carey as compared to our options in free agency and the draft.

I think Carey has taken some unjustified flak from some writers I've seen on the web for not being as visually dominant as they believe he should be.  They've watched the tape and they've concluded that Vernon simply doesn't do a good enough job blowing his man off the ball or generally acting like the mauler his frame and physical abilities would presuppose him to be.  And those observations are certainly correct on more plays than I'd like, but his inability to visually wow us with his run blocking should not cloud the fact that he is an upper echelon right tackle in this league, and our lack of rushing success this season is much more a factor of the middle three linemen than the bookends.

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This week, I'm going to eschew the inclusion of lots of numbers or tables in my column. (Cue the loud cheers from many of you.)

However, I'm doing this in order to talk to you all about...numbers and tables and statistics.  (Cue the ranting and raving from those same people.)

You see, most of you probably noticed the uproar that broke out here about a week or so ago regarding the influx of statistical discussion and analysis on this site.  To be honest, I've been noticing the backlash ever since I started my weekly column at The Phinsider.  While I've gotten several encouraging responses letting me know that there is a definite population of the readership here that enjoys and wants to see more statistical-based analysis, there has been just as many of you that are, for whatever reason, infuriated by its recent inclusion.

And I'm not sure why that is.

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I'm getting this column up a day early this week because I'll be busy skiing during my usual posting day on Thursday.

One of the aspects of baseball that I think is missing to some extent from the NFL is any sort of true developmental league.  Obviously, the long player progression timeline in baseball makes minor-league teams an essential.  In football, rookies are generally older and more prepared to play then their baseball counterparts.  But there still exists a section of young, untested players in the NFL that should be considered prospects.

The only difference between a football prospect and a baseball prospect is that the football prospect is generally stuck behind a player or two on the depth chart and is only able to show their abilities in practice or in limited on-field opportunities.  In baseball, minor leaguers get to play every day down on the farm as they work their way up through the system until they reach the big league club.

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This column is the second half of my look back at the community projections that were compiled here before this season began.  Last week, I looked at the defensive projections.  This week, I'll be taking a look at the three offensive players that were chosen to perform projections on (Ted Ginn was also done, but I've already discussed him in a previous column.)

In general, the community's projections for the defensive players were all overly optimistic.  It will be interesting to see if that is the case with the offensive players as well.

In addition to the Phinsider projections and the actual performances, I'll be including the KUBIAK projections from Pro Football Prospectus 2008.

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Last week, in discussing the misguided expectations that some of us have for Ted Ginn, I looked at The Phinsider community projections that were done before this season began.

Generally, when taking the pulse of any team, the aggregated opinions of that team's fan base will almost assuredly tip the scales heavily in the optimistic direction.  It's natural for fans to think more highly of their team's players than reality might dictate.

Ginn's projections were a perfect example of this "homer-ism," if you will.  So I wanted to go back and look at the other community projections that were done before this season and judge their accuracy.

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Before I get into the meat of my column today, I wanted to quickly answer a question that a reader (DolfinPhan) asked in the comments of last week's column.  He wanted to know the drop-off, if there was any, in Miami's run-blocking after Justin Smiley was replaced in the lineup by Andy Alleman.

In some of the discussion here on the site, it seemed like a lot of people thought the running game remained relatively unscathed after Smiley's injury.  And while I really like what Alleman brings to the table as a young prospect, the running game did in fact suffer significantly from Week 13 on.

According to Football Outsiders, Miami's rushing DVOA with Smiley in the lineup was 8.1%; without him, it dropped to 1.9%.  Now, that may not seem like a big difference, but consider this: If those DVOA rates were the season-totals, Miami's running attack with Smiley would have ranked 7th overall in the league.  Sans Smiley, the Dolphins' run game would have fallen to 14th.

Now, onto the main topic of discussion: Ted Ginn.

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