Dan Marino: Just wait until Miami Dolphins get playmaker

who should we target?

 

Isn't this the last year on Boldins Contract?

 

Obviously most will likely be resigned, but some names ...

1) Brandon Marshall
2) Vincent Jackson
3) Miles Austin
4) Antonio Bryant
5) Malcom Floyd

Trade Bait
1) Calvin Johnson (hot rumor, will require a ransom we likely wont pay)
2) Anquan Boldin

At TE you have

1) Owen Daniels
2) Tony Scheffler

I listed WR in my order of preference, but I think the first 3 get resigned. Would grab Bryant in a heartbeat though. If one of these players at these 2 spots gets free ... we need to jump.

Draft wise we could look at targets in the first or second rounds depending on where we pick.

1) Dez Bryant (likely wont get the chance)
2) Arrelious Benn
3) Golden Tate
4) Mardy Gilyard
5) Brandon LaFell
6) Damian Williams (may be off on the name, the USC kid)

If we add one from FA and one from the draft, and let them and the holdouts on the roster compete, we may enter the season with a really solid WR corps.

EDIT - forgot the dark horse, Braylon Edwards. Will be interesting to see what happens if the Jets dont resign him. Hes got hand issues, but he IS a playmaker when the ball does stick. And lets not forget who was tossing him the rock at Michigan for awhile.

 

Dont believe so, but the rumor is Zona may opt to trade him and give Breaston a contract (Breaston is an RFA I think). Like last year, it will all depend on asking price.

 

i would love to have steve breaston
big young wr
excellent return guy

 

6'0 189 pounds is big?

 

Note to the FO: By 'getting playmaker' does not mean drafting a WR in the third or fourth round.

We need a #1 receiver. Period. A big time receiver.

 

Hope you don't mind me adding to the instructions;]

 

IMO TE before WR and LB of some sort before either.

 

The CBA contract is not going to be agreed upon by March, IMO.

If we want to address the WR position via free agency, then either Antonio Bryant or Chris Chambers is our best answer. With no new CBA, any other option is pretty much void because of the clauses. If neither of those two sound good to you, then either trade or draft is our next step. I think we'll sign a veteran or draft another WR... Henning has said he does not like diva WRs, so I think we'll bring in Bryant or Chambers... maybe draft a late round flyer to give Turner some competition.

 

These guy's can be found in any round. I know we all want that Stud receiver but drafting a guy in the 1st doesn't make him good. The list of first round receiver busts is very long. I know you already know that Im just talking. Anyway I took the list of players available that texanphinatic posted and listed the rounds they were drafted in. Only one of them "Calvin Johnson" was drafted in round 1 and all of them are better than what we have.

Brandon Marshall (4rth Round)
Vincent Jackson (2nd Round)
Miles Austin (Wasn't Drafted)
Antonio Bryant (2nd Round)
Malcom Floyd (3rd round)
Calvin Johnson (1st Round)
Anquan Boldin (2nd Round)

 

sure meant to say better target
ya got me again

 

Me too, though that might have been due to my Tarheel homerism.

 

A playmaker would be nice but isn't a more pressing issue than replenishing the defense. The secondary and LBing core must be fixed. I would Chris Chambers and Antonio Bryant and call it a day. Perhaps I'd bring in Tony Scheffler. It's the defense that's the issue.

If we went into next year with:

WR- Bryant, Hartline
WR- Chambers, Bess, Camarillo

We'd be pretty solid at WR and wouldn't spend picks like madmen.

 

I don't think there is a single Dolphin fan who would say "No! Don't!!" if a great wide receiver joined our team tomorrow.... or anytime before next September.

We all know it'll help us a lot.

We just squabble over the details of how it gets done.

 

Is it a great WR or a decent WR that we need even? We have slot WRs that can't push the field. I think if you had two of those guys and then two standard WRs we'd pushing the ball up the field in a hurry with Ronnie back.

 

Our offense is honestly not in awful shape. We're putting up points, and its working for the most part. Yes, our Offense will be damn near electric when we get a playmaker WR, but I'm sorry, if we waste our first round draft pick on the offensive side of the ball we're not paying attention to the bigger elephant in the room.

We're giving up an average of 23.8 pts per game, ranked 24th in the NFL. We've got some good games in there, but we've also got some awful ones. And we just gave up another 24 in 4 quarters in the last one.

Granted the coaching staff adjusted and righted the ship, so whether that was a coaching issue Sunday, or a player issue who knows. But one thing is for sure, while there is a need at WR and TE, you can't expect your team to throw up 25+ points every night to assure their win. Sometimes it's just not in the cards.

 

no so bad
this year still could surprise
& we have an offense line, franchise qb, very solid running game w/depth & promising defensive backfield
all of which were in question until these final games
don't need much to be a perennial contender
this seasons draft & free-agency should resolve any lingering issues
Merry Christmas

 

The best way to help the D is to put the opponents in known passing situations. That's why teams like the Colts and Saints win with worst defensive talent than we have.

If we settle for what we have at WR the best we can hope for is a return to the Wanny years. We were a top 5 running team and a top 5 D and we were no threat in the playoffs. Heck, I think we only made the playoffs once and were one and done.

This is a passing league. The most correlated stats to winning are winning TO and winning YPA. You do that and you win 95% of the time. And in the winning the YPA category efficient passing offense is more correlated to winning than pass defense.

All the stats that people like to bring up to say the offense is fine, like total points or rush ranking are less telling than pass efficiency and TOs. This is not an opinion. These are facts. Countless studies and regression analysis has been run by numerous different sources and they all come to the same conclusion. Offensive passing efficiency has a greater effect on your won/loss than defensive passing efficiency. Give or take a few percentage points, offensive passing efficiency has a about a 23% greater effect. Again this is not my opinion. This has been shown repeatedly, but so many just refuse to see the obvious. And please before anybody tries to bring up the same examples that ignore TOs or point to offensive or defensive rankings based on total yards and not efficiency, those are irrelevant. Those offensive and defensive rankings are horribly correlated to winning.

So the point is that if we could do one thing thing that would have the greatest effect on our winning percentage, that thing would be to improve our offensive passing efficiency.

 

Correct however the way to do that might be through veterans. An Antonio Bryant, Chris Chambers, and Benjamin Watson together are far surer bets than anything else. On the other hand defensive talent can be costly. If we go offense in free agency, perhaps with one defensive player at ILB, we'll set ourselves up for a tremendous defensive draft.

A great defense always always gives you a chance.

 

The safest way to do that would probably be to bring in a Marshall or trade for Boldin, but if that doesn't happen you don't throw up your hands and pass on a WR in the draft.

And I'm not particularly high on either Bryant or Chambers. They are both inconsistent WRs. If we settle for one of those guys then we better be ready to spend the next draft looking for a WR early.

And a great defense may may give you a chance but so does a great offense so I see that statement as odd. I guess you're implying that it gives you more of a chance but statistically that is incorrect.

 

considering Bryant's past history with Parcells I don't think he will be an option

 

And? Just because somebody thinks there's bigger needs doesn't mean they don't think we need a legit #1 WR. I think we need a legit #1 WR. I also think fixing the defense is a much bigger need, considering this defense is full of defensive talent and void of WR talent. I doubt if somehow by the glory of God, Vincent Jackson or Brandon Marshall hit FA, there would be one Fin fan in the world saying no thanks.

 

It's been stated many times Parcells and Bryant made up. When Bryant went to the Bucs there were articles that talked of them texting each other. Parcells was accused of tampering with Bryant when he was only texting him to congratulate him.

There's a little about it in this article.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ys-antoniobryant121208

 

Our Future is bright fellas!

 

I agree with that and it's cool how u back up T. Ginn all the time, even if u get a lot of bashing for that from other "so called" dolfans who are just haters!

And if we sign a #1 wr then let's hope that the FO won't mess up again by signing the wrong guy, just like they did this year when they signed G. Wilson over D. Sharper!

 

Fasano is among the worst starting TE in the NFL right now, from a receiving stand point. Anytime you can easily name 10 players who are way more talented than the guy we have, then we shouldn't be satisfied.

Here's a list of TEs that are WAY better than Fasano:

(no particular order)
Antonio Gates
Tony Gonzalez
Dallas Clark
Jason Witten
Jermichael Finley
Chris Cooley
Owen Daniels
Vernon Davis
Heath Miller
Kellen Winslow
Greg Olsen
Todd Heap
Brent Celek

just to name a few.

Fasano is at the bottom of the league for starting TEs. It's not even debatable. Randy McMichael has more receptions and yards this year than Fasano; and McMichael has sucked for the past 3 years.

I don't see how anyone could look around the NFL and see the production other teams are getting at TE, and then be satisfied with ours.

We need a big physical WR and a big physical TE. If we land Brandon Marshall and Owen Daniels, we got what we needed.

 

I used to believe power running and a great D was enough, but I agree with you now Rafael.

Just look at the teams leading their divisions....

Patriots - Passing Rank - 4th in NFL, Rushing - 14th
Bengals - Passing rank - 21st, Rushing - 6th
Colts (undefeated) - Passing rank- 1st, Rushing - 31st
Chargers - Passing rank - 5th, Rushing - 30th

Eagles - Passing rank - 10th, Rushing - 21st
Vikings - Passing rank - 12th, Rushing - 13th
Saints - Passing rank - 3rd, Rushing - 5th
Cardinals - Passing rank - 11th, Rushing - 27th


7/8 Division Leaders have a higher-ranked passing game than rushing game. (two are close, Vikings 12/13 and Saints 3/5).

Only ONE of the eight teams has a higher rushing rank than a passing rank.

The average passing rank of a division leader is 8.375 out of 32 teams.

The average rushing rank of a division leader is 18.375 out of 32 teams.

So, can anyone tell me which is more important in today's NFL?

 

Imo, there was some absurd overreaction about Henne after the game...

The player, relatively speaking, is waaaaay ahead of schedule for this amount of game exp.

Marino is dead on. The player flashed big time ability in this particular game even with his 3 bad throws....

 

These passing attacks are becoming so dangerous that the rest ofthe league cant contend without one of their own. There are no dominant defenses this year. These damn offenses cant be stopped.

 

I used to believe it too. "Defense wins championships" and "the keys to winning are running the ball and stopping the run". I used to repeat those mantras like some unthinking robot. Eventually I saw enough things to make me question them. And after I opened my mind a bit, I started seeing so much irrefutable evidence that those mantras were clearly false.

 

This is true and mainly due to the rule changes of the last several years. My god could you imagine what the 1984 Dolphins O would do with these rules? Wheeeee!

 

How difficult would it be to nab Miles Austin? Pretty impossible, huh...

 

how bout the 2010 dolphins. its time to air it out.

 

Sure, I'd love to think we'll air it our in '10 but I can just see draft day... me on the couch with by landshark lager in a beer coozy, 1st round pick comes and it's a......!!!

Big, runblocking right guard.

Hmm. Okaym but then in the second we get a FULLBACK!?!?, and in the third we pick a Nose Tackle..... 4th round... I'm losing interest and hope when we pick a TIGHT END!!! Oh wait, he runs a 4.88 and is known for his blockng. Hm.

In the 7th it finally comes! A WR... well, a guy who didn;t actually START at WR in college but WAS a backup WR at Pomona College. And why did they pick him? Because he's a great Punt Returner!!! Versatile, since in a pinch he can play 6th string WR!!!

Anyways, hope the draft doesn;t go like that, but sometimes I think our staff and front office still believes in 1985 football and hasn;t caught up to the reality that a top-tier WR is necessary to win in today's NFL.