Cote - On Dolphins Bad Karma

I generally do not like Cote's writing, but that one wasn't bad. The Dolphins curse is much older than he relates to though. Back in the 70s it was rumored Mercury Morris hired a voodoo priestess to place a hex on the Dolphins because of some sort of rift between he and Shula. Years later it was reported he called it off, but maybe the voodoo priestess he hired never got the word to do a reverse hex.

 

I thought I wasted my time reading that personally.

It's easy to pull **** like that out of your *** in hindsight.

 

You read through that list and you have to wonder why the Dolphins front office and majority of fans on this board still thumb their nose at the very idea of drafting a QB in the first round. Most of those horrid decisions have something in common - An amazing display of incompetence at addressing the most important position on the football field.

 

Jeff Darlington re-posted an article he wrote back in 2006 when he interviewed Drew Brees in a hitel in Davie the night before his medical check with the Fins.

Literally brought tears to my eyes. The guy wanted to be here.

 

He got the failed Parcells part correct. (Completely unfinished job) but paid well to consult for div rivals.

 

Hard for me to get upset about not going after Michael Vick. First, I don't believe he would have had near the same level of success in Miami that he has had in Philly. and secondly, you have to wait a few years to make sure he doesn't screw up again. while I think he won't, if he does, and they traded Kolb, then the Eagles are screwed.

 

The problem with the article is that it assumes that personnel who starred in other places would have necessarily starred here. I do get the point, however -- we are the new Lions.

 

we're one step above the lions, IMO. which is still embarrasing, but we're not that low. that franchise was in a class of its own

 

Not sure how one could say that. We have a lot of talent on this team. The old Lions and the Raiders and teams like that, continually failed when trying to bring talent in. We are missing a QB. If we had a good QB on our roster last season we probably would of went to the playoffs...


The Lions? gtfoh

 

Jeez I know we've had a couple disappointing 7-9 seasons, but the new lions? Get real. It stinks to think about but were were in a really good place to compete for playoff spots when our last two Decembers began. The Lions haven't been able to say that in...well a looong time

 

The NEW Lions are pretty pretty pretty pretty good though

 

I don't agree with his list. Circumstances play a role in a player's success. For example, Aaron Rodgers is probably my favorite QB right now but I think he would have been destroyed if we took him with the #2 overall. He needed time. Matt Ryan would have been no more productive here than Henne has been. My list off the top of my head:

Trading two #1s for RW

Not trading for Hasselbeck

Not drafting Boldin

Not drafting Brees

Signing Cameron

Signing Saban

Not signing Brees

I don't include Parcells b/c he brought both good and bad.

 

I disagree with you on Ryan. He likely would have spent the same year on the bench that Henne did behind Pennington, and even if he didn't, we actualy were pretty good running the ball in both 2008 and 2009. The run game only fell apart last year. I see no reason why Ryan could not have succeeded here, since he succeeded in Atlanta as a true rookie.

On Rodgers, it's hard for me to criticize because I don't recall there being a huge groundswell for him at the time. While I thought the whole "Tedford QB" stuff was nonsense, I wasn't overly high on him. I wanted Braylon Edwards at the time.

The rest of your notes I agree with generally. We gave up to much ricky, but he produced when he was on the field. Our real problem during the Wanny years was the QB position. I also disagree on Saban, slightly. As a football coach, I thought he was pretty good. As a human being, he is a disgrace. However, if he goes with his gut and signs Brees (like they both wanted at the time, seriously re-read Darlington's article) he's probably still the coach and we might have won a super Bowl by now

 

Ryan wouldn't have been successful b/c his skill set isn't that much better than Henne's. I liked Rodgers and didn't buy the Tedford stuff either, but he was a guy who needed time to develop. He was fortunate to land in a situation where he got that time. I loved the Saban signing at the time b/c IMO he is one of the best defensive minds in football. But the person brought more bad to Miami than the good did. It's the same with RW. He brought some yards but not much else. And the rest did more harm than good. The retirement made us a laughingstock. The picks weren't in spectacular drafts but still. Looking back I recalled that I wanted Deshaun Foster in that first draft and either Steinbach (G) or Dallas Clark (TE) in the second draft. (That was also the year that we should have taken Boldin in the second round).

 

We'll just have to agree to disagree on Ryan, but otherwise I think we're on the same page.

 

I'd like to be the new Lions this year. Chances are, I think that team makes the playoffs if Stafford stays healthy all year. :shrug:

To compare this franchise to the lions of a few years ago, is just ridiculous though. They had virtually no talent. We have plenty of talent on this team, despite making some bad decisions along the way.

 

I think he could have also added Wannstadt drafting Eddie Moore instead of Boldin, the "what can Trent Green do that Jay Fiedler can't?", trading a 3rd round pick for Lamar Gordon and if we wanted to go back a little further, the "Larry Shannon is a bigger, faster Randy Moss" fiasco, and picking of John Avery.

 

OK, I yield to popular sentiment. Maybe not the old Lions. The new Redskins? 49ers? Bengals? Please, not the Bills.

 

If you do that, why not go all the way? Eric Kumerow. John Bosa. Jackie Shipp.

 

How about Huizenga handing over the franchise to Ross, via Parcell's contract. Under the pretext that Parcells was bringing in "football People", only to find out that Ross is the "greenest" newbie of all the owners.

 

I think Wanny had a couple of those obvious picks that he just screwed up. Brees and Boldin were obvious picks that perfectly melded talent and need yet he inexplicably passed. The comment on Green will go down as one of those examples of "this is why Wanny failed". The Gordon trade I thought was one of those desperation/poor evaluation moves, kind of like the AJ trade. That's why I appreciate Ireland for not blowing the Long pick and completing the Orton trade. I don't give too much blame to JJ on the Moss pass since we had traded back prior to the draft when Moss was a long shot to drop that much. People think we passed just b/c ESPN didn't announce our trade back until we were on the clock, but the radio (and IIRC the crawl) announced that morning before the draft.

 

Yeah we shudda known Bosa would tear up his knee.

 

To me the failure was that he didn't survey the landscape first and wait to trade back. I know he's said he wouldn't have taken Moss anyway, but I'm not sure that was much more than saving face. Frankly, the fact that he did move back so early would almost seem to indicate that he had John Avery targeted to begin with, and since Avery was (if I remember correctly) seen as an early to mid 2nd round pick he may have had an inclination that he would have a good shot at drafting him late 1st.

 

One of the announcers doing the Dallas feed of the game last night, the one who wasn't Michael Irvin, had a pretty good quote on one of Miami's most recent mistakes. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but something like this -

"A great left tackle can negate one player on the defense. A great quarterback can negate the entire defense."

Very simple, but very true. This front office still doesn't seem to get that. But maybe Chad Henne has what it takes, so they still may be proven right. This year will tell once and for all...