Sports Buzz ...Dolphin position battles brewing

Lamar Miller is taking DT's job if he can stay healthy, imo.

 

He has much better feet. He doesn't dance. He presses the hole.

 

Money. That's the simple answer. Is Jeff Ireland going to pay top dollar for a running back when he's spent two draft picks on them the past two years? I don't see it.

Also, given what we've heard and read about this offense, it doesn't seem as if Reggie Bush will be getting as many opportunities as he did last year to run the ball. Add in a healthy Daniel Thomas, and potentially another weapon in Lamar Miller; I'd think it'd be hard to see Reggie having 1,500yards barring some injuries to other players, or if it's combined rushing, receiving, and returning kicks.

 

Problem is he has worse vision (or is just happy to run at the pile), so it pretty much cancels that out.

 

One thing you need to consider when watching his K State games, that his OL was comprised of 5 mediocre players who will never remotely get a sniff at even an NFL backup job, and he was by far their #1 weapon and the key player to focus on for every defense they faced.

 

I don't think the decision about Bush can be this sure by some without seeing him in this offense..Lamar Miller was a fourth rounder, the investment into the position draft wise is not steep..

Now if we see the type of flashes in Miller or Thomas that Bush has displayed,and may well display this year, then maybe so.

 

If you look at K State games, you'll see a guy who had no supporting cast. The reason he may seemed to have shown little conviction when hitting a hole, is because his crap OL gave him so few to hit. I think looking at that OL and rest of their offense, his production was pretty darned good.

 

That's one of the guys that Jeff Ireland purportedly views as a 1st rounder, remember, "We killed it."

 

If Ronnie Brown had Daniel Thomas' vision, he'd have been a great player instead of pretty good.

Ronnie Brown hit his assigned hole in man-blocking plays hard, and if that wasn't there he hesitated in the backfield for too long and used his physical talents(power and quickness) to bail him out. He wasn't hitting cutback lanes or finding his way around bad blocking- He just powered ahead for a palatable three or so yard gain and was good to try again next play. That's why he's fallen off so precipitously- He's hit the physical breakdown for runningbacks, and doesn't have the ability to compensate.

Daniel Thomas has quite good vision, it's just he didn't look like it at times last year. He's a zone running back through and through- He's got an aiming point for the play, but he's got the vision and ability to see a cutback lane, and he's got good short-area quickness and timing with his cuts. He waits until he hits the line of scrimmage, makes his cut, and goes up-field. I don't think Ronnie Brown could have operated well in a zone-blocking scheme.

Thomas did look at times like he didn't know where he was going, but I think there's pretty decent reason for that. He went from a zone blocking scheme to a more mixed scheme(Which had zone blocking as a minority of plays that was relatively poorly executed), had a hamstring issue, and combine that with general rookie game-speed issues, you've got problems.

I think there were times Thomas pretty clearly "got it" at times last year, which is promising to me.

 

There's nothing unique about Jeff Ireland's drafting process. Most teams operate with a horizontally stacked board that also contains player grades. Some teams do what you're referring to but only for the top XX number of players. Most teams spend most of the Draft going off their horizontally stacked board. Again, there's nothing unique about Ireland's process.

It was Day 3. You've got a 1st round player still on the board in Day 3 and you're picking pretty high. At that point your MAJOR needs are filled, all except WR, and you don't have any WRs left on your board that you're itching to get because as Ireland stated he felt there was a little bit of a lull between the top rated WRs and the final group of WRs.

Doesn't really matter how the mock drafters had him at what point in the process. The Dolphins' process is completely separate. His stock was arguably artificially inflated to begin with, by virtue of who he plays for and who he was blocking for. If you watched him on tape you never came away thinking this guy has to be top 15. It was always more hype than substance. It's POSSIBLE the Dolphins had him at the bottom of the 1st round...but at the same time it's also possible the Dolphins had him ranked toward the middle or lower of the 2nd round grades, and they took him higher because they needed him. It was a big time need. An immediate need. Colombo was gone, Murtha's always hurt and Artis Hicks was never meant to be more than a backup at Right Tackle, ideally.

The whole record is what shows how good of a GM you ultimately are, not one draft. He's operated five drafts now. This is one draft where things definitely fell his way. The problem with saying what he did is it creates expectations, which is a word Nick Saban considers anathema. From Jeff Ireland's perspective the way this draft unfolded, they "killed it". Unfortunately that means this can end up an average draft and there would still be disappointment.

 

Daniel Thomas' vision in college and Daniel Thomas' vision last year are two diff things.

As of right now I haven't seen that from him in the NFL. Then again maybe it's that the rest of his game isn't enough in the NFL for his vision to look as effective as it did in college.

Ronnie Brown had alright vision too. His biggest problems were initial indecisiveness when picking a lane and then obviously durability.

 

Honestly I watched his 2009 tape in preparation for the 2010 season, and came away thoroughly unimpressed. I saw why everyone was attracted to him, as he's big and strong, had some burst to him. But to me he wasn't a tailback. He didn't move like one, he didn't cut like one, he didn't have balance like one, nor vision, pad level, etc.

Fast forward to 2010 and I actually appreciated the improvements he made in his game. He looked more natural than he did in 2010. For me, there are several markers I look for in a prospect and one of them is learning curve and so I had to say based on his lack of experience and his improvement from 2009 to 2010, I have to notch the learning curve marker on him.

However, in the end, he had little else I really look for in a tailback. The pad level was still inadequate. He runs under his pads, not behind them. He also lacks balance when hit. Truthfully, his yards after contact were a mirage...a product of terrible form tackling by super light corners on the perimeter of the field. Even with all that included, I wasn't impressed by the averages I tallied. Worse, whenever I saw the guy hit by a solid built safety or linebacker, the yards after contact were minimal to none. The power wasn't there to the extent people thought it was, nor was the balance. And of course, he's not fast at all. He had the makings of a good blocker though, and I think that came through in 2011. He also had the makings of a decent pass catcher, and I think that also came through.

There was just nothing I got excited about in him as a prospect. I would not have been in any hurry to draft him, certainly not in the 2nd round.

 

I think he has to have this draft be better than average to keep him away from the hotsest.

 

I think decisiveness comes with vision. Anyone can see a big hole open and run through it. But can you tell its going to open before it does? Ronnie could not. Ronnies vision, injuries and IMO lack of work ethic kept him from being very good.

 

He still would make some nice cutbacks and moves once he got free though, so I can't say he just had bad vision in general.

 

I think the player has some unconventional in his repertoire, size and style being two things..I like the size to feet correlation on this player, and I think that once he gets comfortable in knowing what's happening in front of him, the great feet that he does have, will follow the brains impulses quicker, which will flash his overall talent more consistently..he is a very talented football player imo, and sometimes I see him do things that only very talented players can do when it comes to coordination.

 

Huh?

 

I hope he does.

 

just got the news from my Team Stream App, Chad Ochocinco has now officially, legally changed his name back to Chad Johnson

 

I think the fact we've seen Thomas successful in the NFL pretty strongly suggests inconsistently rather than inadequacy.

 

Successful in what like 2 games? That's not enough to just say he's inconsistent, imo.

Maybe he struggled after he got hurt in that CLE game, but we won't know for sure until we see him on the field again.

 

What I don't get about the hamstring excuse is the fact that his hamstring was so unhealthy that he was an injury scratch in Week 1, yet his Week 2 performance against the Texans (18 runs, 107 yards) is held up as evidence of what a "healthy" Daniel Thomas can do.

Meanwhile, his poor rushing performances later in the year, such as against the Eagles, Bills, Patriots and Jets in Weeks 14, 15, 16 and 17 (32 carries, 77 yards)...are excused as the result of his hamstring injuries, even though he hadn't appeared on the injury report as having been limited in practice with a hamstring problem since Week 9.

Curious reasoning.

 

I tried to explain in another thread. You can rehab the shh out of it, feel 99%, and then tweak it just like that. And you can be worse off the second time around. I've done that to myself.

He may be a poor rusher because he is a poor rusher, so be it. But the hammy is a very funny injury. And, if you are 85% plus, you wont be too limited in practice. It is when you over exert yourself that you do the damage. That is if the reports that he wasn't limited in practice are true. Remember, Sparano was from the Parcells train, not exactly up front with the media regarding injuries.

I will reserve judgment on the rookie, word of emphasis there, rookie. He may not have show enough as of yet to justify where he was drafted, and no, the hammy issue isn't sole factor, but I do believe it to be partially responsible for his level of play.

 

I'm not sure anyone is putting together a timetable and claiming that they've got any concrete cause and effect for why Thomas performed which way certain games. I don't think you really have to, either.

 

Even not considering the hammy either way, for a rookie runner last season, compared to other rookie runners, he didn't do so bad. Not to the point people should be tossing him by the wayside already. I'd rather just give him a chance to see what he can do after an offseason in an NFL conditioning program.