2011 Draft Special: Pick #15- Miami Dolphins

I have to admit I was big on Chad Henne coming into the 2010 year. He looked really good at the end of 2009 posting three 300+ yard games out of his last five. I even went so far to say that Henne was a top 15 fantasy quarterback coming into this year.

I apologize to you, I was wrong.

However, I believe that third stringer and former Kansas City quarterback is the best quarterback on the Miami roster. I think he has the potential to be a more mobile Kyle Orton. I know claiming Kyle Orton is your ceiling might be construed as an insult- but it's not. I like Kyle Orton a lot. Chad Pennington does have talent and can do great things as long as his receiver is under 20 yards down the field- but he's old, battered, and bruised. If this team had a playoff caliber defense, then having either a healthy Pennington or Tyler Thigpen would be awesome for this team. Unfortunately, this team does not have a good defense.

I'll get to Miami's defense in a second, but first let's finish up with their offense. I know Brandon Marshall didn't work out well in his first year on South Beach but the dude is immensely talented and realistically for the Dolphins, you're not going to find anyone better. Devone Bess is actually a great complimentary receiver and came into his own as a legitimate number two wide out and once Marshall turns into Broncos Brandon Marshall, Bess will become even better and get more opportunities.

Miami's running game is a different story. Ricky Williams is 33 years old and Ronnie Brown is 29. These guys are no spring chickens. It's actually a shame that these two happen to be on the same team because it gives the appearance that the Dolphins do not need another running back. If I were Miami's GM I would trade at least one or both for draft picks. Last year Miami's offensive line was 18th in run blocking, but number one in 2009. This offensive line has talent on it but opening holes can only do so much for bad skill position players. Miami is pretty mediocre to below average in their offensive line but I believe that if Miami gets better skill position players that the line will look a whole lot better.

Now we can turn to the defense. Miami does have an elite linebacker and sack specialist in pro Bowler Cam Wake. They have have a darn good safety in Chris Clemons and a borderline elite cornerback in Illinois alum Vontae Davis. Despite the fact that I haven't heard of any other starter on that team, the defense did pretty well for themselves. Miami finished 6th overall in total yards given up and 14th overall in total points given up. According to Football Outsiders, Miami had the 8th best defense in the NFL, the 4th best rushing defense, but the 23rd best passing defense. This makes sense because no none other than Wake was bringing pressure and there's a whole side of the side is which Davis and Clemons are not playing.

However, overall, this defense can be easily correctable with one or two players- maybe another elite pass rusher.

The Miami Dolphins can go a whole bunch of different ways here. According to Scouts Inc there are some great value defensive lineman such as DE/OLB Aldon Smith out of Missouri and DE J.J. Watt out of Wisconsin. But also not too far away is Alabama RB Mark Ingram ready for the taking and USC OT Tyron Smith. All of these players would be a fine fit for this club. According to Mel Kiper Jr, Aldon Smith would be a great choice but also Cal DE Cameron Jordan and Purdue DE Ryan Kerrigan.

I think Miami should choose between Aldon Smith, Mark Ingram, and Tyron Smith. Because I unfortunately have not scouted these three players I don't know who I personally would have have higher on my board but for the sake of this mock I'll go with a great pass rusher who would fit perfectly in Miami's 3-4 scheme and that would be Aldon Smith

Dolphins's Needs:

- Quarterback

- Running Back

- Pass Rusher

- To Win Multiple Games At Home

Game Of Inches Mock Draft (so far):
1) Carolina Panthers- DT Nick Fairley (Auburn)
2) Denver Broncos- DE Da'Quan Bowers (Clemson)
3) Buffalo Bills- CB Patrick Peterson (LSU)
4) Cincinnati Bengals- WR A.J. Green (Georgia)
5) Arizona Cardinals- QB Blaine Gabbert (Missouri)
6) Cleveland Browns- OLB Von Miller (Texas A&M)
7) San Fransisco 49ers- CB Prince Amukamara (Nebraska)
8) Tennessee Titans- QB Cam Newton (Auburn)
9) Dallas Cowboys- DT Marcell Dareus (Alabama)
10) Washington Redskins- DE Robert Quinn (North Carolina)
11) Houston Texans- CB Jimmy Smith (Colorado)
12) Minnesota Vikings- OT Nate Solder (Colorado)
13) Detriot Lions- OLB Akeem Ayers (UCLA)
14) St. Louis Rams- WR Julio Jones (Alabama)

Sucks To Be A Dolphins Season Ticket Holder

If you are a Miami Dolphins fan, you have not seen your team win many games at home this year. Sure, Lions fans and Bills fan and such have not seen their teams really win at home either, but at least those fans can take solace in the fact that their team also don't win games on the road. But not the Miami Dolphins. Currently, the Dolphins are a .500 team at 7-7. But the home crowd has only seen their team win ONE game.

The Dolphins are 1-6 at home and 6-1 on the road. They are the worst home team in the league and tied for the best record for any away team. In the Superbowl era, the Dolphins have the worst home/road differential with +5. Eight teams are tied for second with +4 (like the 2007 Giants) but no team has ever been as bad as the Dolphins.

Can we coax Dan Marino out of retirement?

source: The New York Times on 12/21/10 in a better titles article called Too Bad Miami Can't Play 16 Road Games.

Analyzing the Tyler Thigpen Trade

TBO and I have raved about Thigpen since last year. He was on my fantasy team and did well for a few weeks- even helping the ex-Bear Mark Braldey get some fantasy headway. When the Chiefs got Cassel I thought it was dumb because my Chiefs already had a young good QB- Thigpen. Then when news broke that Thigpen- who for some reason was 3rd on the Chiefs depth chart- got traded to Miami, I thought Miami was getting a steal. But then I looked at Thigpen's numbers from last year.

Tyler Thigpen was 27th in passer rating, 24th in YPG, 29th in YPA, and 30th in completion percentage. For some reason after "watching" Thigpen play I thought he was good, but stats don't lie. So TBO told me to look even further, that I should "trust my eye", and that the Chiefs O-line and receivers were awful last year. So I'm going to do that and compare what he did last to what Miami did last year/ have done so far this year to see how Thigpen will fare in Miami; to see if my instinct before looking up his numbers was right, or if the numbers won't lie.

I think one way to help decipher completion percentage is by looking at Thigpen's wide receivers- and look at their catch rate. A quaterback can make good passes to a reciever, but if that receiver messes up/ doesn't catch the ball, the numbers look bad on the quarterback (see: Jay Cutler, game one this year).

Dwayne Bowe was the Chiefs best reciver last year, and he only caught 55% of his passes- that means he only caught a little over half the passes thrown his way. Mark Bradley was Kansas City's 2nd best receiver- and he was garbage. Besides having negative DVOA and DYAR, he only caught 48% of his passes. However, Thigpen did have the benefit of throwing to Tony Gonzalezx last year- and he caught a darn good 62% of his passes. There are some other wideouts that caught a handful of passes but again, with unimpressive catch rates.

But now let's see how the Dolphins receivers did last year. Davone Bess caught 72% of his passes last year, Greg Camarillo caught 66% of his passes, Ted Ginn caught 66% of his, and TE Anthony Fiasano caught 64% of his.

On the face it, it seems the Miami receivers will only help Thigpen's numbers because they seem to have a better ability to catch balls. However, it wouldn't be a good argument if I didn't look at other factors. As Skip Bayless has argued, the Miami system is one of just dink and dumps, which makes for higher comp %. And Chad Pennington has always been an extremely accurate passer. So the high comp % is probably to a combo on Pennington's accuracy and the west coast offense. But won't Tyler also do dink and dumps as well? Now I'm not quite sure how Thigpen's accuracy truly his given his small sample size, but given the offense he will now play in and the recievers he has, his completion percentage should gratly improve.

Now I think it's also fair to look at the team's offensive lines. No matter how accurate you are, if you're getting bombareded and rushed all the time, no way you're going to complete throws.

Last year Miami had the 12th best pass blocking offensive line. Kansas City has the 21st best. Clearly Pennington has much more time to get off his throws, especially compared to Thigpen. However, in three games, Miami has the 25th best. Si Thigpen is absolutely not coming into the same situation as he was before. However, I think Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano has shown to work his way around a poor offensive live. The dink and dumps and the wild cat formation is designed to take advantage of a poor offenisve live. I actually didn't think Miami's O-line was all that good last year, but Sparano designed plays based off of the QB and RB to show a statistical improvement in his offensive line.

What concerns me most about Thigpen is when I look into his game log. TBO said if you discounted his first couple of games, then his numbers improve. However, they actually don't. In 5 out of his last 7 games, Thigpen has a completion percentage under 55% and never boasted a passer rating above 86. Yes, there was a streak between week 5 and 10 where he threw 5 TDs and no INTS, but in the time where he should have improved (weeks 11-17), he threw 10 TDs but 8 INTs.

However, considering their starter is now out for the year, I'd have to think that Thigpen is Miami's best option, and the pick they gave up probably won't be that high considering the Chiefs don't seem to care about Thigpen. So on that front getting Thigpen will probably be worth it. But how well will he play? And to be honest I can't really tell you based on the evidence I've been given. I assume that Thigpen can dink and dump, but will Miami's receivers make Thigpen better, catch more of his passes and thus improve Thigpen's numbers? Or was it that the Chiefs receivers had a low catch rate because Thigpen wasn't that good? I don't know. My first gut reaction, after actually looking at Thigpen's passing numbers is that Miami is getting a subpar QB that has experience. But who's to say that Thigpen won't improve, or even make the Miami receivers better? There's no evidence to say that he can't? But if you twisted my arm and made me say how Thigpen will do, I'll tell you that he'll Kyle Orton-eqsue- at best.

Tyler Thigpen to Miami

ESPN has just reported that the Chiefs have traded Thigpen to the Miami Dolphins for an undisclosed pick. Miami needs Thigpen to replace Chad Pennington who is now out for the year.