Last Line of Defense, Part 2 - The Corners

It takes a lot of guts to stand one on one on a receiver out in the open field. It takes a lot of physical ability as well. You need to have 'the feet' and 'the hips', etc. But the most important aspect of a great cornerback, is the ability to use these tools without having to think about it. In fact, it's best not to think at all, if possible. Sure, your past experience can provide a boost to your game and create more opportunities for big plays, but you don't want to be thinking about your past experiences, or your footwork, or your courage once the ball is snapped.

You want to be fully prepared with all that stuff beforehand, so that once the game is on, you can just react. Because no one on the football field has to have a faster reaction time than the cornerback. In an upcoming blog article, I'm going to show everyone how Dolphins WRs Patrick Turner and Brian Hartline were able to get separation on cornerbacks in college, and with the included video you'll see just how fast the cornerback would have to react in order to prevent the catch. I hope to have that up by next Monday so keep checking back for it.

In the meantime, here are the eight cornerbacks currently on Miami's roster, with my quick assessments of them:

Will Allen, # 25.
Well, Will, you've just signed a brand spanking new contract worth millions! What are you going to do now?
"I'm going to prove I'm worth that money by doubling my career interception total in the 2009 season alone!" (note to reader: Will did not actually say this)
"oh, yeah, and as a bonus, I'm going to mentor the younger guys so that we can turn Miami's Secondary into a top 5 unit!" (not to reader: Will did not say this either, and for the record, I would be happy if they were a top 15 unit in 2009)
Okay, we all know Will's a starter and 90% of the time very solid at that position. But even aged veterans can improve their play, right? He had a couple of REALLY poor games in 2008. Mr. Consistent should try to be even more so (consistent, that is). Although some of his poor play was due to injury, and we didn't have the depth to rest him. It should be a different story this year.

Jason Allen, # 32.
Well this year is the 's*** or get off the pot' year for Allen, according to the legion of 'FA TRA JA' also known as 'Fans for the Trading of Jason Allen'. They had the same mantra last year as well. And probably the year before that. A lot of fans and media alike can't allow themselves to see that just because Jason Allen isn't Nnamdi Asomugha, doesn't mean that he should be dumped. It's like if someone offers you a free pizza and you say "um, excuse me, there's no extra cheese on this, it's only moderately cheesy, I don't want it, take it away!" Ok, Jason Allen is not free, and is not a pizza, but the argument is that we want top quality starters, and then everyone else must go. Well that's not the way championship teams work. No matter how good your starters are, they cannot play every play and they will get injured. You need depth at every position. Whether Allen turns into a full-time starter is irrelevant. He's a damn good football player. Plus, if we let him go he will end up on the Jets/Pats/Bills and wreak havoc on us twice a year.

Vontae Davis, # 24.
I'm this close to doing a 180 on my April assessment of Vontae. I originally thought he had tons of ability but was lacking in the mental aspect of the game. Now, I'm starting to feel that he may not be as good as I thought he was, but he's definitely smarter than I thought he was. Ok, he has the most annoying voice I've ever heard from a grown man, and not the largest vocabulary, but everything he's said and done since being drafted by the Dolphins has shown that he is very mature, or at least smart enough to know he needs to be mature, and each press interview he says something that blows me a way because I wouldn't expect that chunk of wisdom to come from him. This kid knows what he's doing. He's taking his time. Media reports are that he hasn't flashed anything during OTAs, whereas the other rookie has. Truth is, by not being noticeable, it means he's not getting blown up either. He is studying the game, the scheme, the players, etc. Keep an eye on Davis. I think he wants this more than any other corner on the roster. And he's going about it the right way.

Will Billingsley, # 27.
I can't think of any other player that's been given half a dozen chances in one season to make the roster like Billingsley has. He went undrafted, was out of football for a year, then signed with Miami in April 2008. Since then he was cut in August, added to the practice squad on August 31st, cut on September 25th, signed on October 6th, cut on October 9th, signed on October 14th, cut on November 21st before being signed again to the practice squad the final week of the season. He then was signed off the PS in January. What does all this mean? Well firstly, it means that the Dolphins like something about him to keep bringing him back. It also means that more than once they've thought that he was expendable. I know nothing about his play on the field, so we'll leave it at that.

Sean Smith, # 31.
Every now and then a rookie comes along and gets all the buzz during OTAs then fizzles when the pads are put on. I don't think that will be Sean Smith though. I've gone back and watched more of his play and noticed something very interesting. Besides his amazing skill-set/size/speed combo, he was allowed to do certain things at Utah because they would line up a safety noticeably close to Smith (ten yards or so). As far as I can tell, this was a safety measure as Smith would line up RIGHT IN THE FACE of his receiver and would get into the guys' shoes practically. This kind of aggressiveness can often lead to getting burned if he were to miss on the jam. I believe they put the safety on Smith to allow him to be that aggressive. If the Dolphins do the same thing, this guy could cause a lot of problems for the opposing offense. Of course it could also lead to a rookie getting beat badly time and again and heartburn in a lot of fans. Of course, there's a guy who plays for the Raiders (mentioned above) who plays this way as well, and opposing QBs and offensive coordinators don't even look at that side of the field anymore.

Eric Green, # 21.
Green has been a starter in this league and has been effective. But then he got injured, got benched, had a tragic loss, and was not allowed to dress for the Super Bowl (let's face it, if you're a Cardinal and you make it to the Super Bowl, it's probably your only chance). He seems all smiley and confident on the outside but I suspect he's not the same player he was a couple of years ago. Still, he's better than the depth we had last year. It will be strange at first seeing a #21 out there who's not Andre Goodman, especially if Green were to win Goodman's old spot.

Nate Jones, # 33.
Nate Jones is a smart guy. He's a seasoned guy. He's a fast guy. He's a tough guy. What he wasn't last year was a good cornerback. He was serviceable at times, god-awful at other times. He was OKAY on special teams, but he missed SEVERAL tackles during the season. He does have all those good traits though. He should be better than he was in 2008. What is holding him back? Just lack of playing time? Or is he not as good as the Trifecta said he was...

Joey Thomas, # 22.
When the Dolphins allowed Thomas to replace Jason Allen in the nickel package last year, I thought they had given up hope on the season and were trying to get him some experience. The reality is, we just didn't have any depth. Thomas had a decent training camp last year, followed by a decent pre-season before being cut. I thought he was going to make the roster last year and thought they were wrong to cut him and keep Jones. Well months later they re-signed him off the Arby's practice squad just to show me why they cut him in the first place. But it wasn't his fault. It was the coaches' fault for taking a guy off the street and sticking him in the game. He wasn't ready. Now he's had the time to prepare, we'll find out who Joey Thomas really is. Football player or janitor.

So those are great eight. Can you find the five who'll thrive? Or do you think there'll be six making picks?

Quickie - Will Allen

Normally I wouldn't suspect too many people would be interested but since the new Will Allen contract extension drew so many comments over the last few days, I thought I'd share the confirmed information with you all.

The contract was indeed for 3 years and $16.2 Million. However, the signing bonus was only $1.5 Million, and the first two years of the contract salaries are guaranteed.

It breaks down as follows:

2009 $4 Million Salary, $500k Bonus = $ 4.5 M
2010 $5.2 M Salary, $500k Bonus = $ 5.7 M
2011 $5.5 M Salary, $500k Bonus = $ 6 M

By doing some simple math, you'll see that the guaranteed money is $10,700,000.

Also, 2011 could be a simple, relatively painless snip of Allen if he slows down due to age/injury.

After seeing the way the contract is structured, I feel a lot better about it, but I still don't see why they couldn't wait until after training camp to extend him. But that point is moot, he's here now and likely got similar money to what he would get on the open market in 2010. That said, I guarantee he'll have to be still starting in order to get that 2011 money.

Salary Cap Schmalary Cap - A Financial Bit o' Tin

• Turns out Jason Taylor is not THAT cheap. Let's clarify the contract because there are a lot of conflicting reports in the mass media. Here is what JT actually costs.

$400k signing bonus (this is the 'guaranteed' money)
$700k salary (i.e. $43, 750 per game)
$500k incentives (these are always kept private, but I would guess they include staying healthy, participating in a certain percentage of plays or games, and number of sacks.)
This adds up to $1.6 Million total. But wait...that's not the ACTUAL total, is it...
Turns out Taylor is still owed approximately $1.7 Million by the Dolphins from his previous contract. Ah yes, that means Jason Taylor is scheduled to smack up the Salary Cap for $3.3 Million in 2009! Cheap for Jason Taylor, sure, but still a sizable blow to the Cap.

• Will Allen was ACTUALLY scheduled to hit the cap for $4.9 Million this year making him the fifth-highest paid player on the team behind Joey Porter, Jake Long, Ronnie Brown and Vernon Carey. Then he was to be a free agent in 2010. Now with his re-signing, it's unclear how much he will hit the cap for but let's assume it will be more, since his guaranteed money went from $900k to $10 million over 3 years (this could be very erroneous reporting and may turn out to be significantly less).

• Channing Crowder signed a 3 year deal that will hit the cap for $3.5 M in 2009. Strangely enough, they managed to sign him without any guaranteed money. He either has the worst agent in history, or he really loves that Miami fishing.

• Lousaka Polite got a pretty good deal for a relatively unknown full-back. As long as he keeps his YPC average above 1 yard, he'll be getting about $1.8 Million this year.

• Rookie Tight-End, John Nalbone, will have to compete with David Martin, Anthony Fasano, and Joey Haynos for a roster spot but for now he'll put a $483k dent in the cap.

While this is highly-speculative, and I'm no math expert, and even less of a salary cap nerd, I did do some math for this post and came up with an approximate projection of $8.9M of current cap room for the Dolphins.

This may seem like enough to sign the partnership of Smith, White, and Davis, with possible room for a low-ball contract for a rookie wide receiver, but one must factor in that Matt Roth, Anthony Fasano, Davone Bess, Ricky Williams, Jason Ferguson, Tyrone Culver, Dan Carpenter, John Denney, Ronnie Brown and even Chad Pennington will have their agents attacking the front office for extensions of their own, though I suspect they will tell both Brown and Pennington flat out that they won't talk contract until 2010.

So, you can see there really isn't a lot of cap room for the Dolphins to work with here. It's clear that we can't afford to trade for Anquan Boldin, or to extend Ronnie Brown's contract. This time last year we had only a handful of players who wanted an extension, and we also had more than double the cap room we have now (and this was AFTER Jake Long and Justin Smiley practically mugged the salary cap).

So unless Pat White plans to play for potato chips and Wilford will void his current contract in favor of a box of oreos, this could get ugly, and players could be let go simply to save money (see Jason Allen, Ronnie Brown, Randy 'Freightliner' Starks, etc.)

This is a Smoke-Screen!

The Dolphins let Andre Goodman walk because his price was too high for his relatively limited upside. Then they signed a free agent corner who actually came in assuming he was the penciled in starter. Well, very few people agreed with Eric Green on that matter, and I was not one of them. I always assumed he would compete for a roster spot, rather than take over for Goodman.

Then the Trifecta put their heads together and got one, if not the best combination of corners in the draft, selecting Vontae Davis at #25, then picking up Sean Smith at #61 in the 2009 draft. These two guys are, in my not so humble opinion, likely to be starter-quality cornerbacks in the NFL. They're also likely to be 'play-makers' - Davis because of his bravery and egging-on persona, and Smith because of his physical attributes and speed.

So after 'getting younger' and preparing for the eventual passing of the torch from Will Allen to the young boys, the re-working of Allen's contract, extending him through 2011 AND giving him a sizable raise would seem to make no sense. At least that's how I felt when I first heard about it.

And before all of Will's family and friends get angry at me, let me just explain that I have always had faith in Allen's cover skills, and with the exception of a couple of really bad games last year after he got injured, he's been pretty soild for the Dolphins.

But here's where the move comes up not exactly smelling like roses. The Dolphins had approximately 9 million dollars of cap room before this. That was all the money they had to sign Davis, Smith, Pat White, and any other rookies that make the squad. Sure some space will be created by the cutting/trading/waiving of players through the pre-season and training camp, but it's generally poor business sense to pay for something BEFORE you have the money.

These sorts of deals generally happen in the early weeks of the regular season for just that reason.

And word is that Allen got a 3 year, 16.2 Million dollar contract with $10 Million guaranteed. over the first 2 years. He will turn 31 during training camp. I assume the contract terms suggest that the 3rd year is a voidable one or is contingent primarily on a roster bonus. He will now almost double his salary cap hit. Also, to renegotiate his contract before they've signed the two first-day corners, also bad business sense, since it gives their agents something to work with.

Surely, Jeff Ireland is not this dense. Surely he does not lack hindsight to this level. Surely he has his private reasons why he would make such a deal at this point in the year. Surely, it is a smoke-screen!

Let's discuss in the comments.