Saturday Combine Summary

• The Dolphins are VERY interested in Percy Harvin. They have already talked to him TWICE and have a full meeting set up for tomorrow. Guess I'll have to do a profile on him now.
  

• The Dolphins hired an assistant special teams coach by the name of Darren Rizzi. I feel bad for him, having to work side by side with coach Bono, the fried eggs and bacon advocate.

• Jason Smith, the tackle from Baylor, looks like an absolute beast. But if he's so good, then how come his team is SOOOOO bad?

• LSU,s giant guard, Herman Johnson shaved off his afro, and that may have accounted for the entire 19 lbs he's lost since the Senior Bowl.

• With Alex Mack not working out, and Max Unger looking average, and Johnathan Luigs looking like a guy off the street, Louisville's Eric Wood was the best looking Center at the Combine. Well, not 'best looking' with his brillo ginger hair, but you know what I mean.

• Jamie Dukes is officially an idiot.

• North Carolina's wide-out, Brooks Foster set an NFL Combine record. His 27 reps of the becnh press were the most ever by a wide receiver.

• Kenny Britt's 23 reps were the 3rd most ever by a wide-out.

• Andre Smith is an idiot. His agent is lying to cover for him. First he has constant weight issues, then he gets suspended for the final bowl game of his college career, then he chooses not to participate in the Senior Bowl, then he doesn't hire an agent til a couple of weeks before the combine, then he doesn't bother to work out in preparation for the combine, then he doesn't lie about why he's not working out, essentially calling himself lazy in front of all of the NFL, then he pisses off home and gets his agent to lie for him. This guy should no longer be a first rounder. He has BUST written all over him.
• Oh, and someone named Crabtree is done for the combine with a stress fracture. He will work out at his pro-day then have surgery.
  

Vernon, You The Man!

Per Edgar Thompson at the Palm Beach Post, the Dolphins have re-signed offensive lineman, Vernon Carey to a 6 year, $42 million deal that includes a guaranteed $15 million!

This is shocking news if you live in walterfootball or Brian Biggane-land!

Edgar also reports that there is a 30% chance that Channing Crowder will be re-signed, which sounds low but it's higher than the ZERO percent chance that the SS and Herald have reported.

Also, Reggie Torbor is using his off-season to attend Harvard Business School. Hopefully he's working out his body as well as his mind, but it does go to show that players do have time to go to school during the offseason, and they should probably factor that in to early decisions coming out of college.

Take a Bottle drink it down Pass it Around

The biggest gossip(?) site in the business of professional football is frequently used by reporters as well as fans to keep up to date on goings on around the league. I admit I enjoy profootballtalk.com because they post links to stories within a few minutes of the story being reported by the original authors, thus you get up-to-the-minute updates on actual news in addition to the more fun stuff they can post because they're NOT technically a news organization. Just a guy with a blog and a lot of coffee and the occasional air time on TV. Still, they beat most everyone in the re-reporting game when it comes to football. So it was surprising to me that I actually mentioned the Devin Moore extra-curricular combine workout a good 20 hours before them. And it's the 2nd or 3rd time this week I've beaten the big boys to the punch. Don't worry, I'm not going to get full of myself here, quite the opposite.

I guess I just want to reiterate that even in Miami it can be hard to get accurate and timely information. The once respectable Palm Beach Post seems to have fallen by the wayside with their blog (which I thought used to be the most straightforward, honest and accurate one) now posting a lot of conjecture and mysteriously sourced information. I think I've figured out that WalterFootball.com's source for the Carey story must've been someone from that paper, possibly Brian Biggane, as they are the only ones who reported that the Dolphins wouldn't re-sign the right tackle. Omar Kelly of the Sun-Sentinel reported not once but twice that the Dolphins wanted to keep Carey and would do their best to keep him. Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald pretty much agreed with that sentiment. Only the PBP repeated their stance that Carey was leaving. But that's not the point. The point is that I had to read about it on WalterFootball.com weeks before the PBP actually published this story. Maybe they were waiting for a second source.

Well now I have WalterFootball.com, the Palm Beach Post and some speculation on my own part based on the Combine press conferences yesterday that the Dolphins are interviewing a few players and asking them how they feel about playing Right Tackle. So it seems clear that whether or not they re-sign Carey, they are planning for the possibility of having to draft a replacement around the second round of the draft (based on the players they interviewed).

So now we get to the point where we've got a little ACTUAL insight into what the Dolphins might do in the draft. This means they are not planning on having access to the top tier of Tackles in the draft thus are focusing on the second tier. So what are they focusing on in the first round? We'll find out today if it's a (shochk) wide receiver. Saturday we might find out it's a line backer or defensive lineman. PFT finally did a mock draft and puts us taking Everette Brown! Sunday we'll get the full picture when the defensive backs hold their conferences. And Tuesday being the final workout day, the Trifecta will be able to know if they've met with the right players and start putting together their Netflix Queue of film to watch.

And within a couple of weeks they'll deal with free agency. Once the dust settles a bit on that period, they will start piecing together their near final draft board. And then I will go to WalterFootball to get the scoop!

The Combine is an Enchanted Forest

Where else can a giant lose 5% of his body weight in a few weeks, or a well-rounded line-backer with a couple kilos of performance enhancers in his gym locker shave 3/10th's of his 40 time which would surely move him up several places in the draft?

It's the NFL combine. Sure, it might all come crashing down when he has to do his urine test, but according to the video below from NFL Network's Path to the Draft series, Brian Cushing is running a 4.5ish 40 time in the gym.

If he carries that time into the Combine, he might turn out to be the fastest linebacker in the first couple of rounds in the draft. And that would likely make him very attractive to a lot of teams that may have been focusing on different areas. And that could make him crawl up the draft board. And that could make a player or two slide down closer to the #25 pick. So who would you grab if they slide down 2 to 5 spots as projected? It's very possible one of the top 5 tackles might slide to us if the Cushings of the draft step it up a notch.

• On a side note, former Wyoming running back, Devin Moore, wasn't invited to the combine, so he held his own workout near the Indianapolis Airport. He invited all the teams, 14 of which showed, and put on an impressive workout including a 4.41 in the 40, a 10 foot long jump, and most impressively to me, 27 reps in the bench press. Did I mention Moore is 5'9" and 190lbs? He was projected as a 5th to 6th round pick.
  

And Now...Your 2009 Miami Dolphins!

The combine officially goes into high gear today and if my tivo is working (long story) I'll have hours and hours of NFL Network waiting for me to watch into the wee hours tonight. But what positions are bound to garner the most interest from the Trifecta? Due to the format of the combine, they'll be able to watch the quarterbacks and running backs just as much as the offensive linemen, but it's possible they'll leave the scouts to do that while Parcells, Ireland and Sparano hole up in a meeting room to discuss what they've seen from the OL and WR positions instead. The best way to speculate what our needs are is probably to look at our current roster. This idea was sprouted from the mind of contributor, Mr. Bungle, and I've done the work for us all.

You can click on the expand arrow at the top to zoom in and out and move around the roster or just click on the full screen window to see it up close. I did this in .pdf format so I can redline it as we go along to see the changes.

So let's break it down. If I am accurate there will be 10 to 15 new faces on the roster from '08 to '09. Parcells said 18. That must've made some of these guys piss their pants.

I see some obvious bottom end guys here. Our depth is not very good in about half of the positions. What do you think?

Free Agency Preview - Miles Austin

Most of us know that Miles Austin was on Hard Knocks last season making a strong move to be the number 2 receiver in Dallas' training camp. I believe they started the year with Patrick Crayton at that spot but Austin probably would've gotten there if not for his injury. Dallas thinks Crayton is an old man, T.O. may be on the way out, Roy Williams almost bankrupted the team, and Danny Amendola will try again to make the 53 man roster.

It sounds to me that the Cowboys would be wise not to let Austin go, but as he is a restricted free agent, they might be able to get a decent draft pick for him and all the reporters are saying the Dolphins are interested in Austin. He is expected to earn a $1.45 million second-round tender. Hopefully Mr. Bungle will explain what that means, as the only tender I understand has chicken in it.

The following is an excerpt from DeFrancos Training (a NFL combine workout prep gym) website from 2006:

FREAK SHOW!

Miles Austin re-writes the DeFranco’s record board before leaving for the NFL Combine!

After running a 4.41-second 40-yard dash on Monday (improving from 4.59), Miles finished his final week of intense training before leaving for the NFL Combine with a bang! On Friday, he weighed in at a shredded 219 ¾ lbs. (down from 240) and he broke the following 2 records in our College Athlete (under 220 lb.) division…

VERTICAL JUMP RECORD!

Miles on his way up to a 43” vertical jump!

225 lb. bench press test record!

Miles benching 225 lbs. 23 times!

Tin's Tuesday Bits

• Dolphins' kicking coach, Steve Hoffman (who?), was hired to be special teams coordinator by Kansas City. So right now there is a coaching vacancy in Miami (do kickers really need a 'kicking' coach?) but it's not the one we expected, i.e. Bowles.
  

• There I was about to do a piece on free agents that we should be aware of and one of them goes and gets arrested. Jaguars safety Gerald Sensabaugh decided to celebrate free agency with a few of his closest firearms. I think it's safe to say that he's no longer on my radar.

• Maybe I could sell that backlog of Culpepper jersey's to Detroit fans. They'd probably enjoy a little color after wearing 'ice blue' and 'cold steel grey' for all those years. The Lions not only re-worked DC's deal to keep him on the roster (why?), they resigned their 70 year old kicker to another four years. Forget the two wins I gave them last week, Detroit is looking to go all the way...to a repeat!

• Do the Dolphins go after (deep breath) T.J. Houshmandzadeh? And why is there a red line under Houshmandzadeh? I know I spelled it correctly...

Check it out, I've already got the right colour walls in my bedroom!

Here's some orange for you:

• The Arizona Cardinals put the franchise tag on Karlos Dansby. So there goes THAT target as well. Now it looks like we can focus all our energy on what Baltimore's going to do in the next week. That and the combine of course. Speaking of which, I might need to upgrade my Tivo just to watch all the coverage on NFL Network. They will be showing tons of clips on NFL.com as well. The fun starts on Thursday.
  

Brian Cushing at # 25, Baby!

02/10/09 - NFL Draft Scout Fallers: Brian Cushing, OLB, USC: By most accounts Cushing was among the more impressive linebackers throughout the week of practice at the Senior Bowl. Rather than focusing on his athleticism and instincts on the field, however, scouts in the stands were buzzing about reports that Cushing spends thousands of dollars a month on nutritional supplements. While no one is claiming Cushing's supplements should be confused with illegal steroids, it does raise questions about how maxed out Cushing might be -- questions that could push the All-American down the board considering the top-end talent this year at linebacker. - Rob Rang, The SportsXchange, NFLDraftScout.com

Brian Cushing poses in front of his own poster.

Ronnie Brown decides to stay in Hawaii?

So there was a short mention a week or so ago on Profootballtalk.com about a team putting up certain players' jerseys, etc. at heavily discounted prices. Turns out said players got the axe. I commented on that story that MiamiDolphins.com had done a similar thing leading up to the 2008 season. Jerseys went on sale one week and the following week the correlating players were gone.

So what does it mean that Fox Sports Store has suddenly marked down Ronnie Brown jerseys by 75 % ?

It should be noted that they did the same thing to Dan Marino jerseys which are by far still the top selling Dolphin jersey. Ted Ginn jerseys are still full price.

The Blog is hereby fixed!

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I will not be touching the code/script/whatever of the site for at least another 40 years!

Oh, here's something for fun and entertainment: