That's not a chill, that's a Draft: With Dolphin fans at emotional nadir, will team continue frustrating at NFL Draft? Pick Mallett!

Above, Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn in New York for the 2007 NFL Draft -as seen on ESPN- reacting to the news that the Miami Dolphins had chosen Ohio State WR Ted Ginn, Jr. with their first-round selection and not him, to the vocal consternation of the Dolphin fans assembled around me at the Dolphins HQ in Davie, Florida. Screenshot by Mario J. Bermudez.

That's not a chill, that's a Draft!
Will the Miami Dolphins continue their recent feeble track record of confounding their frustrated fans by 'missing' and overestimating some player's "upside" or under-appreciating talented players who didn't play in big conferences, that other teams routinely score coups with?

(Don't forget, they didn't draft WR Devon Bess of Hawaii, though for long stretches of the past two seasons, he has been their best, most-consistent and hardest-working player. I'm glad he's on the team obviously, but what does that say about the actual draftees? Exactly.)

Well, since I was never in favor of the Stephen Ross regime as owner, or his hiring of Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano as general manager and head coach respectively, I would guess the answer is NO.

In fact, my guess is that if the team performs as poorly as I expect this season if they don't show some imagination and make some good decisions in the draft that involve a certain amount of gambling, as well as sign solid guys during free-agency over the next four months, I expect the Dolphins to be in last place in the AFC East by the time December rolls around.

Then they will be playing the Eagles, Patriots and Jets in three of the last four regular season games, and the fourth game is at Buffalo the week before Christmas, and with the Patriots game in Foxboro on Christmas Eve.
Yes, at Buffalo and at New England in late December.
Hmm-m... what's the Dolphins record in cold weather games in December the past ten years? Exactly.

Given that, I expect that this will be Ireland and Sparano's last year with the Dolphins.

Their track record is completely unsatisfactory and the Dolphins feeble efforts at home games last year was one of THE biggest embarrassments in the recent history of the NFL.
Not just losing at home, mind you, but seeming at times to not even be trying or to even know what plays they were supposed to be doing.
It was worse than exasperating and nobody looked worse than Chad Henne, whom I was never ever sold on to begin with.

And three hours before the draft starts, the most recent video on the nfl.com site for the Dolphins is about the Brandon Marshall stabbing, not something about draft strategy.
http://www.nfl.com/videos/miami-dolphins
Pathetic!

To me, based on all the available information available and the games I've watched via the myriad regional sports packages of DirecTV, the Dolphins absolutely have to draft QB Ryan Mallett of Arkansas if he is still available and has not been selected by either the Redskins at #10 or the Vikings at #12.

While clearly not without some flaws, Mallett has the physical ability to get the ball to spots that few others can -on a dime- and the mental ability to learn from his mistakes and correct them, something that Chad Henne has repeatedly proven he can't do, no matter how obvious it is to players and fans alike.

NFL.com video: QB Quandry: Worst case scenario
http://www.nfl.com/videos/auto/09000d5d81f76d4f/QB-Quandary-Worst-case-scenario

If they draft an offensive lineman with this selection, as many of the experts on ESPN and the NFL Network have suggested, save Mike Lombardi,
http://www.nfl.com/draft/2011/mock-drafts to me, they will have officially become the woeful Lions of the early '80's or the St. Louis Cardinals before they fled west to Arizona: a couple of very talented guys in places, maybe even a pro Bowl player here and there, but by no reasonable measure a real team that can hope to win more than 8 games without their opponents collapsing.
Is that what Dolphin fans want?

I don't think so, but there is nothing on the resume of Ireland and Sparano that shows that either separately, much less when working together, they can help themselves from drafting a talented-but-safe player like Florida offensive lineman Mike Pouncey.
The past is prologue.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/teams/page/MIA/miami-dolphins

England fumes as snow & ice -and jack-knifed lorries- ruin sports, shopping and travel plans days before Christmas. Why so many lorries on roads now?

Channel 4 News: U.K. snow strands air travellers Correspondent Victoria Macdonald at Heathrow Airport
http://bcove.me/byscxokf
Story at: http://www.channel4.com/news/uk-snow-strands-air-travellers

Despite knowing that it was highly likely that the Chelsea-Manchester United football game would not go on today as planned in West London (at 11 a.m. my time in Miami) due to, supposedly, the treacherous road conditions caused by the unrelenting snow and ice -or as one website put it, "ran afoul of snow"- I'm still disappointed NOT to be able to see the game on Fox Soccer Channel, which has substituted a game in Switzerland between teams I've never heard of for the canceled game at Stamford Bridge.
http://www.chelseafc.com/page/Home/0,,10268,00.html

Especially disappointing when I am hearing differing stories today on what the actual road conditions around Fulham Road, SW 6 are like.

But then I have many viewing choices in the U.S., and was, of course, planning on watching the NFL games this afternoon, including the Dolphins game here against the Buffalo Bills and C.J. Spiller, whom I wanted the Dolphins to draft back in May.

Those choices I have put in rather stark perspective a strong sentiment I heard often yesterday and today on BBC Radio's 5 live about the much-discussed idea of the Premier League following the Bundesliga in Germany and taking a winter break, so that games are not scheduled when you know in advance that the conditions could be quite problematic weather-wise. http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/

After the jaw-dropping World Cup debacle in South Africa, where the English National Team performed perfectly miserably and looked old, slow, unenthusiastic and not-so-talented in their last game against Germany, there were many knowledgeable callers to live 5 in the immediate hours afterward who said that one of the many things that needed to be done to make ENT relevant again, was to finally end the idea of playing games at times of the year that don't make sense weather-wise. http://www.thefa.com/England

It was said often that this continuous playing of league matches, daily practice plus games in various UEFA tourneys and the FA Cup that pay big money and have much prestige, leads to players being worn out in ways that even vacations to the sunny climes of South Beach can not mend.
My own experience is that you tend NOT to get 'fresh legs' in South Beach.
Just saying...

Well, yesterday, the opposing sentiment to this notion of a winter break came in fast and furious and I must admit, it's self-evident nature caught me a little short.
"Then what are we going to do in the winter?"

Hmm-m...I hadn't actually thought of that!


On this show and many others I've heard since this summer, one caller after another has volunteered how much their own childhood memories of Christmas had to some degree been shaped by the Boxing Day fixtures on Dec. 26th, big games that I have watched for years from afar, but read about and followed in newspapers, magazines and books, and now online, for years, since they tend to get more mention historically.

They're NOT just regular season games because people's memories of this year's holiday will be shaped in some part based on how their own team does, regardless of what division they're playing in.

For some fans of more modest means, this may be the one home game they go to all year, or the only one they attend with their family and not their friends from work or the neighborhood.
That's not insignificant.

In some ways, though it's far from an exact comparison, those Boxing Day football fixtures are England's version of the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys always playing on Thanksgiving Day, and those NFL games becoming part of the national consciousness in ways that other NFL regular season games don't. If you're a sports fan, esp. a devout one, they become almost a subconscious part of your memory.

Real American sports fans of a certain age can even recall great games or foul-ups from years gone by that happened in Turkey Day games, even when they didn't involve their own favorite teams.

The 1993 Dolphins at Cowboys game, featuring Leon Lett, comes immediately to mind, though that is of a different sort, owing to my being a Dolphin fan for 40 years, since I still recall games I was at from 1971 and the Perfect Season of '72.




The idea that English sports fans would have little to choose from for their spectator or TV-viewing satisfaction is something that can't be underestimated.

There's no NBA or NHL or NCAA college basketball, men or women, plus the lack of the corresponding youth and High School teams in these sports to the extent that is true in the U.S. and Canada.
It's simply a different sporting culture.

I'll have more to say on this issue of a winter break for Premier League teams in the future, just wanted to share a few thoughts now since it seemed a propos.


Earlier today, just before Noon my time, I received my daily Channel 4 Snowmail, with Chief Correspondent Alex Thompson penning his pithy overview of stories that'd be appearing later in the night on the Channel 4 newscast, with weather being an integral part of that.

He asks a very reasonable question that nearly everyone seems to be asking,
"It is almost invariably lorries which stop [U.K.] motorways in snow... Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue?"

On the roads there is still serious disruption. It is time to tell a simple truth here: it is almost invariably lorries which stop our motorways in snow. They cannot handle the hills, they drive too fast too close (as every motorway-user will testify) and they jack-knife. As I write an LPG tanker's gone over on the M25, closing the motorway that is rarely far from crisis on a balmy June afternoon. Why is this state of affairs allowed to continue? Why cannot the haulage industry - including their heavy clients like the supermarkets - be instructed to take their fleets off the road for the six to 12 hours needed, once or twice a year?

We will not starve. We will not run short of fuel. Life will continue. And most of all the motorways will function far better because the gritters and ploughs can get through. In any case - since when was a very expensive truck, static for eight hours on a motorway, good for anybody's haulage bottom line?

You can read more and comment on Alex Thomson's blog at
http://blogs.channel4.com/world-news-blog/uk-snow-why-are-there-so-many-lorries-on-the-roads/14653

Video of jack-knifed lorries:
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/191210/clipid/191210_4ON_SNOWOTHER2_19

At the end of the Snowmail it grimly reads:

WEATHER WARNINGS OVERVIEW
There are several weather warnings being issued by the Met Office, see them in full: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_warnings.html


TONIGHT Snow showers will continue in northeast Scotland overnight and outbreaks of snow will spread into the far southwest. It'll feel bitterly cold everywhere, with severe frost, ice and freezing fog patches.

TOMORROW
The snow in the southwest will spread to most of Wales, the south Midlands and southeast England during the day. It will be another very cold day with many places staying below freezing.

OUTLOOK
There's no sign of a break in the bitterly cold weather. Snow and ice will continue to be a problem throughout the week.

-----

See also:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/travelnews/

http://www.clubcall.com/

I never liked Condi Rice as Sec. of State, and I like her even less now. When will she finally admit HER personal culpability for policy mistakes?

Condoleeza Rice is NOT Dwight Eisenhower.

Condi Rice: A speed bump of history that looms even smaller with every passing year.

Not that you asked, but I never liked self-serving Condoleeza Rice when she was Bush 43's Secretary of State, even though I voted for him, and I like HER even less now.
When will she finally admit HER personal culpability for policy mistakes?
Ever?

A short open letter to the one-time Secretary of State on the occasion of her new book and the absurd over-the-top kid-gloves treatment that she will get from the MSM for the next few months, as excuses are made for her by the very people who were quiet at the time.

Dwight Eisenhower is STILL dead and was an anomaly as a candidate who'd never been elected to any office before becoming President.
History is not about to repeat itself anytime soon.

Given your longstanding distaste for enduring public criticism, even constructive criticism, the fact that Beltway reporters of the caliber and reputation of the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler persist in public speculation that you may run for high public office is both alarming for him, and preposterous for you.

You have repeatedly shown your unwillingness to do the one fundamental thing required in American electoral politics: to listen to average American citizens.

In your particular case, you have avoided listening and responding with candor to Americans of either the Right or the Left -or the Right-Center like me- with an insulated, above-the-fray attitude that may serve you well when you are being paid to make speeches overseas to the comfortable elite stating the obvious, but not so much with average Americans, for whom you were and are an enigma.

But now, an enigma we no longer are curious about, despite what your publisher has told you.

It's too late for you to attempt to change the public narrative now, and you also can't change the fact that your track record comes largely from dealing with people for whom you were superior to in the organization, easily pushed-around self-important academic types at Stanford, or corporate glad-handers and apologists who paid you for being around or giving speeches, even while you were on Board of Directors for large American companies.

Simply put, you lack the 'common touch,' one that Bill Clinton, for all of his flaws, was born with and then honed for years while putting himself before the very American people that you have largely been sheltered away from in your self-selecting cocoon for YEARS.

In that regard, you share that with your predecessor, Colin Powell, for whom we personally feel similarly cold towards, having personally seen up-close in Washington that same MSM news media fawning machine when he was hawking his books and "leaving the door open."

You and Powell both seem to have been born with the same imperious, self-serving gene that so many actual South Florida politicians the community would be better off without, actually possess, like Debby Eisinger, Stacy Ritter and Joy Cooper.
It's NOT attractive.
In fact, it actually repels.

We not only DONT need you, Miss Rice, there is zero chance there will ever be a Draft Condi boomlet for any electoral office, except maybe something in Cali that is thought either largely inconsequential, or, 'for show.'

No matter how many times you subtly-yet-calculatingly insinuate to reporters and columnists that you're leaving the door open for future elective office, there will always be people like myself who are standing there, happy to shut that door on you with a simple recitation of the true facts of your chosen career and your above-it-all personality.
Nope, we are closing THAT door with you on the other side.
You can keep knocking, but we're NOT answering.

We also DON'T want you to have anything to do with the NFL, either, and are tired of THAT particular line of self-serving talk almost as much as anything else about you.
No thanks!
The NFL is doing fine without you.

------

The Washington Post
Rice meets with Obama, then defends his administration's approach
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 15, 2010; 10:43 PM

Not many authors on a book tour manage to snag a visit with the president of the United States.

But Condoleezza Rice is no ordinary book author. The former secretary of state and onetime national security adviser met one-on-one with President Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon, after a week of television appearances promoting "Extraordinary, Ordinary People," her memoir about her parents. The White House said Obama wanted to discuss a range of foreign policy issues with her.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506018.html

Reader comments at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506018_Comments.html

A reminder as the NFL Draft approaches... 36 years and counting for a 3rd Super Bowl Trophy. Answer: C.J. Spiller

36 years and counting for a 3rd Super Bowl Trophy...

"It's why you play the game!"
Vince Lombardi Championship Trophies from Dolphin victories
in Super Bowl VII and VIII.
April 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez taken at Miami Dolphins
Headquarters, Davie, Florida


Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi; December 21, 1962
Seven years later to the date of this cover, Lombardi coached his
last game, a losing effort for the Redskins.
Nine months later he'd be dead of intestinal cancer at age 57.
The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown
University is named for him. See http://lombardi.georgetown.edu/
It's located near the French and German Embassies on Reservoir Road.

Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota

Larry Csonka, January 21, 1974

Miami All The Way

Bob Griese, January 22, 1973

1972 Miami Dolphins team photo at The Orange Bowl

The same color photo of the 17-0 Undefeated Team that for six years,
rested in a frame on top of my bedroom dresser at my home in North
Miami Beach. There it stayed 'till that fateful day in August of 1979,
when I began packing for my new life in Bloomington. The photo made
the trip to Bloomington intact, where it remained on my desk in
Briscoe Quad 427-A for two very eventful years at IU, the latter.
1980-'81 being the year we beat North Carolina for the NCAA title.
I placed the photo right below my 8' x 11' b&w glossy of the Miami
Herald's All-County Gymnastics team that I got from the Herald
Sports Dept. That was a tremendously talented team that featured
many friends of mine from all over Dade County -like the late Dee
Leutner of Hialeah Miami Lakes, my charming, sweet friend and
future Georgia GymDog, who sat next to me when we took the SATs
in the NMB cafeteria, and smiled at me and said "Good luck" right
before we opened the test- as well as my own talented friends and
classmates at North Miami Beach High, like Lisa Martin, Karen
Ginsberg and Linda Zobler -the best of the best.

Last year, it was a Hoosier who led the way to the Lombardi Trophy...

Above, former IU Hoosier and Saints 2008 Number Two
Draft Pick Tracy Porter makes the play of the game and
intercepts Peyton Manning and scores a TD against the
Colts during Super Bowl XLIV in Miami, leading the Saints
to their first Super Bowl 31-17, Feb. 7, 2010.

With the 11th pick in this year's Draft, if he's still available,
as Charley Casserly expects him to be as of late Wedesday
night, the Dolphins should take dynamic Clemson RB
C.J. Spiller, the single-most exciting player I've seen
in years and who consistently made big plays when
big plays needed to be made.

Almost single-handedly last year, Spiller defeated the
Hurricanes in a way that showed how woebegone the
Miami defense and special teams had become, as he
seemingly toyed with them time and again.





If he has already been selected, they should select a player
who most approaches Bears Hall of Famer Mike Singletary,
a player who had zeal, smarts and intuition, and who plays
all-out on every play and won't tolerate slacking in his
teammates.
That would likely be Texas LB Sergio Kindle.

The lack of mental and physical toughness in the Dolphins
defense the past ten years has been one of the most galling
aspects of their decline into mediocrity for longtime Dolphin
fans like me, who have lived long enough to know what a
solid defense actually looks like.
It's NOT what we have now.

Their inability to consistently pass rush, tackle and field
opportunistic ball-hawks just leaves you dumbfounded at times.
It's nice to beat the Patriots once a year, but one good game
does not a season make.

With their second round pick, if he's available -and Spiller
has gone elsewhere- the Dolphins ought to select Stanford
RB and Heisman Trophy runner-up Toby Gerhart before
the Patriots snap him up.

At New England, Gerhart would become the latest
Dolphin-killer as he becomes the player who always
leads the Patriots to late-game victories, year-after-year,
with his versatility: powerful goal-line plunges, scampers
down the sidelines on draw plays, or swing passes where
he -shocker!- beats Dolphins' LBs, and you're screaming
at your TV even before he scores a TD to kill the Dolphins
once again.
Made worse because we could've taken him.

I suppose it's worth reminding you here given recent news
that I've never been a Jason Taylor fan, and wanted him
gone years ago when he could still demand something in a
trade.

I remind you how lacking he was in leadership at the very
end of Cam Cameron's painful one and only year as head
coach, when some leadership was needed and yet from
most accounts, Taylor sat by and did nothing when defensive
teammates cursed-out coaches on plane flights, including
Cameron, and played out-of-control during games,
as if they didn't know their assignments.
Or simply didn't care anymore.

His coddled status irked me to no end and probably did him
no favors with Bill Parcells, either.

But what really irked me about him was the clueless rhetoric
down here on sports talk radio about him and Canton, as
real NFL fans around the country who know their history
know that Taylor was simply not as good or dominant as
former Bears great Richard Dent, a Super Bowl MVP,
who twenty years later, unbelievably, is still NOT in the
Pro Football Hall of Fame, even though he should've gotten
in MANY years ago.

If a dominant player of his era like Dent, who dominated
good-to-great offensive teams like the 49ers, Redskins and
Giants is STILL not in all these years later, Jason Taylor
ought to make himself comfortable, as he's in for a very,
very long wait -IF he ever gets in, which I think is unlikely.

South Beach Hoosier Trivia:
My first Dolphin game at the Orange Bowl came in December
of 1970, aged 9, a 45-3 win over Buffalo that propelled them
into their first ever playoff appearance.