pmanis09 YouTube Channel: ABC's Monday Night Football, opening (1973), with Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford and Don Meredith. Uploaded on October 16, 2008. http://youtu.be/m8fkMkE2Yjg
and over at NBC, largely featuring Dolphins guard Bob Kuechenberg, and with other Dolphins appearing, including Larry Little, Vern Den Herder, Larry Csonka, Bob Griese and at 0:57, the late Jim Mandich, who sadly died almost-two years ago tomorrow...
beaverstuffers YouTube Channel: NFL on NBC, opening (1973).
Uploaded August 20, 2009. http://youtu.be/nv-datkQYUU
Yes, 1973, the last year the Dolphins really WERE the best team.
2013 NFL Draft: Another Draft day with Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland squandering opportunities left and right; Give me more playmakers! The best defense is a big lead!; @nfl, @SI_PeterKing, @BuckyBrooks
Another Draft day that Dolphin fans hope will be decisive in changing around the fortunes of a once-proud football franchise that has been plagued for too many years with bad management, uninspiring coaching and mediocre personnel that lacks playmakers and a killer instinct. But look who's in charge?Since we're all friends here on the blog for the most part, I'm going to fill you in on something
you won't be reading elsewhere today on one of the most-magical albeit-unofficial American holidays of the year -the first day of the NFL Draft.
Last night after the watching the Miami-area 11 O'clock news, I had to run some errands and hop into the blog's Time Machine, a.k.a. the South Beach Hoosier Time Machine, to finish something I had actually started a few weeks ago, though technically, is actually still in the future many months from now.
You know how it is with time travel, some words only cause more confusion, which is why star dates are so useful.
So anyway, one of the errands involved finally seeing the new upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness that opens in May, which I'll be seeing in-person next month when it opens, on DVD this December, when the Dolphins 2013 season has pretty much played itself out.
Star Trek Into Darkness - Official Trailer #3 (HD) Benedict Cumberbatch
I bought it to watch it again and then send it to my mother, who is a longtime Star Trek fan, but not so crazy about going to theaters anymore, unless she comes down here to see my sister and I, in which case we'll watch it at my sister's at some point on her visit.
My plan, then, is to watch it after the NBC Sunday Night Football game if that game is a good one, or, instead of the game if the game is not so interesting.
Star Trek Into Darkness - Official Trailer #3 (HD) Benedict Cumberbatch
I bought it to watch it again and then send it to my mother, who is a longtime Star Trek fan, but not so crazy about going to theaters anymore, unless she comes down here to see my sister and I, in which case we'll watch it at my sister's at some point on her visit.
My plan, then, is to watch it after the NBC Sunday Night Football game if that game is a good one, or, instead of the game if the game is not so interesting.
(Like usual, I'm taping Once Upon a Time, The Good Wife and The Mentalist on the other TV's DVR.)
So, I'm watching the pre-game highlights package and listening to Dan Patrick, Tony Dungy and Bob Costas talk and talk about the various games that took place earlier in the day and sort of wondering what led the Time Machine to this scene of me watching myself lying on the couch, with some newspapers and a can of Coke on the table nearby.
And how is this trip in any way connected to tonight's NFL Draft?
Well, the Dolphins will have the chance tonight to draft and add polish to a dynamic game-breaking player, but because Dolphins well-meaning but misfiring General Manager Jeff Ireland is who he is -there's no changing those spots- he goes the safe route yet again and the player who could be and should be one of the Dolphins biggest stars of the future, will instead drop some more and ply his trade for another team drafting after the Dolphins.
Ah, Jeff Ireland and the Safe Choice!
It almost sounds like the name of a neighborhood band from North Miami Beach circa 1974, a band where the lead singer is the older brother of one of my friends, but his last name really isn't Ireland, but he just likes the way it sounds.
Lots of class!
In the future highlight I see, Dan Patrick prefaces his pithy comment by saying, "Oh, no. Jeff Ireland may want to close his eyes again because Miami passed on this guy."
And there on the TV screen, on TVs of various sizes and shapes all across the country and all across South Florida, the video is showing someone scoring against the Dolphins late in a heretofore close ballgame, and making the big difference in another Dolphin loss.
Because, as always, there are nice dependable players and then there are difference-makers, and the Dolphins have been plagued for the past 15 years by NOT having enough of them on the field on either offense or defense.
It makes me think after watching videos on YouTube of the NFL in the 1970's, the seasons with the games and scores I still remember because I was there in-person at the Orange Bowl for almost every one, that IF Jeff Ireland had been the Steelers GM in 1974, he'd have passed on drafting John Stallworth in the fourth round because, well, after all, they already had drafted a very good one out of USC in the first round named Lynn Swann.
So let's draft another offensive lineman!
But given who's making the choice, that offensive lineman is NOT named future Hall of Famer Mike Webster.
Four of the Steeler's first five draft choices eventually are enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame.
Such is the difference between GMs who are in-the-know and on draft day, literally, in-the-zone, seeing things that others don't see, and then there are nice guys who still have their jobs after doing a consistently mediocre job because the boss doesn't really like to fire people.
What will be written on Ireland's personnel file after his exit interview?
"Dolphins lack of playmakers!"
Here's a hint: offensive linemen aren't playmakers:
Look up the phrase "Dolphins lack of playmakers" on Google Images and tell me whose photo shows up first.
Really,.just try it.
See, it's not just my opinion, it's an algorithm's learned opinion.
Really,.just try it.
See, it's not just my opinion, it's an algorithm's learned opinion.
I hope that I'm wrong about this prediction about the Dolphins draft today, and that Ireland, like George Costanza once did, does the exact opposite of what he usually does, but if you know anything about me from reading this blog fairly regularly over the years, and my predictions while at IU and in Chicago and in D.C., you know that I have a ridiculous degree of accuracy when I've had some time to analyze the empirical data, accent the positive, eliminate the negative and throw in some intangibles and just noodle everything through.
Three teams on December's Dolphins schedule draft after the Dolphins: the Steelers at 17, the Patriots at 29 and the Jets immediately after the Dolphins draft at 12.
Just saying... the best defense is a big lead!
Three teams on December's Dolphins schedule draft after the Dolphins: the Steelers at 17, the Patriots at 29 and the Jets immediately after the Dolphins draft at 12.
Just saying... the best defense is a big lead!
2013 NFL Draft: The perfect strategy for each team to follow
By Bucky Brooks, Analyst, NFL.com and NFL NetworkPublished: April 22, 2013 at 03:57 p.m.
Updated: April 23, 2013 at 05:38 p.m.
