Remember the 3 year rebuilding project? Identifying what made it successful

If you’re looking for a recipe for success, I don’t think that ’08 team is the standard to try and follow. That team and that year was purely context-driven; in other words, the situation around the team was just as much a driving influence as was the team itself.

Keep in mind that the “blueprint” for the Dolphins entering that season was the typical build-from-the-inside-out kind of plan — watch the Parcell’s draft special for the theory behind it all. The big debate in the NFL that is only something we can decide on in the next 5 or 10 years is whether or not this kind of team-building strategy is still successful, or in “todays NFL” if it’s just an antiquated way of playing the game and building teams.

As far as what that model is, it’s, well, “go big; go smart”. Player-wise, there are strict physical requirements, and they’ve had a history it seems of drafting players who were in leadership-type roles (i.e. had high football IQs). They also threw a lot of money out there (“go big” in a financial sense, as well).

With that said, the ‘08 team was a splash in the pan — it was an interesting knee-slapping good time. It was like watching any rag-tag underdog team suddenly do something. But the point here to make is that however much we like “The Mighty Ducks” or “The Sandlot”, when you’re talking about a model for development, you don’t choose those kinds of teams — it’s sort of a simple risk-reward assessment at that point. 1 out of every 10 times, sure, that team wins — but that ain’t exactly the greatest pitch….

…and as far as our Dolphins go, we’re 1* for 3 so far (with almost everyone clamoring for change!). So, my advice, at best, is to wait on using this team as your blueprint. It might prove that the 08 team was more like the standard that this team puts out (and that our 7 win seasons are aberrations), but at least for now at best all you can say is “the jury is still out.”

*This is assuming we consider 1-and-out in the playoffs a “successful” season. Some coaches and organizations — perhaps those we hate the most — would consider such a thing a failure. Not to sound like too much of a pessimist, but a division-championship is a paper-championship; winning the division is obviously a sign of good things, but it alone ain’t worth that much. In that case, our current regime is batting 0-3 on the success-o-meter.

The thought of that makes me drool, but I think part of this discussion we’re having is exactly the idea that this regime — using the model of drafting that they do — perhaps would not have had Freeman as an ideal candidate for drafting, and hence, would not have attempted to aggressively move up to get him (like the Bucs ultimately ended up doing — swapping 17th and 19th picks, plus giving up a 6th; that would have left the Phins minus Vontae Davis and Andrew Gardiner had the phins entered into a similar deal with Cleveland (who had the 17th pick)).

It’s fun to play retrospective history, but even with the Freeman scenario, the Phins would have only had to move up just a bit to get him (though we didn’t have a 2nd rounder, so there’s that to consider, too); nonetheless, the point still remains how someone like a Josh Freeman wasn’t appealing enough to this regime to warrant that kind of move (whereas in the same draft, he was for the Bucs, and Mark Sanchez was for the Jets).

It’s exactly this FO’s decisions to not make plays like this for (especially) quarter-backs that is at question here. They go after “sure thing” picks, and quarterbacks are the furthest thing from that. Even listen to Parcells in that great ESPN draft special when they talk about the blunder of the Pat White pick: Parcells says that they got caught up and got away from their draft PRINCIPLES. Taking a risk on a quarterback represents a kind of risk to this FO that they are generally not willing to take… it’s just a damn shame that they decided to make that risk on White, instead of channeling that risk into a move to jump up a few spots to try and land Freeman.

Josh Freeman… man, quietly one of the best QBs in the league… love that guy.