I remand the study back to the National Football Post to re-do it and take out the fallacies. It's easier for a draftee to start on a bad team because the bad team does not have good veterans and because to some degree the bad team is willing to go with youth to develop. The Dolphins have started a number of guys since Jeff Ireland began as the GM who picked up starts but really set the franchise back because we blew the opportunity cost to develop a much better player.
In their re-do, National Football Post should create a weighted average factoring in wins, pro bowl appearances by the draftees, and whether the players signed a new contract after the rookie deal expired. If you keep turning around the players you drafted, you are not doing a good job drafting players who fit your program, or you are changing your program haphazardly. In baseball, they use "quality starts" for pitchers (6 + innings, 3 or less earned runs). Something like that could be added if they wanted to do a serious study, not the amateurish drivel they threw out for public consumption.
I am willing to go along with the fact that I think Ireland will do fine this off-season. The Dolphins' big problems are easily solved this offseason, and Ireland has smarter coaches who can identify talent better than the last idiot. But let's not pretend that Miami has been the second best drafting team the past 5 years. That's blatantly false. The Dolphins have largely drafted players who sucked (Merling, Henne, P Turner, P White, Murphy, Egnew, Gates et al) or were not or likely will not be retained past their rookie deals (Langford, Long, Davis, S Smith, Hartline). How many of the draftees the past 5 years have been in the Pro Bowl? Long? How many wins did they account for? How many got a second contract?
In all the real measures for success of draftees, Miami has failed miserably. Now, will it get corrected this offseason? I say yes. It would be darn near impossible not to. Not when there is plenty of talent at the positions Miami needs.
