My problem is that in essentially getting three guys (all question marks) for one position, we didn't plan or prepare well.
Vernon Carey isn't a question mark. When a tackle (a RIGHT tackle no less, not a left tackle) gets taken #19 overall it tells you a few things. One is that he is not viewed as a "hit or miss" guy. Another is that he probably has a good chance of being able to play relatively soon. Its not like when you are drafting a left tackle. Left tackles are drafted high for their "potential" as often or more often than they are drafted for their ability to play immediately. LT is just that important of a single position (almost as important as QB, maybe more important than RB or WR because there's only one LT...depending on your defensive style, could be more important than most or all defensive positions). So you see a bunch of Kwame Harris's and George Fosters getting drafted in the first round, with teams knowing they probably won't be able to contribute right away (Harris very raw and Foster injured). But when you see a guy drafted high that is slated for right tackle and right tackle only (Andrews, Carey) that usually isn't based as much on potential. With Andrews I think the potential is massive its the work ethic he needs to work on. With Carey he's got the work ethic I think.
A year from now I don't view Carey as a question mark. He's a starter. A pretty good starter at that. And that is what you should expect from a #19 pick right tackle.
As for why did we sign D-Mac and St Clair? Honestly, we didn't expect D-Mac to be injured. Its that simple, it changed our entire offseason when we found out he was injured. We were going to sign him and he was going to replace Todd Wade without much if any drop off in the level of play (maybe better pass protection, not as talented as Todd in the run)...and then we'd use our draft to get a WR. Then his injury showed up and it screwed up our plans. If you look at the timing of the whole thing, it was immediately after we found out about D-Mac's injury, that the whole David Boston thing first started leaking. There was no overlap, so it would not surprise me at all if Rick Spielman and AJ Smith first mentioned the words "David Boston" to each other, in a conversation involving what the Chargers know about D-Mac's injury. Spielman just switched to ok we'll grab a good WR, and draft a RT...that quickly.
Problem was we already signed on the dotted line when we found out about D-Mac's injury. Sure, we COULD have just tossed him completely and said injured we don't want ya, contract is null and void because we put in special language that make it so. Then, D-Mac and his agent would have filed a grievance, taken the Dolphins to a long, drawn out arbitration that would have smattered more egg on our face than we already had for the Marino incident, because we were dumb enough to sign on the dotted line before doing extensive medical tests ourselves, or waiting to hear back from the Raiders, who DID do extensive medical testing.
So our "settlement" was to sign McIntosh to a contract much less costly than the original, with only a $300k signing bonus, and plenty of roster bonuses if he sticks. Since that time, we have virtually acted as if he does not even exist on our roster. Read the writing on the wall. That $300k could end up being virtually a $300k payoff to keep D-Mac's agent quiet. Its not that we would LOSE the arbitration, its the process we wanted to avoid (the same reason big corporations often settle out of court for lower amounts even though they know they could win).
So, if you tossed D-Mac out the window right now, pretended we didn't get him, what do you have? You have us signing a veteran who has played the RT position before, and drafting a rookie at #19 who should be able to play pretty soon. Is that not in line with what you would expect to see? Now if you think about the backup LT position, we also have nobody that could adequately fill in for Wade Smith...so when D-Mac gets back, that will be his job, backing up Smith and probably Carey.
The problem is that many here saw that we signed D-Mac anyway and they assumed it was the same as before we knew he had the injury. Boomer use to do this a lot too, act as if D-Mac was the Dolphins' answer at RT. He's not. Once we found out about the injury we practically disregarded him IMO. And...not for nothing, but if Carey or St Clair go down with a long-term injury, and D-Mac recovers nicely from his injury (both very big IFs) we will be very glad that Spielman had the foresight to spend merely $300k on an insurance policy in case those things happened.
Also, it could break down to one simple thing. Since Spielman joined this team prior to the 2001 season, 2 out of his 3 seasons here, an injury at LT has destroyed this team's ability to pass protect. Thats 2 entire seasons, out of only 3! In 2001 we had Brent Smith go down the first day of training camp. We ended up with Spencer Folau and Marcus Spriggs...and our protection was AWEFUL. In 2003, well, we all know what happened there.
So if Spielman errs on the safe side this offseason, I suppose you'll have to forgive him.
