Item three: Miami is negotiating with one player right now -- Michigan tackle Jake Long. There is a deadline, yes; I don't know what it is. But if Long doesn't agree to a deal -- think of something less than the six-year, $62-million deal ($31 million guaranteed) signed by JaMarcus Russell last year -- Parcells will move to his next guy. My educated guess -- which an NFL front-office acquaintance of Parcells seems sure of -- is that the next candidate will be Gholston, the Ohio State defensive end.
If this were Parcells, acting alone, I think he'd try to break the first-round-rookie salary scale, because he doesn't care if some 22-year-old rich kid holds out and holds press conferences about how a team is ripping him off. But this is different. The Dolphins are so down and out right now, with a new owner, GM and coach -- and a community that can't stomach much more bad news regarding the team. So Parcells, I believe, will take a small victory if he can engineer it, the victory of paying this year's first pick less than the first pick earned last year.
Stat of the Week
History tells us Parcells will take a defensive player with his first draft pick in Miami. Every time Parcells has been the grocery-buyer, that's what he's done with his first-round pick or picks ... with an asterisk.
I'm counting the eight drafts he has either run himself (with the New York Jets) and co-ran (with Jerry Jones in Dallas) over the past decade. Parcells has had a first-round pick in five of those eight drafts, and in each of the five, he's taken a defensive player with the top pick.
"I realize that's my history,'' Parcells said Sunday, "but this is a little different now. This is the first time the economics of the pick are such a big factor.''
