JJ, O-Line, and Making Lemonade | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

JJ, O-Line, and Making Lemonade

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FinFan57

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To fully understand the trade that went down yesterday, we should back up a few years to the infamous Jimmy Johnson years. Jimmy was a great proponent of drafting O-linemen in the late rounds and coaching them up. He simply didn't believe in spending first day picks on the big butts. It worked for him in Dallas, but he had a coach by the name of Hudson Houck there who did a pretty decent job with the guys he inherited.

Jimmy did an excellent job of rebuilding our porous defense, which helped us stay competitive for many years, but he never invested in the O-line, which ultimately fell apart. Dave Wannstedt, Jimmy's lover and protege, followed the same pattern, save Todd Wade, who was lost later in free agency, which brings us to the here and now.

Our horrid offensive line has been a QB killer. Fiedler took a beating, AJ was absolutely molested last year, and Gus sure took some shots Sunday. That's just the pass blocking. What about run blocking? Hasn't been there in years. Jamie Nails came off the scrap heap a couple of years ago to give us one decent year of run blocking, but that's about it.

We can go back even further and put the Don on the hot seat. His claim to fame was drafting Billy Milner and Andrew Greene (1st and 2nd round busts in the same year). If only Shula had stuck to coaching and brought in a real GM.

The point is that offense always starts with the O-line. Unless an exceptional talent like Marino comes along, we will be marching many more QB's in and out of Dolphins Stadium with the same results, due to a weak O-line.

I think Saban went after Lemon to bring in a QB that can scramble and has a strong arm - good tools to have behind a suspect line. I guess he had a pretty decent camp this year and may have an upside. I'm not thrilled about giving up a 6th round pick, but when you have statues on your team like Gus and Sage and a porous O-line, an athletic QB offers some hope and another button to push.

Will Lemon become lemonade for us? Only time will tell. The obvious move here was to dump AJ. Mueller has been right many times on QB's. Let's hope we're toasting this decision soon, the sour taste (from lemons) has been in our collective mouths for much too long.
 
FinFan57 said:
To fully understand the trade that went down yesterday, we should back up a few years to the infamous Jimmy Johnson years. Jimmy was a great proponent of drafting O-linemen in the late rounds and coaching them up. He simply didn't believe in spending first day picks on the big butts. It worked for him in Dallas, but he had a coach by the name of Hudson Houck there who did a pretty decent job with the guys he inherited.

Jimmy did an excellent job of rebuilding our porous defense, which helped us stay competitive for many years, but he never invested in the O-line, which ultimately fell apart. Dave Wannstedt, Jimmy's lover and protege, followed the same pattern, save Todd Wade, who was lost later in free agency, which brings us to the here and now.

Our horrid offensive line has been a QB killer. Fiedler took a beating, AJ was absolutely molested last year, and Gus sure took some shots Sunday. That's just the pass blocking. What about run blocking? Hasn't been there in years. Jamie Nails came off the scrap heap a couple of years ago to give us one decent year of run blocking, but that's about it.

We can go back even further and put the Don on the hot seat. His claim to fame was drafting Billy Milner and Andrew Greene (1st and 2nd round busts in the same year). If only Shula had stuck to coaching and brought in a real GM.

The point is that offense always starts with the O-line. Unless an exceptional talent like Marino comes along, we will be marching many more QB's in and out of Dolphins Stadium with the same results, due to a weak O-line.

I think Saban went after Lemon to bring in a QB that can scramble and has a strong arm - good tools to have behind a suspect line. I guess he had a pretty decent camp this year and may have an upside. I'm not thrilled about giving up a 6th round pick, but when you have statues on your team like Gus and Sage and a porous O-line, an athletic QB offers some hope and another button to push.

Will Lemon become lemonade for us? Only time will tell. The obvious move here was to dump AJ. Mueller has been right many times on QB's. Let's hope we're toasting this decision soon, the sour taste (from lemons) has been in our collective mouths for much too long.
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They are just dumping AJ while they can. But if you think SABAN is planning on using this Lemon by choice....OK then.
 
I totally agree about the line woes, but I think Lemon was brought in because he fits the system better, is younger, and has a bigger upside than Feeley. I think it was all about having a QB on the roster we could REALLY develop rather than one who is on his way down and will probably just be a backup for the rest of his career.

I think Mueller and Saban are big believers that the 3rd (and sometimes 4th) QBs on the roster should be young guys who have a big upside and can be developed over time. Remember that Mueller once had Aaron Brooks, Jake Delhomme, Jeff Blake, and Marc Bulger on the same roster. I don't think it sat too well with them that Feeley was our 3rd-stringer.
 
I think we see something in Cleo Lemon we traded Feeley as well as a 6th rounder for him, part of this is to get more cap room but if that was the only reason then don't you think we would of traded Feeley for a draft choice and picked up Berlin to fill the last QB spot? I think that Saban and Mueller see good things out of Lemon, he is almost sure to have a shot at starting if Frerotte either gets injured or continues his bad play. I think they see something good out of Lemon
 
The only good thing is that Muller is usually good and finding QB's so who knows. Muller obviously knew AJ wouldn't be back next year so he took a late round stab at a potential guy, maybe never a starter but Lemon could possibly become the dolphins #2 QB, which then is a good trade then because usually only 10% of 6th and 7th round picks stay with the team anyways.
 
Jimmy did an excellent job of rebuilding our porous defense, which helped us stay competitive for many years, but he never invested in the O-line, which ultimately fell apart. Dave Wannstedt, Jimmy's lover and protege, followed the same pattern, save Todd Wade, who was lost later in free agency, which brings us to the here and now.

I am so sick of the ignorant, biased statement that Miami doesn't invest enough high picks on their O-line. You'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb to think that way. Look at the evidence. Spiestadt put their money (both in the draft and in free agency) on the line, they just had no clue what they were doing.

Look at the fallacy of your statement:
Vernon Carey- gave up 1st and 4th for him
Wade Smith-2nd and 3rd
Seth McKinney-3rd
Taylor Whitely-3rd

That's 6, SIX!!!!!! high picks devoted to 4 average or out of the league players. That's enough for a half decent GM to build the foundation for a solid line.

The point is we had a horrible combo of Ricky, Davey and Tony Wise drafting and developing guys who are too soft or untalented. Its going to take some time to fix that and the reality that linemen need to play together for awhile to gel. Its going to take another year, at least, to get this line fixed.

Please stop the nonsense that we need to use a lot of high picks to fix the mess. It doesn't work that way.
 
Little excited are we? Dave and the boys didn't start wasting draft picks until they hit the panic mode and that's why we traded away picks and ended up with nothing. I am hopeful that Houck and Saban will turn this thing around, but in the meantime having a QB that can outrun defenders and throw the ball 70 years is an interesting proposition.

Yes, of course, this trade was about dumping AJ's huge salary and eliminating 1 of the many mistakes from the WannSpiel era, but with AJ, we had 3 statues as QB's - not good when your line currently sucks.
 
i thought lemon ran a 4.9 in the 40 at the combine, thats no faster than me
 
FinFan57 said:
Little excited are we? Dave and the boys didn't start wasting draft picks until they hit the panic mode and that's why we traded away picks and ended up with nothing. I am hopeful that Houck and Saban will turn this thing around, but in the meantime having a QB that can outrun defenders and throw the ball 70 years is an interesting proposition.

Not excited, but tired of poor analysis by fans who state over and over that we aren't committing enough high picks to the O-line. Enough already. If you are going to spend this much time on your team you should at least know how it was built.

Then, when the evidence is thrown at them they change the subject.

For the record, Wanny and Co wasted draft picks from the very beginning. Starting with Ben Kelly ending with 5 years of bad drafts.
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Turnaround 06 said:
FinFan57 said:
Little excited are we? Dave and the boys didn't start wasting draft picks until they hit the panic mode and that's why we traded away picks and ended up with nothing. I am hopeful that Houck and Saban will turn this thing around, but in the meantime having a QB that can outrun defenders and throw the ball 70 years is an interesting proposition.

Not excited, but tired of poor analysis by fans who state over and over that we aren't committing enough high picks to the O-line. Enough already. If you are going to spend this much time on your team you should at least know how it was built.

Then, when the evidence is thrown at them they change the subject.

For the record, Wanny and Co wasted draft picks from the very beginning. Starting with Ben Kelly ending with 5 years of bad drafts.
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I don't think the problem was when they started to waste picks, but the outright flawed philosophy of not drafting O lineman in the first two rounds of any draft. This was one of jj's draft credos that stuck with wanny the parrot resulting in our current state O line-wise. Save of course V. Carey and last years draft debacle.
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I don't think the problem was when they started to waste picks, but the outright flawed philosophy of not drafting O lineman in the first two rounds of any draft. This was one of jj's draft credos that stuck with wanny the parrot resulting in our current state O line-wise. Save of course V. Carey and last years draft debacle.

Again, I think the problem wasn't when the O-linemen were drafted but who drafted them. Then there is the added ingredient of actually developing these players which we have failed miserably at. Look at NE and GB's track record drafting and developing their o-lines.

Wannstedt was an O-lineman but couldn't make a good one in the modern era of the NFL to save himself. Spielman was a glorified scout who screwed up every personnel move he ever made.

As I highlighted we spent the equivalent of 6 first day picks on OL in the Spielstadt error and it appears, given Todd Wade's play lately, that the two geniuses didn't hit on a single good lineman, much less a dominant one.

You shouldn't have to spend the number of first day picks we have lately on OL. It hurts the rest of the team which also need a lot of work.
 
Turnaround 06 - The name says it all. Have you given up on "05 already? FIrst of all, I'm quite sure I was watching the Dolphins when you were sucking on a bottle, so don't lecture me waterboy.

My post was hardly about spending high draft picks on O-linemen. It was a statement that whatever we have done, I went back to the days of Shula and JJ, by the way, I said the Don spent a #1 and #2 on busts, we have failed miserably at building an o-line and until we get that fixed whatever QB we bring in is going to have a hard time. That goes for RB's to. The skills players need a line to make things happen. I will take a great line and mediocre skill players over great skill players and a lousy O-line anyday.

I am as hopeful as anyone that Houck and the boys will turn this team around, but my point is that our O-line, in the past, has chewed up QB's and never given anybody much of a chance. Why was Ray Lucas all-world with the Jets and all-toilet with us? Why did AJ have at least marginal success with the Eagles and then crashed with us?That was the point of this thread. I'm not sure how you arrived at your conclusions.
 
FinFan57 said:
Turnaround 06 - The name says it all. Have you given up on "05 already? FIrst of all, I'm quite sure I was watching the Dolphins when you were sucking on a bottle, so don't lecture me waterboy.

Calm down, junior. Make an false statement, you get called on it. Deal with it.
Don't get all pissy. My comments weren't geared totally towards you but towards the "we must draft O-line with our 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounders every year" crowd
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No problem Junior. If you felt that way, you should have said just that....its the other posters who are making outrageous statements.
 
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