I'm with you on this one, MadDawg. Culpepper is the man. We need to jettison Joey (I like his attitude, but he's too costly as a backup -- cutting him clears about $2 million in cap room). Cleo shouldn't be costly as a backup, especially as a restricted free agent, but unless he shows real flashes of greatness this week I wouldn't break the bank on his tender, rather get a journeyman veteran who can be a caretaker if Pep goes down. Then, hope that Mueller can find some raw QB talent in the later rounds of the draft to develop. Doesn't cost much, so if it doesn't pan out and we find ourselves in this situation in the future, we can then take the high-round QB. I understand everyone wanting to recapture that Marino lighting-in-a-bottle draft, but this is not the year to take a QB in the first round with anything less than a top-5 pick. There will be deeper first-round QB drafts -- hopefully 5 years from now, after Pep has captained the Dolphins back to greatness and we're looking for a young gun to groom as his replacement. Let's all hope that we don't need to invest a high draft pick in a QB before then, because that would mean Pep failed and we're looking at a continuation of the current playoff draught (and frittering away the Taylor/Thomas years just like we did the Marino years on the other side of the ball). Culpepper is not just our best hope at this point -- he's really our only hope for a speedy turnaround.
All that said, I must admit that I was one of the voices calling for Brees over Culpepper. Not that I think Pep is a bust, I simply thought Pep's best game depended on his big arm and ability to go vertical. This was contingent during Daunte's Minnesota tenure on a few things:
(1) Pep's mobility (which it didn't take a genius to doubt after such a HUGE knee injury);
(2) Minnesota's great offensive line (bad enough Pep would be less mobile, but a sitting duck between lack of mobility and our line, which we knew was spotty last year and did next to nothing to improve in the offseason);
(3) Wide receiver separation -- Daunte has a huge arm, throws a pretty ball, but isn't laser precise. He relied on Moss' speed and vertical leap, as well as the Vikings team speed at receiver to get separation. But, more importantly, he relied on the separation provided by playing most of his games on turf. It is no coincidence that some of the biggest single seasons posted by QBs not named Marino came on turf -- Warner, Culpepper, Manning -- ever notice how often Marvin Harrison or Reggie Wayne just look wide open in home games? They are good, don't get me wrong, but turf favors receivers and allows for greater separation.
All of these factors combined allowed Viking Daunte to take long drops, scan downfield, allow plays to develop (both because of good protection and mobility), and then hit big plays downfield without high risk of interception because of the separation (in Culpepper's MVP-caliber 2004 year, his biggest strength was great TD to INT ratio -- 39 TDs to 11 INTs).
Now, we knew going into the Pep decision (and the Dolphins staff should have known -- they are professionals, after all) that none of the key three factors outlined above would be present in Miami. Namely, we knew DC's mobility would be diminished; we knew our protection was flawed; and we knew our receivers wouldn't get that kind of separation (during Chambers pro-bowl year, he was great at snatching balls away from and over DBs but rarely got real separation -- which makes me wonder what happened to his hands this year, why the drops when great hands is what made him an all-pro in '05?). But then somehow we were surprised at Pep's sacks this year. The coaching staff and the pundits said he was holding the ball too long. Well, no longer than he did at Minny -- but at Minny, he was used to holding the ball behind good blocking, and buying extra time with his wheels. Stands to reason it would take him a while to get used to getting rid of the ball more quickly, and developing pocket presence rather than relying so much on mobility. All of this would take time to develop -- but he was thrust into the fire too soon, and lets hope all of those sacks didn't damage his psyche as much as it set back his physical timetable.
Brees would have been more likely to work out in our system -- at San Diego he didn't have a great WR corps and was used to working the short game to tight ends and backs, he played in similar conditions, he was always a guy with a level-head, pocket presence and good release. I know the medical concern was his shoulder and that he doesn't physically amaze folks like Daunte, but in a way his physical limitations (and the fact that he uses the dink-and-dunk precision short game to set up the long ball, whereas Daunte does the opposite) would have made him a better fit for the Dolphins. However, I don't know what was said medically behind closed doors, and can't blame the staff for deferring to doctors. All I can say is that on paper (even throwing out 20-20 hindsight after Brees' MVP-like year with the Saints), it seems pretty obvious that Brees was a better fit and more likely to produce wins, if not huge stats, than Culpepper.
That's behind us now. But we can learn from our mistakes. Culpepper has the mind and the vision to become the kind of field general that will work in our program, he just needs a good offensive coordinator and quarterback coach to help him make that transition. It will take some work on his timing, improvement in protection (which is why OL should be a priority in the draft, not QB), hopefully some improvement in his mobility with more time to heal, and a creative, inventive playcalling scheme that will help create some of the separation from which Daunte benefited on turf (see, e.g., the Patriots scheme from '01 through '05 and the Jets scheme this year that has allowed weak-armed Pennington to perform serviceably thanks to separation). Here is what we SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT DO: repeat our past mistakes by going after a strong-armed raw physical QB talent in the first or second round, just to stick him behind below-average protection with an average (or at least underachieving at best) receiving corps and average running game. Let's face it folks -- Phil Rivers or Jay Cutler wouldn't look very good here, without the kind of great protection and running game that the Chargers and Broncos give them respectively. You can't just plug in big talent and expect it to work -- you need to either (1) pick talent that already fits your program, (2) groom your talent to fit your program, or (3) make your program fit the talent. We don't have time for #3, to build around a first-round wunderkind talent (or even build something that would best serve Daunte's huge talent) -- our defense needs the offense to perform now. We missed out on our best chance for #1, by picking talent that would fit what we had in place (Brees was near perfect -- nothing out there in free agency for '07 quite fits, with Garcia being maybe best option but requiring major overhaul of our offense, and with a draft pick taking too long to develop). That leaves us with #2 -- grooming our talented QB, Daunte, to fit the personnel strengths and weaknesses we already have in place, and trying to improve on the OL and receiving corps as much as possible through the draft and sensible, forward-thinking free-agency moves. One of the great things about this option is that it would allow us to "fix" the offense with the least possible moves -- a total of 3-4 draft picks/free agent moves on offense (2 strong OL, one receiver, and either resign Barnes or bring in another FB). Then we could still invest in keeping our aging defensive front strong, and hope to find the cover corner we need. By working with Daunte rather than going after a young gun QB in the draft, we can focus on both sides of the ball in the draft rather than using everything on offense.
We need to throw our support behind Daunte Culpepper, Dolphins fans, and hope that he turns it around next year -- the alternative is a minimum of 2-5 more years of playoff draught. Forget the worries about Saban going to 'Bama -- we could survive another wholesale coaching change better than we could survive the failure of Project Daunte.
