i agree with u. but you have to look at the situation this regime was faced with. ireland only has previous draft evaluations to go on to show ross what he thought about players and how they were evaluated. parcells was making the picks until this draft. that means he needs something to show that he can execute on draft day, and sparano clearly needed to win this year to stick around. if sparano goes, there is a chance ireland would be out the door as well depending on the demands of a potential head coaching hire.
in otherwords, they needed to find players in this draft that were going to help this team immediately. ronnie brown could not be counted on to help this offense. ricky talked his way out of town. there were 2 lead backs on the market one of them coming off an injury - deangelo williams and ahmed bradshaw. both backs were wanted by the teams they were playing for, and both franchises were willing to pay. ireland, im sure, had information that supported this. meaning, if the dolphins didnt come away with a running back in the draft, there was a very good chance they werent going to have a quality running back this year. they liked this guy thomas, obviously ireland was convicted about him because he went up and got him.
i wanted mallett bad, but u also have to think about the circumstances. it wasnt as simple as taking him and ignoring the RB position. the dolphins reported they tried to move up to take him. personally i wish they would have tried a little harder. perhaps maybe even giving up next years 3rd rounder if needed. but it didnt happen - maybe teams were just asking for too much. its hard to say. but given the circumstances its just not as cut and dry as we needed a QB before RB given the position these guys are in. now if it was the first year of a new regime and they like mallett - it wouldnt be the same.