PressCoverage
☠️ Banned ☠️
- Joined
- May 7, 2005
- Messages
- 9,409
- Reaction score
- 15
I respect this magazine very much, and look forward to it every August. They rank 1,183 NFL players, with a few paragraphs describing the strengths and weaknesses of each, including linemen, DBs, everyone. While the writing isn't as good as it used to be, it's still a good source.
That being said, their scouting service does not share the prevalant high estimation of our individual players. They rank all players by position, regardless of left or right. In other words, they rank all tackles together, all guards together, all DEs together, all CBs together. Anyhow, here's the breakdown of our potential starters... And it's not pretty:
QB - Dante Culpepper: 13th (behind Vick, Simms??).
RB - Ronnie Brown: 7th
FB - Fred Beasley: 28th
WR - Chris Chambers: 11th
WR - Marty Booker: 101st (ouch)
TE - Randy McMichael: 8th
(here's where it gets real ugly)
T - LJ Shelton: 50th ("has a history of lackluster play")
G - Jeno James: 27th ("displays only adequate tools; does not finish blocks")
C - Rex Hadnot: 77th (although, this rating is among guards)
G - Bennie Anderson: 82nd
T - Vernon Carey: 60th
(for argument's sake, we'll say 4-3)
DE - Jason Taylor: 5th
DT - Keith Traylor: 90th ("aging and must be rested")
DT - Dan Wilkinson: 66th ("great initial pop; takes too many plays off")
DE - Kevin Carter: 49th ("has lost a step")
OLB - Channing Crowder: 21st
MLB - Zach Thomas: 8th (their choice for "on the decline")
OLB - Donnie Spragan: 51st
CB - Travis Daniels: 31st
CB - Will Allen: 50th ("avoids collisions and misses tackles")
S - Yeremiah Bell: 51st
S - Renaldo Hill: 64th
K - Olindo Mare: 25th
P - Donnie Jones: 40th.
Of their top 200 overall players in the NFL, our highest rated is 53rd (Taylor), and we have a total of 6.
Now, i'm not going to sit here and say they generally don't know what they're talking about. But these ranking are disappointing. While they have seemingly underrated many Dolphin players, they are spot on with many others, especially some aging veterans that we WAY overspent for in free agency. This football team needs to really gel before we should be annointing it a playoff contender. It can not get by on solid coaching alone. An argument can be made that we really only have 6 red or blue chip players.
One the positive side, the mag. does rank Jason Allen the 2nd best rookie safety, Derek Hagan the 4th best rookie WR. Though I still believe we should have taken OG Davin Joseph at 16... Ah well.
Flame away, but try and be objective.
That being said, their scouting service does not share the prevalant high estimation of our individual players. They rank all players by position, regardless of left or right. In other words, they rank all tackles together, all guards together, all DEs together, all CBs together. Anyhow, here's the breakdown of our potential starters... And it's not pretty:
QB - Dante Culpepper: 13th (behind Vick, Simms??).
RB - Ronnie Brown: 7th
FB - Fred Beasley: 28th
WR - Chris Chambers: 11th
WR - Marty Booker: 101st (ouch)
TE - Randy McMichael: 8th
(here's where it gets real ugly)
T - LJ Shelton: 50th ("has a history of lackluster play")
G - Jeno James: 27th ("displays only adequate tools; does not finish blocks")
C - Rex Hadnot: 77th (although, this rating is among guards)
G - Bennie Anderson: 82nd
T - Vernon Carey: 60th
(for argument's sake, we'll say 4-3)
DE - Jason Taylor: 5th
DT - Keith Traylor: 90th ("aging and must be rested")
DT - Dan Wilkinson: 66th ("great initial pop; takes too many plays off")
DE - Kevin Carter: 49th ("has lost a step")
OLB - Channing Crowder: 21st
MLB - Zach Thomas: 8th (their choice for "on the decline")
OLB - Donnie Spragan: 51st
CB - Travis Daniels: 31st
CB - Will Allen: 50th ("avoids collisions and misses tackles")
S - Yeremiah Bell: 51st
S - Renaldo Hill: 64th
K - Olindo Mare: 25th
P - Donnie Jones: 40th.
Of their top 200 overall players in the NFL, our highest rated is 53rd (Taylor), and we have a total of 6.
Now, i'm not going to sit here and say they generally don't know what they're talking about. But these ranking are disappointing. While they have seemingly underrated many Dolphin players, they are spot on with many others, especially some aging veterans that we WAY overspent for in free agency. This football team needs to really gel before we should be annointing it a playoff contender. It can not get by on solid coaching alone. An argument can be made that we really only have 6 red or blue chip players.
One the positive side, the mag. does rank Jason Allen the 2nd best rookie safety, Derek Hagan the 4th best rookie WR. Though I still believe we should have taken OG Davin Joseph at 16... Ah well.
Flame away, but try and be objective.
