The redskins-based criticism of Gardner is not fair. Under that same criteria, Laveraneous Coles is a piece of crap too. But we've personally seen what Coles can do against our vaunted secondary.
Gardner was a high first round pick for a reason. Derrius was practically undrafted for a reason. And whoever said that Derrius outproduced Gardner, thats an outright lie. The year Derrius broke out, he had way fewer yards than Gardner's 1006 yards 8 TDs. In Gardner's rookie season, under Marty Schottenheimer mind you, he caught for almost as many yards as our uber-rookie Chambers. In fact, Gardner had a game where he caught for over 200 yards. He has his problems, but he should NOT be compared to Derrius Thompson. I get excited thinking of what Jerry Sullivan could do for Rod Gardner.
And maybe I'm mistaken, but 5'10 222 lbs for a runningback seems almost perfect to me. I'm not sure I necessarily want a guy that weighs closer to 250 lbs anymore, and tall runningbacks don't often succeed (Eddie George the exception). Heck Ricky played closer to 230. If Betts is 220 or 225 I don't see that as bad.
The Skins do have Rock Cartwright sitting behind Betts. He's listed as a fullback, but thats because they want to get him on the field...last year he ran for over 400 yards in limited action, with 4 touchdowns. The skins also do like Chad Morton's ability to be a 3rd down type back. If they really wanted a RB to replace Betts, I'm sure we could pawn Sammy Morris off on them. Snyder tends to think like that too. If there's any owner out there in the league that would do player for player trades way more readily than everyone else, its Snyder.
BTW, we don't know WHAT is going on with the McCardell situation. He's not just going to magically appear on the Dolphins' roster. If he became a FA you can bet we would bid him...but right now I think the coaches are looking for a deep threat.
And Gardner doesn't have to have 4.3 speed to be a deep threat (he has 4.4 speed though). Gadsden was a deep threat because he could fake, jump, and had unbelievable hands. The coaches squandered that on short routes and turned him into a fulltime starter short possession guy. Gardner has the ability to make plays down the field.