Draftacular 2008

 

We did it! We played poorly enough last year to earn the #1 Draft Pick. We're #1! We're #1! Before we start celebrating too hard, we need to think really hard about this pick, because this draft, for better or worse will go a long way toward determining our fate for the years to come. There are several reasons our team is not great at the moment, but mismanagement of the draft is easily at the top of that list. In my neverending quest to help save the Dolphins, I'll give you a look at our last 5 drafts, a look at this year's top draft prospects and a look to the past for some advice from our last three coaches on what they'd do with the pick. I hope you like tables, because this post is full of them.

The draft has not been kind to the Dolphins for the past decade. If the season were to start tomorrow, less than half of our starters would be people we drafted. Here’s a look back at the last 5 drafts.

The Past 5 Drafts

	1st Rd Pick	Pro Bowlers They Could Have Drafted	Dumb Moves	Decent Moves
2002	Ricky Williams	Lito Shepard Michael Lewis	Traded two 1st Round Picks for Ricky Williams, not a brilliant Move.	Got Randy McMichael in the 4th Rd
2003	Ricky Williams	Asante Samual Larry Johnson	See 2002 for Ricky. Eddie Moore in the 2nd Rd didn't pan out.	Got Yeremiah Bell in the 6th Rd
2004	Vernon Carey	Bob Sanders Jared Allen	Giving a 4th Rd pick to move up a spot for Carey, who most saw as a 2nd Rd pick	Got Rex Hadnot in 6th Rd
2005	Ronnie Brown	Demarcus Ware Braylon Edwards	Traded 2nd Rd Pick for AJ Feely	Ronnie Brown and Channing Crowder in the  4th Round
2006	Jason Allen	Antonio Cromartie Marcus McNeil	Jason Allen Trading 2nd Rd pick for Culpepper	Derek Hagan in the 3rd. If he ever learns to hold onto the ball it will be a great pick.
2007	Ted Ginn	Patrick Willis	Too early to know for sure, but Ted Ginn at #9 was interesting.	Samson Satele in 2nd Rd

Luckily, this year we have the Tuna in our war room this year. It seems pretty clear no one wants to trade for the top pick so here’s a look at who we have to choose from.

2008 Draft Prospects

Prospect	Why He'll Save The Dolphins	Why He Won't
Chris Long DE/OLB Virginia	May follow father Howie’s footsteps and be a Hall of Famer.	May follow father’s footsteps and star in a shitty movie like Firestorm.
Jake Long OT Michigan	Huge guy, good combine. We haven’t had a Pro Bowl Left Tackle since the Macarena was the #1 song. (1996)	$30 million is a lot to guarantee to a guy a lot of people think may be a Right Tackle.
Matt Ryan QB Boston Collge	Could possibly be a franchise QB	Could just be overrated like every other Boston athlete since they had their overrated Tea Party
Vernon Gholston DE/OLB Ohio State	Combine freak, showed he is an elite athlete. He completed the 40 before the gun finished going off, then bench pressed a bus 37 times.	It would be a conversion project to get him to switch to outside linebacker.
Darren McFadden RB Arkansas	Great combine, great college career. Widely believed to be the #1 talent in this draft.	We have a ton of running backs. Also, last time we gave a 1st round pick for a RB with character concerns and a ton of illegitimate babies, he ran off to India to teach yoga.
Glenn Dorsey DT LSU	Dominating defender. Can play hurt	More suited for a 4-3. Has a bum knee.

If the Tuna needs some help deciding what to do with the pick, Here’s some advice from our last 3 coaches.

Former Dolphin Coach	What He'd Do	Why He'd Do it
Dave Wannestedt	I would trade this year and next year's #1 picks for Travis Henry.	How could that go wrong?
Nick Saban	I would lie and say I'm not going to draft anyone, then I would draft Darren McFadden.	I would draft him because I am physically unable to draft anyone who didn’t play in the SEC and I would lie because I'm a piece of shit.
Cam Cameron	I would draft FSU Long Snapper, Garrison Sanborn.	I know his family and they are good people.