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October 29, 2007 Well, this was probably the least humiliating loss so far. It was almost therapeutic to know there are so many Dolphin fans thousands of miles away, on a different continent, suffering just like us. Given the fact that we started Cameron Worrell and Jason Allen at safeties, this wasn’t the kind of bloodbath it could have been. The O-line continues to improve, Jesse Chatman filled in well for Ronnie Brown, Ted Ginn got a TD, but there was still some classic stupid. Snapping the ball to Marty Booker on 3rd and 1 as part of a trick play that became a lost fumble probably wasn’t the smartest move. Jason Allen showed some signs of progress including 5 tackles and a forced fumble, but he also showed flashes of vintage Jason Allen with a silly 15 yard late hit penalty. Jay Feely missed an early 48 yard field goal and choked on the onside kick at the end, but a lot of that could be attributed to the conditions. The biggest problem for the Dolphins continues to be an inability to stop the run. Brandon Jacobs had a career day, making the best of the conditions to rack up 131 yards (5.7 YPC). Even more disturbing, Eli Manning got his Michael Vick on with two huge scrambles, one for a 10 yard TD and another for 18 yards outrunning Jason Taylor on one. Joey Porter has gone from being ineffective to irrelevant racking up only 2 tackles during the entire, run-heavy game.
Cleo’s play in this game reminded me a lot of the 10-13 Christmas game against the Jets last year, doing his best to throw in rainy conditions. He threw some great passes and had some smart runs, but he also lost a fumble and overall, he is what we thought he was; a competent backup. Several of you have emailed me about the need to start John Beck. The word around the Dolphins as early as a month ago has been that they would start him against Buffalo after the bye week. Putting him in sooner would have been nice, but we got so see what Lemon can do. Now that we know, it’s time to see if he is the future or if we need to start scouting QB’s for the draft. While we’re at it, I’d also like to know if Lorenzo Booker can play or not. I want to know exactly what we have, because after this season, we’re going to have to retool everything starting from scratch, and to do that we need to do one very important thing.
Stop Pretending Like Character Matters
Notice I said pretending. As long as we are paying $20,000,000 to a guy who led a cowardly gang beating on someone in the middle of a Vegas casino, any talk of character and integrity on this team is hypocrisy. Yet aside from Porter, everyone else with any legal troubles has been dumped. We gave DT Fred Evans the boot just because he bit a Miami Police officer (Who among us hasn’t been there?). We’ve given Ricky Williams the cold shoulder just because he likes the Cartoon Network more than we would like (If you don’t like hacky sack, maybe there’s something wrong with YOU!). In addition, we traded Chris Chambers after a DUI and Randy McMichael because his wife doesn’t listen. The NFL and the world have changed. We now live in a society where you are allowed to put your dog to sleep but you’re not allowed to let that dog know what it feels like to be a champion, yet the facts remain the same. 
What do O.J Simpson, Lawrence Taylor and Michael Irvin have in common? They were all first ballot Hall of Famers. The Dallas Cowboys dynasty of the mid-90s was practically a work release program. If we can have a talented team made up with players with strong morals and integrity like Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor, awesome. But if I had to choose between our team being a winless group of guys with “Great Families” or an undefeated team of moral degenerates and HGH users led by an evil coach so morally bankrupt he cheats and steals, I’d take the latter. I’m tired of this illusion that football players have to be good role models. Even if that were true, what does a nice guy like John Beck teach kids? It teaches them if you follow the rules and do the right things, you will sit the bench on a winless team while other guys who run around making illegitimate babies while playing for coaches who cheat get to bang Gisselle Bundchen while being universally adored by everyone(Purely hypothetical).
Our top area of need is defense, particularly people who can chase and tackle people. If anything, I think we should recruit directly from prisons. We only get a few draft picks and prisons are an untapped well of talent, full of guys who can chase people down and prevent big runs and kickoff returns for touchdowns. Obviously we'd have to remove those Plasmas from the lockerroom, but change is never easy. After we start winning some games, we can start weeding out the crazier players on the team (Sorry Mad Dog) but at least we'd have a winning foundation and we wouldn't have to hear more positive thinking speeches from Cam Cameron about how even though we're losing, we're learning and growing. College is a place for learning. The NFL is a place for winning.
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