What If?

Back in the early 1980's the Miami Dolphins suffered a series of incomprehensible tragedies.  Bewildering, staggering tragedies. I'm not talking about the brutal playoff losses, I'm talking about actual tragedy.  Death.  Three deaths in fact.  All to young players in the prime of their lives.   Rusty Chambers.  Larry Gordon.  David Overstreet.  All gone within four years of each other.  All leaving families and teammates behind to ask why.  Past Interference doesn't believe in curses but that is some seriously bad luck.  Think about some more recent deaths of active NFL players: Cory Stringer, Chris Henry, Gaines Adams.  Everyone was kind of shocked right?.  Now imagine all those guys played for the very same team.  You'd have to think a black cloud was hanging over that team wouldn't you?   Well that was the 1981-1984 Miami Dolphins. 
 
Over a quarter century has now passed since Chambers, Gordon and Overstreet were laid to rest but PI was reminded of their unfortunate fates by loyal reader sptfrn who proposed in a comment that Past Interference begin a series of "What If" posts starting with the question: "What if Rusty Chambers, Larry Gordon, and David Overstreet didn't die?". 

That is one great idea. At the risk of exposing my true nerd self, Past Interference read a ton of comics books as a kid and believe it or not one of the comics we really, really loved was Marvel's "What If?".  Take it away Wikipedia: 
 

What If stories usually began with Uatu [the Watcher] briefly recapping a notable event in the mainstream Marvel Universe, then indicating a particular point of divergence in that event. He would then demonstrate, by way of looking into a parallel reality, what could have happened if events had taken a different course from that point.

 



 
My own personal favorite issue was #3, "What If The Avengers Had Never Been?".  Over 30 years later I still remember the answer to that question.  (Spoiler alert).  The original Avengers fall apart and the Hulk leaves to team up with the Sub-Mariner and fight for evil. So Tony Stark creates some bad-ass Iron Man armor for Giant Man, the Wasp and the Hulk's sidekick Rick Jones and creates a new Avengers. But while this new team is pounding the snot out of the Hulk, Stark's own suit runs out of power and his bad heart kills him.  Good times.  Bonus: fantastic art by the late Gil Kane.
 
Hold on another minute. I can't let go of this comic book tangent yet. I'm on a roll. Responding to what's essentially reader mail is taking me back to all the old letter columns I read in the back of my old comic books back in the day.  They're passe now thanks to the internet but once upon a time reader letters were the only feedback comic companies ever got and it was the only way for fans to connect with other fans.  Naturally DC Comics had super boring titles for their "lettercols" like "Metropolis Mailbag" and "Letters to the Batcave". Lame. But Stan "The Man" Lee, the original hipster doofus, went all out and pushed the limits with hilariously stupid titles like "Sock It To Shellhead", "Let's Level With Daredevil", and my personal favorite, "Let's Rap With Cap".  And that was well before anybody invented Rap! Word.
 
Ok, back to today's "What If" topic from reader sprtfn.





On July 1, 1981, Rusty Chambers died in a car accident in Louisiana and the Dolphins lost the man who had started at left inside linebacker for them for the past three seasons. So what would have happened if Chambers survived to continue playing for the Dolphins in 1981? Did his loss hurt the team? Well, you can't tell from the standings or the statistics. The Dolphins improved from 8-8 to 11-4-1 and the defense went from 9th in points allowed to 5th while staying essentially the same in yards allowed. Miami replaced Chambers in 1981 with backup linebacker Ernest Rhone. Now Rhone may have been a dropoff from Chambers, I don't know enough to say, but he was good enough to continue to start for Miami for another three seasons and it must be noted that Chambers never made a Pro Bowl in his three seasons as a starter. But let's assume there was a bit of a dropoff in talent. Would Chambers have made a difference in the Dolphins' ultimate fate?   That ultimate fate proved to be a 41-38 overtime loss to the San Diego Chargers in the divisional playoffs. If you're old enough to remember that game you've never forgotten it. Could Chambers have altered the outcome? In a game that close, with so many twists and turns, so many critical plays and mistakes, you could probably point to almost any player and say he did something to make the difference. He could have made the difference but we have no reason to assume he would have made the difference. But let's say he would have made a key play or avoided a mistake made by his replacement, then what? Well, Miami would have advanced to the AFC Championship Game. And then they would have lost. I'm as sure of this as I am of anything. How do I know? Well, winning a road playoff game against a superior team with the better quarterback is tough enough. Now how about doing it minus-9 degree weather with a wind chill of minus-59? Yeah, no team from Miami is winning that game. Especially not one completely wiped out from an overtime game played one week before in the heat and humidity of South Florida. With or without Chambers then, the Miami Dolphins would never have made it to the Super Bowl in '81.

In 1982, without Chambers, the team did make it to the Super Bowl where they blew a halftime lead, collapsed in the second half and lost to the Washington Redskins. Would Chambers have made a difference? I don't think so. Miami fielded one of their best defenses ever that year. Second in scoring; first in yards allowed. They gave up 276 yards rushing in Super Bowl XVII and let Riggins pound them in the second half, but you can't put that on the defense. I don't want to rehash the whole David Woodley thing again (like I did here). Suffice it to say Woodley couldn't complete any passes, the offense couldn't move the ball or stay on the field, and Miami's tiring defense plumb wore out in the second half (I always wanted to say that). Rusty Chambers couldn't have done anything about that. Dolphins still lose.



Just five months later, on June 25, 1983, Dolphins Linebacker Larry Gordon went out for a jog in the Arizona desert and never came back. He collapsed and died from heart disease. Something called idiopathic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (though some later spoke of cocaine use by Gordon). How would the loss of two linebackers in two years affect the defending conference champions? Seemingly not at all. Miami finished first in scoring defense, added somebody named Marino to the offense, and won 12 games and a division title. The reconsituted linebacking corps was a mixed bag. A.J. Duhe and Bob Brudzinski constitued a really good left side but Rhone and Charles Bowser left a little to be desired on the right. Still, the Dolphins were heavy favorites to beat Seattle in a home divisional playoff game. But they lost 27-20. A huge upset. Would Gordon and Chambers have made a difference?

That's a tough one. If you look at the stats you'd have to say it was an evenly played football game. Only one number really jumps out at you: five. That's the number of Miami turnovers. Seattle had one. If Miami could have just held onto the ball they probably would have won. Again, the problem was on offense (and special teams), not the defense. Of course, as in the San Diego OT game, any play can be the difference in a close game. Maybe Gordon or Chambers could have made that one sack or forced that one fumble the Dolphins needed to turn the game. It's just too hypothetical to speculate on and PI needs to note here that, like Chambers, Gordon never made an All-Pro team and never made a Pro Bowl. However, I'd say that Gordon, a 100 tackle a year guy and a very good player, would no doubt have been a linebacking upgrade from Rhone or Bowser. So let's be generous and assume Gordon's presence lifts the defense enough for Miami to eke out a win and avoid the upset. What happens then? Nothing good I'm afraid. Miami would have advanced to the AFC title game and travelled to L.A. to face the hated Raiders. The Raiders owned the Dolphins back then and beat them like a drum 27-14 in week 3 of the '83 season (it was 27-0 in the 4th quarter). Of course Marino didn't start that game. He was still a rookie though and the Raiders just blew everybody away in the postseason that year including the defending champion Skins in the Super Bowl. Miami never would have got past them that year even with Gordon and Chambers.



Six months later, June 24, 1984, David Oversteet fell asleep behind the wheel of his car and died when he crashed into some gas tanks that exploded on impact just 15 miles from his home. Yet despite this unbelievable third death in four years, the team's run of success continued on. Dan Marino broke every meaningful single-season passing record and the 14-2 Miami Dolphins steamrolled the AFC on the way to Super Bowl XIX and their much-anticipated matchup with Joe Montana's 15-1 49ers. I wrote about that much-anticipated, hugely disappointing game at length here. Short version: With no running game or pass rush Miami had no chance against a more talented better-coached team, Marino or no Marino! But "What If" the Dolphins had entered the game with Chambers, Gordon, and Overstreet? Well, we move into some very interesting speculative territory here. If you ask me, and why shouldn't you, the absolute number one reason for Miami's failure in Super Bowl XIX was horrible play at the linebacker and running back positions. And Chambers, Gordon, and Overstreet played what positions? Linebacker, linebacker and running back. Would those guys have made a difference?

In the case of Gordon and Chambers we've got a problem. Had they lived, each man would have turned 31 prior to Super Bowl XIX. Again, neither man was ever selected for the Pro Bowl and it's usually the great ones who play well into their 30's. Even A.J. Duhe, a better linebacker than either, was done by 31. Of course even at an advanced football age Gordon might have still been better than what Miami had. I mean Jay Brophy actually started for them in Super Bowl XIX! That's trouble. Perhaps Gordon was a Pro Bowl quality linebacker (he made Miami's 25th anniversary team) overlooked by the selectors. So let's say he plays and and gives Miami a bit of a boost at linebacker. I don't see how it would have made much of a difference. Outside of Lawrence Taylor or Dick Butkus in their prime I don't see how any one linebacker makes the kind of difference the Dolphins would have needed. Joe Montana and the San Francisco offense were simply unstoppable that night. As for Overstreet, I wish we had more to go on. A first round pick he bolted for Canadian dollars in '81. Returned to the NFL in '83. Averaged 4.6 yards on 85 attempts. And died. How good would he have been with a full workload? We saw tantalizing glimpses but who really knows? We can say he almost certainly would have been better, probably much better than Woody Bennett, who was a fullback after all. With Overstreet in the backfield Shula might have been more likely to use the ground game once the Niners countered with 6 defensive backs to stop Marino and the Marks Brothers. But would Overstreet have equalled victory? That's too much of a stretch. Nobody ever seems to put the 1984 49ers in the greatest team of all time discussions but they have to be there. They just have to. Maybe the greatest QB and coach of the modern era. Strength at every single offensive and defensive unit. Great O-line and secondary. That team was loaded. They lost only one game all year, and that by a late field goal. Adding Overstreet and a past-their-prime Chambers and Gordon couldn't have altered what happened. Miami would still get their butts kicked.

1985? Maybe, just maybe, history would have turned in the Dolphins' favor. We can dispense with speculating about Chambers and Gordon at this point and concentrate on David Overstreet. Without him Miami won another division title and hosted their second straight AFC Championship Game. Their opponent? The New England Patriots. A team Miami had beaten 18 straight times in the Orange Bowl. 18. Straight. Times. I repeat each word to emphasize the devastation of this loss. 18 games means 18 years. And this was the Dolphins' 19th season. That means the Pats had beaten Miami in the Orange Bowl exactly once: 1966, the Phins first year. And it never happened again. Until this game. A 31-14 loss to a team that had no business winning the game. A team that just two weeks later suffered a Super Bowl humiliation the likes of which nobody had ever before seen. To the same team Miami famously defeated quite handily. How did it happen? How did the Dolphins lose to the Patriots? To Tony Eason? Turnovers my friends. Turnovers. Six to be exact including four fumbles.

We can say without hesitation that the most critical turnover of the game would not have happened with David Overstreet on the team. How do we know this? Because with Overstreet on the team Miami would never have drafted Lorenzo Hampton. And Hampton coughed it up on the team's first play of the second half. They trailed 17-7. New England took advantage of the turnover to go up 24-7. Tony Nathan had earlier set the tone for the game by fumbling on the team's very first play from scrimmage, leading to an early New Engand field goal. If Overstreet starts then Nathan never fumbles either. So let's say Overstreet starts, gets most of the carries, plays well, and holds onto the ball. It's then not a stretch to say Miami pulls out the game. It's at least a lot closer. Of course it could be a stretch to say Overstreet would have avoided the fumbles that plagued the Dolphins in that game; he had his own fumbling problem in the CFL and his fumble in the '83 playoff game with the Seahawks was costly. But if Miami wins they of course move on to Super Bowl XX and a rematch with the Shufflin' Crew. I don't know if they win but we know they were certainly capable of it. Only one offense ever embarrassed Chicago's 46-defense, Dan Marino's. The Dolphins were the one team constructed perfectly on offense to beat the Bears and the speed of Overstreet in the backfield could only have helped.

After 1985 the Miami Dolphins tumbled into the bowl of mediocrity. None of the deceased players could have helped at that point. A series of bad drafts crippled the team's talent level and a turnaround wouldn't come until 1990. In more bitter irony the untimely passing of Chambers, Gordon and Overstreet from this vale of tears set in motion a vicious cycle. Not only did the team lose the talents of those three men, the attempts to replace them in the draft led to an even further decline in talent. If Gordon hadn't died in '83, the team probably doesn't draft two busts, Jackie Shipp and Jay Brophy, at linebacker in the 1984 draft, and if Overstreet had lived, Miami doesn't blow its top pick on Lorenzo Hampton in the '85 draft, a draft with maybe the weakest running back class ever. However, who Miami would have drafted in our alternate universe is a mystery to me.

So "What If" Rusty Chambers, Larry Gordon, and David Overstreet didn't die? Would the fortunes of the Miami Dolphins organization have changed? After careful thought Pass Interference says no, at least not from 1981 through 1984. But let's linger over the 1985 season for a moment longer. PI thinks there was at least a chance that the death of David Overstreet cost Miami a Super Bowl trip and perhaps the ring that forever eluded Dan Marino.

Ginn again

I'm losing it. One of my incredibly important points failed to make it in to my last post on Ted Ginn. And the point was that even if somebody thought Ginn would be a great kick returner while chipping in with a few big plays on offense, how the heck would that justify a top ten pick? You spend a top pick on a receiver you want another Randy Moss, a Larry Fitzgerald, a Calvin Johnson. You know, a stud. Sure a great returner would be nice but have you noticed how nobody ever spends a first round pick on one? Rick Upchurch, a 4th round pick. Dante Hall, a 5th round pick. Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, a 15th round pick! Michael "Beer Man" Lewis, undrafted! All those guys were great return men but so-so wide receivers (to be generous). And they weren't drafted anywhere near the first round. And you know what else they had in common? They only lit up the NFL for maybe three or four years at most. Oh, their careers may have lasted longer than that but the return magic disappeared pretty early on. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying here but it sure seems like it's tough for kick returners to stay on top very long. Just check out Devin Hester ( 2nd round pick). He's not even returning kicks anymore and his third year doing it proved to be a major drop-off from his first two. He's just an ok receiver. But Miami spent more and got less. Ginn not only underwhelmed as a receiver, he never came close to approaching Hester as a return man either. Drafting a glorified kick returner with the ninth pick? Doomed to fail.

Ginn Gone

Miami Dolphin fans can finally shut the coffin lid on the abbreviated Cam Cameron-Randy Mueller era. In his one-and-only season as head coach Cameron "led" his team to a franchise-worst 1-15 record. Mercifully both men were fired before the 2008 season began but the residue of that disastrous season lingered for three more years. And by residue I'm referring to the kickoff to the 2007 season, the spark to the gasoline, the fuse to the bomb, the carelessly tossed match to the devastating forest fire, the Dolphins' 2007 draft. A team’s record resets at 0-0 when the next season starts but for good or bad the players taken in a draft can affect their team for years to come.  And no better example can be seen than in Cameron and Mueller’s sole draft together. In one word: disastrous. Just three years later, of the ten players selected by the Dolphins in 2007 only two remain: disappointing defensive tackle Paul Soloai and quality punter Brandon Fields. But the 2007 draft is always going to be associated with the stunning first-round selection of wide receiver Ted Ginn.

Most mock drafts had the Dolphins taking Left Tackle Levi Brown or Defensive Tackle Amobi Okoye.  And a few predicted Miami would trade up to snag QB Brady Quinn, who a lot of people thought was the best quarterback in the draft.  So what to do?  Well the 2006 Dolphins weren't half-bad defensively but their best defensive players (Taylor, Thomas) were on the wrong side of 30.  Bringing in some younger talent might have been the way to go given the players available with the ninth pick.  As atrocious as the team was on offense though, especially through the air, grabbing an offensive player was a defensible move.  And when all the teams in front of Miami unexepectedly bypassed Quinn, everyone expected the Dolphins to snap him up and finally draft a successor to Dan Marino.  No need to trade up now.  Instead, the commissioner shocked us all by announcing the name of Ted Ginn. 

(Flashback: Dolphins fans boo selection of Ginn over Quinn).
 
The shock wasn't so much the fact that Ginn was picked, a lot of folks pencilled him in as a later first round selection, it was the not taking Quinn part that threw us for a loop.  Ginn certainly possessed the much-needed speed the Dolphins O was missing.  But it's not like there weren't red flags with this guy.  A guy named Justin Davis at the apparently now-defunct War Room Report couldn't have nailed it better:

The easy knock on Ginn is that he is a straight line runner that struggles mightily getting in and out of his breaks at speed, therefore hindering his ability to run even average pass routes and that he has questionable hands. Both of those statements are true.

...

After all of the talk we are hearing about his speed and his big play ability, averaging only 13.2 yards per catch (5.1 yards less that Meachem) this season seems to say otherwise.

...

Sometimes style blocks the view of substance when evaluating young talent. Whatever team takes Ginn in the top half of round one will be guilty of allowing that to happen.

When you're right you're right.  And I've never seen anybody be righter.  Would that Cameron and Mueller had been half as smart.  You know, I'm glad I found that column.  Now anytime I question the utter worthlessness of what I'm doing I can tell myself that some other dude who writes for a website is smarter on personnel matters than two guys running a billion dollar sports franchise.  Thanks Justin. 

Anyway, for the past three years Dolphin watchers have all seen for themselves Ginn's "questionable hands" and his struggles to run "even average pass routes".  Of course Cam and Mueller should have known all that before expending a top-ten pick but you see, they had a vision for the team.  You might recall the Chicago Bears run to the Super Bowl in 2006.  Obviously it was burned into the brains of the Dolphins' brain trust because one key to that Super Bowl run was the brilliant kickoff and punt returning of one Devin Hester.   Ginn doubled as a return man in college and Cameron and Mueller obviously thought he could do the same for Miami.  So even if he wasn't a great receiver he'd make up for it in the return game.  Well guess what?  Just as pure speed isn't enough to make somebody a great receiver, it isn't enough to make a somebody a great return man either.  Forget great, how about just average?  Here's Ginn's yearly rankings in yards per attempt on kickoffs:

Ginn, KO Average Ranking

2007: 29th
2008: 37th
2009: 13th

As unsuccessful returning the ball as he was catching the ball.  Now some have speculated Ginn's failures were the result of a fear of contact.  I don't know that.  Too often we ascribe a player's successes or failures to amorphous things like character, heart, will or the lack of same.  Maybe it was never in the cards for Ginn to succeed for the reasons Justin Davis wrote about above.  He just wasn't good enough.  No hands. No moves.  It's not personal.  But it is painful, watching a team desperate for talent burn a first-round pick on a guy who couldn't contribute.  
 
Check out some of the defensive players taken shortly after Ginn: Patrick Willis at 11.  Darrelle Revis at 14 (Revis!  Dang!).  Leon Hall at 18.  The Dolphins defense collapsed in Ginn's rookie season and any one of these players would have been a huge help. Maybe passing on Quinn was in fact the way to go but if Miami needed a receiver that badly instead Dwayne Bowe (23) and Robert Meachem (27) were sitting there later in the round and the team could have traded down to get a better, more NFL-ready wideout.   So in the end the Ginn pick was yet another in a long line of the past decade's abysmal draft moves for the team.  Honestly, I thought Parcells did a great job getting somebody (the Niners in this case) to even give up a fifth round pick for Ginn.  Fans in the city by the bay are going to be horribly disappointed I'm sure.  But better them than us.  Three years showed me plenty (of nothing) though I'll always be grateful for his two kick return TD's that beat the Jets in New York last year.  Ginn's one shining moment.  Hey, if Mr. Nolan Carroll (taken with the Niners' pick) turns out to be a solid player for Miami, maybe something will have been salvaged after all from the disappointing selection of Ted Ginn. 

More on Marshall

Past Interference is all in with the Brandon Marshall trade. However, we can't help but be reminded of the Dolphins' last two trades for established stars. Surely all Miami Dolphin fans are still washing the taste of the 2005 deal of a second-round pick for Duante Culpepper. It's only been five years since that train wreck. And the 2002 swap of two number ones for Ricky Williams from the Saints has proved to be at best a mixed bag, at worst a key factor in the bottoming out of the franchise in 2007. So if you predict the third time's the charm with Marshall you're not exactly going out on a limb. I mainly bring up those painful prior trades simply to note that I was also excited about Ricky and Duante when they first donned Dolphin unis and just look how well it all turned out in the end. So let's hope for the best but prepare for the worst if it blows up in the Dolphins' bottle-nosed faces.

Like I said in my last post PI didn't see this one coming. Mainly because of the Tuna's past history. He won two Super Bowls where his leading receivers were Bobby Johnson (who?) and then Stephen Baker the Touchdown Maker. Neither topped 33 balls or 600 yards in those Super seasons.

Now check out this quote from ESPN's Adam Shefter.

Miami is a surprise destination for Marshall because Dolphins coach Tony Sparano hadn't shown much interest in acquiring him. But football czar Bill Parcells, who has final say on personnel matters in Miami, has never shied away from talented-but-troubled wide receivers, working with Terry Glenn in New England, Keyshawn Johnson in New York and Terrell Owens in Dallas.

Yes, Parcells isn't what I call the shying away type. However, unlike Shefter (who I usually like) Past Interference actually knows something about Parcells' career. Sure Parcells "worked with" Glenn.  Why wouldn't he?  That's what coaches do.  But he wasn't happy about it.  Is this is a secret or something?  I mean the guy was so ticked off about Bob Kraft forcing the Patriots to take Glenn that Parcells actually started referring to Glenn as "She" in press conferences and the Glenn pick sowed the seeds for Parcells' ultimate departure from the team.  Seriously, this made lots of headlines.  It was on ESPN and everything.  And I'm pretty sure Parcells was no happier a few years ago when Jerry Jones foisted his big free-agent haul Terrell Owens on him.  This time Tuna decided to simply refer to TO as "The player" with the press.  Good stuff.  As for Keyshawn, I know of no problems between he and Parcells but again, Parcells didn't draft him and had no say in Keyshawn's addition to the team which came a year before Parcells joined the Jets.  Parcells worked with Glenn, Key and TO but he had no choice is the point.  Two of those guys he plainly did not want around.   He thought he could win without them.  So making the move for Marshall was clearly a break from the old Parcells' way.  Before, he thought he could win without a great wideout.  Now he obviously thinks he can't win without a "talented-but-troubled" wide receiver and he's willing to pay the price to get one.

And the price was high.  Two second-rounders.  The Ravens got Anquan Boldin for a 3rd and a 4th.  The Jets snagged Santonio Holmes for a measly 5th.  But Marshall's four years younger than Boldin and he's better than Holmes (plus he's got 5 inches and 30 pounds on him) (double plus he's not currently slated to miss four games on suspension and he won't be a free agent at season's end).  This couldn't be better for Henne's and Hartline's development. The offense needed this desperately. Too many times last year they couldn't build on a lead when they needed to. Too many times they couldn't come back when they needed to. I don't think Miami's going to have any attitude problems with Marshall. Whatever flaws exist in Sparano's coaching so far, they don't come in the areas of motivation and discipline. The big worry is Marshall's track record of legal run-ins, especially of the domestic violence variety. Let's just hope he's put all that behind him. If not though we'll be prepared. I cleverly titled this post "More on Marshall" so if things should later go horribly wrong I could break out a "Moron Marshall" when the time came.

Brandon Marshall

Well, well, well. The Dolphins' front office manages to shock everybody by and quietly executing a blockbuster trade for the man who, as soon as he steps on the field in a Dolphins' uniform, will be the very best receiver this team has fielded since the departure of the Marks Brothers almost 20(!) years ago. Brandon Marshall. Wow. Miami's woes in the receiving corps need no further explanation on this blog. While there was somce speculation the team would use their first-round pick on Dez Bryant, I assumed they'd address their defensive holes in the draft and stand pat at receiver. And I'd been trying to talk myself into thinking this was in fact the smart move. Looking at it like an optimistic homer we could say that in 2009 Bess assumed a bigger role on the offense, Camarillo was as dependable an option as one could be, and the rookie Hartline looked great while averaged 16 yards a catch. (Ginn, well, even aqua-and-orange colored glasses aren't gonna make that guy look good.) Now with another year of experience for that trio and their QB, maybe the existing talent could take another step forward so that Phins'd be alright enough at the position to address other needs.

But no. Parcells and company crossed us up and made the bold move, swapping two second-rounders for a, shall we say, somewhat controversial player. And I love it. If you had your pick of any receiver in the NFL right now to upgrade your WR corps, who would you take over Marshall? Larry Fitzgerald. Andre Johnson. Calvin Johnson. And who else? Nobody better than Brandon Marshall. Dude's exactly what the team needs. A perfect fit really. A huge target for Henne. Tough to bring down. An amazing physical specimen who can take over games. And he's only 26, still in his prime. Sure there's some "character" issues to worry about but the trade's taken care of some of those issues (wanted more $, wanted to play in Fla.) overnight. This is great for the offense and great for Henne's development. Marshall's police record makes him a bit of a risk but using their number one pick on Dez Bryant would have brought a whole bunch of other risks. At least Marshall's a proven stud.

Let's face it, the cliche that the NFL's a passing league is true. The Dolphins just went from having the worst receiving corps in the AFC East to having one as good as anybody else. It had to be done. I'm just glad I no longer have to talk myself into believing the opposite.

Just a few days before we saw the Jets get Santonio Holmes for nothing more than a 5th round pick. And by all accounts nobody, nobody made the Jets a better offer. Sure the guy's a jackass who's been suspended for a quarter of the season but he's better than any Dolphin who caught a pass in 2009. Yet despite how cheaply Holmes could be obtained Parcells wasn't at all interested in him. Now we know why. Let the Jets have the guy. Miami just got somebody a lot better. (And the Jets know it. They tried for trade for him back in March. Haha).

The New York Jets' Historic Streak Ends

One of the greatest streaks in NFL history has come to an end. This streak lasted for decades and it’s extremely unlikely any team will ever match it, let alone better it. If some team ever does surpass this incredible streak it will probably not be in the lifetime of anybody reading this post. Yet this historic streak and its ending received no press, it got no TV coverage, nobody’s talking about it, and I’m just beside myself that it’s all over.

Since 1960, all the way through the 2010 season, 50 NFL seasons, a half century of football, the National Football League has produced exactly 22 teams who finished a season posting but a single win. Just four teams have gone completely winless in that same time span so we can see just how hard it is for even the worst teams ever to pull off a winless season. 26 of the worst teams ever made a run and 22 of them failed. They failed because some other NFL team proved unable to notch a win against a loser team that couldn’t beat anybody else for a whole entire season.

I first wrote about those teams guilty of Losing to Losers here back in 2007, but now that the first decade of this century is behind allow me to present a complete list of all one-win teams from 1960-2010, with the teams they defeated in parenthesis.

1960: Washington Redskins (Dallas Cowboys)
1961: Washington Redskins (Dallas Cowboys)
1962: Oakland Raiders (Boston Patriots)
1962: Los Angeles Rams (San Francisco 49’ers)
1966: New York Giants (Washington Redskins)
1967: Atlanta Falcons (Minnesota Vikings)
1968: Buffalo Bills (New York Jets)
1969: Chicago Bears (Pittsburgh Steelers)
1969: Pittsburgh Steelers (Detroit Lions)
1971: Buffalo Bills (New England Patriots)
1972: Houston Oilers (New York Jets)
1973: Houston Oilers (Baltimore Colts)
1980: New Orleans Saints (New York Jets)
1982: Houston Oilers (Seattle Seahawks)
1989: Dallas Cowboys (Washington Redskins)
1990: New England Patriots (Indianapolis Colts)
1991: Indianapolis Colts (New York Jets)
1996: New York Jets (Arizona Cardinals)
2000: San Diego Chargers (Kansas City Chiefs)
2001: Carolina Panthers (Minnesota Vikings)
2007: Miami Dolphins (Baltimore Ravens)
2009: St. Louis Rams (Detroit Lions)

As you can see six teams have twice pulled off the feat of falling to an otherwise winless team. But the New York Jets have lapped the field over the past half century, serving as the lone victim to an otherwise winless team an amazing four times! But the amazement doesn’t end there people. Check the years of those four humiliating, embarrassing Jets’ defeats: 1968, 1972, 1980, and 1996. Yep, that’s right, Losing to Losers in the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s. One loss in four successive decades. Simply incredible. No other team has even done back-to-back decades.

Unfortunately the Jets will have to be satisfied with a four-decade streak. They managed to finish their last ten seasons without once losing to a one-win team. Sad. The 2007 season was their last real shot at one for the thumb but the Jets insisted on toppling the Dolphins twice and forcing Miami to instead beat the Ravens to avoid the ignominy of an 0-16 campaign. But despite the end of their historic streak, the Jets can sit back contentedly knowing the odds of anybody bettering their four-decade streak are practically nonexistent. In recent times we’re only seeing three or four teams a decade go 1-15. And other than the J-E-T-S, Jets Jets Jets, no franchise has managed to lose to a 1-15 squad in consecutive decades. The four teams to fall to a 1-15 team in the last decade will have to do it again in this decade just to have a two-decade streak going. The Jets’ record is totally safe for several decades at least and 31 years from now will be the earliest any franchise would even have a crack at breaking the record should they first be able to set up the loser’s table for a shot at history. We here at Past Inteference mourn the end of the Jets' Losing to Losers streak but given NFL history, their record looks as safe as any record could be.

Your 2009 Miami Dolphins: The Wrap-Up, Part II

Alright, PI hasn’t posted in awhile and I think I know why. Previously we committed ourselves to writing a summation about the performance of the Miami Dolphins in 2009. (We wrote about the quarterbacking separately here.) I was going to take the time to rehash and research everything and do up a thorough analysis of every position. You know, with a stereotypical “grade” for each unit of the team. But I just couldn’t make myself do it. Honestly what would be the point? You can go to plenty of other websites who actually employ people who write stuff like that for actual money. (Better yet try the Miami Dolphins Spotlight, the guy who writes it is awesome. He really puts the work in. He makes me embarrassed to call myself a blogger). Plus, this just isn’t the kind of stuff PI likes to do anyway. We prefer to write about things that either nobody else has thought about or that everybody else has forgotten about. The stupider the better. So just to get back in the swing of things allow me to go ahead and make a few non-thorough observations about the 2009 Fins. And I’m not giving myself anymore homework assignments. This is it!

Last season was basically a big ball of blah. You could call the team's play mediocre though that might be a tad generous. Maybe slightly-worse-than-mediocre. The offense was average. The defense was below average. The special teams were above average. The offense ran very effectively and passed very ineffectively. The defense wasn't too bad at stopping the run but really really bad at stopping the pass. 10 of 16 games were decided by a touchdown or less. Miami won convincingly exactly once. They lost convincingly twice. They won four times at home and three times on the road. They suffered two three-game losing streaks that bookended the season. In between they posted three separate two-game winning streaks. They played commanding football against the league's two best teams. And they found a way to lose both times. They finished 6 games better than the 2007 Dolphins, but four games worse than the 2008 Dolphins. If consistency was the question, then the 2009 Miami Dolphins weren’t…ah let’s just move on already.

The glass half full side? Definitely Jake Long. Miami “earned” the league’s overall #1 draft pick for the first time in like...ever, and in 2008, they used that critical pick on Long. And he’s made the Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons. This is important for a couple of reasons. You certainly don’t want to whiff on an overall number one pick. A mundane obvservation right? But just as importantly, the Dolphins had a huge need at QB at the time but passed up top QB prospect Matt Ryan to grab Long. Ryan then played like gangbusters in 2008, looking for all the world like the NFL’s next great quarterback. And no lineman’s gonna be worth more than the NFL’s next great quarterback. But Ryan regressed in 2009 while Long stepped it up. And Henne didn’t look half bad at QB. So hopefully this will continue to play out well for the team--I don’t want to have to write a future post about on the new contender for the title of Worst Draft Pick in Miami Dolphins’ History. Besides Long, Jake Grove and Joe Berger played well at center and Vernon Carey was pretty good too. So the offensive line looked good, especially with an assist from Lousaka Polite at fullback, a real find.

With great blocking up front Ronnie Brown played maybe the best football of his career and 32-year old Ricky Williams played even better. Unfortunately the 28-year-old Brown suffered his second season-ending injury in three years. And Ricky’s now going to be 33-year-old Ricky Williams in a few weeks. So for all we know the team might not have any starting running back 2010’s end. We didn’t see enough from Lex Hilliard to know yet if he’s starting material.

Glass half-empty? That could be generous way of describing the receivers. Ted Ginn. What else is there to say? Miami fans really, really want him to be the deep threat the team desperately needs. Let’s just say that didn’t happen in 2009 and elaborating further would just be piling on, something I’ve probably already done during the course of the season. I’m sure he’s a fine young man trying his best. Devon Bess emerged at Henne’s top target but he had an unfortunate tendency to make mistakes at critical times. Greg Camarillo was the bright spot as far PI’s concerned. The guy’s one of my favorite players right now. I was worried he wouldn’t be able to come back strong from that knee injury but he did and he damn near caught every single pass thrown his way in 2009. Dude was money. And for all the talk about Ginn sucking and Miami needing a deep threat, Brian Hartline looked pretty good for a rookie and averaged over 16 yards a catch. We didn’t see anything from the other rookie wideout Patrick Turner but hopefully he just needed some extra time to adjust to the pro game and is not a lost cause. (I’m an eternal optimist). Lots of talk about how bad this unit is and the need for an upgrade but I’m not convinced that what the team’s already got can’t improve for 2010. (See!).

The defense. Not good. Really not good. Actually, they got worse the farther out you go. The D-Line wasn’t half bad. Randy Starks played very well. Langford and Merling were solid. So was Jason Ferguson but he missed half the season with injuries. But Paul Soliai, ay yi yi. Let’s just say I’m not going to be surprised if the team drafts a nose tackle. But linebackers might be even more of a need. Jason Taylor played great at his new outside linebacker spot and man was it great to see that. But what’s this? He might be leaving again? To go to...THE JETS!!?? This is not happening. This is not happening. I hope this is just some negotiation hardball by the front office. Anyway, Joey Porter regressed so much the team let him go. And Crowder, Ayodele, Torbor? Let’s move on. No really. Get rid of all of them and move on. But bad as the linebackers were the secondary might have been worse. Will Allen played well but of course tore an ACL and missed half the season. Gibril Wilson was a huge bust of a free agent. Vontae Davis played ok for a rookie. I know everybody wants Miami to grab a receiver in the draft but face it, this defense has a lot of holes.

Oh, I guess I have to mention the special teams. They were good. Really good. Sure you’d rather have the offense and defense be really good instead but you get what you get. And we got Dan Carpenter and Brandon Fields doing some fine kicking and punting. And Ginn was a lot better returner than receiver.

Ok, homework's over. Pencils down. We’re done.