Ever since I was 10 years old, I have been legitimately obsessed with the NFL Draft.
Back in the day, I used to write down every pick as it happened. Then this little thing called the internet happened and I no longer had to write down each pick; instead, I could not only have that done for me but also read reams of data I never had available to me before.
Now, with the introduction of Twitter, I can have 20 different league writers, 50+ beat writers and probably 100 college football writers giving me their opinions and analysis of what is happening / has happened in one simple newsfeed.
To reiterate, the way I consume the draft has changed a lot in the past 15 years.
Everything about the draft changes, but there has always been one constant: The Dolphins are bad at it.
My favorite thing about the draft is the same thing that I love about college football recruiting: every year, you get to envision the future of your team which OF COURSE is going to be filled with championships. At least, that's the idea.
The problem is that the Dolphins have consistently robbed me of this one simple joy, because for as long as I can remember the Dolphins have been blowing their early draft picks like a Secret Service agent who just got paid in Cartagena.
*Waits a beat*
Nowhere has that been more evident than at the quarterback position. The truth of the matter is that in the past decade, the NFL has changed. You have to have a frontline quarterback or you cannot win the Super Bowl. Period.
Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson were able to win Super Bowls in the early part of the past decade on the backs of DOMINANT defenses. Since then, the NFL has manipulated the rules to ensure more points (and more interest from casual fans).
Not surprisingly, the teams that contend every year feature someone named Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees or Roethlisberger. Every year these teams have the chance to win the Super Bowl, and it is for a reason.Quarterbacks run the league.
(All of those guys were first round picks except for Brees, who was an EARLY second)
Running paralell to these rule changes has been the Dolphins slow descent in to NFL purgatory. Certainly not one of the bottom five teams, but RARELY a playoff team...dooming fans to a life of 6-10 / 7-9 / 8-8 types of seasons.
Dan Marino retired in 1999 and since then the Dolphins have started 16 quarterbacks. Essentially, the rest of the league is moving forward and the Dolphins are moving toward 1992 (not conicidentally, Bill Parcells' hey day).
Their names will go down in NFL hsitory. Cleo Lemon. Sage Rosenfels. Joey Harrington. Ray Lucas. I could keep going, but the point is that the Dolphins have tried to cure pancreatic cancer with a band aid.
And I tell you all this to say the following: the Dolphins finally did the right thing last night.
They found the quarterback they think could lead the franchise for 15 years and went out and got him.
It had been 29 years since the Dolphins drafted a quarterback in the first round. To put that in perspective, 29 years ago Ronal Reagan was a first term president, I was 4 years away from being born and The EFFING Soviet Union was still the Evil Empire, not the Yankees.
And in all that time, the Dolphins never tried to find the next Marino.
(Peyton Manning)
They never found a guy to develop and bring along.
(Aaron Rodgers)
They never even took a shot on a guy that they thought could do it and ultimately failed.
(Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, Jamarcus Russell, Dan McGwire)
Instead, they simply saw a hole at the most important position on the field and decided not to fill it. They essentially have treated their roster as Wilshire Blvd.
Ryan Tannehill is by no means a sure thing. He struggles throwing in to the middle of the field and doesn't have the experience that you like to see coming out of college.
But he is a physical specimen, a guy who has been praised a leader and worker, and oh yeah,. doesn't look bad on tape either.
He is not the immediate answer. We might be bad for another year or two. He might never work out. But the point is that he has the potential to be a Top 10 quarterback in the NFL, and has drawn comparisons to Ben Roethlisberger. THAT is the type of guy you take a shot at early on. You owe it to your fans.
This is essentially a no-lose scenario. If Tannehill doesn't work out, the current regime gets gutted and the Dolphins finally get to do the complete teardown they should have done 5 years ago.
If he does work out, he makes the Dolphins a Super Bowl threat, which is kind of the point of this whole thing.
After the draft, G.M. Jeff Ireland was gushing about Tannehill. He sounded like a normal human being for the first time I can ever remember. He sounded full of hope, like the plan he had in his mind was coming together.
If you can't sell winning, you sell hope, and if you are wondering whether that is true or not, I just bought a new t-shirt and shorts from the Dolphins team store.
As fans, we know that it is hard to win a championship. All we really want is the hope that this year it could be us that gets to walk in to work on a Monday morning early in February with a shit-eating grin on our face because our team just won the trophy and everyone else has to suck failure.
That is what Tannehill gives this fan base. The hope that, sometime soon, it will be us.
Oh and also his wife is a certified smokeshow.
Always guard the inbound passer.
