DaveZdyrko.com

Check out my Quick Hit blog about my thoughts on the Miami Dolphins drafting WVU QB Pat White in the 2nd round of this past weekend’s NFL Draft and why it has me super excited for the coming football season.

As big of a whooping that we’re getting, it kinda makes me laugh a little amongst the tears that the Miami Dolphins’ are pretty much getting their asses knocked out of the playoffs by the Miami Hurricanes. Ed Reed’s INT return for a TD pretty much ended my hopes and then McGahee’s long burst pretty much put the final nail in the coffin. Throw in Ray Lewis’s excellent play, including his effort in causing that 19 yard loss on the reverse by Tedd Ginn, and today it’s clearly all about the “U”.  Yesterday also saw some big performances by Edge and Antrelle Rolle, so the ex-Canes have done the school proud this weekend.

After the Hurricanes’ debacle in San Fran last night, I had this feeling of impending doom about today’s Jets v Dolphins match-up. The one thing that started to give me hope earlier in the day was the fact that Drew Brees fell 16 yards short of breaking Dan Marino’s single-season passing yards record, despite the fact that Carolina almost GAVE it to him when they booted the kickoff out of bounds with just one second left on the clock. Luckily, Brees choked and threw it short on a wide open pass that would’ve got him one of Dan’s last major NFL records.

While that gave me a lot of hope, the way things were going early on in the Dolphins game had me nervous beyond belief. They were seemingly dominating the Jets, but kept making significant boneheaded mistakes. The Pennington fumble, the Ricky drop on what would’ve been a huge pass play, and the errant pass by Ronnie Brown that could’ve been a potential long TD. Throw in those and all the false starts and offsides and I was beginning to think it just wasn’t meant to be. Luckily, things started to come together. Favre started trying to put his interceptions record out of reach, and we held on to a euphoric 24-17 win.

To be quite frank, I don’t think we have any shot at all at making it to and winning the Super Bowl. We won’t likely make it out of the first round. However, after suffering through a 1-15 season last year, just making the playoffs is a huge victory for me. That said, it’s the playoffs and anything can happen. Maybe we surprise some folks, myself included, and we make a nice little run.

I had to “watch” the game via Gamecast because the Pats were the only game on at 1PM today, but the Dolphins game against the Chiefs drove me crazy nevertheless. Thankfully, I was able to follow it while blowing shit up in Mercenaries 2 or I might’ve gone insane. They managed to pull yet another rabbit out of their hat and are now the first team in history to win 10 games in a season following one which they won 1 or less.

I’m still a bit pessimistic about their chances at beating the Jets, but it’s pretty simple for them — if they win they’re AFC East champs and in the playoffs, if they don’t, they’re most likely left out in the cold. After last year’s 1-15 disaster, I honestly couldn’t have wished for anything better than this. I’m proud of them either way and it’s been a very fun year of watching them play.

Already stated it after the Hurricanes game on Thursday and I’ll state it again after today’s narrow escape by the Dolphins against the Oakland Raiders — a win is a win. I thought we might have blown a great opportunity to stay strong in the playoff hunt after that long kick return for a touchdown gave the Raiders their first lead of the game, but my boys came through in the clutch and drove for the game winning field goal with less than a minute remaining to seal a victory. Miami is now 6-4 and if they can upset the Pats next week and if the Jets lose to the Titans, then we will be sitting in a position never thought possible — atop the AFC East!

The one apparent downer to my fruitful football weekend, which began on Thursday, is that my fantasy football team has a very precarious 15 point lead over one of the worst teams in the league, with that team still having Winslow, Randle El, and Lindel to play. He also has the Cards D going right now while all I have is 2nd string Mewelde Moore. If I lose this game, it was be heartbreaking given the competition and the fact that I got home 1 minute too late and was stuck with BenJavus Green-Ellis who I was going to bench in favor of either Ted Ginn Jr or Lance Moore (15 and 16 points respectively) if Sammy Morris was cleared to play, which he was. I ended up with 0 points in that slot instead of at least 15. The late work day on Thursday just might cost me a victory that I was favored to win by 51 points. Sad Christmas if that happens.

Today’s blowout win by the Dolphins over the New England Patriots was extra special because I’m living in Boston and working in Foxboro these days and am surrounded by Pats fans wherever I go. And we just didn’t beat them, we gave them an old fashioned ass whooping and pretty much embarassed them. I kind of wish I would’ve gotten some tickets to see the game in person cause that would’ve been quite entertaining to see. So, my real teams are 2-0 this weekend but my fantasy team is going to lose and I’ll fall to 2-1.

I’d like to welcome Michigan’s behemoth 6′ 7″ left tackle Jake Long to the dysfunctional Miami Dolphins family. As I’ve previously stated, I didn’t have a favorite among the candidates and would have been just as happy with Chris Long, Glen Dorsey, or Vernon Gholston. But, going with Long is a very solid pick and I hope he turns out to be the cornerstone of our offensive line for the next 7 to 10 years.

Two of the most important factors in winning football games are protecting your quarterback and pressuring your opponent’s quarterback. Jake Long will hopefully help accomplish the first task. If he proves to be a stud LT along the lines of Orlando Pace or Ron Yary, the only other offensive tackles taken with the 1st overall pick of the NFL draft, our QB’s and RB’s should be in excellent shape to be successful over the course of the next decade.

Both John Beck and Ronnie Brown should be extremely happy with this pick and I hope for their sakes, as well as mine as a fan, that he proves to be worth the five year, $57.75 million contract with $30 million guaranteed he just signed for. Now it’s all about me anxiously waiting to see who the Dolphins select with their 2nd pick, which is the first pick of the 2nd round but is essentially the same as the last pick of the first round because it’ll be the 32nd player chose because of the Pastryshits’ forfeiture of the 31st pick. Maybe we can get a QB or pass rusher with that selection!

A lot of people seem to wonder about why my favorite teams are from all over the place and I’ve explained this many times, with the simple answer being that my dad was in the Air Force and we were stationed in Guam at the time I started following sports religiously. However, I haven’t really expounded too much on where exactly I’ve lived throughout my life. Here’s a basic rundown (I’m sure I’m off a little on some of the year ranges):

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The writing has been on the wall ever since the Big Tuna was hired, so it’s no big surprise to hear that Coach Cam Cameron has been kicked to the streets by the Miami Dolphins. Despite the 1-15 record and hordes of idiotic mistakes, I was actually still on the fence with Cam and thought he deserved at least 2-3 years to really show what he’s got.

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I said they’d go 16-0 back when they got Randy Moss and they did. I guess that makes me a genius! Only problem here is that I’m a Miami Dolphin fan, so while I may revel in my genius in predicting 16-0 for the Pats, I must also deal with the pain I feel caused by one of my least favorite teams finishing with a perfect regular season.  At least it’s not the Jets!