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.

The football team likely won’t produce a first day draft pick for the first time in ages, but at least the University of Miami has come out #1 in Playboy’s list of top Party Schools for 2009! I guess that’s better than nothing. It’s all about the “U”!

Maybe it’s just my negativity with my sports teams, but I’m starting to think that the Miami Dolphins are headed to a last place finish in the AFC East this season. Maybe I should be a little more confident with the “trifecta” of Parcells, Ireland and Sporano, but I’ve always seen last seasons’ 11-5 record and playoff berth as a bit of an aberration that was a result of an easy schedule, Brady’s knee, and Favre’s INT-parade.

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I’ve been meaning to blog about this but it kept slipping my mind. After doing a bunch of research and watching the UMass Division 1-AA championship game he won as a head coach, I must say that I’m feeling extremely happy with the Miami Hurricanes’ hiring of Mark Whipple to be Assistant Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator.

He seems to have a great offensive mind and his track record at UMass, Brown and New Haven on the offensive front is astonishing. The praise being thrown his way by guys like Bill Cowher and Andy Reid are also fairly significant and his former players seem to like to throw out the “genius” tag when talking about him.

The only thing that makes me have concern is the fact that it seems a bit odd for someone to be have been in the coaching business for as long as he has without getting any true big-time opportunities, especially if he’s deserving of the overly-used genius moniker. Then again, there could be numerous reasons other than lack of ability that could cause something like this to happen. It’s not like he’s getting any automatic Rooney Rule interviews.

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.

This week is the first round in the playoffs of my the Playhard FFL and my team is up 53-50 and my opponent only has T.O. left tonight while I have Eli, Tashard and Westbrook left. It “should” be a win for me, but you never know with Fantasy Football, T.O. could respond with some crazy 30+ point game after all of this week’s Romo/Whitten drama and I could get toasted. But for now, things are looking great.

Things are also looking good for the Dolphins after winning yet another close game today. They’re still in a 3-way tie for first place in the AFC East with the Jets and Pats, and are still in complete control of their destiny. They beat the Chiefs and Jets and they’re in. If not, then they’re probably watching the playoffs from home yet again.

I’m just blocking out last night’s game against GTech out of my mind and will pretend it never happened. It’s my fault for getting too excited for this team and coach. Embarrassing. I had to stop watching and kill some zombies in L4D at halftime because I was just getting so frustrated that I was starting to get physically ill.

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.