On April 16th the Miami Dolphins made a huge selection with the 1st overall pick they had. When I say huge I don't only mean it figuratively but also physically. They selected Jake Long the 6 foot 7 315 pound beast out of Michigan. The man who only allowed one sack his whole career. The man who has an 11 inch hand length. The man who is going to anchor this Dolphins offensive line for years to come. Starting the Parcells regime off by picking this beast is a good beginning. This was only the start. When you have a great offensive line, you need a great runner. Unfortunately Ronnie Brown, who led the league in total yards in the first 7 weeks, is trying to recover from an ACL tear in his knee. So even though the offensive line can block, their will be no running game...that's where you're wrong. Ricky Williams shows up to mini camp like a 4-year veteran who just rushed for 1,000 yards. He is in the best shape of his life and all of a sudden their is a running game. With Ricky in that kind of shape who needs an ACL injured running back. The Dolphins do, within the next couple of days, with Ricky impressing everybody, Ronnie Brown decided it's his turn to show off. Trying to prove to everybody that he's back from the injury, Ronnie Brown takes a handoff and in a flash is in the end zone. He outran one of the fastest linebackers in the league, Joey Porter. With Ricky being in great shape and Ronnie doing what Ronnie does, the Dolphins have a running back duo to compete with the Taylor, Jones-Drew combo in Jacksonville. With these to in the backfield, the Dolphins instantly become a run-first team. With this running game being so great, what is that going to open up. That's right, the passing game. Last year the Dolphins had absolutely no play action fake plays. They were always down late in games so everybody knew they were going to pass. Not only that, but who where they going to hand the ball of to...Samkon Gado? Not a very big threat on the ground. With this offensive line and this running game, it is going to open up the passing game in a big way. Beck will easily double the amount of time he has for a receiver to get open because of the much improved blocking up front. With Long, Smiley, Satele, and Carey, only to name four, blocking it will give time for Ted Ginn to get open, and in case he is double teamed, there is always Ernest Wilford running slant routes across the middle for the backup plan. Not to mention the fact that Anthony Fasano will be able to not only block, but also be a productive receiver, which he did not have the opportunity to be in Dallas, playing behind a great tight end in Jason Witten. Good wide receivers can become great if they have the time to get open and run their routes. The same goes for quarterbacks, look at a guy named Tom Brady. With the time he has to stand back their, even I could find people open. Look what happened in the super bowl, when the Giants got to Brady constantly, he looked like an average QB at best. When Eli had time he looked like his brother. John Beck can make the same transformation as Eli. The Overall look on offense is that they have one of the best running duos and they are easily in the top 7 in the offensive line category. Right now the quarterback is the weak spot on the team, but because of the running game, and o-line, the passing game could become very efficient. It will not be a 300 yard passing game very often, but Beck will get the time to rack up maybe 200-250 yards through the air. I'm going to make a bold statement right now, Derek Hagan will rack up over 700 yards receiving this year. Bash me if you want, but with Ginn and Wilford getting extra attention, watch out for Hagan going down the sideline one on one.Now that I've discussed the highly potent offense, lets talk about the defense. First of the defensive line. With Parcells coming from Dallas, he knows the talent of each player over there, so I trust him when he brings in a thirty-one year old injured defensive tackle, Jason Ferguson. This dude is huge and will be a force on the line. Not only do we have Ferguson, who will most likely be starting, but we also have Vonnie Holiday who can either play defensive end or tackle. When Holiday is your backup, the team is pretty good at that position. I wish Jason Taylor would stop being such a snob and just show up to camp. I bet he's just scared to go up against Jake Long for a month. The worst thing that could have happened was the way Michael Strahan played after skipping Giants training camp last year. Strahan missed camp and became a super bowl champ, and I think Taylor looked at that and said, sounds like a plan. In my opinion, I don't see a Taylor for Favre trade and I truly believe that Taylor will be starting for this team come September. Now we still have to discuss the other defensive end spot. This could be a three way competition between Matt Roth, Vonnie Holiday, and a guy I'm very high on, Phillip Merling, DE out of Clemson. The Dolphins drafted Merling with the 32nd pick this last draft and was definitely a steal. Many mock drafts had him going in the top 15 and the Fins worked their magic and got him in the second round. It will be very interesting to see who wins the battle in camp and starts game one. No matter what, any of these guys will be a force on the line this year. The line backing core is probably the worst part of this defense, and I'm smiling while I write that. I'm smiling because we have a pretty good core. With Joey Porter, Channing Crowder, and Reggie Torbor as three of the four starters, that's pretty damn good. I know some of you will be saying that Porter sucks, but he understands the 3-4 defense and will definitely fit into that scheme a lot better. Another statement that could be brought up is that the secondary is the worst part of this team, but that is not so and I will tell you why. Last year the picture perfect statement of this secondary was Randy Moss catching the ball between two Dolphin defenders in the end zone. That will not be so this year. With all the injuries in the secondary, we were literally signing people a couple of days before the game, i.e. Lance Shulters. Anyway with the way Jason Allen played last year, I think that Sporano will do the smart thing and move him to his natural position of CB. Some of you may disagree, but that is my opinion. With Yeremiah Bell coming back from his injury early in the season, he can play one of the safety positions. Renaldo Hill can play the other safety spot and Will Allen can play one of the corner back positions. With the Allen bros playing CB, I think we have a good two players right there. With Bell, one of the top 15 safeties in the league, and Hill coming back we don’t need to deal with Shulters playing for us. Here's a fun fact, did you know that those four secondary players I mentioned each have two L's in their last name, pretty cool. Anyway the Fins also have Michael Lehan and Andre Goodman coming in for the four wide receiver sets the NE Pats play. Also with the addition of safety Chris Crocker form the Falcons, he may eventually start over Renaldo Hill. As for special teams, as long as we don’t have our running backs returning kickoffs, stupid cam cameron, and ted ginn is back there, we are going to have good starting field position. Overall the defense seems to be the weak point on this team, but never-the-less still a solid group that wont be in the top 10, but will be close. The special teams will be very productive with Ginn returning kicks as long as there are no stupid holding calls. I was so frustrated last year when Ginn returned about 4 punts/kickoffs and were called back. With veterans like Boomer Grisby on the team, I don't think any one will be pulling any stupid stunts like that.In conclusion I am totally excited about this upcoming season and even more excited to know that training camp is less than two weeks away. With the running game being the way it is, along with both the D-line and O-line being very productive, i see the Dolphins beating every team in the AFC and maybe the NFC in the rushing game. Like I mentioned before I think we have an pretty good passing game with Beck as the starter and the receivers we have. Hagan, Ginn, and Wilford isn't bad at all. Also as I mentioned before, a sleeper on this team is Anthony Fasano, the tight end out of Dallas will be the starter and will be ten times more productive that either David Martin or Justin Peele. Parcells knows his players and I trust him. When you're playing behind the most productive tight end in the league last year in Jason Witten, you're not going to get a lot of playing time, which explains his tiny amount of stats.

- Brandon Carvalho