Orange and Teal

Hell Yes, We're All Ready For Football

As I sit in amazement as another childhood action hero of mine has completely disgraced himself (Mel Gibson) I am still too excited for football’s start to worry too much about anything else. I take that back, there are plenty of world events that bother and concern me but that doesn’t mean the NFL can’t keep us preoccupied while the rest of the world seems to crash down around us.

On to the football. It seems weather stopped the party for fans at camp and the heat on both days equaled cramps for many players. From most of the reports I’ve read and some coverage on the NFL Network it seems everything is moving smoothly. I’d like to hear more about Vick as WR as there are some great pictures of him from camp on the Sentinel’s site. There’s little mention of him on special teams either.

Most important though is Daunte and Joey. They’re the keys. And again the reports seem light on info except to talk about defenders intercepting or knocking down passes. Surprisingly the Palm Beach Post’s Jeff Darlington has a pretty good blog here. He’s finally updating it with reports and it fills in some gaps that I just mentioned.

The bad news is that Jason Allen is still not in camp. It’s too bad that almost every other first rounder has reported and he hasn’t. Everyone keeps saying he’s going to be a starter this season, but if he stays out of camp I don’t see how. Otherwise I’m just too happy that there will be news all around the web for the next six months about the Dolphins. Thank goodness, because you can only watch so many baseball games. 

Deal or No Deal For Allen: No Deal

I knew this off-season was going too smoothly. It looks like Jason Allen is going to be a no-show for camp because he wants a five year deal instead of a six year deal. It’s interesting that only picks 1-16 can sign six-year deals though. Allen’s even left Florida to be with his family. And Huizenga even said he didn’t want holdouts this year. That doesn’t seem to be the case. This is the stupidest thing in the NFL right now. How do we fix it? Rookie salary caps?

Porter, Lelie, Branch Unhappy, Could Be Traded

My fandom kicked into overdrive yesterday when I was reading the rumors on SI.com about Jerry Porter, Ashley Lelie and Deion Branch all being possibly traded. I know we don’t have much to offer but I’d love either Porter or Lelie opposite Chris Chambers instead of Marty Booker. That would totally open up the passing game for Culpepper. What do you guys think? Who would you take? Would a Booker plus draft pick bring a disgruntled Porter to Miami?

Culpepper Ready To Go, Draft Picks Still Not Signed

It sounds like Daunte is ready to go for camp when it opens on Saturday. There won’t be any contact on the quarterback so he should get a full slate of practices from camp. That’s excellent news. If he can work on his timing with Chambers things will most likely go well for us. Saban spoke of Daunte even playing a pre-season game. That’s really surprising. He didn’t say he would necessarily but the fact that it’s even being considered speaks volumes to Daunte’s health.

We’re still waiting on Jason Allen and Darek Hagen to sign. Is anyone else tired of this “let’s wait until the last second” crap across the league?

The Not-So-Wild Dolphin Off-Season

I don’t even have to tell you that football anticipation is now sky high across the country. Training camp starts Saturday and then it’s only a week until the Hall of Fame Game. A week! That means it’s time to offer my musings on this long and laborious drought of Dolphins joy called Summer.

Besides Ricky Williams getting hurt in Canada there has been little violence revolving around the Dolphins. While teams throughout the league we’re dealing with felon players, yeah I’m talking to you Bengals, the Dolphins roster stayed relatively clean. And they live in South Beach’s backyard where so many other NFLers get in trouble. Yeah I’m talking to you Santonio.

The only exception to the rule was Siddeeq Shabazz being “investigated” for assault…at a Wal-Mart. That’s quality right there. You know it's quiet when a star player getting a divorce (with no domestic abuse involved) is the big news. Otherwise the overwhelming impression has been how quiet our off-season has been. Saban is running this ship tighter than William Bligh and it doesn’t seem anyone is even whispering mutiny. To me that is the best indication of how we’ll do this year.

What’s in store for Orange and Teal in 2006? I’ll be moving so that means a new flat screen TV.

Otherwise we’ll be doing some live blogging during games. Showcasing more photos from Dolphin Stadium and you even get Away coverage from the Bears game! I’m looking forward to it.

Holy Toledo! Two Draft Picks Signed

In what hopes to be an upward spiraling trend both 4th round pick Joe Toledo and 7th rounder Devin Aromashodu were signed to deals yesterday according to the Sun-Sentinel. Obviously signing these picks isn’t that big a deal but it does clear the path towards the top of the draft order.

Picks still left to sign: Jason Allen, Derek Hagan, Fred Evans and Rodrique Wright.

Days left until camp: 8.

Fantasy Football Solution: Blogs

So this is my fantasy football problem. I hate paying for fantasy websites when Yahoo pretty much does a fine job (insert other free services like CBS Sportsline here). But I love having a keeper league because it makes you think about next year and this year at the same time. It just adds an edge. You just have to do a good job of keeping track of draft positioning and free agents. But Yahoo and the other free guys don’t offer a keeper type live draft and an offline/in-person draft isn’t the way to go for us since we’re spread out geographically.

So how am I tackling our draft? I’m going offline but staying online with a blog.

Since I have the TypePad unlimited blog plan I just whipped up a quick blog for my league. We’ll do a live draft there via the comments. I’ll do a post ahead of time for each round with the selection order and what keeper has already been slotted. I’ll turn-off comment verification so picks will be almost as live as they would be via Yahoo’s draft system. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

And if you’re wondering how we do a keeper league and keep it interesting for those dog teams: we don’t allow anyone to keep a player selected in the first two rounds. Any player selected 3-17th rounds will cost you one pick higher the next year. So if you picked a sleeper in the 8th round he’ll only cost you a 7th next year. It’s a lot of fun.

Jason Allen Ready For Camp, But Not Signed

Do you ever wonder how contract negotiations work? We learned last week (sorry I was on vacation) that Jason Allen had an arthroscopic knee “procedure” just “recently.” Let’s be more vague shall we? But his agent says he’ll be ready for camp and this was just a “cleanup procedure.” This post could stretch my use of sarcastic quotes to its limit.

The other thing I don’t’ understand is why they don’t negotiate these contracts well ahead of the camp’s start date of July 28. There’s no reason not to right? No league rules etc. So why isn’t someone like Allen signed, making us a bit more relaxed entering camp?

Fantasy Help

Hey guys. I need help. My three year old fantasy league needs to find a new online home. That may sound easy but we're a keeper league and no place seems able to do a live draft with pre-selected players already on their proper teams. Does anyone know a site that can do this? I would think this would be a huge feature to have. Otherwise our drafts get super complicated.

Thanks in advance!

If I Were Commissioner For The Day

I never agree with Peter King. OK, maybe occasionally I agree with him, but then with his next sentence I’m loathing him again. Over the weekend he put out his top ten list of what he’d do if he was the NFL commish as part as some silly space filler on the SI site. Actually, I agree with four of his nine comments, the tenth being a joke.

1. Expand the regular season to 18 games: Um…I don’t think so. These guys are barely hanging on by the playoffs and it’s a long season. I think the deletion of the 4th pre-season game and adding a 17th game might be ok. But what will that do to records? My bigger idea is a universal bye week the week prior to Thanksgiving. I don’t think the bye system works well and every other league has the same bye week. So there’s a real suggestion for you.
2. Pass a bylaw prohibiting playoff expansion: I don’t know…I’m pissed when the Dolphins go 9-7 and miss the playoffs. And an 8-8 NFL team can show up on any given playoff Sunday and beat the team with the best record in the league.
3. Make long field goals more valuable: Wow is that monumentally stupid. If you’re down by 4 points the crowd will be chanting “McNabb!” to get a TD. I’d rather see the hail mary than the long kick.
4. Take NFL Sunday Ticket off the dish and put it on digital cable: I AGREE!!! This is the only thing keeping the Dish Network alive, besides their larger HD selection.
5. Stop the love affair with Los Angeles: Totally agree. A second team in Chicago would have more loyal fans than a team in L.A.
6. Put more mikes on players and officials, and put the game on a seven-second delay: Yeah but why would we watch hours of Inside The NFL and NFL Films?
7. Let players wear the numbers of their choice -- with an asterisk: This is dumb. Either give them the numbers or not.
8. Prohibit the moving of the Saints for five years: Sure, but what if in four years the team is losing money and Bush refuses to play for the quarter of the population that has returned?
9. Put two computer chips in the football, and make the goal line, in essence, capable of sending a signal when the football touches the plane of the goal line: Hoorah! I’ve been saying this for years. If my dog has a computer chip in her why can’t the frigging ball! Used only for review purposes though.