Yahoo ranks are right on!
By Brian Miller
Normally, I would be laughing at the comments of Jason Cole. It is not that I dislike Cole, I don’t, I have been reading his stuff since he first came to Miami as the beat writer for the Miami Dolphins. I often found myself wanting to Email him a tirade. I think a few times I did.
However, this time Jason Cole and fellow Yahoo sports writer Charles Robinson, are right on! They have released their pre-season rankings, and for once Jason, I couldn’t agree more.
Cole has the Dolphins ranked at the number the number 19 spot while Robinson has them two spots higher at 17. So why is that right on? Well, for starters, the Dolphins are coming off a dismal season, have seen a coaching change, several high-profile exits including a QB, K, and TE, not to mention the heart and soul of Wes Welker.
Anything higher would be asking a lot, expecting even more. Anything lower and you get into an area that could border on personal opinion or bias.
Below the Dolphins are the Bills and of course most of the other top 10 drafting teams from this year. But the surprises are teams like Carolina, who is ranked lower than the Phins on Coles’ list. Robinson has them one spot higher. The Rams are in the bottom 12 of Robinsons’ list while Cole has them above Miami.
If you are a ranking person and those numbers mean anything to you at all, it is pleasing to see that the Dolphins are out of the top 12 but not in the bottom 12.
The Dolphins are an average team with higher than average expectations internally. Cam Cameron is not a coach who expects the impossible, but realizes that he has a team that if functioning together is a pretty serious threat.
Consider for the 9 millionth time, that the Dolphins defense is still a top 5 and that the Dolphins offense which has been a unit of non-production for the better part of 10 years finally has a coach used to scoring points. Despite what Dave Wannstedt would have you believe, scoring points does in fact win ball games. Running the ball only eats up the clock…when your losing…you don’t run the ball.
I digress.
The fact that the Dolphins are in the middle of the pack is testament to the changes made by Randy Mueller and Cam Cameron. Whether those changes propel the team up or down, will remain to be seen until the middle of the season.
In the meantime, relish the ranks if you must, but remember, as training camp moves into pre-season and pre-season into the opening week, those rankings will change….quite a few times.
You can view their full rankings here.