Countdown to Miami Dolphins season continues with number 90

After yesterday’s clear-cut winner for the Miami Dolphins number 91 spot, number 90 has presented a number of challenges for the one-man selection committee.

We are still in the defensive lineman phase of our countdown but there aren’t a lot of players that really generate a lot of interest here. Jeff Zgonina played a lot of games for the Dolphins between 2003 and 2006 but didn’t do anything in that span. Marco Coleman played in Miami for four seasons and racked up 24 sacks in that time but I’m not sold on him.

So instead, I’m going to cheat a little bit. We’re going with Adewale Ogunleye.

Ogunleye played for the Dolphins for three short seasons but in that time put up 25 sacks, including a 15-sack season in 2003 which earned him a Pro Bowl nod (he had two more sacks than Jason Taylor that season).  He ended up leaving for the Chicago Bears after the 2003 season and was better for them than you would think for the majority of his career.

Ogunleye was a great player while on the field and it’s unfortunate that his time in Miami ended so quickly given the other stars on the team at the time.

A defense consisting of Zach Thomas, Jason Taylor, Brock Marion, Patrick Surtain, Sam Madison, and Tim Bowens could have been a scary defense for the rest of the early 2000s so it’s a shame that Ogunleye left for Chicago. This was also the same time that I started to pay close attention to football so guys like Ogunleye always stuck out when I would read articles and follow games, both for the Dolphins and throughout the league.

Ogunleye retired at the end of the 2010 season with 67 career sacks (stats courtesy of pro-football-reference.com) as a great un-drafted player who is somewhat forgotten in Dolphin history.