Well, it IS Randy's fault for recruiting him. So, he does get some of the blame. 44% of 5 star recruits go on to get drafted in the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft. So saying the stars don't matter at all is WRONG. It's just not an exact science and is far from perfect.

While I agree that the "star" rankings aren't an exact science and doesn't guarantee anything, it honestly can't be ignored either. 44% of 5 star recruits end up getting drafted in the first 3 rounds of the NFL. 10% of 4 star, 3.6% of 3 star and less than 1% of 2 star. Of course, a lot of those that get drafted may end up being busts at that the next level, but to say that the rankings don't matter at all would be ignorant. Plus, if Randy had pulled together some class that had 10 5-star recruits everyone would be saying how great of a recruiter he was -- and nobody would be saying, man, I wish we would've went after that 2 star tight end instead of the 5-star one that signed with us...

The WR comparison is pointless. Welker's last season with Miami: 67 rec 687 yds 1 td 3 seasons with the Pats: 112-1175-8 111-1165-3 123-1348-4 Bess with Dolphins: 76-758-2 Camarillo with Dolphins: 50-552-0 If Ginn was Randy Moss stretching the field and we threw the ball as much as the Pats, either one of those guys could easily replicate Welker's stats. If Collie and Garcon were on the Dolphins, we'd probably be complaining about why we picked them.

It kinda sucks that we couldn't have spent all this season seeing if White could make the switch to WR. Without ever seeing him run a route, I'd guess he's closer to being useful as an NFL WR than an NFL QB

Massaquoi went just a few picks after White

This loss was a good thing. We weren't making it in the playoffs anyway, and being 7-9 means we could pick as high as #10.

What bothers me is that a lot of our problems seem to be unchanged from Randy's first year. We're awful at clock management. We have issues with drops. We always seem to be "out-coached". We constantly take bad penalties. We've seemingly never played ONE full great game from beginning to end. Every time bad stuff happens, the camera pans to Randy and he has that "deer in headlights(TM)" look. While our record has improved, we haven't really gotten THAT much better. Whipple alone might be worth the 2 wins and we honestly lucked out in a lot of games this season. If not for the Bradford and Gresham injuries, OU would've smoked us. And we only beat a VERY BAD FSU team because of a dropped pass in the end zone. That said, I'm willing to drink my green & orange kool-aide and be optimistic about next season. Hopefully JH's downward spiral was all a result of his injuries and hopefully his tendency to get injured isn't a result of him being Mr. Glass from Unbreakable and won't be an issue next season. Hopefully the receivers learn how to consistently catch passes like teams playing against us always seem to do better. Hopefully our line learns how to block and learns to stop doing dumb things like double a DT while letting a DE have a free run at the QB. Hopefully our d-line learns to shed blockers and get to the QB. Hopefully our LBs and DBs learn to actually cover receivers, particularly the slow white ones that always seem to cause the most problems. Hopefully Shannon learns how to manage the clock (fingers crossed that he doesn't turn to guys like Andy Reid or Mike Holmgren for help!). Hopefully we can actually win the ACC that we haven't come close to despite it being one of the worst conferences in college football. Hopefully we can make a BCS Bowl and actually show up like we're fully prepared and ready. Hell, if all my hopes come true, maybe we'll be playing for and winning a NC next year...

As heart-wrenching as the weekend was, having both the Hurricanes and Dolphins lose games in the fashion they did, I still have hopes that the Dolphins can save this season. If they beat the Jets and Bills again and then at least split with New England, they'll have the best division record and will only need to tie with NE to win the division again. And Miami getting to 10-6 or 11-5 and NE also landing around there isn't that out of the question either. Outside of the division games, we have a lot of teams that were supposed to be tough this year but have sucked -- Bucs (0-7), Panthers (2-4), Jags (3-3), Titans (0-6) & Texans (3-3). The Steelers are the only team left, other than the Jets and Pats, that have a record above .500. If we play like we're capable of playing and Henne continues to improve, 11-5 and winning the division is still a possibility. This would require the aforementioned splitting with the Pats and them losing their games against the Colts and Saints (probably the only 2 games NE will likely lose remaining on their also fairly easy remaining schedule)...but it's possible. :) Of course, we can also continue to make bad coaching mistakes, drop passes, commit dumb penalties and fail to cover anyone in the secondary and end up 4-12...