Monday, February 4, 2013
Miami's key offseason move
By Tim Kavanagh
Many local news organizations sent a reporter to cover the Super Bowl this past week, and for those whose normal duties involve covering the local NFL team, it made for an easy column this week to compare and contrast the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens to their respective franchise. For the Miami Dolphins, there are some areas where they are comparable, but there's one glaring difference.
As noted by Dave Hyde of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Dolphins need to make significant improvements to their WR corps. While we can have the chicken-egg debate over whether Joe Flacco made his WRs look good or whether the WRs were the ones that made Flacco look good, the fact remains that the group performed well as a whole. And right now, the Dolphins don't have the same kind of setup with Ryan Tannehill and his pass-catchers (with top target Brian Hartline set to hit free agency, no less).
The good news for Miami is that the free agent class is chock full of options, and whether they spend big on someone like Dwayne Bowe, Mike Wallace or Greg Jennings, or find themselves some lower-priced options (while re-signing or franchising Hartline), they can improve by breaking out the checkbook in March. In addition, this may be the offseason in which they invest a first-round pick on a WR as well, and some early mock drafts have linked them to prospects at the position, such as Tennessee's Cordarrelle Patterson or Baylor's Terrance Williams.
