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Insider | Notes | Mailbag
You can't say you weren't warned.
We told you the Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers were in for long seasons. We said they'd be the second- and third-best teams in the state of Florida, looking up at the Jaguars.
One thing, though: Nobody could have imagined it would be this bad.
"Those teams stink," said one NFC personnel director.
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| Jon Gruden has lost his golden glow as the Bucs have backtracked.(AP) |
It's simple, really: bad personnel moves.
They'll get you every time.
In Miami, the list of bad moves is lengthy, the main one being the trade for quarterback A.J. Feeley from Philadelphia. They targeted him as their starter, traded a second-round pick for him, and then paid him a nice contract.
After two starts, forced starts that apparently came down from the front office, Feeley is back on the bench. He's replaced by Jay Fiedler, the man the Dolphins looked long and hard to replace the past couple of seasons.
When Miami traded for Feeley, they were getting a third-team quarterback, prompting some personnel people to say it was a panic move. As it turns out, they appear to be right.
So Miami is back to Fiedler, but the problem is they have a bad offensive line -- the worst in football -- no running back to speak of and an offensive staff that neither trusts each other nor works well together.