First the best:
Cutting Michael Egnew was the best move the team has made this off-season. Egnew had two full years to earn his keep, and he did absolutely nothing. Again. The Ireland-Philbin era somehow was too blind to see that Egnew wasn’t a good player. They gave him charity and kept him on the squad the last two years. Thank goodness that new GM Dennis Hickey won’t stand for that nonsense and got rid of him.
The worst:
Cutting Marcus Thigpen was extremely dangerous, and it could prove to be very costly. Thigpen was versatile, reliable, and mistake-free. in addition to his punt and kickoff returns, he was decent in the backfield on offensive formations, and he caught the Dolphins biggest TD pass of the year last season (on a ball woefully underthrown by Ryan Tannehill). 
Jarvis Landry could prove to be better returner, but we should have kept Thigpen to complement Landry. Damien Williams and Orleans Darqua are BOTH experiments. Why not keep a steady and loyal Thigpen and ONE experiment? Not both. Dolphins Truth has a baaaaaad feeling that Thigpen will come back to haunt us.
What should still happen?
We would LOVE to get Dimitri Patterson back. I don’t know what all the announcers and writers see in Will Davis and Jamar Taylor, but they simply are not productive. Patterson was. And is.
Before he got hurt last year, Patterson was our best DB. We should have re-signed him. But the Jets got him first. Now the Jets cut him, it’s time to bring him back. He knows the system and could fit in (again) from day one.
Surprise of the year?
It’s looking to be LB Chris McCain. A longshot to make the team, McCain persevered and played well this summer. I was listening to the Dolphins-Rams game with the Rams announcers, and Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk repeatedly said that McCain reminded him of Jason Taylor. THAT is a compliment worth noting.
Egnew agreed wish him well and was really pulling for him but maybe his NFL future lies elsewhere. Thigpen agreed, we should have kept him. The punt snafu is sad and here I go with my conspiracy theories again. But stay with me for a minute. Thigpen failed to report to field a punt in the Rams game. Then the cameras focus on him and our special teams coordinator on the sidelines discussing it . Thigpen seems incredulous as if he were saying ” You never told me to report ” or ” You told me someone else would be fielding that punt”. I so doubt Thigpen would be so absent minded to not report after his terrible drop and then equally bad scramble to regain the dropped ball. Knowing he was on the roster bubble and would be desperate to do something to make up for it, one would only assume he would be literally dying for a phins defensive stop so he could field another! The special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi looks a bit guilty as if he were trying to pass fault onto Thigpen. Or even worse purposely did this to make Thigpen’s release go from possible to probable. I dont know why but something really stunk about that play and I feel Thigpen was unfairly blamed. But save for the fact this terrible play also made Rizzi’s competence look even worse after the blown punt in the Dallas game, the most likely outcome is that Rizzi screwed up the punt assignment and placed blame on Thigpen. Thigpen needed a good showing period and had no room to make any more mistakes, no way he would have missed that assignment unless Rizzi or staff failed to inform him he was on deck. And if Im even half correct then this highlights something about the leadership structure and how accounts filter to the top. Understandably Philbin and Hickey cant be everywhere and know everything but if the distance and degrees of separation are too far. They will tend to rely on 2nd and 3rd hand accounts from people they trust to sort through the facts as they attempt to control the chaotic nature of an NFL team. Now if the story about Thigpen they were told was that Thigpen failed to report, even though the truth is Rizzi failed to inform him. Then we see a small glimpse as how our team’s politics function and understand our team from certain aspects is controlled at a distance. There is another example I really hate to bring up in my hypothesis. But bully gate had all the fingerprints of Philbin being too far out of touch to have known early enough to stop the damage by an inside team traitor by the name of Jonathan Martin. Now Im so praying Thigpen is not another victim of the fog that blankets the landscape between truth and misinformation brought upon by a leadership style that has too much distance separating the two.
And lastly ,after that absolutely beautiful catch, I thought Damian Williams was a lock. Hope he makes it on our practice squad.
Yes, that missed assignment in the punt was very curious. Maybe Thigpen was supposed to be out there, maybe not. But then why didn’t Rizzi see there was no returner, and call a timeout? Something shady was going on there.
Oh and I forgot to mention how promising McCain is looking so far. And the star potential of Gator Hoskins. Lets face it folks fans like colorful players and Gator already has a cool name and is playing very well. Call me corny but I remember Moose from Dallas being a rallying call for the Cowboys. And before that Refrigerator Perry for Chicago and so on. We really need a star, a character type of player to invigorate fan interest. We have been sadly lacking in this type of unique player for years since ahem maybe Ricky Williams before he went stir crazy. If Gator Hoskins has a good season, Im thinking the fans will adopt him as our player mascot. This could greatly help not only ticket sales but give us some desperately needed credibility from the rest of the NFL community.
We’re pretty high on Gator too. We still like having a pure fullback on the team, instead of using tight ends in the backfield. But let’s see how this works out. Gator and Clay on the field together could cause some headaches for our opponents…
Well your theory about Thigpen coming back to haunt us just got some verification. Reportedly, Thigpen was just signed to the Patriots practice squad.
PhinsUp beat us to the punch! We were preparing our blog post today about Thigpen’s signing, but PhinsUp was faster!
Im always crawling the news and thought Dolphins Truth would appreciate the scoop. 🙂