Football Fan Spot

After trading Brandon Marshall this offseason, the Dolphins’ receiving corps instantly turned into one of the worst in the league. They didn’t spend any premium picks on the position through the draft, opting instead to address their other many needs, and as of right now, it’s very, very unclear how the depth chart order will shake out at wide receiver for the Dolphins.

Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland is not the man who will have the final decision on the matter, but he did assemble this group so his comments today were interesting. He called Brian Hartline and Davone Bess “players with tremendous experience,” said Legedu Naanee has “looked really good” in practice, and then talked up Marlon Moore and Robert Wallace.

It’s looking like a case of tremendous delusion in Miami. Even if Naanee does look really good in practice, there is no logical way to define Brian Hartline and Davone Bess as “players with tremendous experience.” The two have a combined 369 career catches over 7 career combined seasons. It’s actually kind of sad and telling that “experience” was the best thing he could come up with for those two, though I guess compared to the rest of the receiving corps, they are experienced.

Naanee, meanwhile, had 44 catches last season as a slot receiver in Carolina. He’s a decent, but unspectacular player who has only surpassed 24 catches once in 5 seasons. Moore and Wallace, meanwhile, are 2^nd year players who have 6 catches each thus far in their careers. They’ll probably be non-factors once again this year behind Hartline, Bess, and Naanee.

It’s interesting to note that Ireland named 5 players before getting to Clyde Gates, BJ Cunningham, and Jeff Fuller. Gates was a 4^th round pick of Ireland’s last year, but it doesn’t sound like the speedy one trick pony is progressing as Ireland would have hoped. Cunningham and Fuller are both rookies, Cunningham going in the 6^th round and Fuller going undrafted, and it doesn’t appear that either will have a major impact this season if they even make the roster. Gates’ roster spot is reportedly in danger as well. All in all, the whoever the Dolphins’ quarterback is, he’s going to have a miserable time finding open receivers this season.