Well, it goes from Pulp promise to fact: Trent Green was a bad idea. I had written that Green probably wouldn't last half the season and that all fans can hope from him is "that he stewards the offense without a complete meltdown" until John Beck is ready.
Well the meltdown came yesterday. Green was awful, throwing four interceptions, a couple of them just pathetic. Dave Hyde, in a sign that he's begun reporting games rather than gagging into in a paper bag, gets this snippet from the Dallas locker room after the game.
"Filmwork," safety Ken Hamlin said was the reason. "Players studied. Coaches studied. We saw some things.""Tell what we saw," cornerback Jacques Reeves said at the next locker.
"Not me," Hamlin said.
"Trent Green likes to get rid of the ball fast," Reeves said. "That's what we saw. For good reason, too. He has, what, seven concussions?"
Reeves was told Green has been adamant about having just one concussion, the nasty one last year.
"Naw, he's got like seven concussions," Reeves said. "The limit is eight, I think. So he doesn't want to get hit. Can you blame him? But if he's thinking about getting rid of the ball fast, we're going to think about it, too."
There you have it: Green is like bloody meat in a shark tank out there. If things go similarly for the aging QB next week in East Rutherford against the Jets then you put in ... Cleo Lemon. Hopefully he can hold the fort. I've seen what putting in a young quarterback too fast can do, and you don't want to ruin Beck in the short-term. He's a guy that I see as the Dolphins hope for the future.
So far, Coach Cameron's biggest moves look to be bush league. Green has the markings of an obvious bust and Ted Ginn may not have an NFL body (he looks a little scared out there). If he forces Beck, that move might go south as well, dooming him and the Fins to mediocrity for the foreseeable future.
