By Donal (Sports Editor)

Having criticized excessive rookie contracts in the NFL a few weeks ago, news of Matt Ryan’s $72m contract has left me somewhat aghast and dismayed.

I can understand paying Ryan more than than Jake Long if there was a consensus that Ryan was the best player and only fell to number three because the Dolphins already had a franchise quarterback (hypothetically).

The fact is however:, Ryan was never perceived as the best player in the draft and never a realistic shot to go first overall. He was perceived as the best QB in a rather weak QB class. Maybe I’m a little pre-occupied with perceptions but I think this contract is a little on the excessive side and I’m fairly sure that other NFL owners will think likewise.

But that said, good for Matt Ryan! Getting $34m guaranteed without even taking a snap in the pros….how bad?

The question now though is: when will he take his first regular season snap. Will Matt Ryan be the opening day starter for the Atlanta Falcons?

I’ve put the likelihood of that happening at 20%. He may only be up against Joey Harrington and Chris Redman, but the conventional wisdom is that rookies should sit and if Ryan starts and fails, Mike Smith will be blamed for starting him too early (hey…I blame Billick for Boller). They will be too scared to start him.

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By Donal (Sports Editor)

Its bad enough that the Miami Dolphins just went 1-15. What makes it worse is their timing.

As their season descended into the depths of awfulness last year, I’m sure there were some Miami fans consoling themselves with the thought of possessing the first overall pick in the draft. Right now however, faced with one of the most uninspiring selection of players at the top in years (bar maybe 2005),Fins fans are probably thinking: why couldn’t this be 1998, 2003, 2006, or even 2007.

But it isn’t just the lack of a can’t miss prospect this year that makes possession of the first overall pick as much of a penance as a privilege. The money demanded by top picks is increasingly becoming an issue and somewhat alarmingly, for the second time in three years, the signability (add that to the dictionary!) of a player will be a key determinant of who goes first overall.

Its on that basis that Jake Long looks the likely pick. But even if they select him because they can sign him, Miami will still have to give Long a contract guaranteeing at least $25m (using Joe Thomas’s contract as a basis), without any guarantee for them that Long will be the next Joe Thomas as opposed to the next Robert Gallery.

While I don’t belief that teams should be immune to the consequences of a bad draft choice, rookie salaries are making the cost of getting a top pick wrong too punitive. Increasingly, this is undermining the promotion of parity upon which the draft is based and which the NFL owes much of its success to.

It’s in that context that I’d have the following recommendation for Bill Parcells.

Let the time limit on the first pick expire without submitting a selection, wait until the Rams, Falcons, and Raiders have submitted their picks and then chose whoever remains from Gholston, the Longs and Dorsey. It would save the team some money and might just compel the NFL to take a look at and possibly take action on rookie salary levels.

He’d be doing the Dolphins and the NFL a favor.

Predict if Bill Parcells will take my advice, or if not; what the Dolphins will do with the pick:
Will the Dolphins submit their choice for the first overall pick on time?

Who will the Miami Dolphins select with the 1st overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft?

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