Deadline dares to be tested
Dolphins top pick Ted Ginn Jr. will be the team's last draft choice to sign a contract, very likely by today or Friday at the latest. Miami thus would have all of its rookies in the fold before Saturday's first full-squad workday of training camp, a football rarity.
It would be great news!
Except to me.
I was rather enjoying the prospect of Wayne Huizenga squirming.
I like to see billionaires squirm. Usually they pay lawyers and others to squirm for them, but every once in a while they must squirm for themselves, such as when they are convicted on federal charges or have gone on record stating unequivocally that rookies who don't sign prior to training camp will be made to sit out the entire season.
Gee, can't you please wait until Saturday to sign, Ted? Can't you hold out for one last incentive such as a $50,000 bonus if the Dolphins win the Super Bowl, or if you lead the league in kickoff return yardage, or if Brady Quinn tears a knee?
What I mean is: Can't you call Huizenga's bluff?
How fun it would be if Ted Ginn Jr. -- maybe on a technicality, maybe by just a few hours -- missed Huizenga's supposed hard-line Friday deadline for signing.
How fun to hear the local outcry and national incredulity if the club owner then shocked us all by holding firm and benching Ted Ginn Jr. for the season.
How fun if, far more likely, Huizenga then concocted a reason to make an exception, and we thus learned his hard-line was drawn by a soft pencil with a big eraser.
Now that the Daunte Culpepper soap opera finally has ended, Ted Ginn Jr. sneaking in under Huizenga's mandate (or not) is the last bit of drama in the buildup to the weekend's ceremonial start of the 2007 Dolphins season.
If Ted Ginn Jr. signs in time, it means Huizenga's dictum was untested, and he gets to be the trendsetting master of football business. Set a deadline and watch everybody curtsy and bow! Then, we would have to wait another year to see the real-world application, which is that you don't sacrifice a whole season of your No. 1 pick -- you don't penalize your team or fans like that -- simply to win a macho staring contest over some arbitrary deadline.
WHO BLINKS FIRST?
I get accused all the time of generally being pro-management because I think getting paid silly millions to play games ranks sports stars among the luckiest people on the planet. And to see them holding out for yet more money is galling.
But in this case, Huizenga's mandate, while ostensibly right-minded, must make allowance for flexibility.
The business side of football does not always sing harmony with the playing side. Ted Ginn Jr. negotiations might run considerably slower than Ted Ginn Jr..
You deal with that. You don't banish your most exciting young playmaker for a year because his nerdy agent didn't precisely satisfy the ticking clock on your pointless principle.
What happens is, the deadline meant to force the hand of players and agents can end up backfiring and working in their favor.
Not with a sixth-round guy who might be your backup long-snapper.
But with a first-round guy possessing the speed you think will make him the game-breaker this sagging team desperately needs? Absolutely.
Leverage swings to Ted Ginn Jr. right now as Huizenga's ''deadline'' draws near.
Ol' Wayne must save face by having Ted Ginn Jr. signed in time (even if it means conceding on a contractual point or two), because the owner is fully aware he's bluffing. He knows that for all his blustery public posturing, there is no chance -- zero, nil, nada -- that he will sit Ted Ginn Jr. for the season if Saturday dawns with him still unsigned.
Huizenga got where he is by being ruthless when needed, but also by being pragmatic. He is too desperate to win to sacrifice a chance at that merely to sate his own ego. He won't (in effect) suspend his No. 1 pick for a year just to get to preen and say, ``I told you, but you wouldn't listen.''
In terms of being disingenuous, Huizenga's flimsy ''deadline'' ranks second in Dolphin hilarity this week, trailing only coach Cam Cameron saying the starting quarterback job is open.
The headline in my newspaper Wednesday read, ''Cameron embraces competition at QB.'' To quote my man Ralph Kramden: ``Har de har har!''
Trent Green will start on opening day barring injury, and everybody knows it. You can't blame Cameron for encouraging the public pretense of an open competition. What you can blame Cameron for is having the nerve to extol may-the-best-man-win after he earlier kicked the best man, Culpepper, out the door without giving him the slightest chance to earn the job.
Our fascination in all things Dolphin, our scrutinizing every detail, mirrors the club's outright ownership of South Florida's sporting heart and mind. No other team is close. Not even five consecutive seasons out of the playoffs or Marlins or Heat championships in the interim have imperiled the Dolphins' long reign.
STILL NO. 1
The franchise's stature was confirmed this week as my paper revealed its ''Fantastic Four'' -- our all-time most influential sports figures as determined by readers. The quintessential quartet? Dolphins' legendary coach Don Shula, iconic QB Dan Marino, founding owner Joe Robbie and current owner Huizenga.
Now our flagship launches its 42nd season Saturday with a practice that seems more important than that. It has been 34 years since Miami last ruled the NFL, and 23 since the last Super Bowl appearance, but in most every Dolfan beats the notion this could be the year.
Against odds, it could be.
That fragile, precious hope, and the breadth of deep passion behind it, are why Ted Ginn Jr. will play this season, no matter when he signs.
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