During free agency, we wrote an article after Andre Johnson was released by the Houston Texans, that Miami should have looked into acquiring him, not just because he was an accomplished veteran wide receiver, but because he was a former University of Miami star and Miami native. Well everyone knows what happened next; Andre Johnson signed with the Indianapolis Colts, and Miami signed another veteran in Greg Jennings.
Ironically this week Johnson told reporters that “ I always had a dream of playing at home. I was a huge Dolphins fan. But they never called.” Johnson is a 7-time pro bowl wide receiver who even though he has been playing in the league for 12 years, has still has been putting up solid numbers. Just last season alone he had 85 catches for 936 yards and 3 touchdowns. In 2012 and 2013 he was putting up jaw-dropping numbers with a total of 221 catches for 3,005 yards and 9 touchdowns. These reception and receiving yardage numbers are better than Jennings numbers.
My initial feeling when I heard that Johnson would have loved to play in Miami was, shit I would have loved to have him on the team. However, Johnson was also vocal about still wanting to be a focal part of his new team’s offense, and that type of idea would have not been entirely welcomed in Miami. We already released players that were not happy about how they were being used in our offense, so there was no reason to add another greedy pass-me the ball type receiver.
In addition, even though Johnson’s amount of catches and receiving yard statistics have been better than Jennings over the last 3 years, Jennings has been more productive in the all important touchdown category. Over the last 3 years, Jennings has had 14 TD’s and that includes 2012 where he only played in 8 games, compared to Johnson’s 12 touchdowns in 3 complete seasons. In addition, Johnson has been targeted an incredible 492 times over the last 3 years, whereas Jennings has only been targeted 260 times in the last 3 years. Someone like Johnson, who was getting that many passes thrown his way, is not going to be able to adjust to a team and offense that is not going to be feeding him the ball nearly as much as he has been used to getting.
So even though Johnson may have had a better career than Jennings, and he wanted to play for Miami, I believe the phins front office did an excellent job of analyzing the type of veteran receiver they were looking to plug into their offense and went with the correct choice with Jennings. Who would the rest of the Miami Dolphins news fans and the pay per head bookie service sites like AcePerHead.com prefer, if they had the choice between Johnson and Jennings?
Yes, we needed a player who quietly played at a high level and would not be in Philbin’s face. Jennings knows Philbin so he must know that Joe is not good at managing confrontation. Jennings is there to be a quiet example of a all pro wide receiver.
Yes, we needed a player who quietly played at a high level and would not be in Philbin’s face. Jennings knows Philbin so he must know that Joe is not good at managing confrontation. Jennings is there to be a quiet example of a all pro wide receiver.
Well Said Van Hamlin