Ronnie Brown to share Dolphins' backfield with Ricky Williams

[ARamsFan]

Well, the NFL is kind of liken to Winner-take-all Reppie primaries. Take a few percentage points of the top and, the result could be dramatically different. So it is with Ricky Williams: put on the Fins and by God, they are good for 6 wins in a situation like last year. Wait a minute he was a Fins last year. But I mean when it counts, not the post-bye developmental period.

[StL FinFan]

He didn't even play a full game last season.  What's your point?

[Rick]

  I am definetly EXCITED to see what a HEALTHY Ricky Williams/Ronnie Brown RB combo can do in 2008.  Lorenzo Booker will be a good 3rd down and speed back.  The running game is definetly not a concern.  It is the rest of the offense that needs to step it up and play better football.     

[fyo]

The running game is definetly not a concern.

I think the running game is definitely going to be a HUGE concern, at least for the first half of the season while Ronnie gets going. As I said when he got injured (mind you, I was just parroting some great experts in sports medicine), Brown is probably going to be called 100% by the start of the season, but his performance will be disappointing. That's the standard recovery process for Brown's injury these days. Normally, running backs do return to their previous level of performance, but it just takes longer than the "he's 100%" claim will suggest.

As for Ricky... well, he took a handful of snaps and got injured. I don't think we can say anything one way or the other about him.

Booker is an interesting player and I went out on a limb predicting great things from him this past season, but, unfortunately, Cameron didn't feel he was ready. When he was finally given a chance towards the end, I thought he did quite well. The new management have spoken very highly of him, so it'll be interesting to see how Sparano can get him involved. He clearly has some spectacular abilities, but tapping them isn't going to be trivial. It's not like just handing off to a power back...

So, all in all, I'd say I'm very concerned about our running game next season. There's a lot of a potential, but too many IFs for my liking:

IF Ronnie gets back to 100% by September.
IF Ricky can actually still perform (and not get injured).
IF Booker turns out to be great AND Sparano can get him involved.

If all of those IFs fall out the wrong way, we'll have a running game lead by a gimp Ronnie and some guy named Patrick Cobbs. That would get ugly pretty darn quick.

[ARamsFan]

He didn't even play a full game last season.  What's your point?

Point is, if Ricky Williams was there in the backfield where he's suppose to be, then Fins game results could have turned up 6 wins, in a hypothetical last season. You know, I know, everybody knows half the Fins losses were decided by a few pts. You know, I know, everybody knows Goodell shafted Fins big time by holding the guy out. When he did reappear in tandem with RB during the Linehan/Saban regime -- they had 9 wins that season -- the D had to prepare for an awesome rushing attack based on a Csonka and Morris backfield, only more flexible. 

Some credit Linehan for the Fins 9 win season. He had some brilliant and some bonehead calls as I recall '05 here, so its a wash. I say, the Fins were able to put together wins mainly on the strength of a hard rushing game and their defensive attack.

The '08 version of the R&R express will be doubtless more predictable, but concievably a hard-core rushing attack that effectively penetrates an opposing defensive front.

[StL FinFan]

Coulda woulda shoulda.

[simeon]

I have confidence in Ronnie Brown, we will see if Ricky can step up to the plate or not. Ricky has not played much football in the last three or four years.