As Mike Mularkey takes over as the Dolphins' offensive coordinator, there are a couple of questions to consider that revolve around personnel.

 

First, what direction will the team take at quarterback?

 

Second, what impact does Mularkey's more run-heavy offense have on the prospects of keeping running back Ricky Williams?

 

Those questions, particularly the one about quarterback, are appropriate given that the Dolphins' coaching and personnel staff will be in Mobile, Ala., this week for Senior Bowl practices. It will be their most extensive look at some of the top players available in the draft.

 

The first question has dominated the talk about the future of the team since early in the season. Coach Nick Saban said the day after the season ended that upgrading quarterback was the team's foremost priority.

 

With Mularkey in place, what kind of quarterback best fits his system?

 

Between the past two seasons as head coach in Buffalo and the previous three as offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh, Mularkey has worked with five regular starting quarterbacks.

 

He helped guide those teams to winning records four times, including his first year as offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh. That year, Mularkey helped quarterback Kordell Stewart to his best season as Pittsburgh reached the AFC Championship Game. The exception was this past season with Buffalo as Mularkey tried to groom second-year quarterback J.P. Losman, who was pulled during one part of the season in favor of Kelly Holcomb.

 

Mularkey has worked with agile quarterbacks, such as Stewart and Losman, and the less-mobile, such as Tommy Maddox in Pittsburgh and Drew Bledsoe in Buffalo in 2004.

 

`EXOTIC SMASH-MOUTH'

 

''You run the football well, you play-action well and third down is a big package,'' Maddox said Sunday. ``As he likes to call it, it's an exotic smash-mouth offense. You're going to run the ball, you're going to be physical, but that's not all you're going to do.''

 

Under Mularkey, Bledsoe was sacked 54 times. But Bledsoe also did an excellent job of handling the running game that season and doing all the play-action fakes that Mularkey prefers.

 

Saturday's Senior Bowl is expected to have a strong cast of quarterbacks, including Vanderbilt's Jay Cutler.

 

Aside from Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart, who is not expected to participate in the Senior Bowl, and Texas junior Vince Young, Cutler is considered the next-best quarterback in the draft.

 

Some draft experts, such as Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN, have projected Cutler to be among the top-10 picks. The Tennessee Titans, who have the No. 3 overall pick, were so intrigued by Cutler that they have already started to ask around about how far they could possibly trade down and still end up getting him.

 

The other quarterbacks participating in the game are Charlie Whitehurst of Clemson, Brodie Croyle of Alabama, D.J. Shockley of Georgia, Michael Robinson of Penn State and Darrell Hackney of Alabama-Birmingham. All of them will be on the Dolphins' draft radar.

 

As for Williams, Mularkey's arrival could tilt the scales toward the Dolphins keeping him. While in Pittsburgh, Mularkey regularly used multiple running backs, led by Jerome Bettis. In Buffalo, he balanced the combination of Travis Henry and Willis McGahee for one season until Henry demanded to be traded.

 

BALANCED OFFENSE

 

But the other element is that Mularkey puts a premium on run-pass balance. Even this year, as the Bills struggled to win games, they still passed the ball only 53 percent of the time. Former offensive coordinator Scott Linehan's offense was closer to 60 percent pass during his first four years in the NFL with the Dolphins and Minnesota.

 

With Mularkey coordinating the duo of Williams and Ronnie Brown, the Dolphins could end up with approximately 450 rushing attempts over the course of a season, which is more than enough for two backs to share.

450 carries for the running backs? I hope Ronnie gets 350 of those.

450 carries for the running backs? I hope Ronnie gets 350 of those.

 

i acually hope we keep ricky and he gets as many if not more carries than R.Brown.......

 

Williams is in his prime lets use that and also it wont kill Brown while he's still learning......

450 carries for the running backs? I hope Ronnie gets 350 of those.

 

This past year in Buffalo he was awful in some games about establishing the run (he took over play calling from Tom Clements about 6 weeks in) , as McGahee would get less than 15 carries even though the games were relatively close and the Bills passing offense, um, left some things to be desired because of their shaky QB's. He tends to outthink himself (at least he did last year) and get away from what works just to be overly creative and try and fool the other team (see, among many examples, the first down pass on the goal line in Miami that was intercepted and sparked Miami's comeback). In 2004, when the offense was pretty good for an offense with Drew Bledsoe at QB, he was great about leaning on McGahee to carry the team, so it was really odd what he did last year with the running game.

 

I'm not saying it's gonna happen in Miami, but he doesn't always walk the walk when it comes to establishing the run, even though he loves to talk about it.

No offense(sp?), but you guys dont exactly have a good OLine or a good QB or a good team period lol, the Fins are much better situated than the Bills are/were last year.

No offense(sp?), but you guys dont exactly have a good OLine or a good QB or a good team period lol, the Fins are much better situated than the Bills are/were last year.

 

 

I'm talking about playcalling, not which team is better you dolt.

 

McGahee did fine in 2004 behind essentially the same line (losing Jonas Jennings wasn't a huge loss), and with an inexperienced QB you'd expect Mularkey (with as much as he talks about a "smash mouth team") to at least run the ball with the same game to game consistency as the prior year.

 

Mularkey last year showed tendencies of Linehan vs Cleveland-esque playcalling last year in some games

No offense(sp?), but you guys dont exactly have a good OLine or a good QB or a good team period lol, the Fins are much better situated than the Bills are/were last year.

 

 

I'm talking about playcalling, not which team is better you dolt.

 

McGahee did fine in 2004 behind essentially the same line (losing Jonas Jennings wasn't a huge loss), and with an inexperienced QB you'd expect Mularkey (with as much as he talks about a "smash mouth team") to at least run the ball with the same game to game consistency as the prior year.

 

Mularkey last year showed tendencies of Linehan vs Cleveland-esque playcalling last year in some games

Don't speak of that again.

 

*Abandons the running game after going down 6-0 in the beginning of the 1st quarter*