FanHouse ChadPennington

With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, FanHouse is here to preview each and every team -- one per day until we've done them all.

Meet The ...
Team who invented the Wildcat formation! Cue all sorts of zeal from the dramatic broadcasters. Of course, the formation has actually been around for decades, we just hadn't seen a ton of usage in the NFL until the Dolphins seemed to perfect it -- peaking with Ronnie Brown's ridiculous game against the Patriots.

The Dolphins have a careful quarterback, two solid runners, a good, young receiving corps, and have added a great all-around athlete via draft. It might be tough to predict who is going to consistency amass yardage, but we know one thing: They are going to be fun to watch.

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FanHouse's crack squad of savvy fantasy football personnel put our five heads together and amassed consensus rankings for non-keeper, standard scoring leagues. We'll update as the season gets closer, but this is our "incredibly early yet still fun" version.

Was last season the year of the quarterback or what? You still had the old reliables like Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Donovan McNabb doing their thing, but a whole new crop of passers have elevated themselves. Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers and Jay Cutler led the way for the youth movement. You could have even waited toward the end of your draft and landed stud QBs in Matt Ryan and Tyler Thigpen (who would have been waiver-wire fodder). Team all that with Tom Brady's Week 1 injury, and we had a really interesting season. Let's see how they fall out presently for 2009.

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A year ago, Eric Mangini, still the Jets head coach, was contemplating making a quarterback change. Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens were scheduled to fight for the job, and Mangini, uninspired by his options, eventually traded for Brett Favre and released Pennington.

After an 8-3 start, the Jets, largely due to Favre's inconsistent play, finished 1-4 and missed the playoffs. Pennington signed with the Dolphins and promptly led them to the AFC East title.

Mangini is now with the Browns (and Favre is retired, at least momentarily), but last year's experiences may have influenced his decision with his new club. Leading up to last month's draft, speculation had Cleveland trading Brady Quinn. It didn't happen, and apparently there were plenty of opportunities.

Heading into the 2009 season, we know this much about the Miami Dolphins quarterback situation: Chad Pennington is going to be the starter, and for good reason. After 2009? Well, that's anybody's guess. Miami seems to be quite high on 2008 second-round pick Chad Henne, which played a role in the front office's decision to not offer Pennington a long-term contract extension after he helped guide the Dolphins to an AFC East title.

On Saturday, the Dolphins raised a few eyebrows when they used the 44th overall pick on West Virginia quarterback Pat White ... the third straight year they've selected a quarterback in the second round.

Bill Parcells has a history of being aggressive, and the results suggest he knows what he's doing. He's taken five different teams to the playoffs as either a coach or front-office type, and is the NFL equivalent of Mr. White Winston Wolfe: he solves problems.

He took the Dolphins from a one-win outfit in 2007 to AFC East champs a year later. And if he thinks Pat White is a special player, I'm not going to argue with him.

On Day 1 of the Draft, the Dolphins selected Illinois cornerback Vontae Davis with the 25th pick, and double-downed with White a round later (44th overall). Davis has been described as a top-10 talent, but character issues saw him drop to the end of the first round. But if there's anybody who can keep Davis in check it's Parcells.

Although the Dolphins had a huge need in the secondary, White might be the best value pick in this draft.

With the draft approaching, we ignore projections and identify the dream scenario for each team in a series we call The Perfect Draft.

A year ago, the Dolphins were coming off a 1-15 record and had locked up Jake Long with the first-overall pick a week before the 2008 draft. Now, one year into Bill Parcells' Reclamation Project, Miami is 11-5, defending AFC East champs, and hold the 25th selection in Saturday's draft.

Nate Davis has had a rough few months. After an impressive junior season at Ball State -- one in which some folks had him pegged as a possible first-round pick -- the MAC quarterback has experienced a series of setbacks that will cost him millions of dollars, and perhaps the opportunity to play professional football.

ESPN.com's Jeffri Chadiha wrote earlier this month that Davis "... seemed destined to follow Ben Roethlisberger, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich as the next great Mid-American Conference quarterback to enter the NFL," although now he's more likely to be lumped in with Bruce Gradkowski, Charlie Frye -- or worse -- Omar Jacobs.

It seems Mel Kiper can't open his mouth without upsetting someone. First, he went off on ESPN colleague Todd McShay (wait, what?), and now he's drawn the ire of the Dolphins' wide receivers after dismissing the group that has played together since 2008.

Brandon London, a former Giants practice-squadder and part-time model before coming to Miami, was especially bothered by the comments, and took it upon himself to share Kiper's message of hate* with his teammates in an effort to motivate them.

Just in case there were any lingering doubts about John Beck's prospects in Miami, head coach Tony Sparano confirms what most of us already suspected: Chad Henne is the Dolphins' quarterback of the future. Not the immediate future -- that job is still Chad Pennington's -- but come 2010, the former second-round pick is scheduled to take over the full-time gig.

And while the organization is making plans beyond next season, they want to make one thing clear: there is no quarterback controversy in the interim. Pennington, who came to the Dolphins from the Jets last summer and helped guide the team to an improbable 11-5 record, is firmly entrenched as the starter for '09. Just something to keep in mind.

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer

When the New York Jets tossed Chad Pennington aside in favor of Brett Favre, the Miami Dolphins were happy to pick up the 32-year-old veteran and put him under center.

They were rewarded with a quarterback that finished second in the league's MVP voting, as the team completed one of the most improbable one-year turnarounds in NFL history, claiming the AFC East title one year after a forgettable 1-15 season.