FanHouse Patrick Turner

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.

---

---

Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 2009 Draft Grades.

For the fourth straight year, the Miami Dolphins used a second-round pick on a quarterback, selecting West Virginia's Pat White with the 44th overall pick. White, a record-setting player in college, joined John Beck (recently released) and Chad Henne as recent selections, to go along with the trade that brought Daunte Culpepper to Miami prior to the 2006 season.

While there is still some debate as to what type of future White will have in the NFL, the Dolphins view him as a quarterback, while one scout recently told Omar Kelly of the Sun Sentinel that Miami is trying to "revolutionize pro football by bringing the spread to the NFL."

USC head coach Pete Carroll likes to talk about "Competition Tuesdays" where players fight for a spot in the starting lineup. The competition between two sure-thing starters got a little heated, however, on the Tuesday before the Trojans' opening game against Idaho.

Junior Linebacker Rey Maualuga delivered what coach Carroll described as a "vicious hit" which took wide receiver Patrick Turner out of practice for medical evaluation and X-Rays...or shall we say "X-Reys"?

All Turner could say in response to the hit was, "What the (expletive), Rey?"--inspiring a T-Shirt by a leading Trojan blogger.

The linebacker had his own take on things: "Before practice, he was like, 'I'm going to [Randy] Moss you, Rey. I'm going to Moss you,' like catch a ball over me and like beat me downfield like in a footrace," Maualuga told the Los Angeles Times.

"I'm like, 'Your helmet is going to come off, your helmet is going to come off.' Swear to God, those were the exact words coming in. For some reason, it was like, boom, he was there, I was there. It just happened."

USC held the Trojan Huddle Saturday, bringing some ten thousand fans out to the Coliseum...and for about the first hour all they got was a show from the Song Girls...as the event kicked off about an our late. And not, it was not the kind of "show" they gave us at the Rose Bowl.

Notable highlights include great performances on the ground by running-backs Herschel Dennis and Chauncey Washington and some huge hits from the defense. Desmond Reed, injured by the ankle-high grass in South Bend two years ago, is looking better than ever and is being used in more versatile positions than last year--running and catching from scrimmage again, unlike in 2006, when you knew that Reed was the #1 receiver every time he entered the game.

Forgettable was the play of quarterbacks John David Booty and Mark Sanchez, who chased the record for most turnovers in the Spring game. Booty no longer has Steve Smith and Dwayne Jarrett on the field, so he has decided to lock in on Fred Davis and Patrick Turner--the receivers he has had the most experience with in practice over the years. Some things will never change--even if they put the shotgun to good use.

More pictures and more Song Girls after the jump...

If you like to watch people in football uniforms running really really fast and doing fast things, this is your video.

In it, Muskegon (MI) receiver Ronald Johnson just torches some hapless opponent with several long receptions and punt returns. Johnson would later spurn the homestate Michigan Wolverines in favor of USC, shocking a lot of recruitniks.

The pure speed on display reminds me a little of Ted Ginn's videos from a few years ago. As soon as the ball is in Johnson's hands he's just gone, no doubt about it. It's all the more remarkable considering he was still recovering from torn knee ligaments at the time. That tends to rob guys of some of their explosiveness but apparently Johnson's doing just fine.

The scuttlebutt with him now is figuring out how USC will use him. The early talk is wide receiver, a la Ted Ginn. However, USC is loaded with receiver talent including several top 10 national recruits like Patrick Turner and Vidal Hazelton to go with the monstrous David Ausberry and speedy Travon Patterson. Did I mention USC also has Jamere Holland who broke his leg busted his shoulder just before fall camp last year but is otherwise one of the fastest players in the country (10.3 range in the 100 meters)?.

USC has numbers at receiver Ohio State simply couldn't match, which makes me think that Johnson finds his way to the defensive backfield within the year unlike Ginn who became a permanent offensive fixture in spite of his background as a defensive back. However, his speed and ball skills are hard to ignore. Look for him to moonlight as a punt or kick returner early in his career until that whole offense/defense thing is permanently sorted out.