FanHouse Ronnnie Brown

Things are looking up in Miami, which is welcome news for an outfit that went 1-15 last season. Randy Mueller and Cam Cameron are out, replaced by Bill Parcells, Jeff Ireland and Tony Sparano; the Dolphins have a franchise left tackle (although some are skeptical); Ricky Williams is again excited to be playing football; Jason Taylor has decided to put off his Hollywood dreamz for another season; and Ronnnie Brown, the team's 2005 first-round pick, expects to be completely healthy by the start of the season.

Brown, who's coming back from a torn ACL, thinks he can return to the form that saw him average 5.1 yards per carry through Week 7 of the '07 season.

Are those expectations too high? Based on other backs returning from ACL injuries, the results are mixed:

[Edgerrin] James averaged 4.4 yards per carry the year before (2000), 3.6 the year after (2002) but 4.1 and 4.6 in '03 and '04. Terry Allen (4.5 year before, 4.0 year after) and Jamal Anderson (4.5, 3.6) also fell off initially but still topped 1,000 yards in their first year back. (Anderson tore his other ACL a year later.)

But Jamal Lewis, who tore his ACL in 2001 training camp, had virtually no fall-off (4.4 in 2000, 4.3 in '02, 5.3 in '03). Ex-UM star Willis McGahee, who sat out his rookie NFL season (2003) after tearing his ACL and two other knee ligaments in the Fiesta Bowl, averaged 4.0 in 2004, the second-best of his career.

Good thing the Dolphins invested all that money in linebacker Joey Porter. He's been recovering from preseason knee surgery, and suffering from a serious bout of (on-field) inadequacy through the first three weeks. Together with Zach Thomas' concussion and Jason Taylor's slow start, Miami's defense has been pretty mediocre so far.

In fact, things are so bad, the Miami Herald's Armando Salguero writes that the offense -- a perennially hapless bunch since Dan Marino retired -- has surpassed the defense in terms of effectiveness.

A quick scan of the NFL offensive and defensive rankings is proof that something truly wacky is happening in Davie these days. Right there, in black and white, it says Miami's offense is better and more proficient than the defense.

The statistics make that statement as inarguable fact -- with Miami's bunch ranked No. 14 among all NFL offenses while the defense is a depressing 20th overall. The last time Miami's offense finished the season ranked higher than the defense was 1997.

The difference is actually worse than that, according to Football Outsiders. The offense ranks 13th and the defense 25th. More specifically, both the pass and run offense is 15th in the league, while the pass defense (24th) and run defense (27th) are among the NFL's worst.