Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland said with an Easter Island expression that the Dolphins spending a second-round pick on University of Michigan quarterback Chad Henne had nothing to do with last year's second-round quarterback pick, John Beck.
Note to Beck: Ireland also said -- with the same expression -- that the first day of the draft passed without any of the 31 other teams calling the Dolphins about the availability of defensive end Jason Taylor, age 33 and one year removed from NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
The drafting of Henne, especially considering a Dolphins defense with more holes than an original I'm With Stupid T-shirt, sends a similar message that the trade of slightly-built running back Lorenzo Booker did earlier in the day -- that guys liked by the previous Dolphins regime, even those young guys who might have a nice future elsewhere, don't fit in the current regime's fraternity.
Because the Booker deal brought back Philadelphia's fourth-round pick, albeit 15 spots behind the fourth-rounder the Dolphins gave up to Dallas, you could look at the deal as Booker for Fasano and Ayodele. That's a good third-down back for a veteran linebacker who has started 73 of his last 80 regular season games for playoff teams, and a third-year tight end who spent his first two NFL seasons stuck behind Jason Witten, among the NFL's best tight ends.
''He's a great kid, a playmaker, but at the end of the day, he didn't fit the system we're trying to put into place here,'' Ireland said.
Also, Ireland said, Beck couldn't have done anything in the offseason that would have prevented the Dolphins from taking Henne, whom they were worried about Green Bay snapping him up one spot ahead of where the Dolphins took him.
''He's a great leader,'' Ireland said of Henne. ``He's got an aura about him that you like about a quarterback. He's highly competitive. He had nine come-from-behind fourth-quarter wins in his career. I think that was more than anybody we studied.''
Asked how that compared to Beck, Ireland said, ``John's got a quick release, strong arm, highly competitive. We like both these kids. [Veteran] Josh McCown as well.''
Beck doesn't lack a certain mental toughness. Soft people don't do a two-year Mormon mission in Portugal without knowing the language, as Beck did. Yet notice Ireland said nothing about the ''aura'' or leadership abilities of Beck, who comes off as a nice, smart guy who could be a good backup quarterback.
Henne's a Bill Parcells kind of quarterback -- a tall pocket passer who's physically tough, as he demonstrated in playing the second half against Illinois despite separating his throwing shoulder in the first half; and mentally tough, as he demonstrated by spending four years under the searing pressure that comes with being the starting quarterback at the University of Michigan. He can be battered into being scatter-armed, like almost all quarterbacks, he can be scatter-armed without any encouragement, but he'll have little vulnerability to nasty noise from media, fans and coaches.
In that way, Henne is similar to former Giants quarterback Phil Simms, whose selection in the 1979 draft was booed by Giants fans. When Parcells took over as Giants head coach in 1983, his treatment of the future Super Bowl MVP wasn't much more avuncular.
But it was more welcoming than the cold message sent to Beck Saturday night.
