Joey Harrington: Dolphins QB

This will come as a shock to Bruce Mr. Turk, the man who, cursed with my friendship, has to sit there and take all my quirks. Why shock? Well, from the moment the Dolphins signed Joey Harrington to yesterday, I adopted a Parcells-esque manner in which to deal with with this development, namely by refusing to utter his name. That's right, from May 12th to yesterday I never referred to Joey Harrington and the Miami Dolphins in the same breath.

When Daunte Culpepper went down with an injury/suckiness, Harrington got a chance to prove everyone who ever doubted him (raising a guilty hand) wrong. At first he didn't show much, but then he didn't stink up the joint either. The Dolphins' success seems to have risen concurrently with his increasing comfort in the offence, with the culmination being the beat-down he laid on the best defence in the NFL (Chicago Bears), a performance I missed because I was sitting next to a guy yelling to a standing, overweight Packer fan to "SIT DOWN, SANTA!".

Although I've watched a few Dolphins games since Harrington took over, not until yesterday did I chart his performance à la Dr. Z. The following results aren't likely to interest anyone but hard-core Dolphins fans and fantasy junkies. What follows are the results of my study (and yes, I realize they were playing the Lions defence in an emotional return for the Joey to the place where he got labeled the Anti-Christ).

Yesterday against the Lions, Joey Harrington: Dolphins QB completed 19 of 29 passes for 213 yards. He threw 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. All of his 19 completions were thrown exactly where they needed to be - none his receivers had to make anything spectacular or adjust their route to make a catch. That is pretty amazing in and of itself.

Of his 10 incompletions, three were dropped, one was thrown out of bounds on purpose and one pass was tipped. In all, 5 of Harrington's 29 attempts were incompleted because of a lack of accuracy. It's not Brady-esque, but you can't ask much more from your QB. I was totally impressed.

Lions fans had to be shaking their heads. Was it really the team around him? Did Matt Millen mess up so bad that a good coach like Steve Mariucci totally tanked? Did Mike Martz forget how to coach an offence? Or did a light just turn on in Harrington's head in the off-season?

It's too early to answer those questions, but for the time being I will suspend my treatment of The Joey to incorporate his name into my Dolphins conversations. This will surely come as a relief to Bruce Mr. Turk. Now I will go watch Brian Pothier's Washington Capitals destroy the Buds.