On Friday, the Dolphins sent quarterback Josh McCown to the Panthers, presumably to provide depth behind Jake Delhomme after Matt Moore suffered what looked to be a serious injury during the preseason finale against the Steelers (turns out, Moore will be okay and, like the rest of us, is day to day).
Prior to moving McCown, there was some speculation that Miami would either trade or release John Beck, the team's 2007 second-round pick. After all, Beck was drafted by the previous regime, and Bill Parcells himself had green-lighted the McCown signing, which included $2.5 million in up-front loot.
Funny story. According to the Palm Beach Post's Edgar Thompson, general manager Jeff Ireland has a perfectly rational explanation for keeping Beck and jettisoning McCown.
GM Jeff Ireland said John Beck's play of late helped the team decide to trade Josh McCown on Friday. Ireland said the powers-that-be believe Beck, the No. 40 pick in the 2007 draft, has more potential than McCown, a six-year veteran with 31 NFL starts.Well, that's weird. I suppose Beck could've turned it on in recent practices, but Parcells, Ireland et al had a season's worth of tape on him and McCown, so it's not like they didn't know what they were getting into.
"We felt like John was still a young player," Ireland said earlier today, speaking to the South Florida media for the first time since the NFL draft. "He's done a great job the last week and a half. That's the player we felt like had more upside and more future to him and more developmental possibilities."
That's not to pan the McCown trade, just to point out that it's sorta odd to say "Beck has more upside" when there seemed to be a very real chance the former BYU quarterback would be out of a job before Week 1.
Whatever, he's staying in Miami, although he'll be the team's third-string quarterback behind Chad Pennington and rookie Chad Henne. So while Beck has gobs of upside, it's not enough to make him anything more than the scout team quarterback.
