Hyde: Dichotomy of coaching Senior Bowl

Jared Odrick. Jason Taylor. Scott Schwedes. John Offerdahl.

You want to talk Dolphins’ draft, insider information and the Senior Bowl?

You want to know what having coaches in the bowl means for a franchise — and, equally, doesn’t mean?

That’s been a topic of consumption this past week as Dolphins coaches had a hands-on look with college players through Saturday’s game and, presumably, will apply that information to Phase III of their rebuilding in this coming NFL draft.

More information is good, right? Everyone agrees on that.

But as with analytics, as with GPS tracking devices or fourthdown percentages, the question is how you apply the information. Because the narrative of coaching in the Senior Bowl doesn’t always fit the reality of drafting better.

Take the last time the Dolphins staff coached the game in 2010. General manager Jeff Ireland, coach Tony Sparano and overlord Bill Parcells drafted their first four players off their roster that game: Odrick, Koa Misi, John Jerry and A.J. Edds. Meh, right?

Here’s the question asked in Dolphins hallways afterward: Since they worked with these players, since they knew them better than most, was there information bias to pick them over other lesser-known but decidedly better players out there? Or was it just wrong decisions? Because look at that draft. The Dolphins traded down from the 12th pick and landed Odrick

(27th) and Misi (42nd). Here’s some Pro Bowl and some Hall of Fame-worthy players they missed taking: Brandon Graham

(13th), Earl Thomas (14th) and Jason Pierre-Paul (15th), Mike Iupati (16th) and Maurkice Pouncey (17th).

That’s not to say coaching the Senior Bowl doesn’t offer an advantage. But offering is just one side of the coin.

In 1997 Washington coach Norv Turner coached it. He noticed a skinny kid from a small school was his team’s best player all week. He just couldn’t convince Washington’s personnel people to take a chance on him.

So in trading information with his former boss, Turner told Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson

about the player. Johnson studied up on him. He then drafted Jason Taylor in the third round, and Taylor stayed skinny all the way to the Hall of Fame.

You see? Information is one thing. The story of the draft — of any business — is how it’s applied.

The Dolphins staff wasn’t coaching the Senior

Bowl in 1986. Denver’s Dan Reeves coached Offerdahl, a too-small linebacker from the too-small school of Western Michigan.

Offerdahl went up on a third-and-goal play that game and met a leaping Auburn star Bo Jackson in midair to stop a touchdown. Fourth down, same play, and Offerdahl again stopped the big name of the draft with a midair collision.

Off those plays, Dolphins defensive coordinator Chuck Studley went to Michigan and visited Offerdahl. Studley bet personnel director Chuck Connor a pizza Offerdahl wouldn’t be available with the Dolphins’ first pick, the 52nd (they’d traded their first-round pick for Hugh Green).

Offerdahl was still on the board then, and the Dolphins got a five-time Pro Bowl linebacker (and, yeah, Studley paid the pizza).

So the game has its place in providing draft-worthy information. Is it necessary to coach it? Well, the year after the Offerdahl draft, the Dolphins staff coached the Senior Bowl. That was a marketing ploy in part so three Shulas — Dolphins coaches Don and Dave, and Alabama quarterback Mike — could be on the same team.

From their work that week, they fell in love with a receiver who they took in the second round: Schwedes. Quarterback Dan Marino gave him a nickname in his unproductive (two touchdowns) career: Seven-up. It was off a commercial for the soft drink at the time that went, “Never had it, never will.”

Coaching that game also enabled the Dolphins staff to see Mark Dennis, who they drafted in the eighth round. Dennis played seven years for the Dolphins and 10 years in the NFL. He was a good player and great value for the team.

Phase III of this Dolphins rebuild is underway with the Dolphins having four picks among the top 50 this year. Coaching the Senior Bowl provides information to help that. But information is a dangerous thing.

As history from Odrick to Schwedes shows from this game, it’s how that knowledge is used.