Culpepper released, invokes Ghandi

Daunte Culpepper has been released.

Wow.

I mean, it's not like this was unexpected at all. On the contrary, we were all just waiting for when exactly it would happen. It is just amazing to look back at his short stint as a Dolphin. His tenure in Miami has to have been one of the biggest disappointments in Dolphins history. I can't think of any other player who rode into town with such impossibly lofty expectations only to crash and burn in a more miserable and abject heap of failure.

Those sound may sound like harsh words, but I really was a strong supporter of Daunte from the very beginning. I thought trading for him was a great move that was really going to turn the franchise around. A lot of people did. Boy how wrong we turned out to be.

The entire situation was mangled from the start by both sides - Culpepper and the organization. And so now he is gone. I would have liked to see the team hold onto him as long as possible while trying to force another team to give up a draft pick for him, but I guess they thought it was a better idea to avoid the hassle of defending themselves against the grievance filed by Culpepper. Oh well, it's probably a wash in the end.

Here's something about Culpepper's release that gets to me though. In a statement that he released to the public he had this to say:

As I was going through this process I heard about a quote by Gandhi that best expresses my thoughts about this victory. He said, "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." Now that I have won my freedom and I get to choose my next team, I am just like many other people who have to go out and find employment so that I can take care of my family.

In my opinion, that just sounds incredibly pretentious. Yes, it's reasonable to say that he was ignored - but ridiculed and fought? A huge part of the reason that this situation became as inflamed as it did was because Culpepper stubbornly refused to accommodate a trade. So, while Daunte is trying to spin this as a total victory for himself, he isn't free from his fair share of blame.