Can John Beck overcome his rookie struggles?

John Beck has the chance to become the Dolphins starting quarterback as he will compete with Josh McCown for the job. Rookie Chad Henne, in my opinion, won't be a big factor in the race for the starting job early on because he has so much catching up to do.

For Beck, this quarterback competition is an opportunity to erase a bad rookie season. I wrote a column about that in Wednesday's Miami Herald -- it is required reading.

The point of the column, in which Beck discusses his 2007 season, is to draw attention to the fact Beck must do what other capable rookie quarterbacks who suffered terrible seasons apparently couldn't: He must overcome that terrible rookie year.

Other quarterbacks I name in the column were pretty much defined by bad rookie seasons and never really recovered. There is a sense among some NFL people that starting a rookie quarterback is a recipe for ruining a player.

And while there are a couple of rookies who started right away and grew to be outstanding quarterbacks -- Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger come to mind -- it is apparent a majority of quarterback who started as rookies continued to struggle later.

So my questions to you:

Do you think Beck can put last year behind him? Do you think he can learn from his difficult experience without being ruined by it?

Or do you think that what we saw last year is the beginning of a bad nightmare for Beck, and us? Do you think he will fall in line with Joey Harrington and Akili Smith and David Carr, who had troubles as rookie starters and eventually became either gun shy or unsure or simply unable to improve beyond their rookie struggles?

Discuss...