If the Internet report is true — and it comes from the same credible writer, Jason Cole, who first reported the possible marriage of Bill Parcells and the Dolphins — then today's fan of the Dolphins has to feel conflicted.

Jason Taylor is leaving?

That can't be a happy day for anyone who cares about the Dolphins. But can you be sad for the sagging state of the franchise and happy that its best and most beloved player finally gets to escape? Can a move feel both right and wrong?

Cole reports on Yahoo! Sports that Taylor and the Dolphins have agreed to part ways before the April draft. That's strange phrasing. Taylor still has trade value, and making it a foregone conclusion that he'll be leaving would appear to decrease it. Parcells, career tough guy, wields a heavy ax without feeling. He isn't likely to be kind, granting Taylor his freedom just because it is the nice thing to do.

More likely — and this is just more speculation — is that Taylor made it be known privately that he didn't want to be a part of another rebuilding, and Parcells wouldn't want someone who didn't want to be here, especially not someone with whom he has no ties. So now Parcells will try to get as much as he can for Taylor, whatever that may be, though it isn't likely to feel like enough.

TAYLOR'S TUMULT

Taylor is honest and opinionated but knows how to package. It wouldn't be his way to make a public mess, but he wouldn't be quiet about unhappiness privately, and there's no way he can be happy about what has taken place the last few years, with guys like Nick Saban telling him to make sure to keep his shoes tied during walk-throughs. If he's going to work for yet another new boss, it might as well be closer to the top of the standings.

Taylor has thought about retiring before. You have to think, as he heads for Dancing With the Stars and the Hollywood lights that have always called him, that he would consider it again if forced to return to the present mess. His job hurts enough without 1-15.

But how can you feel good about Zach Thomas and Taylor being held onto so long here that all they bring you in return is, what, a measly third-round pick? The Dolphins held onto Thomas and Taylor a year longer than they should have. You trade Taylor a year ago, immediately after his Defensive Player of the Year award, and you'd get a conditional first-round pick. Given how winning teams just lined up to offer Thomas a contract, what do you think you would have gotten for him off a Pro Bowl season instead of a five-game one that included concussions and whiplash?

Six straight years without a single playoff game. That would be the punctuation on the Miami career of possibly the greatest Dolphin defender ever. The lasting snapshots should be of him punching a hole in the air after a sack or Jordan-posing into the end zone or holding up the Defensive Player of the Year award. But instead you are left with too many of him sitting slumped in the locker room after yet another brutal loss, his bald head buried in his hands for minutes at a time. If he's indeed leaving, one of his last acts representing the Dolphins, symbolically enough, came for his public service with accompanying quotes about how frustrating it was to be at the Super Bowl field but not playing in it.

A LOGICAL MOVE

Parting makes perfect sense for both sides, though. Taylor isn't very likely to still be good when the Dolphins finally are again. The Dolphins went into last week with no quarterback, no receivers, no tight end and an old and broken defense. What's the best-case scenario for next season? A 6-10 record? What's the point of wasting another year of what little remains of Taylor's career on that? No team is more far away from competitive than Miami is.

Miami needed that 1-15 abomination to arrive at punch-you-in-the-face reality, though, and finally strip down the franchise. Cam Cameron and Randy Mueller got caught rebuilding halfway, which isn't rebuilding at all. They traded Wes Welker and waived Randy McMichael, but then filled the team with old guys, some expensive. The resulting disaster allows Parcells to fumigate the franchise now without rancor. It would be much harder to let Taylor and Thomas go with the public if the Dolphins were close.

A PAINFUL POSSIBILITY

That said, this still stings. Taylor, graceful on and off the field, was one of the few remaining Dolphins with any star power. Who is the longest-tenured Dolphin now? Ricky Williams? This isn't a housecleaning with garbage bags and mops. This is a housecleaning by wrecking ball. The new Dolphins should get uniforms complete with "Hello! My name is ..." tags. New isn't necessarily better, though. When Michael Irvin was asked last week what he thought of the Dolphins signing Josh McCown as the new quarterback, his response was prolonged laughter.

But if Taylor has indeed agreed to leave — and it is important to still emphasize the "if" — you have to be thrilled for him.

He deserves a better ending than the one the Dolphins were going to be able to give him.