Many people will say, fine to let Wilkins walk, no way I am paying a defensive tackle that kind of money. There is almost nobody who is saying Wilkins isn't good or a top of the market DT, they are just saying the position is not worth the money.
Fine. Reasonable argument.
BUT then why ever use a first round pick on a position where the positional importance is not high enough such that you won't want to pay the player, who in Wilkins case has actually exceeded the expectations for where he was drafted? Seems kind of dumb, right? If this is the issue, a defensive tackle should never, ever, ever be taken in the first round.
I would say the same thing about running backs.
Never use a high pick on a position if you won't want to pay for the position when the rookie deal is up. If the position isn't worth that much, the position is one that a first round pick should NEVER be spent on.
If you disagree with my point, please tell me why we are letting Wilkins go? If Wilkins was a QB, and he performed at this level, would they be letting him walk over ~$20mm a year? If you say defensive tackles, like RBs are a dime a dozen and can be found easily on the open market, then why use a 1st round pick on them? Therefore you end up back in the same place, a positional value argument.
Which leads me to the next point, we are rumored to be using our first round pick this year on a Center or a Guard, which also give or take falls into the same bucket of positional value as DT or RB. Same mistake?
Of course, Wilkins was the first player taken as part of this whole rebuild. This whole situation, just soooo Dolphins. Wilkins is the first 1st rounder we got right in ages, and out the door he goes, because they don't want to pay for the position they drafted the player to play. Unreal!!!
Many people will say, fine to let Wilkins walk, no way I am paying a defensive tackle that kind of money. There is almost nobody who is saying Wilkins isn't good or a top of the market DT, they are just saying the position is not worth the money.
Fine. Reasonable argument.
BUT then why ever use a first round pick on a position where the positional importance is not high enough such that you won't want to pay the player, who in Wilkins case has actually exceeded the expectations for where he was drafted? Seems kind of dumb, right? If this is the issue, a defensive tackle should never, ever, ever be taken in the first round.
I would say the same thing about running backs.
Never use a high pick on a position if you won't want to pay for the position when the rookie deal is up. If the position isn't worth that much, the position is one that a first round pick should NEVER be spent on.
If you disagree with my point, please tell me why we are letting Wilkins go? If Wilkins was a QB, and he performed at this level, would they be letting him walk over ~$20mm a year? If you say defensive tackles, like RBs are a dime a dozen and can be found easily on the open market, then why use a 1st round pick on them? Therefore you end up back in the same place, a positional value argument.
Which leads me to the next point, we are rumored to be using our first round pick this year on a Center or a Guard, which also give or take falls into the same bucket of positional value as DT or RB. Same mistake?
Of course, Wilkins was the first player taken as part of this whole rebuild. This whole situation, just soooo Dolphins. Wilkins is the first 1st rounder we got right in ages, and out the door he goes, because they don't want to pay for the position they drafted the player to play. Unreal!!!
1. You probably should use 1st round picks on premium positions (I.e. qb, tackle, wr,cb,edge) but it also depends on bpa and how the board falls to you.
2. What you say holds true if you build your team through the draft which is a good way to do it if you are patient and draft and develop well. However, we accelerated our rebuild by trading premium draft picks away for Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Ramsey, and Bradley Chubb. Once we did that, we went to a different model.
So, that left us in a position where the only way we could stop Wilkins from fielding offers from other teams in free agency would be to tag him. The franchise tag would be $22 million which we simply couldn’t afford, nor could we defer into a bonus and amoratize over multiple years to relieve some of that pain this year.
For that money we could resign Avg, Raekwon Davis, another reasonably priced D tackle for our rotation, Jadavon Clowney, and maybe even someone like Derick Henry. Or an affordable but solid starting interior lineman to replace robert Hunt maybe Deshaun Eliot as well.
My point is, this is the situation we are in because Ross pressured Grier to be more aggressive, especially while Tua was on his rookie deal and now here we are.
Would it have been good to resign Wilkins? Sure. We can resign avg to fill an important role on the edge for 1/3 the price of what Wilkins was asking, and assuming we do we’ll have Avg, Chubb and Philips after they heal and return, and Zack sieler to be disruptive in the passing game, and we’ll be able to replace Wilkins with someone else a lot cheaper and maybe only have an incremental decrease from our front 7, and that’s the truth.
Losing Jerome Baker hurts. But there are guys that are affordable that we could plug in there and be fine. X is no longer worth the money he was asking for or expecting. Here is where we are going to be challenged. We don’t know what we have in cam smith now it is time to find out.. I could see adding a free agent here.
