ckparrothead
Premium Member
Slimm had it right when he said that Chris Grier strikes him as a guy that doesn't want to have to answer hard questions in the press conference after the pick. There's good and bad to this, I suppose. I don't personally say it as a compliment.
Above all Chris Grier is a survivor. He has been in Miami for a very long time and worked his way up the ladder through a number of failed regimes, without ever having reached too far or gotten tossed out with others. There's a reason. He doesn't stick his neck out and he doesn't give you anything easy to criticize.
We know, because we have the sort of friends who have seen it firsthand, that Chris Grier hates draft trading. The only trades he tends to like are ones where the "chart value" are clearly in Miami's favor. Because of that tendency he was actually a supporter of moving up in the 1st round for Dion Jordan. If you recall, Reggie McKenzie traded the #3 pick in exchange for the #12 and #42 picks, which is ridiculously below "chart value". Chris Grier was a supporter of the move because of that. Otherwise he seems to have never met a trade up OR a trade down that he loves. At least, not in the early stage of the draft. He would rather just sit tight and take the highest, safest pick available on his board, emphasis on safest.
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of risk at play here because you can and will get burned for going with the "safest" picks, just as Miami got burned for taking Charles Harris in 2017. The TOP risk in the draft, at any stage, is the risk that the player you are taking just isn't any good. It exceeds injury risk. It exceeds character risk. It exceeds all risks combined. Even in the 1st round, you will discover over any length of time that somewhere near half of the players you took just can't play professional football in a compelling way.
Yet you often hear people dismiss this risk and openly take a player they know to be inferior on the basis of some marginal increase in injury risk or character risk. Sometimes when that injury risk is not marginal, when that character risk is pretty solid, this could be the right thing to do. But very often it's reflective of a lack of proper understanding for the sources of risk.
I actually have a hard time believing that Chris Grier is ever going to find an elite level franchise quarterback, because of his conservatism. I believe taking a stab at an elite passer is ALWAYS going to come off looking extremely risky. You often have to move heaven and earth to go up and take the guy, and you're never looking at a guy without flaws. The risk-averse approach will also more often than not net you a guy like Ryan Tannehill, rather than a guy like Russell Wilson.
If Chris Grier is ever going to land an elite quarterback for this team, he will have to somehow Forrest Gump his way into it. Which admittedly he may do, if Miami go 2-14 this year.
If I take any HOPE in anything, it's knowing that the Dolphins front office under Chris Grier rated both Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray very, very highly. So maybe they at least have the evaluation side of it right. But I still have a tough time imagining Grier ever sticking his neck out far enough to get the slam dunk quarterback that looks like Baker Mayfield or Kyler Murray, because it just ends up price prohibitive.
Above all Chris Grier is a survivor. He has been in Miami for a very long time and worked his way up the ladder through a number of failed regimes, without ever having reached too far or gotten tossed out with others. There's a reason. He doesn't stick his neck out and he doesn't give you anything easy to criticize.
We know, because we have the sort of friends who have seen it firsthand, that Chris Grier hates draft trading. The only trades he tends to like are ones where the "chart value" are clearly in Miami's favor. Because of that tendency he was actually a supporter of moving up in the 1st round for Dion Jordan. If you recall, Reggie McKenzie traded the #3 pick in exchange for the #12 and #42 picks, which is ridiculously below "chart value". Chris Grier was a supporter of the move because of that. Otherwise he seems to have never met a trade up OR a trade down that he loves. At least, not in the early stage of the draft. He would rather just sit tight and take the highest, safest pick available on his board, emphasis on safest.
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of risk at play here because you can and will get burned for going with the "safest" picks, just as Miami got burned for taking Charles Harris in 2017. The TOP risk in the draft, at any stage, is the risk that the player you are taking just isn't any good. It exceeds injury risk. It exceeds character risk. It exceeds all risks combined. Even in the 1st round, you will discover over any length of time that somewhere near half of the players you took just can't play professional football in a compelling way.
Yet you often hear people dismiss this risk and openly take a player they know to be inferior on the basis of some marginal increase in injury risk or character risk. Sometimes when that injury risk is not marginal, when that character risk is pretty solid, this could be the right thing to do. But very often it's reflective of a lack of proper understanding for the sources of risk.
I actually have a hard time believing that Chris Grier is ever going to find an elite level franchise quarterback, because of his conservatism. I believe taking a stab at an elite passer is ALWAYS going to come off looking extremely risky. You often have to move heaven and earth to go up and take the guy, and you're never looking at a guy without flaws. The risk-averse approach will also more often than not net you a guy like Ryan Tannehill, rather than a guy like Russell Wilson.
If Chris Grier is ever going to land an elite quarterback for this team, he will have to somehow Forrest Gump his way into it. Which admittedly he may do, if Miami go 2-14 this year.
If I take any HOPE in anything, it's knowing that the Dolphins front office under Chris Grier rated both Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray very, very highly. So maybe they at least have the evaluation side of it right. But I still have a tough time imagining Grier ever sticking his neck out far enough to get the slam dunk quarterback that looks like Baker Mayfield or Kyler Murray, because it just ends up price prohibitive.