This is a .500 team at best for 15 years. Them not re-signing certain guys isn't the worst thing.
I understand what you are saying, but the sentiment is not completely cut and dry. Every team has good/great players. Even in a rebuild, you have to correctly identify if current pieces should be kept. You don't want to initiate a complete 53 man rebuild. And you can't cut everyone at the beginning. So you have to correctly stagger your rebuild aligning with age, contract value, locker room presence, leadership, on the field value and the availability of a player who can replace him.
Matthews, Miller, OV, Shelby and Wake (restructure) are prime examples of players that should make a rebuilding GM take pause. Matthews, Miller, OV and Shelby are young players drafted and developed by the Dolphins. Miller, OV and Shelby have not had major injuiries and have improved to be solid contributors. Some might say, especially in Miller's case, under-utilized. These are prime candidates to keep. When you look closer, you see the new contract value much easier in Miller and Shelby. Neither guy has stepped out of line and has bought into being Dolphins. To me, those are no-brainer extensions.
Matthews is an interesting case. But for me, his recent injury and whatever issues he had with Philbin put me on the fence. When you factor in Parker, Stills and Landry then I'm ready to close the book on Matthews. He is replaceable.
OV has two big problems: "Me" and stupid penalties. People like to compare OV to Wake and show the difference in sacks. But when you look at little harder you see how OV's run support is more polished than Wake's. If you were building a cake, OV is the unnoticed bottom layer and Wake is the decorated top layer. Both compliment each other. So are we underpaying Wake or is OV wanting too much money?
Of all the problems contributing to a .500 season, we can look at OV, Miller, Matthews, Wake and Shelby and honestly assess they are not the reason for losing half of our games. They are all pieces we should continue to build around in terms of talent. But financial constraints ultimately decide most football decisions.
For that reason, I see OV walking. OV may think he is worth $15M and he has an interesting case. But until OV improves his "finishing" of sacks, I don't think he is worth more than $10 - $12M. And apparently that is precisely where the FO values him.
I just hate seeing talent we have FINALLY developed walk out the door. It merely repeats the cycle of bad drafting. As we now lose the few good draft pieces we did develop.
Have no fear, we still have Dallas Thomas.
