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Six years of bad decisions and bad luck at quarterback: How Dolphins mess was avoidable
▪ After the 2018 season, owner Stephen Ross dismissed coach Adam Gase, explaining that Gase “wants to win.” It couldn’t have been any clearer that Ross wanted to tank the season and position the franchise to select the best quarterback in the draft, later identified by the Dolphins as Joe Burrow. But instead of signing a quarterback bad enough to engineer a two-win season, they opted for one good enough to prevent the Dolphins from accomplishing the paramount goal of a tank season and snagging the golden-arm QB of their choice. Predictably, Ryan Fitzpatrick was good enough to lead Miami to five wins. Josh Johnson, A.J. McCarron and Blaine Gabbert were all free agents that year. None might have torpedoed the Dolphins getting Burrow. All would have been cheaper than Fitzpatrick.
▪ They still had another chance to get the tank on track after they inexplicably traded a second-rounder and fifth-rounder for Josh Rosen in April 2019, only to find out he couldn’t play a lick. If general manager Chris Grier or Ross had simply ordered then-coach Brian Flores to continue playing Rosen after he struggled badly in three starts, Fitzpatrick wouldn’t have had the chance to win games against the Jets, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and New England — wins that eliminated the Dolphins’ dreams of Burrow.
Deciding to give Arizona a second round pick for Rosen — who had one touchdown, five interceptions and a dismal 52.0 passer rating in six games as a Dolphin — prevented Miami from drafting Pro Bowl receiver DK Metcalf, who went two spots after that second-round pick that Arizona foolishly used on Andy Isabella.
▪ The decision to sign Mike White in the first hour of 2023 free agency was a puzzling one, as we wrote at the time. White had the lowest passer rating of any of the top dozen or so available backup quarterbacks in that 2023 free agent class. The Dolphins knew that his deep ball metrics were historically dreadful, that he wasn’t mobile, and that he had 12 career interceptions, compared with eight touchdowns.
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