My Fears of What This Offseason Means | Page 3 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

My Fears of What This Offseason Means

Ross will turn 85 in May.

He took his shot to build a SB winner with the 2019 tank and the Dolphins went “all in” in 2024 with restructures and Tua’s new contract had him on the vet min salary plus signing bonus in 2024. It didn’t work out.

As Ross alluded or directly said when he retained Grier and McD, he likes them and they get along. What else do you want from a soon to be 85 year old?
 
Tua, MM, and CG will be here until Tua's contract is up or Ross dies. Whichever comes first
 
I think people are reading too much into certain things.

Free agency is all about overpaying and we all know this from experience it doesn't work. The best teams in the NFL use free agency to find bargain deals (guys coming off injuries, backups who are ready to become starters, guys with good advanced stats, players that project well to a scheme) while also developing in house.

Flat out have said on my podcast and will say going forward, I think this offseason and last season OVERALL the Fins approached free agency smartly. The issue last year is they banked on Eich and Jones (both of whom there was plenty of data on not being scheme fits) figuring it out. Same with Skylar as backup.

TLDR version. The idea is fine the question is will players work
 
Free agency is to sign players that you think will "get you over the hump" for a playoff run. In my many years of watching this it usually equates to severely over-paying for vets who team's hopefully grade out as an "A" or "B" player and they usually get a "C" or "D" player stuck with that huge contract. Successful team build through draft and are constantly building up draft capital to do so.
 
ChambersWI said:
I think people are reading too much into certain things.

Free agency is all about overpaying and we all know this from experience it doesn't work. The best teams in the NFL use free agency to find bargain deals (guys coming off injuries, backups who are ready to become starters, guys with good advanced stats, players that project well to a scheme) while also developing in house.

Flat out have said on my podcast and will say going forward, I think this offseason and last season OVERALL the Fins approached free agency smartly. The issue last year is they banked on Eich and Jones (both of whom there was plenty of data on not being scheme fits) figuring it out. Same with Skylar as backup.

TLDR version. The idea is fine the question is will players work
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Would have agreed with this three years ago, but IMO times have changed. It’s a copycat league. Fiscal responsibility and bargain hunting was the Patriot Way. When that was the road to success, we were busy dumping cash on Mike Wallace and Ndamukong Suh.

But a new age has dawned. Given the success of the Eagles, free agency has become an arms race based on manipulating the cap and pushing the costs out into the future. We’re late to the party, yet again, and are now running the Patriot Way game plan 15 years too late.
 
Marino2.0 said:
Would have agreed with this three years ago, but IMO times have changed. It’s a copycat league. Fiscal responsibility and bargain hunting was the Patriot Way. When that was the road to success, we were busy dumping cash on Mike Wallace and Ndamukong Suh.

But a new age has dawned. Given the success of the Eagles, free agency has become an arms race based on manipulating the cap and pushing the costs out into the future. We’re late to the party, yet again, and are now running the Patriot Way game plan 15 years too late.
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Eagles have also been insanely good at developing talent. Yeah they traded for AJ Brown and Darius Slay and signed Barkley, but they're a team built on great drafts as well as smart signings.

Splurging fully on free agency will never work, and has never worked.
 
ChambersWI said:
Eagles have also been insanely good at developing talent. Yeah they traded for AJ Brown and Darius Slay and signed Barkley, but they're a team built on great drafts as well as smart signings.

Splurging fully on free agency will never work, and has never worked.
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It's ok if you are adding piece or two here and there. You can't build thru free agency, you must retain talent and Grier seems to have an aversion to this.
 
NY8123 said:
It's ok if you are adding piece or two here and there. You can't build thru free agency, you must retain talent and Grier seems to have an aversion to this.
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Eh yes and no. The bigger issue was more that we just didn't have picks for 2 years. 2022 we got Cheetah fine. But Tindall and EZ were disasters. Cam Smith is leaning towards bust from 2023 (Achane and a UDFA in Kader saved that). The Chiefs essentially built their dynasty really only extending Mahomes, Kelce, and Chris Jones (though they did extend Nick Bolton) and they tend to not have great cap space most years (not bad but not great). But the Chiefs always tend to get some good players in the mid rounds.

Now for the record, I do think Grier deserves more credit for drafts he had in 2019-2021. But having so few picks in 22 and 23 killed a lot for last year. I think he handled the draft last year well (though he gambled a bit too much on potential for my liking). Curious to see how he does this year.
 
I think the Dolphins fanbase sees the team much more negatively than does the team's leadership who likely felt they were on the verge and had largely done the right things in '22.

I find myself saying this too often, but back in '22 this same forum was calling CG the best GM in football for having assembled the NFL's "most talented team" around it's QB1.

CG & MM went after these players, embracing them as they were acquired and incorporated. People act like this team wants to move on from Tua, trade Tyreek or release Chubb. I highly doubt that. It's probably quite the opposite. They extended Tua last year and just did so with Chubb as well.

This team isn't looking to blow it up nor do they expect to be uncompetitive in '25. They want to make the necessary adjustments to get back to being competitive coming off a '24 that saw a bunch of struggle: new DC, exodus of Flores-era defensive players, loss of multiple $100M trench players, injury to both elite edge players, etc.

Last year CG invested in long-term, developmental pieces at critical positions in the draft (Edge, LT, WR, RB) while adding value in starting-caliber FAs at TE, C and MLB who were all low-cost value-adds.

I fully expect CG to continue with that type of philosophy this year while getting numerous players back healthy including QB1, WR1, Edge1 and Edge 2. I see nothing wrong with making smart, efficient decisions that maximize your chances in the event your QB1 actually protects himself.

If QB1 gets hurt again, great, you're off the hook and moving on in the next draft.

In the interim, just keep doing what you started doing last year. Keep stacking those good offseasons and you end up in a good place.
 
ChambersWI said:
Eh yes and no. The bigger issue was more that we just didn't have picks for 2 years. 2022 we got Cheetah fine. But Tindall and EZ were disasters. Cam Smith is leaning towards bust from 2023 (Achane and a UDFA in Kader saved that). The Chiefs essentially built their dynasty really only extending Mahomes, Kelce, and Chris Jones (though they did extend Nick Bolton) and they tend to not have great cap space most years (not bad but not great). But the Chiefs always tend to get some good players in the mid rounds.

Now for the record, I do think Grier deserves more credit for drafts he had in 2019-2021. But having so few picks in 22 and 23 killed a lot for last year. I think he handled the draft last year well (though he gambled a bit too much on potential for my liking). Curious to see how he does this year.
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The same with the Bills but the difference is we don't have Mehomie or Allen. Tua is OK but his melon is broken and until Miami accepts this and moves on, I've taken the stance of "if they don't give a ****, why should I?"

Same reason I was rooting for Detroit most of last season, it wasn't as stressful and I frankly have decided to not waste my time in life on something I have absolutely no control over. If I have to be honest with myself, I think I like debating about the ****ary more on this site than I do watching Miami play football.
 
hmichaels said:
lol, Ross is a tool
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I would have to agree to a point.
Wasn't him that stated something like the status quo wasn't acceptable?
And in the same breath he retains the GM making player questionable acquisitions and doweled out bloated contracts putting us in a precarious cap situation, keeps the staff that scouts college players that often seem to miss on identifying quality talent, keeps the same HC with his quirky and undisciplined team management style.
Whether Ross did or didn't kneecap Grier by limiting the $$$ that could be used for FA is unknown.
At this point in time, it's hard for me to see a well-defined path to make the team measurably better to compete against our division and the AFC in general.
 
NY8123 said:
The same with the Bills but the difference is we don't have Mehomie or Allen. Tua is OK but his melon is broken and until Miami accepts this and moves on, I've taken the stance of "if they don't give a ****, why should I?"

Same reason I was rooting for Detroit most of last season, it wasn't as stressful and I frankly have decided to not waste my time in life on something I have absolutely no control over. If I have to be honest with myself, I think I like debating about the ****ary more on this site than I do watching Miami play football.
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I think Miami can both get back on the track we looked like we were on as well as keep Tua healthy if we stayed on the track we did in 2022/23 where not only was Tua healthy and put up big numbers, but we were also a great running team. This past year we more than doubled the next team on runs stuffed for no gain. Big issue was the team decided to A)Run it back with the same guys offensively and B)Expect Robert Jones and Liam Eichenberg to take a step from being mediocre at best to being solid. Robert Jones just isn't athletic enough to do what we want our guards to do. Liam isn't strong enough. That as well as Mostert regressing a lot and the TEs being awful blockers (and Ingold not healthy) killed the run game and put more pressure on Tua.

End of the day, any discussion on Tua should just be health related not whether he's good enough or not (not saying you are saying this), but the team gambled on things that even Stevie Wonder could see wasn't gonna work... and unfortunately the other gambles they took that I thought were worth it didn't work. I think this year there's at least an understanding that things have to change
 
It’s hard to imagine anyone internally thinks we are a legit competitor this year. If they can get younger and build forward, it’s a win. Hopefully we kill the draft.
 
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