Top 4 offseason additions

[royalshank]

Boy is this hard to swallow. I'm not counting Cutler here because he's only here due to Ryan's injury. Consider this:

1. Top FA Acquisition - Timmons. Goes mental and walks out on team after not having missed a game in like 25 years. Future w team: uncertain.

2. Charles Harris - a project at best. Not going to be an impact player for us this year. Right now, just a JAG.

3. MacMillan - poor kid gets his knee torn in preseason and out for year.

4. Tank - coaches don't think he's ready and have him inactive for week 1.

Injuries and spontaneous bouts of insanity cannot be predicted but this could shape up to be the worse offseason we've had since the "picks and money" year.

More to the point - if none of these guys can really contribute this year, is it realistic to think we can get back to the playoffs?

 

[FearTheBeard]

Week 1. This season was about retaining our own. The fact that those are the "big" additions says all it needs to. Basically a 2 down LBer, a backup DE, a starting LB and a project CB.

Can't do anything about Timmons, it's a weird situation. He showed well in preseason and hopefully he contributes. But still wasn't some crazy signing with huge expectations.

Harris was likely always playing behind Wake, Branch and Hayes. It's only been one week, our goal for him post draft was a boost to the pass rush on obvious passing downs. We got no pressure last week, it wasn't just him. Raekwon, hey injuries happen.

Cordea had a fantastic preseason, and already had Howard, Maxwell and Verner ahead of him for outside duties. Don't think anyone projected Cordea to be an early season contributor. I'd say the returns on him so far have been very positive compared to expectation.

If you get contributions from guys like Hayes, Godchaux or Julius I don't really care where they come from or how much we invested in them in draft or real capital. You've basically got 2 LBers unavailable, replacing among the league worst starters. So does that make us worse if they're out? At absolute worse we break even. You get Tankersley replacing basically whoever our #4 boundary guy was last year. Does that really hurt us much? We have the same pass rushers last year, plus Hayes. Regardless of whether Harris contributes we're better there. So for these specific examples, if they don't contribute I don't see how we're any worse off than we were last year when we were a 10 win team.

The focus this offseason was retaining our own, so the fact is these signings aren't exactly making or breaking our season. You're replacing bottom of the barrel linebackers with bottom barrel linebackers with Timmons and Raekwon out. You have the same pass rushers as last year, plus Hayes who was a great get. Then you have Tankersley playing as depth boundary. And you have an extra season for this team to gel with mostly the same core group. So no I don't see why losing these contributions will knock us out of the playoffs. The offense should be vastly improved, even with Cutler. Defense should at least break even.

 

[traptses]

People read too much into Tankersley. We already have Howard and Maxwell as starters, McCain as starting slot, and Verner as top reserve who can play either spot. Currently no room for him, but expect that to change no later than next season

 

[raving]

Top 4 acquisitions so far:

1. Cutler - a man amongst boys. Thank you Gase for being such a good person that talented men WANT to come here to play!

2. Hayes - crucial to the D-line.

3. Godchaux - nice 5th round pick - which has been a great round for the Dolphins historically.

4. Charles Harris - Rivers was getting it out SUPER fast - lets see if our DB's can learn so the front 7 can maul the QB.

5. And lets throw McDonald in there - securing one of the leagues best after his stupid suspension - a big, hard hitting safety. Allow Allen to be more of a roll player.

6. Parkey - likely be a nomination for special team player of the week!

 

[Phinz1972]

6. Parkey - likely be a nomination for special team player of the week!

Somewhere there is this going on...

 

[Eesti]

It's been 1 game but....

I cannot eliminate Cutler. His pocket presence is off the charts and we all know about the arm strength. His receivers love him. Let's see how he does going forward when we play a decent defense. I don't see one until week 5 vs Tennessee and they're not even all that. Falcons the next week but they are giving up yards. Ravens in week 8 is tough.

We've got some time to settle in as Tunsil corrects some technical issues and assignments. LG is still unknown and the definitive weak spot.

Rivers got rid of the ball fast and no one was getting to him last week. Short passes and dump offs. Not even Wake was able to get there. Keenan Allen was making some amazing moves. A tough job for anyone to cover.

Hayes and Suh together are monsters.

Maxwell is terrible covering crossing routes. Howard was no better overall. I don't know that Tank being inactive was as much of an indictment as it was just sorting through the roster and trying to match guys up. (That's what Gase said anyway.) Verner was in the hunt as a starter and got ZERO snaps at CB. Reshad Jones was not very active. Not even in the run game. We are used to seeing several big plays from him with TFL's as well as pass defense. He had 5 tackles this week but was pretty much no where to be found.

The entire secondary has things to clean up this week. LOTS of things. Lots of distractions this week. Hurricane, Timmons, west coast road trip and a pretty talented opponents offense. We got a road win but that last defensive series was pathetic. I think it can happen when we play in a defense that is based off pressure and we face a QB who gets rid of the ball quickly. Just bad philosophy, IMO.

It appears Suh & Godchaux > any DT combo we had last year and Phillips only had 21 snaps this week.

Charles Harris cannot set an edge. Needs work.

58 defensive snaps is not bad considering we averaged something like 72 last year.

Nobody could have predicted what happened to Timmons this week. He has been the poster boy for hard work and consistency over his career. You could make a case that signing Mario Williams was questionable last year given his MO but you couldn't say that about LT. Unbelievable.

 

[royalshank]

I ageee we needed to retain our own but if that was only good enough for a WC appearance last year. How have we gotten better? Isn't that what the draft is supposed to help you go? FA can sometimes be about replacing attrition, but in this case we didn't lose anyone and added some guys who were supposed to help us upgrade. So I'm struggling to see how we get back to the playoffs if we can't get contributions out of new guys.

Cutler is a replacement for our starting QB. He wasn't brought in to fix a hole, etc.

 

[FearTheBeard]

I ageee we needed to retain our own but if that was only good enough for a WC appearance last year. How have we gotten better? Isn't that what the draft is supposed to help you go? FA can sometimes be about replacing attrition, but in this case we didn't lose anyone and added some guys who were supposed to help us upgrade. So I'm struggling to see how we get back to the playoffs if we can't get contributions out of new guys.

Cutler is a replacement for our starting QB. He wasn't brought in to fix a hole, etc.

I thought I answered that with the first post. We're better because we have kept the entire offensive core which should improve in year 2 of the same system. Even with Cutler. So I figure offense breaks even or likely improves if Pouncey can stay healthy. We see what this running game is capable of when he's in there. That is obviously a big IF but that's how we get better on offense. Growth from current players and some good fortune health wise from guys who weren't around the full season last year.

Defensively, even losing Timmons, McMillan and Misi. You're replacing starters last season that graded in the bottom few players at their positions. No matter what you're going to break even there. One would assume being among the worst in the league there would be unfortunate because the bar was set so low. You've traded in William Hayes for Mario and Jones, who were negative contributors where as Hayes is very talented and can play inside and out. So even without Harris contributing you're ahead of where you were last year. On the interior you don't have Phillips playing every snap, instead you have Godchaux and the returns have been positive so far. In the secondary you have a healthy Reshad Jones hopefully for a full season, and same goes for Howard. So one would assume that's a net gain too regardless of what Tankersley does.

So to me I think it's pretty clear how we can improve and why some of these additions weren't necessarily crucial year 1 contributors. I think with the improved schedule, and with Cutler in for Tannehill we work our ways more toward the same record as last year, which is still a playoff appearance. With all the injuries the team is facing I think personnel wise it's hard to ask for much more than that at this point, but the weaknesses from last year were so glaring that to do worse would be harder to accomplish than not.