What Do Brewer, Fuller, and Brooks Tell You About Roster Building? | Page 2 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

What Do Brewer, Fuller, and Brooks Tell You About Roster Building?

Grier started trading picks for stars hoping to win big before Tua got paid. While it was exciting at the time, I think this is where the build went sideways. We would’ve had more high picks and would’ve been able to resign our own guys. Instead, we are paying big money to skill position guys with not much talent on the interior.

Exactly this.

There’s no shortcuts to winning at a sustainable level and having future success. You have to keep homegrown talent and hit on picks in the draft, which unfortunately Chris Grier has been abysmal.
 
Yes other problem is what they paid for these guys, draft capital and salary. Chubb getting paid like a superstar, gave up draft capital like he was a superstar, and he is not a superstar, and his whole career often hurt. This does not work.
Right. Look at what KC did with those picks aquired from Miami for Hill.

I think there are times to make trades, but the Dolphins really weren't at that point IMO.
 
For years I was scoffed at for telling the truth about Grier; he should have been fired with Flores. People ignored all the red flags because he has done good things here. But the reality is it doesn’t matter what he does well if he can’t build a team that wins a Super Bowl. That is literally the reason he gets paid.

On the topic of roster building, the 2020 and 2021 drafts were a fireable offense. We turned six 1st round picks and four 2nd round picks into: Tua, Jackson, Igbinoghene, Hunt, Davis, Waddle, Phillips, Holland and Eichenberg. That should get any GM in the league fired. Heck, that should get the whole FO staff purged.

The biggest issue with these drafts is the fact none of those players were the answer (Tua’s injury history is damning at this point). We drafted Jackson to play LT and signed Armstead 2 years later. We drafted Igbinoghene to be a boundary CB and he didn’t even last his rookie contract so we were forced to trade for Ramsey. We drafted Waddle to be a #1 WR and he wasn’t so we traded for Hill. We drafted Phillips to be the answer for our pass rush and he wasn’t so we traded for Chubb.

For 2 seasons we had basically no draft picks because of these trades. Not to mention we had to pay all those guys we picked up elite money. Our roster went from the youngest in the NFL in 2020 to the oldest in the NFL in 2024. No competent GM allows that to happen.
 
Front office tried to buy a championship instead of building a team and winning one.

Ya I don’t think people realize that Grier went “all in” this season and structured Tua so he only had a $1.1M salary with 1/5th of his signing bonus, so he counted only $9.5M against the cap in 2024.

He balloons to $39M, $56M, $53M, and $65M cap hits the next 4 years.

Good luck building a defense with 1 potential starter in Chop from the last 3 drafts to cheaply fill the roster with talent.

Edit - If you really want to be jealous, the Chiefs only spend $76M of their cap on the defense this season while Dolphins have spent $87M.
 
Ya I don’t think people realize that Grier went “all in” this season and structured Tua so he only had a $1.1M salary with 1/5th of his signing bonus, so he counted only $9.5M against the cap in 2024.

He balloons to $39M, $56M, $53M, and $65M cap hits the next 4 years.

Good luck building a defense with 1 potential starter in Chop from the last 3 drafts to cheaply fill the roster with talent.

Edit - If you really want to be pissed off, the Chiefs spent
Tua is playing on the 5th year of his rookie contract. His extension doesn’t technically start until next year. That is why it was easier to mess around with his cap hit this year.
 
Even with Tua in this year, this team BARELY snuck past a bad Jacksonville team and was getting beat down by Buffalo before his injury. Then they lose to Arizona his first game back, squandering a lead.

Tua being out is only a piece of the problem. There are more. With his history, the FO should have done more to have a veteran backup who can win games.
What would you think of the Dolphins bringing in Drew Allar next year, as a potential-future/back-up for Tua?
 
Ya I don’t think people realize that Grier went “all in” this season and structured Tua so he only had a $1.1M salary with 1/5th of his signing bonus, so he counted only $9.5M against the cap in 2024.

He balloons to $39M, $56M, $53M, and $65M cap hits the next 4 years.

Good luck building a defense with 1 potential starter in Chop from the last 3 drafts to cheaply fill the roster with talent.

Edit - If you really want to be jealous, the Chiefs only spend $76M of their cap on the defense this season while Dolphins have spent $87M.
wow great stat. and the chiefs D is much better. goes back to the OP. they have a strong middle class with not many holes.
 
Bottom line is Grier is a boy plugging the leaking dike, trying to keep this team "competitive" to try and save his job. This mentality has led to us having the least amount of draft picks 2 years in a row. His signings are like this is a team that is ready to compete for a title.

We are no where near that. We have regressed as a borderline playoff team from last year to what we are this year. Grier needs to go PERIOD. The shear fact he came out and basically laughed that we were questioning the OL shows anyone with any NFL IQ the guys is completely clueless.

Last year we had 3 major areas of concern: OL, a legit 3rd WR, and play calling. NONE have been addressed and we actually regressed. So these things you have pointed out are a very small portion of a MUCH BIGGER PICTURE. It's like I got some good tires for a car that barely runs.
 
What would you think of the Dolphins bringing in Drew Allar next year, as a potential-future/back-up for Tua?
Allar is going to be overdrafted. It is a fairly weak QB class. You could make the argument he is the 4th best prospect despite the fact he is raw and has a lot of areas that need work. Teams are going to look at his size and arm talent and take a gamble. 6 QBs went by 12 last draft; he could easily go top 10. Like 8 of the teams picking top 10 (right now) would all go QB if given the chance.

So to answer your question, yes we will need to find a long term answer at QB. Allar fits our needs because he SHOULD sit for a year or two either way. He probably won’t be on the board when we pick if we win 4-5 more games.
 
Tua is playing on the 5th year of his rookie contract. His extension doesn’t technically start until next year. That is why it was easier to mess around with his cap hit this year.

Respectfully, Tua has a contract that is in effect and we can see its terms.

The fact that Tua would have gotten $23.17M in 2024 from his 5th year rookie option has no legal bearing anymore after his new contract is signed and supersedes it.

Grier and Tua renegotiated his fully guaranteed salary in 2024 to drop it by over 95%, which also dropped his cap hit by almost 59%, hence my comment about Grier going “all in” 2024.

The cap hit dropped less than the salary because the cap hit includes $8.4M from the NEW signing bonus of $42M that is evenly prorated over the contract’s entire 5 years from 2024-2028.
 
Exactly this.

There’s no shortcuts to winning at a sustainable level and having future success. You have to keep homegrown talent and hit on picks in the draft, which unfortunately Chris Grier has been abysmal.
I guess he was following the blueprint of the rams and Bucs. It just didn’t work out
 
Ya I don’t think people realize that Grier went “all in” this season and structured Tua so he only had a $1.1M salary with 1/5th of his signing bonus, so he counted only $9.5M against the cap in 2024.

He balloons to $39M, $56M, $53M, and $65M cap hits the next 4 years.

Good luck building a defense with 1 potential starter in Chop from the last 3 drafts to cheaply fill the roster with talent.

Edit - If you really want to be jealous, the Chiefs only spend $76M of their cap on the defense this season while Dolphins have spent $87M.
That number for the Chiefs defense will balloon next year, as Chris Jones’s cap number goes from $7 mil and change to almost $35 mil next year.
 
I guess he was following the blueprint of the rams and Bucs. It just didn’t work out

I’ll say one thing, Chris Grier will never be confused with the likes of Les Snead or Jason Licht. Not to mention both men have hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in the last 5 years.

That aside, Grier should have taken basic baby steps - trying to win and build a team for our own division as I said before. That should be the goal, first and foremost. Our record against the Bills is embarrassing, and only highlights the complete disconnect with this front office.
 
Respectfully, Tua has a contract that is in effect and we can see its terms.

The fact that Tua would have gotten $23.17M in 2024 from his 5th year rookie option has no legal bearing anymore after his new contract is signed and supersedes it.

Grier and Tua renegotiated his fully guaranteed salary in 2024 to drop it by over 95%, which also dropped his cap hit by almost 59%, hence my comment about Grier going “all in” 2024.

The cap hit dropped less than the salary because the cap hit includes $8.4M from the NEW signing bonus of $42M that is evenly prorated over the contract’s entire 5 years from 2024-2028.
Everything you just described is why teams wait to sign 1st round picks after picking up their 5th year option. The 5th year is always fully guaranteed. Teams have been using this fully guaranteed option to lower a players cap hit in said 5th year since its conception. They do that, as you stated, by spreading the money in a 4 year contract extension over 5 seasons. But the reality is that 5th year is always cheap and the cost only goes up after that. My point originally was more that Tua’s extension, year wise, hasn’t even started yet so he COULD be here thru 2028.
 
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