I would cut X as well. We can find cheaper free agents. We have to save money somewhere. Backloading contracts and pushing money down the road is the way to disadvantage the future of the team.
What Should the Blueprint Be?
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The AFC Eastern Division is a cold/bad weather grouping. While the team plays in wonderful weather most of the time at home the same cannot be said for the 8-9 games per year away plus playoff stadiums (KC is hardly tropical).
Not having a team built for at least a respectable power game on offense and a defense that can control the opposing team between the tackles will always place us at a disadvantage.
Further, while Tua has proven to have viability in optimal conditions, smurf sized QBs with limited arm strength further compounds this disadvantage. This is why I fully expect the Patriots to select the kid from North Carolina in next years draft. So, we either find a power game, or find a QB who can carry in adverse conditions.
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Quick perusal of threads started since the season ended seem to favor the following blueprint-
1. Trade Tua . He sucks but don't settle for less than two first rounders
2. Also trade Cheetah, we can find receivers anywhere.
3. Fire McD and pay Harbaugh whatever he wants and make him HC, GM and the Emperor of all Dolphinland for life. He can also probably still take a few snaps under center if you need him.
4. Tar and feather Grier and then burn him at the stake. He's responsible for everything bad, including COVID-19, the Kardooshians and the fire at Tyreek's house. Candidates to replace him are anyone. Just.... anyone
5. Euthanize Steven Ross
6. Burn down the stadium because Indian curse
Did I miss anything?
1. Trade Tua . He sucks but don't settle for less than two first rounders
2. Also trade Cheetah, we can find receivers anywhere.
3. Fire McD and pay Harbaugh whatever he wants and make him HC, GM and the Emperor of all Dolphinland for life. He can also probably still take a few snaps under center if you need him.
4. Tar and feather Grier and then burn him at the stake. He's responsible for everything bad, including COVID-19, the Kardooshians and the fire at Tyreek's house. Candidates to replace him are anyone. Just.... anyone
5. Euthanize Steven Ross
6. Burn down the stadium because Indian curse
Did I miss anything?
3rdandinches
Seasoned Veteran
I will not get off the Ground and Pound, Playaction passing Soap Box. Get 3 run blocking Interior Olineman. I want D.Henry splitting with Achane as my main runningback room, add a draft pick for depth. Trade or release the other rb's, R.Mostert may actually fetch a 4th or so. Money saved from Mostert and Wilsons contracts (6mil) pays for most of Henry's (10mil approx).
Offense is now built for any weather, both backs are excellent receivers out of the back field. Change short yardage mentality to "running it down your throat"!
Offense is now built for any weather, both backs are excellent receivers out of the back field. Change short yardage mentality to "running it down your throat"!
Mello Yello
Club Member
It might be worth considering that in the era of my fandom the Dolphins have generally hired HCs who haven't been NFL HCs before. In hindsight, non of these really look all that appealing. Then you have the two most successful (Belichick & Reid) who both had try-outs before. Pete Carroll is another example having been with the Patriots prior to Belichick's arrival. Experience is very important unless the organization itself is super stable (i.e. Tomlin in Pittsburgh or Harbaugh in Baltimore).
Cameron was an OC in SD for about 5 years but that was it for his experience.
Parcells had a great history but was too old to take on the job of HC so maybe the Dolphins were chasing a ghost.
Sparano had bounced around the NFL quite a bit as a positional coach for 10-yrs, ending up as Parcells "Asst HC" in Dallas.
Philbin was an assistant in GB for about 10 years. Prior to that, all college experience, never as a HC either.
Gase had about 10 years of experience, 3 as OC, having mostly gained fame due to his proximity to Peyton Manning in Den.
Flores was very similar to Philbin but younger and bit more combative. Still, no HC experience and like Philbin, his only history was his 10-years in various assistant positions within 1 franchise. We imagined him being something. We saw what we wanted to see.
McDaniel is another young, inexperienced HC who's only ever worked under Kubiak/Shanahan.
Regardless of how you feel about those guys, it's clear that if Grier and McDaniel fail the goal should probably be to find someone with a bit of experience. Perhaps they'll have been replaced like Reid and Belichick were in Philly and Cleveland. But I think you need vision. Hiring a GM who can find and align the overall vision with that experience HC wouldn't be a bad thing--IF we get to that point where we fire Grier and McDaniel.
Right now, both of those guys are safe but they need to prove themselves. This is Grier's 3rd HC, the 2nd he started fresh with. Grier had the keys going back to 2019 when he cleaned the roster out and he had 3 years with Gase & Tannehill before that. It's 5 years later now that we did the "tank." There shouldn't be a "next chance" with Grier.
McDaniel is either special and worth keeping or he's a typical HC hire that fails--someone going through that 1st phase where he learns what he needs to in order to succeed in some future stint somewhere else.
Phinslife
Active Roster
I think we load up the OL and DL with good players and try to really focus on LBs. We need to drop X contract and replace with average to just good CBs. We don't need elite ones if your LBs can blitz and cover and your DL gets constant pressure. This will help us out drastically down the stretch. The OL being loaded up let's Tua hold the ball and teach him its safe to go through your reads without pressure. I think these will help drastically. Get Berrios involved more as the 3rd option and incorporate a Pittsburgh L. Bell or R. Rice offense with Achane. That is how you counter.
My opinion is a top tier team should have a top quarterback and 5 top linemen. Everything else is secondary. On defense at least one top DT and 2 edge rushers, 2 corners and at least 1 safety. If those are elite, the rest is less important.
Mello Yello
Club Member
I think our problem is precisely that we can't just go and 'find players anywhere.'
We either end up fielding Isaiah Ford or we go out and trade a ransom of picks and pay Tyreek Hill $30M/yr. There has to be a middle ground. We sign Terron Armstead but we have Liam Eichenberg and Robert Jones starting beside him. Again, no balance.
The Dolphins inability to find consistent contributors outside of R1 has been a burden and it's at the heart of why things are so grim.
We talk about how other teams have multiple weapons--and that's true--but the Bengals found Tee Higgins in the back of R1. That's value and that's hitting on your picks. The Chiefs found Hill in R5 and Kelce in R3. That's incredible value, historic even. The 49ers hit on Brandon Aiyuk in the back end of R1 and they hit on Deebo Samuel in R2. Great value!
It's fine that the Dolphins have weapons--Mostert and Achane are great finds! And splurging on Waddle at the top of R1 is okay if he produces. But going and buying Tyreek Hill is just kind of indulgent and ultimately unwise from a team-building perspective. Congrats on your 3,500-yds but it's sleeping with an expensive call girl...it's not an accomplishment--you paid for it.
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First, it’s important to identify what our issues were and when/why we couldn’t hang.
We certainly didn’t go 4-13 or 6-11 where you have A LOT of issues. We lost games mostly only to really good teams, so foundation wise , there is something there. This isn’t going to be a tear down like some hapless fans on here think.
Our defense for the most part wasn’t the problem. Our offense in big games was the issue.
Other than getting blown out by Bills early and Ravens near at end of season, the defense played well - and you can argue that in those two games, our offense didn’t play complimentary football.
The first reality is in the NFL today to be competitive and consistent in big games against good teams BOTH UNITS need to play complimentary football.
This does NOT mean that each unit is an A+ in every drive or every game. It means, they pick up the slack for another across the course of the season, and of course, the playoffs. There are people who still think the goal is the Ravens defense in the early 00s… one of the greatest of all time. Instead, you just need a good defense that can grind out in big games while the offense puts up points.
Even with all the injuries on our defense - I think we were ranked 5th most playtime with backups on defense - I think we were still very competitive late in the season and against good teams.
Look at our last two games - against Buffalo and against KC… both games, with all our edge guys out and no X Howard we played great defensive football. That means the scheme, the coaching, and the players were doing their job and the guys that were out there were bought in. They played truly excellent in their last two games all things considered.
The defense doesn’t need any structural changes at all. We may lose some pieces due to salary cap stuff, but you don’t actually NEED to change any part of it. I wouldn’t touch our D if I didn’t have to.
The other side of the coin is the offense… we had the #1 team with most backups taking offensive snaps… we also had something like 50% of all offensive line snaps taken by backups… the next highest *playoff* team had ~26% and the playoff teams in general averaged 17-19% of offensive line snaps being by back ups.
This issue, in addition to MM failure to adjust his playcalling in second half’s, or going away from simple things, were our biggest issues as a team.
Injuries you might say are bad luck but Chris Grier is always very aggressive to sign injury prone players… he sees it as a value…. I guess he sees something that the literal rest of the world doesn’t… maybe he’ll get it right one day… a broken clock has the right time twice a day, right?
You simply cannot depend on injury prone players to not get injured. Our starting left side were injury plagued players who had it happen again. Ajax was actually healthy most of the year while both Connor Williams and Robert Hunt, our two least injury prone players, both missed significant time… you could say those two guys were “unlucky”.
But our OL depth played fairly well… I love Kendal Lamm as a A+ value and quality player and would be happy if Armstead retired so we could make Lamm our starting LT. When it got to the point at the end of the year when 4 of our 5 starting OL was backups, it was going to be tough sledding in the playoffs… but I still didn’t see us adjust.
Is it Tua not taking easy throws, dump offs, swing passes? I don’t know. I don’t know why weren’t attacking the short middle if the linebackers were dropping deep to take away the intermediate stuff.
Why weren’t we ever running on 3rd and 4th and 1 when all stats showed us as one of the worst teams in these categories and also the team who passed the most in those situations… do the coaches not have access to these stats? Are they not tracking their results?
We completely so many easy 5-8yd passes on 1st and 2nd down early in the season… we stopped running those simple plays. Why?
I think MM in game playcalling and lack of adjustments were the #1 culprit… I think he outsmarted himself many times… you run in obvious running situations because it’s the logical thing to do… you’re not going to win games consistently going against logic.
Injuries were an issue, yes, but our depth this year was as good as any I can recall in 30 years… on both sides… I think we had the horses for a deep run this year. I think MM inexperience is the reason we fell short.
In short, the blueprint implies we’re starting over and I don’t see that being the case because I don’t see us having that type of major issue.
MM needs to be better. He’s not going anywhere nor should he, he’s a great head coach but he needs to be a better in game
Playcaller.
We certainly didn’t go 4-13 or 6-11 where you have A LOT of issues. We lost games mostly only to really good teams, so foundation wise , there is something there. This isn’t going to be a tear down like some hapless fans on here think.
Our defense for the most part wasn’t the problem. Our offense in big games was the issue.
Other than getting blown out by Bills early and Ravens near at end of season, the defense played well - and you can argue that in those two games, our offense didn’t play complimentary football.
The first reality is in the NFL today to be competitive and consistent in big games against good teams BOTH UNITS need to play complimentary football.
This does NOT mean that each unit is an A+ in every drive or every game. It means, they pick up the slack for another across the course of the season, and of course, the playoffs. There are people who still think the goal is the Ravens defense in the early 00s… one of the greatest of all time. Instead, you just need a good defense that can grind out in big games while the offense puts up points.
Even with all the injuries on our defense - I think we were ranked 5th most playtime with backups on defense - I think we were still very competitive late in the season and against good teams.
Look at our last two games - against Buffalo and against KC… both games, with all our edge guys out and no X Howard we played great defensive football. That means the scheme, the coaching, and the players were doing their job and the guys that were out there were bought in. They played truly excellent in their last two games all things considered.
The defense doesn’t need any structural changes at all. We may lose some pieces due to salary cap stuff, but you don’t actually NEED to change any part of it. I wouldn’t touch our D if I didn’t have to.
The other side of the coin is the offense… we had the #1 team with most backups taking offensive snaps… we also had something like 50% of all offensive line snaps taken by backups… the next highest *playoff* team had ~26% and the playoff teams in general averaged 17-19% of offensive line snaps being by back ups.
This issue, in addition to MM failure to adjust his playcalling in second half’s, or going away from simple things, were our biggest issues as a team.
Injuries you might say are bad luck but Chris Grier is always very aggressive to sign injury prone players… he sees it as a value…. I guess he sees something that the literal rest of the world doesn’t… maybe he’ll get it right one day… a broken clock has the right time twice a day, right?
You simply cannot depend on injury prone players to not get injured. Our starting left side were injury plagued players who had it happen again. Ajax was actually healthy most of the year while both Connor Williams and Robert Hunt, our two least injury prone players, both missed significant time… you could say those two guys were “unlucky”.
But our OL depth played fairly well… I love Kendal Lamm as a A+ value and quality player and would be happy if Armstead retired so we could make Lamm our starting LT. When it got to the point at the end of the year when 4 of our 5 starting OL was backups, it was going to be tough sledding in the playoffs… but I still didn’t see us adjust.
Is it Tua not taking easy throws, dump offs, swing passes? I don’t know. I don’t know why weren’t attacking the short middle if the linebackers were dropping deep to take away the intermediate stuff.
Why weren’t we ever running on 3rd and 4th and 1 when all stats showed us as one of the worst teams in these categories and also the team who passed the most in those situations… do the coaches not have access to these stats? Are they not tracking their results?
We completely so many easy 5-8yd passes on 1st and 2nd down early in the season… we stopped running those simple plays. Why?
I think MM in game playcalling and lack of adjustments were the #1 culprit… I think he outsmarted himself many times… you run in obvious running situations because it’s the logical thing to do… you’re not going to win games consistently going against logic.
Injuries were an issue, yes, but our depth this year was as good as any I can recall in 30 years… on both sides… I think we had the horses for a deep run this year. I think MM inexperience is the reason we fell short.
In short, the blueprint implies we’re starting over and I don’t see that being the case because I don’t see us having that type of major issue.
MM needs to be better. He’s not going anywhere nor should he, he’s a great head coach but he needs to be a better in game
Playcaller.
Phinslife
Active Roster
Well Kyle Shanahan was inexperienced at one time too.
Phinslife
Active Roster
I literally stopped at "1. Trade Tua. He sucks but don't settle for less than two first rounders." If he is worth 2 firsts, then we should NOT trade him. Don't you see the flaw/contradiction in your logic?
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He was being sarcastic brother
He said these are threads that have been posted since our loss and he is not wrong
IHATETHEJETS
Club Member
Where did you hear that we have potentially a lame duck coach, QB, and GM, or is that wishful thinking on your part? I haven't heard anything wrt this please show me if I have mis-spoken.