What will happen to Andre Branch? | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

What will happen to Andre Branch?

A500

A500

Active Roster
Joined
Nov 16, 2016
Messages
108
Reaction score
63
It is way too early into the off season, but bear with me. Harris has been an absolute monster thus far in his first offseason as a pro. While there haven't been any pads used in practice, let's say this continues well into preseason and he eventually gets the start for the season. What would we do with Branch? There would be no point to cut him because the guaranteed money and we obviously need the depth. How long would we need to keep him in order to cut him without penalty? This year? Next? Would it even make sense to cut him if he has to stay two of his three years? I doubt a team would trade for his contract. So all things considered, if Harris shines and plays like the way he has in minicamp, is it possible that Branch will be a 24 million dollar back up for his whole three year contract?

This is, of course, all speculation at this point. Just curious if Harris does play especially well, what would be the best thing to do with Branch.
 
Wake won't play forever. Maybe Branch can be an emergency band aid if Wake calls it quits
 
Branch and Harris are your future ends. Hayes and Wake could be your 2017 starters, but they're on the +side of 30. We drated Harris because we wanted youth and depth at the end spot. It would seem silly to cut Branch and reduce the depth. I think Branch Harris, Wake, Hayes and Fede will be on the 53 man roster at end barring injuries. There are several combinations of defensive ends that could start for Miami in 2017. I'm looking forward to see who starts, who finishes and how the snaps are distributed.
 
Way to premature to worry about yet. Remember, Fede often looked great in camp only to be stonewalled in actual games.

Harris will cut his teeth at situational pass rusher. Then he will be given a chance as a full rotational DE. If he does well and outplayed branch in base, he will have a chance to win the starting RE spot with Branch moving to rotational DE.

That's how it was last year when Branch won the job from the uncompetitive Mari0 Williams, and that's how it will be this year as well. But we expect to have a better group this year so I expect a lot more rotation at DE, not just one starter getting 80%+ of the reps.
 
What a great problem to have! DE more than any position on he field had snaps for 4 players to get a lot of snaps. Last year Jason Jones had the least amount of snaps with 38%, of our top 4 guys, and he missed 3-4 games. To keep a pass rush fresh, and effective the top 4 guys will be around 40-60% of defensive snaps. Check out the link for proof.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/mia/2016-snap-counts.htm
 
He'll play RDE after wake retires and harris takes over LDE. Until then harris will play both sides.
 
Andre Branch is having an amazing off season. He is doing MMA training, boxing 4 times a week, Pilates, Yoga, he has a special chef, and he only drinks water. He is dedicated to come into this season in monster shape. I'm pretty certain that he will start opposite Wake on opening day. Look for Branch to be a much improved player because he is doing all the right things. Charles Harris is going to get plenty of snaps and he will be a major part of the rotation. I think we're going to see a bunch of different combinations used on passing downs. There will be many packages, sub packages and on and on, one thing for sure is that we have better talent and more depth on the D-Line than we've had in a long time.
 
I'm excited about Harris as well, but disregard anything about player performance from the offseason, nothing is real until the pads come on.
 
Only way the team would consider trading Branch is if another DE other than Harris really emerged, one of the depth guys like a Fede or Praise Martin Oguike. Then knowing Tannenbaun he might look at flipping the guy for another player, like a DT or OL.
 
It's already been touched on in this thread, but Branch was extended because of what they expect out of him - they didn't give him $24mil to put up 5 sacks... they're expecting him to grow and only get better. Wake is a very nice luxury we've been afforded and the team wants to keep that as long as we can. Harris is a rookie... they probably expect Branch to get as many snaps as anyone at the DE position. I expect Harris to work in and give Branch and Wake a lot of rotational help and Hayes will get some run on obvious running downs. I don't really consider Fede as someone who will be getting any snaps, so when you consider you have Branch, Wake, Harris, and Hayes that's a great AND NECESSARY 4 man rotation - anything less and you might actually be concerned about our DE depth.
 
Win Fin Fin said:
I'm excited about Harris as well, but disregard anything about player performance from the offseason, nothing is real until the pads come on.
Click to expand...

Yeah, completely agree. This was all extremely hypothetical
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom