****. A week ago I said it felt like we were starting to cut veterans and good players as if winning now were less important than long term development of young guys That continues to be the case but I am shocked at how abruptly this has obviously become cost-cutting. No ****ing wonder Parcells said eff this and began his slow exit. If this $&&t keeps up I'll consider doing the same. ****ing Ross.
You're overreacting. Berger beat out Grove. Grove had the contract of a starter, not a backup. Therefore, he was released.
We are not overreacting.Before preseason we had a ton of depth on the o-line.Now we have lost thomas,gardner,and now grove and the season has not even begun yet. These idiots need to stop signing players with an injury history,like grove and smiley trying to save a buck.3 years in and we are still rebuilding the offensive line.
Ya dude you are overreacting, and really jumping to conclusions. None of us know what goes on behind close doors. We like to speculate and assume what is being done, but the reality is, none of us know what they are doing.
well Sparano built this line its his baby. We tried to reach all over t didnt work. If berger was worthless grove would still be here IMO injury or not. what makes me mad is im not as confident in our linr this yr as last. that hurts but its a business. Think about this if your gonna weaken and cut salary on one area of the team. If im coach it would be my best skill set right ?
Hard to keep them around when they spend alot of the season on the bench themselves. I know its a bit of a shock move but i think its a combination. Big $$$'s and productivity or lack of. Im not against this move. Im a bit suprised with our 1st game 3 days away but not shocked.
Our offensive line is really strange to this point. We have moved 3 starters off of a line that was top 5 last year in rushing game. I know that its kind of scary at first but really have we upgraded or not. Eveybody was yelling camp fodder and now way when we signed Incognito but lets all admit now that he has done a good job this year and the guy is NASTY. Grove and Berger. To me it was pretty much even. You dont pay a guy a ton of money to be even with his backup. Grove was injured all the time, lets get a young guy in here and see what they do. John Jerry the guy looked great in college, and lets be honest...yeah we all liked Donald Thomas but he leveled out to be an average player. Jerry has looked really good in pass blocking and run blocking. We have Long and Carey on the ends, nothing else to say. Now I'm not saying I agree 100% with all these moves. I still dont know what they were doing letting Martin go unless he was injured as well. It really just seems like we are getting rid of everybody that has an injury history. Ronnie better watch out next year.
I was saying I wouldnt be surprised at all if they did this all along, simple fact guys, they werent paying that salary, for a guy who is going to be injuried, and play half the year. Especially in the only year you could release/cut somebody and not get charged the dead cap space money..... Solid sound business move, and hopefully one that leads to a permanent fix at that position sooner than later...and honestly I thought he was getting the axe this past Saturday when it was cut-down day....which probably means as many on here point out, that they probably tried to re-nego'd him...
That is a seriously good point. I hope he stays healthy and produces this season as hes one of my favourite players. I wouldnt like to see him gone after this season.
Rather than assume and in all likelihood assume the wrong thing, I'd rather just let the FO do their thing and see where we end up. I'm not one to overanalyze **** I know nothing about.
Maybe they'll use all this money they're saving to get some good players who can actually stay healthy.
You can't run a successful business by overpaying for underperformance. Guy only started 10 games last year. Not like he's unreplacable.
Part of this, I think, is that we as Dolphins fans are so used to seeing our team's franchise hold on to injury-prone, overpaid players for so long that we don't know what to think when we get a regime who actually rids itself of bad contracts.
I think thats the shock value of this one HardKore, i have no problem with it. If you can't play 100% and get paid to play full time, it can re focus the team and stability of a position, a position the whole team relies on. I have no problem with going the more secure, less expensive route in the interm as long as that player plays every game and can be trusted to play at 100%. Gotta remember, sure we have some new faces on the interior, but we drafted Jerry, have 2 excellent bookends. The line works together and we have several capable backs and TE's of providing additional blocking schemes where needed. I have no problem with this move at all. Seems bad now because grove can be a great player, but long term it will make us that much more stable and give us clear focus on what we need to address personnel wise in the offseason.
Bottom line stop signing injury prone players to big contracts!!!!! I was pissed when they didn,t sign jason brown from the ravens. This guy has not missed a game and instead they wasted money on a guy who could not stay healthy with the raiders.
i want to see who we sign next week when contracts will no longer be guaranteed. I have to say that the amount of cuts is a shock though not one individual player is. Its just the totality of the cuts that is rather surprising. we are very vulnerable to injuries now but I suspect we are going to be signing some quality depth next week. I also wonder how much influence Ross has in all of this since he signs the checks.
I never really liked Jason Brown much in the first place whenever I would take a look at his play in Baltimore. Anywho, the Dolphins sure have wasted a lot of money without getting a whole lot of bang for their buck. That much is obvious. This move isn't a very big deal. You don't pay $6 million a year for a backup Center. Sorry, I see the need for depth but that would have bordered on absurd. It's great if it's not your money and you don't care. But last year the Dolphins' operating income was MINUS $7 million, the most unprofitable team in football. I don't blame Stehen Ross for looking at the team and saying "Wait a minute, are you going to tell me the difference between my operating at a loss and my operating at breakeven could be the BACKUP CENTER?!?" This is a business, if it's not profitable it will go down the toilet, and then you'd be pretty pissed about that too. Grove legitimately lost his job to Berger. I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't gone back to the 2009 tape and reviewed their play comparatively, then looked at this preseason and reviewed their play comparatively again. Grove had the advantage in 2009, but it was minor. Berger had the advantage in 2010. This is like when we cut the expensive Jay Feely in favor of Dan Carpenter based on Carpenter's having made a higher percentage of his kicks during camp and preseason. Jay Feely cried about it. Most fans cried about it. But we're not cryin anymore.
And Matt Birk has been good for the Ravens. I think it is safe to say the evaluation that was done after the 2009 season was simply flawed, as in "Saddam has WMD's" flawed. Consider what they missed on: -Pat White -Pat Turner -Jake Grove -Eric Green -Wilford was cut -Roth released All in all, looking back, that 09 offseason was a serious misstep on someone's behalf, whomever ran things botched recognizing what they were seeing out on the field and in player development. The entire "second team" Oline, what should have been a strength, is either waived, on the bubble, or just fillins or injured. I'm thinking of Gardner, Murtha, Hartline, Garner. I do like Andrew Hartline, at least he had enough pluck to be devestated by his release, the other guys, they went quietly.
When people keep talking about "who else would you have gotten?" in relation to Grove, Matt Birk is the first name that keeps popping in my head...but it's not important enough to research it.
The retrospect game is always fun No coincidence, though that Ozzie is a pretty good personnel guy and cut brown loose in favor of Birk. I don't know what the salary differential is, but, again.....No coincidence Ozzie's considered a pretty good FO guy around the NFL. I don't even recall Birk coming up in the chatter about who we were going to sign.
I agree with part of what you say but it is misleading to just judge financials based on what the "team" lost in one year and post in this manner and not look at the bigger picture....IMHO only ...... and I say that with the utmost respect for you as a poster and respectful of your knowledge......I agree I also think Grove was cut because why pay 6 million or whatever to a backup center...but I think it is misleading to phrase this post with semantics that are indicative of this team making every move because of financial interests first and above all else......financially this organization" paid to opt out of the naming rights of the stadium from Landshark to SunLife in the interests of backloading and assuring some of their revenue stream should there be a strike or lockout next year...they changed accounting structure where they accelerated the write down of brand name ....also in case of work stoppage and they accelerated a loan payback in order to restructure their cash reserves and credit lines,,,which also puts you in great shape for a potential work stoppage.......AND their revenue increased almost 10 million dollars.....lets face it Ross ain't going broke here.........Their positioning financially is a gamble but I would say that financially this organization is better prepared to face a work stoppage and is more than any other franchise planning that their will be one.......and as a minor part of that do not want to pay a backup center 6-7 million....I agree with that part but finances IMHO anyway did not force the issue and they are addressing the personnel issues prudently.......just my 2 cents. Bottom line,,, I agree about the on field issues, ands this is not a big deal and Berger is the better value and possibly the better player.
I think before I jump on the 'panic wagon' with this team, I'd better wait until after the first game to see if/who is or is not brought back. You have to think that the prospect of Grove getting/staying healthy all season long were dim. Additionally, he's not as flexible, position-wise, as some of the other guys (he's getting a starters salary and can't play G or T along the OL). This could be a simple matter (as many have been saying) of cost cutting for a guy that may or may not be available for 20 games (being very optimistic).... Still the difference as I see about this team is not only are there several starters that are young and inexperienced (IAK. Misi, Odrick, Jerry, Clemons), several that are expected to blossom (Henne, Wake, Davis, Smith, Hartline, J. Allen), and some returning starters that are expected to have better years than last (Crowder, Carey, Bell, Fasano, Bess) to go along with new acquisitions that are expected to pick up where they left off with their old teams (Dansby, Marshall, Incognito). If that's not enough question marks, the rest of the story is the backups to this group of starters....A. Hartline, Proctor, McQuistan, Carroll, etc....there's just a ton of question marks, except perhaps along the DL... Then you look at the guys that are gone....Smiley, Martin, W. Allen, Merling, Garner and now Grove. Those were names that we all expected to at the very least start/contribute in a major way. All this is scary for fans, and I'm scared... But I'll see what happens after the first game with regards to the bottom of the roster.... On a side note, is this a move that Parcells would not have made ?? And is the coincidence that it was made a day after Parcells moved aside of any significance ??
Im not entirely sure whats going on with our front office. Well i guess we'll be able to rejoice/riot once the games start being played....
i know ross was very adamant about this fo not throwing big money to people that don't produce or can't stay on the field and grove was one of those guys along with earnest wilford and justin smiley.im glad to see the fo actually taking steps to rectify the situation especially at the o-line.we had one of the highest paid offensive lines in the game today and couldn't run out of our base formation..thats ridiculous.ross doesn't mind spending the money as evident bringing marshall and dansby in but they darn sure better produce and be able to play more than 5 or 6 games a season..<cough,ronnie brown,cough>.love ronnies run style when healthy and one of the reasons he is still on this team is his decent contract but i believe that is up next year.
Im surprised. I mean, we all kind of figured Grove was maybe done here, but to dump him for nothing, is a bit strange. Especially to sign back Proctor, who we cut a few days ago? Why not just cut Grove then and keep Proctor? Seems strange. I'm starting to get concerned with the OL here now. What once seemed like a strong, deep unit, doesn't seem so much any longer.
More important in all this is, how good of a player is Proctor really. If he's what Berger was supposed to be as a backup (2009 before the season) we're fine. Otherwise it is a bit of a hit. They should really consider going for an extra guard in all of this.
I was just curious as to when we will be settled with our talent so this team can finally gel together and develop an identity. There comes a time when riding the merry-go-round of new talent hurts more than enhances. After three years of continuous new faces, I think we are at that point. Continuously rebuilding your team every other week throughout the season is starting not to make sense.
I think the change may be more to do with switch from a Pennington offense to a Henne. Linemen that could hold their run blocks a little longer enabled Pennington to be successful with converting 3rd and shorts. Now, the staff may prefer linemen that can hold their pass blocks a little longer to allow WR route depths to match Henne's arm strength. Grove now has a shoulder injury, which is why Smiley was let go. If these players lost arm strength or range, it seems reasonable that a healthy, younger player may be a more effective pass blocker. Ethan Skolnick wrote today that Smiley was rated as A- for pass blocking; however, I wonder if the grade was helped by frequent use of max protect, which limited pocket spacing and 1-on-1s.
Yeah, probably true but they might want to start signing healthy starting caliber players in the first place. They've dished out a hell of a lot of signing bonus' the last two years for players that are not even on the roster now.... Hope it's not a trend.
I am clueless as to what is going on in this organization. either these guys will be proven brilliant or fired @ the end of the season... lets hope they are brilliant & Parcells w/ planning on sidelining himself from early on & that he's not the first to fall on his sword anticipating the clearing away & mass exodus of the coaching staff. Dolphins need a big victory against the Bills to right this ship on Sunday. hope springs eternal.
