After several years of heartbreak I think my biggest disappointment with the phins has been their failure to understand what opportunity cost is. In simple termms opportunity cost is saying that if you do X then you can't do Y or Z. The Dolphins seem to be intent on making the biggest splashiest move. Examples include signing Suh, Albert, Wallace and drafting Dion Jordan. Even if all these moves worked out they leave an ongoing problem with the team structure, described by journalists as a stars and scrubs team. By investing resources in stars the opportunity cost has been to rip out depth and breadth of talent. We were at the point where people were discussing which of our UDFA LB rookies was going to star this year. When the season hit us the lack of talent in the LB position was a hugely expolitable weakness. Other recent examples have been keeping Ireland as GM which cost us quality HC candidates and keeping Philbin as HC which cost us quality GM candidates. There just seems to be a tendency in Phinlandia for people to say X is good, lets do X. They should be sayign well if we do do X we cant do Y, which is better X or Y? I just want an off season that does not have big name free agent signings, but we sign good depth or solid starters who don't break the bank. I want an off season where we hire the best HC, not rush to hire a good candidate who might be signed by another team. I don't want an off season where we sign a chosen one as our savioiur at great expense.
This really is just the tip of the iceberg. In my opinion a lot of the coaches who want to be GM recognize this as a huge part of moving a team forward. Coaches and GM have to work together and understand this philosophy in-depth. I was very surprised Miami fired and hired a new GM before hiring the new coach. W hy would you do that - what happens if the one coach you really want wants GM authority? Tannenbaum and Co. have again already began to blunder the next 5 years and I for one have zero confidence in their ability to get the job done. Obviously Tannenbaum (lets just call a spade a spade and call him "BOMB" as his last name indicates) does not understand or does not care what signing big name "splash players" does to the football team. I am certain he will double down this year and do it again to temporarily appease the fan base. Without a solid structure the building will fall down. Solid structure are the guys no one talks about much, the depth, the heartbeat of the team. Bomb puts the cart before the horse and because that is his approach we are doomed.
Interesting way to look at it. We're also a good study of why it's important to build through the draft. If you draft well, you dont have the need to pay big bucks for super stars. You're getting young talent, on the cheap. Now, if we had signed Suh like we did, and then hit on highly productive guys more frequently, we'd have great, cheap talent surrounding the great expensive talent, balancing everything out. You've got to draft well to be successful.
Well, in Tannenbaum's defense he has stated that in searching for a HC the team is considering who that person would bring in as coordinators and assistants. So clearly he understands that a uniformly solid coaching staff may ultimately do more than a single good HC with lackluster support. As to how he views the construction of a roster, well, that's up for debate but many seem to love his top-heavy, win-now approach. Again, in Mike's defense I think the NFL allows rapid development. There's no reason to wait 4 or 5 years when things can be accomplished in 2. If you're not aggressive in trying to build something great you may wind up perpetually "in the middle." Miami had been there awhile. It may be time Miami commits to something and goes full boar right at it. I think we are seeing that with the resources given to the offense lately.
In theory, yes its best to build through the draft, in practice that's a different story. The reason the reality is different is that is takes more than 2-3 years to build through the draft and our fanbase is not patient enough for that.
We won't get anywhere under the current ownership regime. They're very "reactionary" in their approach (often very late to make important decisions). They also tend to migrate towards big talkers and heavy spending.
U make valid points in regards to signing the big fish and always ignoring depth. What I don't understand, and I have seen it raised in other posts, why can't we have a coach that doesn't have gm duties, or a gm in place before the coach? The coach job is to coach. If its a solid coach, he should be able to fit his system around the available talent on the team. I don't feel it's necessary for the coach to have input into who the gm is. I don't hire my boss, I either take the job or find another. The gm should be hiring the coach. I think we have it right this time
I'd be careful about the "opportunity cost" argument. Are you happy we lost out on the Peyton Manning sweepstakes? That would have been the splashiest move, yet far better than the moves we made, even though Peyton's salary would crowd out others. Everyone knows what opportunity cost is. It's just hard to predict which star FA signings will really work out. Keep in mind most of this board was totally ecstatic about signing Suh, so don't lay the blame based totally on 20/20 hindsight.
I am not sure why you would say Payton's salary would crowd out others. If this is the case then we must also assert that SUH and Tannehills contracts are doing the same.
Right.. that's an example of opportunity cost. Doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing to sign a splashy FA is my point.
I agree, but disagree at the same time. Mainly I was referring to your early round picks that you have to hit. Those are the guys, that if you're drafting well you expect to hit on, and you expect them to contribute at a high level, at a low cost. The late round guys that you can hit on, but take time, absolutely, this fan base doesn't have the patience. Not many do, until they realize they have a solid FO that can recognize the talent, and coaching staff in place that can help the talent realize it's potential. Personally, until we fix that... round and round we go. Of course, the successful hit rate is a fairly low percentage (Former GM Mark Dominik says around 30%) as it is, so patience of course is required regardless. So, I guess, yes, I agree, just needed to further expand and clarify what I meant.
Again, the coaching has kinda hamstrung this team in regards to their reticence to start young guys from the draft and still tinkering with the O-line.
It's kinda like a roller coaster for us... I mean the last 'good' personnel moves were made by JJ...Since then we are paying forward for Wanny's mistakes (mainly because it was 5 years of bad personnel/no personnel choices). Couple that with the inconsistencies in personnel described above since Wanny's time and this team is a mess, still.... Can it be fixed, yea, but it's not going to be fixed in 2016...no matter who the coach/gm combo is...
Do you agree that the signing of SUH and the resigning of Tannehill at the rate they both have will crowd others out? I believe it will play a significant role to new coaching on building this franchise into a proverbial powerhouse
Of course they crowd out, I just agreed with that. In fact, my whole point is that's an example of opportunity cost, but in some cases (e.g. Peyton Manning) it may lead to a more competitive team. So what I'm saying is you can't just as a blanket statement say signing a splashy FA or even one whose salary is massive is bad.
I would agree with you if the other pieces were in place, for us they are not so IMO signing SUH and giving Tannehill that giant contract..........hmmm
Suh was signed first and foremost because he was a premiere name who will sell tickets for a few years. Even if/when they finish poorly, they can always sit there and say "Well we have Suh to build around, watch what we do next year!" The problem is they're never had an FO capable of stocking a defense with cheap parts - which is inevitably what you have to do when you've got a guy commanding $28.6 million, $15.1 million, $22.1 million, $24.1 million, $18.375 million for his next 5 seasons.
Rock I am not sure the point you are making. Because we cant stock the Defense with reasonable avg cost players dosnt give them the right to just say **** it and load the defense with what they have. It is tantamount to Team cap suicide. The only way to correct it is get rid of those that are not pulling their weight for what they are getting paid. Otherwise we are in Mediocre pergatory
Precisely. Opportunity cost doesn't mean don't sign big names. It does mean that you should be very careful about signing big names if you have serious exploitable holes that you can't rectify if you sign the big name. In isolation I have no problem with the phins signing Suh. What I have a problem with is signing Suh and deciding to rely on UDFA rookies to improve our LB corps and relying on a 4th round rookie to upgrade our O-line. The reason why we have such problems at LB and OG isn't because of Suh, but because of a pattern of going out for the big name and allowing other units to suffer. If the phins, instead of signing Albert and Wallace and instead of trading up for Dion Jordan had instead gone out and bought in NFL average guys at WR, OT and spent the extra draft picks normally we would have thee cap space and talent available to address the holes. I actually think signing Suh was a good thing, but the problem is the history of similar moves in the past has thinned out the talent base to a dangerous degree.
Clearly our fans have some patience as we've largely been irrelevant for 13 years or so now and we still have fans. I mostly agree with what you're saying though, you can't just tear down and rebuild in the NFL the way MLB teams do sometimes. Not just our fanbase but most won't tolerate throwing away more than maybe a single season. But in football it generally doesn't take as long to get new talent ready for the big time so I think that has something to do with the expectations being different.
Brilliant post. Loved it. I ask you this: Would Ronnie Stanley LT, ND be the most obvious draft choice according to your assertion or not?
Not sure what post you're referring to. But, using opportunity cost analysis - Trading up to draft Ronnie Stanley would be a mistake, because we need the resources (draft picks) to address other holes. If Ronnie Stanley fell to us then maybe it would be best to draft him, or maybe it would be best to trade down with a team willing to give up a lot to draft him and to draft more lesser talent at more positions. It would depend on the value of what you could get if you didn't draft him.
You're absolutely correct, a coach's job should be to coach and not have GM duties however, I would argue this; if you hire a head coach, you obviously believe in that man's football philosophy otherwise, why did you even hire him? If you want your head coach to be successful, you have to get your head coach what he wants/needs in order to realize his football philosophy on the field. To put it in other words, if a chef needs basil and you hand him oregano and tell him he should be able to make it work, then who's at fault when the dish turns out like crap, the chef or the one who bought the groceries? Now some would argue, "well if he's a chef he should be able to work around it" Ok fine, but then I ask the question, why did you hire this chef to make lasagna, not give him the ingredients he needed, tell him to work around it and get upset when meatloaf is set on the table? A head coach should focus on nothing but coaching, but he should also work closely with the GM to bring in the talent needed for that coach to realize HIS football philosophy on the field. If you don't do that, then why did you hire that head coach in the first place?
How many coaching changes have we had in that 13 year period, with each one the fans were calling for those coaches' heads often for awhile before they were fired? They stick with team, but they are not patient.
