You have to tag OV, either we keep him for one year or we get a draft pick or two for him. We can't develop a 25 year old at a premium position who is trending upwards and let him walk without getting anything. I don't get the angst over the move, we have to try and keep OV, he's only 25 and despite not forcing fumbles or racking up huge sack numbers he has been getting hurries and hits which are a very big deal. Considering the idiotic coaching staff he's had to deal with the fact that he's developed means he works. The only thing that would stop me from signing him long term would be if I thought he would get his money and get fat or stop working. If I thought he would keep developing I'd try my best to sign him long term.
You must be talking about some alternate universe Dolphins, lol, where is this list of "great talent" we have developed and let go? What is, and has been killing us is overpaying players, and mediocre drafting.
He probably just meant letting some great players go to other teams and not necessarily developing them.
We have definitely made some bad moves, I wouldn't argue that, but our drafting has been so-so for a while now, VD is the only player we've drafted and let go that might be considered great.
Well the word great gets over used a lot but this offseason we have 3 players in Matthews, Miller and OV that are very good and might well end up being great somewhere else and could very well lose all of them. That isn't how you build a great team. The teams that compete for a title year in and year out don't lose their 24-26 year old players that they've developed, they lock them up, they let the 30 year olds go but we have 3 players approaching their prime playing age and we shouldn't be losing most or all of them.
I think we should keep Miller and Matthews, and I'd like to keep OV, but he's going to get overpaid, if these 10 mil per rumors are true, or even worse, tagging him at 15 mil, good teams don't over pay for good players, and teams that are good year in and year out are always letting go good players, they over pay for great players, not good players. The thing that we all have to understand is that we aren't going to be good until we start drafting well consistently, that is what separates the good teams from every one else.
We did draft well with OV, Miller and Matthews lol. Thats kind of the point. When you draft properly, develop the players you lock them up. We should franchise OV and then try to sign him, if someone wants to overpay him they can give us a draft pick for the right to pay him. Really good teams aren't usually in this spot, I can't remember a player that the Ravens, Pats, Steelers, etc. lost that was 24-25 that went on to be great somewhere else. We have a rough spot because we already have a lot of salary allotted for other players so we might have to make a tough choice with one of the three mentioned. You could make a good argument for keeping the up and coming pass rusher over a RB and WR. WR because we are already deep at that position and RB because if they usually come cheap in the draft. I hope we can keep all three or that we at least get a draft pick(s) for OV if we lose him.
I love the idea of a tag and trade deal for OV, because I don't think he's up and coming, I think after 4 years he is what he is, passrushers don't typically start getting better after 4 years in the league, and he's a solid 4-3 DE, I'm not questioning that, I just don't think he'll be getting much better. I want to keep Miller and Matthews because they are perfect fits, I also happen to think Miller is a top 10ish RB, and that Matthews is ascending. About Miller, a lot of people talk about how easy it is to draft a good RB, but that is a fallacy, yes they do come all throughout the draft, but it's haphazard, you never know which guy it's going to be, 1st rounders that are busts and UDFAs that become stars, it's not as easy as just grabbing a 4th rounder, as some make it seem, and for Dolphin fans that should be painfully obvious, as we have struck out many times in the RB area, so I'm all for keeping Miller. As far as Matthews, he is the only true SE we have, he will give Parker and Landry more leeway to work with while also getting his, he's the perfect compliment to those 2 guys, with a great 4th option in Stills, coming off the bench, but Stills is not a good starter, or else I wouldn't care so much about signing Matthews. Those teams do lose players though, Oher, Kruger and Ellerbe come to mind for the Ravens, they just didn't want to pay them what other teams were willing to pay them, all those guys played out their rookie contracts then left. The Steelers have lost Sanders, Wallace and Holmes off the top of my head. The Pats haven't lost much recently, but for a while weren't drafting as well as they used to, and back then they did lose players. If you draft well, it's unavoidable that you'll lose players, especially if other more desperate teams are willing to over pay, and the good teams let those players go.
Almost all of those guys you point out from the Ravens, Steelers were basically bums with other teams. They made the right call to not pay those guys. I guess thats the chance you're taking with OV, maybe he goes somewhere else for a ton of money and winds up being a bum, maybe he winds up an allpro and we are looking stupid. I don't agree with your assessment of OV overall, he was a dominant player at times down the stretch after we made the coaching change and he was healthy. I mean he was in the backfield all day for a lot of games. You're way over obsessed with numbers, particularly FF and Sacks, there are other things for defensive linemen to do. I'd rather have a guy pressure a Qb all day have a ton of pressures and hits than a guy to have very few hits and pressures and have 2 sacks. Its not all about numbers.
I'm not obsessed about numbers, it's all about production, there are times when he is in the backfield a lot, and times where he's invisible too, and when it comes to paying players elite money, I want elite production, it's just that simple, he wants Wake money, but doesn't produce like Wake, it's that simple for me. The bottom line is the bottom line so to speak, the NFL is a business, with a salary cap, so money plays a huge roll, and being smart with it, and over paying guys means you're not doing it right, and the Fins have been over paying players way too much, which is why we we're a 6-10 team with 155 mil salary cap, if we were on the cusp of the SB then it might make sense to over pay for the right player, but we've just been over paying too many players and are spinning our wheels. Smart teams pay when a player has earned it, not before, OV would have to get better to be worth that money, there is no guarantee he'll get better, and basing it on history he won't get much better, DE is not a position where you see a lot of players getting better after 4 years, 3 years as a full time starter, so we can't reasonably assume he'll get better, maybe he will, but more likely he won't.
Well he's gotten better each year so I don't know why its a stretch to think he's trending upwards. Also, we are talking about salary demands from OV, what he wants, doesn't mean he'll get 15+ million a year. I think if we could sign him to a deal that average around 10 million a year thats probably about what he's worth. I do think at this point we are going to tag him just to see what the market is and if we can get draft picks for him if he sticks to his demands.
I guess we just see him differently, I don't think he's gotten much better over the past 3 years, and it's 10 mil per that he's seeking, which I don't feel he's worth, I don't see the production for 10 mil per, 7 would be my max on him. We can agree to disagree on OV, no biggie.
If you read part one of the "Cap-onomics" series, you might have been instilled with a sense of optimism regarding the team’s performance in 2016. On the offensive side of the ball, you’re justified in this sentiment. They are surely not as far away from success as most people would believe, based on the end result of 2015. There should be no warm and fuzzy feeling about how the defense could look in 2016. The Miami Dolphins’ offense will be limited in its ability to make changes this offseason, almost exclusively because the defensive unit is such a mess. The team will need new cornerbacks, linebackers, and defensive linemen. There are far more needs than there are resources with which to fill them. This means that some very difficult decisions will have to be made. http://www.thephinsider.com/2016/1/...phins-salary-cap-space-defense-cap-casualties
