Let’s hope he now gets a chance to strengthen his body in an off-season instead of rehab.

Let’s also hope he’s smarter this year and doesn’t delay any surgeries to July again

 

To be honest, not sure if this is good news or not. LT needs to okay more than 10 games.

 

No surprise as the Dolphins could have claimed over $7M back from him in signing bonus plus he was also giving up his guaranteed salary for 2024. It would have cost him over $20M if he retired.

 

Good I'm glad he's coming back. Spray some rustoleum on him and put him out there.

 

Yeah, the big money from his contract doesn't actually kick in until this year. It would be foolish of him to walk away. Even if he can't play well, he gets paid if he shows up.

 

Play? Or sit on IR?

 

Probably both…

 

If he comes back we need to restructure his contract

 

Yeah - his contract should read “no play, no pay”. Lol

 

His construct should be restructured with a lot of incentive based clauses. I like Armstead, I really do. The man is a mountain to get through…when he plays, but he’s only playing half a season it seems.

I say give him a base equal to last season the a bonus for each game he plays. Whether or not he gets paid will be up to him.

 

Clearly we need all the offensive line help we can get. I'll take him even if it's only for 8 games.

 

Yeahhh...hip hip hooray, we get to depend on the same undependable player AGAIN on the oline?

Do we really expect different results? Every season Grier has us depending on guys like this playing a full season so that we can be competitive. This is a player who should be like an extra you bring on for great depth when you already have a good oline.

 

You can say that, but the contract is what it is. The team structured it the way that they did to maximize cap space in 2022 and 2023, and now the part that eats up the room kicks in. He's set to count over 20m against the cap each of the next three years, and cutting him this year would have resulted in a bigger hit than keeping him.

A year from now, they'll be faced with a choice of taking a 12.7m hit to make him go away or the 20m to stay. I guess we'll see how this season goes and then move from there. But he's not getting any cheaper.

 

But they can always restructure it. We’ll see what happens.

 

But that in turn pushes money into the future, on an injured player who contemplated retirement. Which basically screws over the 2025 or 2026 Dolphins.

 

Lost trust in the guy last year, talked a lot of bs during the weeks

 

In terms of trying to play? He could have had surgery on his toe in week 1 of 2022. Say what you want about him but I don't doubt his desire to play through injuries.

 

Not if he is cut in said future scenario. Take Howard for example.

If we keep him, as is he’ll have a $25 million hit against the cap, or we can restructure his contract. If we cut him right now, we’ll save $3 million dollars against the cap. If we designate him a post June 1st cut, it’s an $18 million dollar savings.

Same can be done with Armstead. We keep him now as is, restructure his contract, cut him now and save a little or designate him a post June 1st cut and save a bundle. I don’t know his cap hit/savings off the top of my head.

There’s numerous ways to manipulate the cap.

 

Great news, as he is a top quality lineman.

If he can stay fit.

 

That is in no way what I wrote.

You simply can't just engage in honest conversation.

I'm upset that once again, we will be depending on a guy to stay healthy, that hasn't stayed healthy in how many seasons now?

We're lining up for another season of disappointment. All these guys who are always injured will be injured again, you guys will continue to argue that the team is fine, we just got derailed by injuries. You all want to extend Tua, while at the same time keeping the same guys who torpedo seasons, while also paying Tua more.

I said in my post, Armstead is great to have, as depth or someone you're not depending on lasting an entire season..

But yeah, it's that I don't want the Dolphins to have high level talent.

 

he treated us fans like we were dumb from a media perspective..he was always talking during the week like we were just little puppy dogs, joking around, laughing, doing social media poscast interviews, alluding that he would play on sunday. and then bam, hes declared out..

like just stop lying to the fans.

 

This coaching staff is getting notorious for keeping players out who were teetering on the edge of playing all season. I don't doubt that Armstead was healthy enough to play in some of those games but was held out over an abundance of caution by this coaching staff.

 

It was a terrible signing to begin with.At the time we paid this guy the highest contract at his postion without him ever playing a full season.
Not his fault but his body is not durable enough to demand that type of money no matter how good he is when he is out there.

 

The June first cuts still require you to eat the dead money. It never goes away, its just spread out, further hampering the efforts to build a better team later on. Just kicking the can down the road.

 

See, it’s posts like this that make me laugh.
Armstead isn’t some iron man, but he’s not being paid anything close to the highest LT contract now or ever. He’s missed 10 games these past two seasons, which sucks, and his contract is prohibitive, but it’s not something outrageous for an oft injured LT of his caliber. Trent Williams signed a 6 yr $140m contract in 2021 and Armstead signed a 5 yr $75m contract in 2022. Williams missed 7 games over the last two years and has played 2 full seasons his entire career. If Armstead plays 13 games this year that would be great. 18 would be better, but we will see.

 

Yea I guess I remember that wrong but either way bad signing.He is not even worth that money when he can't stay on the field.Dude has missed 19 games in last 3 years.And at his age its only going to get worse.We signed him because we can't draft them.

 

IMO, the risk was worth it. Basically half pay for a part time All Pro LT. And if we get 10+ games this year, he can retire for only about $12m in dead cap space next year.

 

Can't is the appropo term, sadly. The last time that the Dolphins drafted an OL after pick #40 who became a starter was Rex Hadnot, in the 6th round, back in 2004. He wasn't a great player, just an adequate starter, and left as a free agent when his rookie deal was up. But its been twenty years since we've even accomplished that mediocre feat!

The last guy that we drafted after the high second round who actually stuck around as a starter was Tim Ruddy, at #65, back in 1994, when Shula was still the HC! And you have to go back to the 80s to find guys the team drafted after the second round and stuck past their third or fourth year with the team, and most of those were ones who were in and out of the starting lineup their entire career.

The last guy who the team drafted after the second round who truly became a regular starter for an extended period with the team was Ed Newman, taken at pick #156 in 1973, and he didn't become a full time starter until his seventh year in the league.

At the end of the day, basically every single good OL the Dolphins have ever had in their franchise history was a very high draft pick by Miami, was drafted by someone else, or aquired via trade or free agency. You can make the argument that they've never once taken someone later on, developed him, and made him into a long term solution, even as just an acceptable starter.

 

You won’t get any argument from me Grier doesn’t place value on drafting OL high in the draft. It’s driven me NUTS for years!! The last GREAT OL the Dolphins drafted was Jake Long, which Parcells used the 1st pick for. Anchored our OL during his tenure here.

If Grier would place as much importance on OL as he does skill positions, we’d be unstoppable. Either he doesn’t, he can’t or he won’t spend high draft picks on solid OL.

 

Tunsil was a great pick and we have a lot of great players due to that pick.

 

Dudes knees and back are shot.

Hopefully the NFL is inclusive and allows walkers on the field next year to facilitate him.

 

We wasted so many picks

 

If the goal is winning a Super Bowl, then it wasn't worth it.

I've been told repeatedly that injuries are what tanked the season.

 

I did forget about him. Thanks!

 

And how many playoff wins after the fact?
I don't understand how everything I s golden to you?All those draft picks from Tunsil and the the Texans have the playoff win.

 

Well Res, I would argue when, in a 17 game season, you have 12 different starting rotations on the offensive line due to injuries it plays a lot in the overall offensive performance.

 

Yes, and I agree.

So then, I don't think it's arguing in good faith to say that the risk was worth it, while that same person is also excusing Grier of responsibility because you can't control injuries.

If injuries were truly the problem (they were), then clearly the risk was not worth it, and continuing to depend on the players who were injured, moving forward, is a bad idea.

 

Exactly. We didn't do anything worthwhile with that treasure trove of picks. Our team should have been loaded for about a decade.