There should be some legitimate concern about whether trading Tunsil and Fitzpatrick was a good idea, since those were recent first-round picks who actually panned out at a high level.

You can't bust on a normal percentage of picks (e.g., Harris) and trade the ones you hit on. Then you're left with nothing.

 

We dont know Grier made that decision for himself do we? Wasnt the front office/GM duty split during that time or am I remembering the years wrong?

I've never held it against him or given a pass. My opinion has been to judge him from last year on.

Honestly I'm shocked we got a 7th.

 

Who is it that hasn't picked a bust that has spent any time as a GM in the NFL?

I don't know who was the buck stop previously in Miami, but since they dropped Tannenbaum, and left Grier as the sole survivor, I have loved most of the movies made. Even the ones I was initially meh about. Like Flores. It seems like there has been a shift from maximizing talent to building a team with one vision. Team comes first. How good does the pain of last season look for the future now? 2 firsts and two seconds again!

 

When has keeping a malcontent worked out? There must be an example, it's escaping me now. Regardless, cutting bait while a first is on the cutting board was the right decision.

Tunsil was 2 firsts, a second, not paying that contract he just signed, and probably contributed to not picking later than 5. Which was necessary for Tua. Miami wins one more game with him.

Generally speaking you are of course correct. I think circumstances created a unique situation here. Cannot have a successful fire sell if you keep all the unburnt items.

I think that's enough metaphors for today.

 

To be honest, we dont have any value yet. Picks, at least to me are worthless until the player performs.

So basically the trade was Tunsil for a chance at more talent. Which is 100% fine by me, but it was only good value if we end up with players who contribute more to the team as a whole than he would have. If the players we take dont pan out, it will be a loss.

If Jackson ends up being a solid tackle for us that would go a long way towards winning that trade, even if it wasnt their pick, because we will have replaced the player we traded.

 

This. Aside from the newest FA crop, we have so little money invested that it leaves things open for Grier and Flores to reshape the roster.

Yes, it depleted us of some real talent, but it also gave us greater resources and flexibility. We don't need to pay Wilkins for what, 4 more years (including the 5th year option)? After that, our glut of first rounders and other high picks will need $$, but by then our free agents should be coming off the board and we can pick and choose who to continue building around and who to let go.

The key is Tua. If he can come in and play at a high level we have a phenomenal championship window before he gets handed a mega-deal.

 

Harris had the tools, and I was hopeful that he'd be able to succeed, but man what a waste!

 

Harris was a bad pick no doubt and you can lay that one at Griers feet, but so what. As was mentioned GM's miss all the time, it's nature of the beast. I always say if you're not making mistakes you're probably not doing anything. And for the most part since Grier took over total control his decisions have been quite good and there seems to be a plan other than overpaying F.A.'s to come in and under perform.

As far as Tunsil and Fitzpatrick, They did not want to trade Tunsil, Houston kept persuing him and finally came up with a Mafia style deal so Grier HAD to pull the trigger. 2 First's AND 2 Seconds? For a Tackle? That's Franchise QB value. He would have been crazy to turn it down. They didn't want to trade Fitzpatrick either but he turned into such a whiny child that they just went ahead and did it. Personally I think Minkah is going to regret his decision down the road as I see our upside under Flores much higher than Pittsburgh. And frankly, Nothing against Pitt, but I hope he does for the rest of his career.

 

Cleared some cap space and got a 7th rounder in return for a guy that turned out to be a bust. I won't blame Grier since we don't know how much control he actually had in making picks back then. He does get judged by this draft and going forward.

 

And last year's.

 

I can't believe he actually got a 7 for him. I thought he'd be cut for sure.

 

I liked him as well but in truth he wan't very good at setting the edge. In fact almost non existant.

 

Well, we got back the 7th that we traded for a 6th next year so in a way we got a 6th for him! LOL

 

Harris did not have the tools. The problem is the dolphins (and you) were looking at the wrong things when they evaluated him. He has good ball get off, good bend ability around the corner, and a nice spin move, but that's it. Against good NFL tackles that stuff doesn't work on a consistent basis. You need more than just that. Whenever he faced a decent tackle in college he got neutralized, almost all his production came against weak competition. That should have been a big warning sign right there.

They also ignored the fact that he is slow for an edge player, is not very strong at the point of contact, and does not convert speed to power very well at all. His speed to power ratio was very underwhelming and that (the ability to convert speed to power) in my opinion should be one of the first things you look at when evaluating an edge player.

That is why I hated the pick when we made it. I thought Harris was vastly overrated. That Harris pick along with our inability to ever draft a decent offensive lineman past the first round is what makes me question Grier as an evaluator.

 

He wasn't very good at anything really. Probably the most overrated prospect in the 2017 draft.

 

I said all the way back in 2017, charles harris and taco Charlton were the two most overrated edge guys in the draft.

 

I agree, Grier was director of scouting back then, but TBAUM had final say. He should get the benefit of the doubt. Last two drafts however are all on him. Now we will see how good or bad he really is.

 

Were moving some money around. Think they re-engage on clowney?

about 18m to sign the draft class if i recall. We have somewhere in the 30s left now. Maybe closer to 35. Are we spending it this offseason or rolling it over? Thats the question.

 

Ok so its 32 m as of this morning. Maybe a little more. Curious what they are playing at.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/

are we rolling over 15m or is there another piece they want?

 

We also have, before rookie contracts, $70 million next years cap

 

Sounds like rolling it over is a possible play but they have 9th most capspace next year too. At least we arent in bad shape going forward. Grier has done a great job cleaning the deck of bad money.
A big passrusher would be a cherry on a remarkable offseason sundae though.

 

Of course he has/had the tools. He was a 1st round pick.

He is good at the things you mentioned, and the potential for him to improve was there. It never happened.

The fact that you call 99% of all Dolphins draftees "busts" and have disliked nearly all of them over the years isn't some great evaluation on your part. The majority of players that are drafted don't end up being too good. lol

 

We would have crucified Grier for not pulling the trigger when Houston gave us 2 firsts and two seconds.

Minkah was a malcontent.

 

That is just factually incorrect. I do not dislike 99% of our draft picks, every year I give mixed reviews, some I like and some I don't like. You just choose to focus on the ones I don't like. Evey year I usually like at least 4 or 5 of the picks we make. This year was no different.

 

The point regarding the trades of Tunsil and Fitzpatrick is that there has to be some appreciation of how recent draft picks are panning out when deciding whether to trade some of them.

If you're hitting on an inordinately high number of picks, then obviously it becomes easier to trade some of them and remain competitive.

If you're hitting on an inordinately low number of picks, or perhaps even an average number of them, then that has to be taken into consideration when deciding whether to trade some of them.

What you can't do is look up after five or eight years and say, "why isn't our team any good? Where are all the high draft picks we took?" and then discover that you traded the good ones within the context of hitting on a lower-than-normal percentage of them. That would obviously be quite dumb.

 

Minkah had a right to not be happy here. He was not being used to the best of his abilities. At the same time I don't blame Grier for trading him either. It was a good move for both parties.

 

Would it be safe to say that Harris wasn't a good system fit for Flores's defensive scheme?

 

Harris is not a good fit for any scheme. He was bad under flores mixed 3-4 scheme and he was also bad in the wide 9 scheme we ran under gase. He is just not that good. He was overrated and over drafted, simple as that.

 

BS....You waffle back and forth from "bust" to "there were better picks" with nearly every player the Dolphins have picked over the years.

 

No. Making the right decision doesn't guarantee the right results. Trading Tunsil was the right decision, regardless of whether or not the new picks pan out. That would simply mean the wrong decisions were made on the new draft picks.

 

False.

Minkah was used exactly in the manner that he was drafted for. Prior to the draft, minkah wasn't running around saying he didn't want to be used all over the field. He embraced all that hype because it drove his draft stock up and made him rich.

 

That's a flat out lie, my post history is available for anyone to see. Every year I like about 4 or 5 of the picks we make on average, and I say so.

 

And now, in Pitt, he's being used like he was here in Miami.

 

Just because that was his hype, doesn't mean that was actually the best way to use him.

 

I will entitle this post: "Full Circle now we know, the verdict is in"......

Be careful whose opinions you take as gospel...Harris had flop written all over him coming out and I called it day of draft......but some of us are not entitled to be more correct than "guru's" ...history once again has a way of shining light on opinions and which ones hold more value.

So a few years ago myself and at least one other brother here that knows football pretty well, got toasted and ridiculed and insulted for having an opinion...it was widely stated that our opinion was for ****, mostly because well theirs was better....they are known here and they are "gurus'.....I also give them credit for marketing and commercializing, their generally bad opinions. I had got into it with them prior on Larry English who had bust written all over him, got into it when I said Hartline was far superior player to Turner in the same draft class whom I said had no future in the NFL......one went so far as to state Charles Harris, was "vastly superior" to Myles Garrett.

 

Notice how you waffled there at the end? haha

 

No. Here he didn't know whether he would be a corner or a safety from year to year, or even from week to week. He got to Pittsburgh and they played him almost exclusively as a free safety which is his most natural position. Once he developed and got comfortable there then they started moving him around more.