Nope, you are not wrong. however, this year's draft is good for our positions of need. Even into the back of the fifth round there is going to be starter talent if they choose wisely, and we have three 5th round picks.

It's a long time until the start of camp next year. We may yet hit on a couple surprise acquisitions. Maybe even another trade.

 

You're right about us signing stop-gap and mediocre to reserve role type of players, but I think it's way too early to call the offseason a bust. Gase publicly stated that we wouldn't be breaking the bank on high profile free agents this offseason, and that the draft is where we would continue to build. We re signed both Branch and Stills and Alonso will be next. I see nothing wrong with that. In fact, I applaud those signings. I think the Timmons signing will prove to be a good one as well. Nate Allen is depth at this point. I'm willing to bet we draft a starting safety in April. Julius Thomas is a gamble, but in my opinion he's less of a gamble than the often injured Branden Albert.

Like I said, I don't think op is overreacting and I can understand the frustration. However, ever since I've followed this team, going for a splash in free agency has never worked out for us. We got lucky with Suh, and barely at that. There was a point where signing him looked to be an awful mistake on our part. He's proven otherwise, but in the case of Suh, we have basically broke even in my opinion. No no, the draft is where you build contenders, and free agency is where you round out the roster and fill in the blanks. We're doing the right thing, trust in Gase.

 

Would you rather they be making a huge free agency splash? Because that's worked out so great for this team in the past... / sarcasm

If they are planning to build through the draft, fine by me.

 

yet all the people signed are better than the people already on a roster that went to the playoffs.... HHHMMMMMMM

 

Relax! Go help an old lady cross the street or something.

 

What has this coaching staff done to earn our trust, other than clinch a wildcard berth with a Swiss cheese roster last year?

 

I don't mind these signings, they do make the roster better by replacing worse players. Hopefully the draft will have stronger answers for us

 

Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post said something relevant to this discussion: "Every one of Miami’s acquisitions is risky—Timmons is now the third-oldest player on the roster, Allen hasn’t started a full season since 2014 and Larsen was the 44th-best guard in Pro Football Focus’ rankings last year—but none carry the kind of liability that can bury the team if they don’t work out.

The Dolphins saved those types of expenditures for guys they know inside and out. They confidently sunk $27 million into defensive end Andre Branch for three years and $32 million into Kenny Stills for four."

Guys like Ted Larsen and Nate Allen are there to compete with our upcoming rookie class, and will likely serve as reliable depth throughout the season. Guys like William Hayes, Julius Thomas, and Lawrence Timmons are difference makers, in my opinion. Timmons and Hayes are going to shore up the run defense and Thomas is going to add a new dimension to the offense. Furthermore, the team is still looking into acquiring a "big-name cornerback" with guys like Trumaine Johnson, Joe Haden, and Sam Shields as possibilities.

Hell, we're meeting with Dontari Poe later this week. That's a signing that would complete mitigate our run defense woes from 2016.

This off-season is far from over, but I certainly do not consider it a bust so far. In fact, I think we're handling free agency the way competent and competitive team would.

 

Good post. I wonder if the trade for the CB is still in the works. We might have to wait until draft day to find out. It just seems that trading for a big name corner is opposite of our free agency approach this far.

 

Thomas..Timmons..Hayes are upgrades at their perspective positions..

No?

 

Fasano will help with the oline issues as well.

 

Will be a while before we can truly grade this FA class.

 

Thomas is not if he plays like he did last year or gets injured again. Remember last year our starting tight end was Jordan Cameron who just like thomas was an injury prone former pro bowler who we hoped would regain his form and not get injured again, neither of which happened.

Allen is definitely not an upgrade over abdull kudus he is a downgrade. Timmons is the only one who is an upgrade but not a difference maker.

FO still has alot of work to do before they can declare the offseason a success and give us confidence heading into next season.

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This is a pretty high pressure draft for us because of the picks, we only have 3 picks in the top 100, then the rest are all after 166; 166, 178, 184 223.

They really need to hit on the top 3 picks.

 

If we were to draft Lamp in Rd 1, haasan Reddick in Rd 2, maybe a guy like Duke Riley in round three...I'd say with those picks alone and our FA players, we'll be better at running the ball AND stopping the run.

And on a side note...it's way too early to call the Carroo trade a bust. If he breaks out this year...and he could...it would be a fair trade.

 

I agree with your sentiments especially on us not signing a top guard or two. Larsen is a quality backup, not a quality starter. We should definitely have gone after Kevin Zeitler, it was a low risk signing since he has no history of injury and has been consistently excellent throughout his career. A top guard should have been our number 1 priority in free agency and we dropped the ball with zeitler. T. J. Lang scares because of his injury history but there was Ronald Leary also available and we didn't go after him either.

All the other signings are just depth players or aging veterans.

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Which one of our fifth round picks last year was starting material? Hell we traded away almost half the draft to get caroo in the third round and he couldn't get on the field at all and was off the active roster at the end of the season. Good luck trusting them to pick up three starters in the fifth round.

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Looking at lasy year's draft doesn't give me confidence. We lucked out on tunsil falling to us but aside from him the other picks were dissapointing last season.

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this sounds so much last years FA moves....WHY did we trade for Maxwell and Alonso?? Those guys are washed up!!!
in the end it turned out to be ok to me...lets let the season play out




In Adam I/We trust

 

I understand how you feel, last years draft was no ringing success, up to this point, outside of Tunsil who was gifted to us, last years draft remains a huge ?.

That isn't to say that it can't turn around, there is still a lot of potential out of last years draft, but with a steep price to pay for X and Caroo, stakes are raised a bit, these guys put their butts out there on those 2 picks, and we are feeling those effects this year.

I like both players, but did not like how we got them, let's lay that on the table again.
X cost us a 2nd and a 4th, and overdrafted to boot, basically putting 1st round value on him.
Caroo cost us a 3rd, a 3rd, a 4th, a 6th, but with Caroo the draft position was good, however by giving up so much, they also put a low 1st, high 2nd value on him.

There's 6 draft picks used on these two players, they both need to become GOOD starters for this to break even, because it's not OK to spend 6 picks on 2 players that are OK.

I like Drake, but an injury prone scat back/returner at the top of the 3rd? He was overdrafted imo, if you draft a RB there, it ought to be a bell cow RB, and there were potential starters on the board still for our team.

I liked the late picks, I hope Grant was catching kicks all off season.

It all comes back to X and Caroo though, the FO's grade on this draft is on these guys, we can't give them any credit for Tunsil, Koko the gorilla would have thought it the obvious choice as well, and with the resigning of Stills, how is Caroo going to do anything? 4 draft picks on a 4th WR?

So yeah, I agree, the jury is still out on how well our FO drafts.

 

How do you judge a draft class after one year? You're going to be seeing a lot more Drake and Howard this year, injuries permitting. Drake had 3 touchdowns IIRC in two phases of the game with very limited touches. He's going to be pretty useful in this offense. We traded up for Myles Jack in the 2nd round, but the Jags picked him. Howard may have been a reach, but Jack was gone. FO went with somebody they obviously liked and had done extensive research on. If they hadn't traded up for Jack they would have been crucified. Lose-lose. Carroo I can't defend at this point, but it was only year 1. Give it time.

 

You kind of answered your own question. Gase led us to the playoffs with an injury stricken roster. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

 

I was being facetious, sorry.

 

Thomas is 100 percent healthy...so at this point its an upgrade.

 

If they wanted Jack, either actually trade to where you can get him, or wait to see if he was there or not at a place you are willing to go for. Aside from Tunsil, that draft was very disappointing really. Less reaching, less trading up, less players at unneeded positions (WR/RB) this year would help. Focus on the trenches, LB and DB early. The best teams typically seem to do that to good effect.

 

Jordan Cameron was also 100% healthy before the start of last season. Let's wait until the hitting starts and he actually does something before we declare it an upgrade.

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Eh i was hoping to sign a real impact player on defense but i understsnd why they went conservative too..

We can not handicap ourselves by having Suh, Tannehill and (new free agent here) take up half our salary cap... tannehills contract is fine and is the price of a starting quarterback with the stats he brings... but that contract Suh has, will keep us playing it safe at free agency for another two seasons..

And thats fine anyways because we have consistently been offseason champs and regular season ducks... build through the draft and develop our own, thats the path ive seen most contenders take..

 

It's early yet. Nate was signed to compete with Thomas. Basically an attempt to improve our 3rd safety. Larsen is basically the new interior backup who will get a shot like anyone else they sign.

I'm kinda curious what a healthy Steen might bring at RG. I wouldn't hand him the job though. I expect probably 2 guards selected in this draft and probably 1 FA signing happens when teams make post draft cuts. My main thing is that the guards can play competently and stay mostly healthy would be nice.

Timmins should be ok for us. We won't ask him to do nearly as much in coverage as the Steelers did.

Right now I'm thinking Safety, Guard and DE make up the first 3 rounds barring other signings.

 

It's still a reach but Caroo cost "just" one 3rd, 4th and a 6th. Other than that usually next year's picks are valued as if they were one round lower when there is a trade. The problem was exactly that we already picked Drake and we lacked a third rounder to draft Caroo, so we gave up a 2016 6th rounder plus a 3rd and 4th 2017 which are more or less valued like a 4th and a 5th in trades. the draft capital value was a 4th,5th,6th for a 3rd. I agree with your general point but the overpay wasn't that big

 

Steen was terrible last year, easily the worst offensive lineman on the team. I understand he was injured but if that was the case they should have put him on IR he was a liability whenever he played. I wouldn't count on him to sure up our guard play, fact is we have no quality starters at guard on the team right now and that is worrisome. Also if we are not going to ask timmons to cover then we better get another linebacker who can because that was one of our main liabilities on defense last year that our linebackers couldn't cover anybody.

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Very unimpressive free agency so far, except for re-signing Stills. The rest has been bringing in mediocre stopgaps. We still don't know who's going to play left or right guard. Albert not being there is going to be subtraction, even if he was hurt a good deal of the time. Rookie offensive linemen are seldom ready to start.


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Steen, who was basically a rookie last season, showed some flashes of being a really good player. He had his ups and downs, but I think he will and can improve. And he did play RG for 2 seasons at Alabama so he can play center and OG.

 

What the **** does Jordan Cameron have to do with Julian Thomas in the way you're talking about it?

Do they have some kind of psychic link that if one gets hurt so will the other?

 

Whatever flashes you think you saw, which were few and far between, we can't go into the season depending on him or any of the other backup type guards we have on the team.

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Come on man! He was being "analytical"! It's what he's best at. lol

 

Well, we are and we will. And he played extremely well at times last season. I'm sorry you missed it.

 

They both have very similar histories. Former pro bowlers who we signed with injury worries after their play declined in hopes they would regain their past glory and not get injured again. Cameron obviously didn't work out. Let's hope thomas does but let's not ignore their obvious similarities.

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