Phins signing former Chiefs center Austin Reiter

https://dolphinswire.usatoday.com/2021/10/04/report-dolphins-signing-c-austin-reiter-off-saints-practice-squad/

Miami has signed center Austin Reiter off of the New Orleans Saints’ practice squad, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
Reiter agreed to join the Saints’ practice squad back in September after going through the offseason unsigned. Prior to his quick stint in New Orleans, the 29-year-old spent two seasons in Cleveland and three with the Chiefs, playing in both runs to the Super Bowl with Kansas City.

In his last two seasons with the Chiefs, Reiter played 89% of possible snaps while receiving an 82.0 pass-blocking grade in 2019 and a 78.3 in 2020 from Pro Football Focus.

Seems a little like putting a tiny band-aid on a shotgun wound, but I guess it's something.  I think he's an OK player, but hopefully his veteran presence will be even more useful than his on-field play.

If Grier signed him, he's guaranteed to be the league's worst starting center by every metric at the end of the season. Not to mention if he was any good at all he'd already be on an active roster.

Supposedly he wanted a ton of money in free agency and no team offered him what he wanted - so he priced himself out.  But yeah, he's not exactly a superstar.

Just more doubt is all that's raised with these signings. Again, after all the draft picks and free agents brought in earlier in the year, we still need to sign more guys after a single injury.

It all points to poor depth, poor talent evaluation, and poor player development - the last one most likely crippled by the constant changing of schemes and coaching staff.

It's like every new regime makes the exact same mistakes the old ones did, or something.

I am telling you, the land that team HQ was built on is cursed. Seriously. I did hear they were moving it somewhere else soon, but apparently not soon enough.

white1 wrote:Just more doubt is all that's raised with these signings.  Again, after all the draft picks and free agents brought in earlier in the year, we still need to sign more guys after a single injury.  

It all points to poor depth, poor talent evaluation, and poor player development - the last one most likely crippled by the constant changing of schemes and coaching staff.

In this case, I can't blame the front office - they id nothing wrong here. Like most NFL teams, we only had 2 centers on the roster (Deiter and Mancz), and now one is on IR. So we did need another center...and Reiter is an upgrade over the center we have on the practice squad (Cameron Tom). So I would say that this wasn't a case of poor depth - just a case of an injury at a position where teams rarely go more than 2 deep.

Don't get me wrong - there is plenty of blame to be pointed at the front office this season..I just don't think center is one of those issues. In fact, if anything, center is the one position where the team actually DID develop a young player and it worked out well. Unfortunately, Deiter is now injured.