Iggy traded to Cowboys!

Adam Schefter
@AdamSchefter

Trade: Dolphins are sending 2020 first-round pick Noah Igbinoghene to the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for CB Kelvin Joseph, Dallas’ former second-round pic, per sources.

2:51 PM · Aug 29, 2023

WOW!

Joseph is a big guy - 6'1", 192 - but hasn't done much in his short Cowboys career. I'm guessing he plays special teams, but don't know that for sure. The Cowboys drafted him in the 2nd round at #12, in 2021.

Here is a draft profile:

https://www.nfl.com/prospects/kelvin-joseph/32004a4f-5322-1287-71cd-7df2402d9452

Sounds like another project, but if he can play specials that makes him an upgrade over Iggy.

swapping busts. but maybe we get some ST coverage out of him.

mercury22nathan wrote:swapping busts.  but maybe we get some ST coverage out of him.

Exactly!

OK, so yes, Joseph is a special teamer.  This could pave the way for cutting Keion Crossen - which would free up more cap space. Also helps with losing Elijah Campbell, who played specials also.

Barry Jackson
@flasportsbuzz

Kelvin Joseph - who played at LSU and then Kentucky -played 164 and 166 snaps on defense for the Cowboys the past two seasons and 142 and 217 on special teams. Has 2 years left on his rookie contract.

Barry Jackson
@flasportsbuzz
...New Dolphins cornerback Kelvin Joseph was 2nd round pick (44th overall) by Cowboys in 2021. Perhaps change of scenery for Noah and Joseph will help two young CBs looking to make mark in league. Noah's $3.6 M Fins cap hit for 2023 shrinks to $1.4 M dead money Fins 2023 cap hit.

2:59 PM · Aug 29, 2023

I just heard on Sirius NFL Channel that Iggy has been traded straight up to the Cowboys for DB Kelvin Joeseph?

Pat Kirwan said "You take my disappointment and I'l take yours."

I guess now we know what Fangio thought of Iggy?

JMP, I put in a new topic on this and then saw yours. You can delete mine. Thanks.

As Pat Kirwan said, "You take my disappointment and I'll take yours."

At least that's ONE bit of good news today

Another first round Grier bust! Grier is a terrible GM that's had to build a team through FA. The first round picks mostly fail. 2nd round picks mostly fail. Then we get mostly average to below average players from his drafts. There is no depth. No starting caliber backups.

Very few teams have starting-caliber backups. Grier has done a fantastic job building the best roster this team has seen in, literally, decades. Seems like an odd time to call him out.

The Rams and Bucs recently won Super Bowls with QBs they acquired via trade and free agency, respectively. Trades and free agency are part of the process - it's not just about the draft.

But fine, let's talk draft. Some of the best players on this team were drafted by the Dolphins: Tua, Waddle, Hunt, Smythe, Phillips, Wilkins, Davis, Baker, AVG, Howard, Holland, Brandon Jones, Sanders - and yes, even our long snapper Ferguson. And undrafted free agents count too, like Kohou. I also have a strong feeling that we'll be adding Austin Jackson and Cam Smith to the "plus" side of the draft ledger before too long.

No GM hits on all his draft picks. In fact, most draft picks do not turn into superstars. For example, in the 2020 draft where Iggy was picked, more than half of the picks selected in round one can be considered busts - and by the way, two of those busts were CBs drafted in the top 10, and another two were CBs drafted in the top 20 - while Iggy was drafted at 30.

I know it's cool to shit on Grier, but the hatred is just not realistic at this point, not with the current roster he's built. This team has stars everywhere on both sides of the ball - not sure why any Dolfan would be complaining about that.

(Checks the calendar.) And my self-imposed non-complaining period is OVAH~!

Well let's see...(Takes deep breath.) There's been just 8 picks in the last 2 drafts, none higher than the second round and only one other pick in the top 100. There are currently no picks in the 3rd or 4th round of next year's draft either. Of these 8 picks in the last 2 drafts, the most impactful one so far has been a 7th round QB selected over another 7th round QB whose performance blows his out of the water. Grier (and others) actually looked at tape of both Skylar Thompson and Brock Purdy and decided Thompson was better. If I stopped right there that might be grounds for dismissal but there's so much more...

Aside from Skylar (who played only out of necessity due to Grier's FA backup QB sucking and then getting injured) the other three rookies from last season literally almost never saw the field, with one landing on the practice squad. Two of the four rookies from this draft have already been waived, and the team likes Achane so much they're asking about every half-decent RB in the league apparently. Maybe Cam Smith might turn into something but as of right now the 2021-22 drafts look like a complete waste of everyone's time.

In addition, Grier blew at least 2 of the 3 first round picks he finagled in the 2020 draft, with one of them now gone, and another almost certain to be after this season. 4 of his final 5 picks from that draft were already gone before last season.

Almost all Grier has to hang his hat on is the first 3 picks of the 2021 draft--and even THAT year he completely whiffed with the nonsensical even at the time Hunter Long pick and traded up for Eichenberg when he could've had Creed Humphrey instead just by staying put.

But what about FA you ask? The Cedric Wilson Jr. contract was so mind-blowingly bad that even Grier seemed to realize it--right after he agreed to it. Chase Edmunds was traded away mid-season. Those two were among the five biggest FA flops in the entire league last season. But that looks like genius compared to this year's FA crop, which includes a QB in Mike White who makes Skylar look good by comparison, a TE currently on IR, a guard who was such a hit that he's already been traded off, and a 30-year old washed up WR who was waived and then brought back to the practice squad for some odd reason LB Malik Reed was also waived despite supposedly being a good fit for Fangio's D. Oh, and the current FA punter had the league's worst average last season. Aside from David Long--who BTW has missed 12 games due t injury the past 2 seasons--Grier might as well not have signed any FAs at all!

To be fair the complete inability to draft or sign quality O-linemen goes back much further than Grier, but the Jackson and Eichenberg draft misses and the love of injury-prone players doesn't help, nor does his insistence that this team doesn't need no stinkin' center because anybody can snap a ball in an NFL game, right?

This team has gone 9-8 the past 2 seasons, it's just that they happened to back into the playoffs last time. The 2020 team that missed the playoffs and didn't have Waddle or Hill scored more points and had a better record and point differential. How has this team gotten any better? It certainly hasn't been due to the FA or draft classes.

Just because the team now is better than the Gase Error doesn't mean anything--that's not exactly a high bar to clear. And even Gase got this team 10 wins and a playoff spot.

The Potentate Of Pessimism is officially BACK, baby!!!

EDIT: Whoops, I almost forgot about drafting Ezukanma and passing up Romeo Doubs and/or Zach Tom, who are both currently starters for the Packers. Yeah.

Every team in the league can look at picks they made and find a better player that they should have made at a particular spot. Grier is not alone in missing on picks. That's how it goes for NFL GMs and the draft - sometimes you hit a home run, but you usually strike out.

It's easy to cherry pick specific moves that didn't work out, while ignoring all the moves that did. But what does that accomplish? You can do the same thing for every single GM that has ever run an NFL team.

Again, the time to trash Grier isn't when we have a great roster and are right in the thick of competing for a championship in a tough AFC. We just had three consecutive winning seasons for the first time in 20 years, and made the playoffs for the first time since 2016. All with a team that Grier built.

And since you brought them up, Romeo Doubs would be a #5 or 6 receiver on the Dolphins, and Zach Tom barely even played half a season as a rookie and would be a backup on the Dolphins. But I guess now those guys are considered great picks because Grier didn't draft them.

The draft is a crapshoot. Period.

Grier ain't gonna hit on all his picks just as no GM is gonna hit on all his picks.

My complaint with Grier has always been:
One - the way he sets up the draft board... at times it looks like BPA, and then it looks like "Our scouts and Coaches are high on this guy"... This can lead to Ted Ginn-like picks!
Two - He treats the draft picks like they are just tokens to fling away for immediate help and ignores the long term implications of a team built mostly through free agency.

No team can long endure paying high cap dollars to keep their best players while not getting ANYTHING in the draft in the way of cheap rookies to help offset the high dollar vets.

At some point... At some point, Grier's cavalier attitude about draft picks is going to hurt the Phins IMO.

The team really needs to be re-stocking, replacing free agents with cheap rookies. Three or four a season IMO. I know the Phins have had some success with undrafted rookies, but the foundation of the team needs to be built in the draft, not through free agency IMO.

Those high draft picks should be guarded jealously and not used to bring in more high cap dollar free agents IMO.

finfanatic wrote:The draft is a crapshoot. Period.

Grier ain't gonna hit on all his picks just as no GM is gonna hit on all his picks.

My complaint with Grier has always been:
One - the way he sets up the draft board... at times it looks like BPA, and then it looks like "Our scouts and Coaches are high on this guy"... This can lead to Ted Ginn-like picks!  
Two - He treats the draft picks like they are just tokens to fling away for immediate help and ignores the long term implications of a team built mostly through free agency.

No team can long endure paying high cap dollars to keep their best players while not getting ANYTHING in the draft in the way of cheap rookies to help offset the high dollar vets.

At some point... At some point, Grier's cavalier attitude about draft picks is going to hurt the Phins IMO.

The team really needs to be re-stocking, replacing free agents with cheap rookies. Three or four a season IMO. I know the Phins have had some success with undrafted rookies, but the foundation of the team needs to be built in the draft, not through free agency IMO.

Those high draft picks should be guarded jealously and not used to bring in more high cap dollar free agents IMO.

Great post FF! That is a fair argument - absolutely.

As I've said, I think the Tyreek Hill deal is what set this current path in motion. I believe the initial plan from day one was to build through the draft - and then out of nowhere, Hill became available at a price the Phins could live with. Once that happened, the timetable was moved up from "win in a few years" to "win ASAP", and then we saw the Chubb and Ramsey trades to follow that new path. Time will tell if this was the smartest way to go, but at this point I'm not going to complain about adding great veterans.

Regardless, starting next year we need to have a full slate of draft picks, or at least draft picks in the first 3 rounds. Replenish depth and draft some guys that can replace the aging and/or priced-out vets. And of course, we may need ammo to draft a QB if needed.

JMP wrote:And since you brought them up, Romeo Doubs would be a #5 or 6 receiver on the Dolphins, and Zach Tom barely even played half a season as a rookie and would be a backup on the Dolphins.  But I guess now those guys are considered great picks because Grier didn't draft them.

Each of them certainly would've been a better pick than Ezukanma, and that's the whole point. (Drops mic.)

DolFan 316 wrote:

Each of them certainly would've been a better pick than Ezukanma, and that's the whole point. (Drops mic.)

That's you opinion, but the reality is that it's way too early to tell what any of these players will be. Careers aren't set in stone after one season. Welker raved about EZ all offseason, so we'll see.

Are we really saying this team is a good team without playing this year? It's virtually the same teal as last year. We have one key acquisition at middle linebacker right now and that's it.

Our only hope is the defense is much improved with better coaching because it's essentially the same 9-8 defense for the last two years.

CarsonChris wrote:Are we really saying this team is a good team without playing this year? It's virtually the same teal as last year. We have one key acquisition at middle linebacker right now and that's it.

Our only hope is the defense is much improved with better coaching because it's essentially the same 9-8 defense for the last two years.

Well, it was a good team last year and should be even better this season with the acquisitions of Vic Fangio, Deshon Elliott, David Long, Braxton Berrios, and Isaiah Wynn - with Jalen Ramsey taking the field in November/December. And I expect contributions from the rookie class - Achane, Smith, Pili, Hill and Brooks. Also, we have McD and get Tua in year two of the offensive system. So yes, it should be a better team on both sides of the ball and especially with the coaching staff.