Grier's bad contracts are going to cost the Phins

I started this awhile back and before I could finish it... I see the PhinPhanatic site has the same sort of thing but theirs is about Wilkins directly, while my idea was that the bad contracts and dead money were going to mean AVG and some of the other key contributors are not going to be re-signed.

Here's the link to that other article if you wish to read it also.

PhinPhanatic article

While Grier defenders like to tout his successes as a reason why he needs to be retained, I am always perplexed by the fact they overlook or forgive what should be considered solid grounds for dismissal IMO. The bad contracts, the bad decisions that bring disharmony to the team, and end up eating up cap money as well.

Sure, Grier has presided over the building of a team that was deconstructed, and then built back up, to where they were able to win 11 games this season and reach the playoffs the last two seasons, but the fact that the Phins team had to eke out a win over the moribund Flacco led Jets to get in the playoffs in 2022 and collapsed down the stretch to limp into the playoffs in 2023, losing their last three games while having the whole big enchilada in their grasp, gets tossed out like yesterday's coffee grounds IMO.

Does just REACHING the playoffs the past two season mean Grier gets a free pass? At what point do the team's obvious personnel FLAWS start to become a reason that his job is in jeopardy? Will another 10 or 11 win season and another embarrassing playoff ouster be considered a good season for the Phins?

The definition of insanity keeps getting tossed around frequently, and I will paraphrase it here: Does letting Grier continue to make bad decisions, letting him continue his mediocre to poor drafting, and generally keep doing what he has done that never garners better results and continue to fail to get the Dolphins over the hump... make sense?

Not to me, it doesn't.  I can see why Ross is hesitant to make a change, but this off season is not like the last few. This season is a crucial make or break this current team IMO. I just cannot see how anyone thinks Grier is going to "change his spots" so to speak, and start making much better decisions.

First, let's consider a few of Grier's moves and the ramifications on the team:

ONE - Grier Traded for Tyreek Hill to make the McD offense potent. Gave up a lot of picks and paid Hill a lot, but the whole team would be a complete stinkeroonie without this one trade by Grier IMO. Would it be fair to say that a major reason Grier is seen as successful is due to this one trade?

TWO - Armstead? Grier paid an awful lot for a guy who misses lots of games and when he plays, plays at anywhere from 75 to 80% it seems? Jackson was drafted to play LT and failed there. He has turned into a more than decent RT to be sure, but... another Grier draft fail ends up costing the team against the cap and in so-so performance.

THREE - Connor Williams - When you can't draft, you have to go out and get a free agent. He played great and except for a few bad snaps... But just HOW MUCH better would Creed Humphrey have looked at OC? And how much money would that have saved the Phins on the cap? And would the team be faced with the prospect of no OC for the 2024 season now if Humphreys had ben drafted?

And then, let's look at the free agent boondoggles that the Phins are still paying for:

ONE - Byron Jones - Went out and set the market for a player that Jerrah Jones decided he could afford to let walk? I said at the time Jones was a good CB, not great, and Grier had paid way too much for him. The fact that he nickle and dimed Xavien Howard over a new contract and then went out and ponied up MORE for a lesser CB caused no amount of disharmony for the team as far as X was concerned. And then they had to pony up more for X himself, and now Jones is gone and the Phins are still on the hook for this stupid free agent signing. How stupid was this contract? The Phins are carrying 10 mill against the cap on it for this year!

TWO - Ogbah's bad deal - If they could have gotten the stats of 2021 from Ogbah for the duration of the contract, or even gotten close, that would be one thing. An injury for sure had an impact, but the whole contract was structured so that unless Ogbah got better every season, there was no way he would be kept, which meant dead money was coming at some point. Likely after June 1st of this year IMO.

THREE - The failure to sign Wilkins in the 2023 off season. Sure they were up against the cap, but from what I have heard and read, the whole contract was agreed to, but the Phins were haggling over the amount of bonus money? For the leader of the Defense? For a player many of the other players consider a leader on the team,? For a player who along with Seiler forms a dynamic duo on the defensive line? And we are trying to save some a few million in Steven Ross' account? Consider: Just how would the free agency period look different if the Phins had Wilkins under contract.  NOTE: I know there's another Miami front office dude who handles most of the negotiations, but...

And then, we have the main problem when it comes to Grier IMHO: His failure to fix the Oline. Jackson and Hunt are the only ones that worked out. Imagine if Grier did not procure Armstead and Williams. The Oline would look essentially like it did during the latest December Doldrums! Again, it's not so much the draft failures as the fact Grier doesn't draft Olinemen when they are available! (Zach Tom, O'cyrus Torrence). The position is not that important to him it seems?

All these problems, holes on the team, a QB playing on his 5th year option, and 40 mill over the cap!! And again, the QB is not locked up long term! This is the time a team is supposed to compete for a SB, not when they have to lock up their franchise QB long term!!

All this dead money, over the cap, means the Phins will have to start restructuring to make cap room. That doesn't bode well for resigning their own free agents or even any top flight market free agents. Which is going to put more emphasis on the draft and drafting well and more importantly getting some cheap HELP for the team.

We shall see what happens this offseason. But I am for one am not sanguine. I suspect Grier is going to continue in a similar fashion and unless something changes, the results will be the same.

But it is a new season and hope springs eternal.

We shall see.

I realize January's not even over yet, but this is my official Post Of The Year.

Seriously, I am in awe of FF's peerless prodigious posting prowess.

This post is so all-time great, I'll even overlook FF not mentioning Skylar over Purdy. Hey, nobody's perfect, right?

Funny, you could do the same exact post about the Bills. But dead money and big cap hits are part of the NFL now, and at the end of the day they mean very little.

Grier's success is due in part to trading for Hill and Ramsey - of course it is, considering that Hill is a top 5 offensive player and Ramsey a top 5 defensive player in the entire league. But Grier's success is also due to drafting players like Christian Wilkins, Andrew Van Ginkel, Tua Tagovailoa, Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt, Raekwon Davis, Brandon Jones, Jaylen Waddle, Jae Phillips, Jevon Holland and De'von Achane. As well as signing Zach Sieler, Terron Armstead, DeShon Elliott, Alec Ingold, David Long, Raheem Mostert and Conner Williams - and trading for Bradley Chubb.

Sure, there were misses - but this is the best team, and the most success, we've seen from the Dolphins in 2 decades! Now, we need to actually have postseason success - and that's why Grier should be on the hot seat in 2025 IMO. But I think he's done a very good job overall, and he has put the Dolphins in position to compete and, with another good offseason, contend.

FF, outstanding post.

I cannot argue with anything you have said.

Of course, we ALL can say "any GM makes these mistakes" but the best GMs in the league are making mistakes, but also drafting difference makers and signing FAs with a huge impact on the success of their teams. Clearly, the 49ers and Chiefs are FAR deeper than "they just have a QB". Of course they have a QB. They also have players across the roster that are a mixture of veteran talent, cheap UDFA, journeymen, and rookies/ unproven vets.

Are we trash? No. But when you look at how we perform against playoff teams... we are not there yet.

I won't argue that Grier has done some good things. I will say he's not done yet. And he's fired enough coaches to call the question, IS HE CAPABLE of getting it done? Maybe, maybe not. We appear to be close. The salary cap constraints, and the decisions he will make going into 2024, will spell that out for us.

Anyway, outstanding thinking and I love the details you raise! This is what the fan base worries about when we see our team get blown off the field. In short; Is our front office good enough to succeed?

I still believe we need to sign Wilkins somehow, Seiler & Wilkins play so good together and have great chemistry.

The Chiefs have a rather interesting stars and scrubs setup going on cap-wise next season. Just seven players have a cap number of over $10 mil. Their 8th highest cap number is Harrison Butker...at just over $4.5 mil. That's a big dropoff from #7 Charles Omenihu at nearly $11 mil It gets better: just three more of their players have a cap number over $3 mil and that includes Chris Jones who will technically be a free agent as soon as the Super Bowl is done. No wonder they've got so much cap space despite Mahomes's contract.

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/kansas-city-chiefs

Compare and contrast to this team, who next season has nine players at over $10 mil, three more between $5-8 mil, and five MORE at over $4 mil Butker would only have the 15th highest cap number on the team if he was a Dolphin!!!

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/miami-dolphins

That's a direct reflection of Grier doing his best Tannenbaum impersonation and throwing gobs of money at players (five of the top seven were FAs or traded for which in a way is even worse).

The Dolphins, like any other team, are a mixture of free agents, traded players, and drafted players. Yes, as of today the Dolphins have some players with high cap hits. But the 2024 season has not started yet, and the Dolphins will make moves to decrease those cap numbers and gain the cap space they need. The cap is flexible and there are many ways to manipulate it...it is not the insurmountable obstacle that a lot of people think it is.

JMP - I guess I did not clearly define my position. DF316 does a much better job of stating what I was attempting to say with his analysis of the Dolphins vs. Chiefs cap.

When you have to RELY on Free Agents... highly paid Free agents... because you are incapable of drafting, or in this case, traded away picks for the high priced free agents...that is a recipe for failure IMHO.

Is Grier just going to start focusing on improving the team through the draft? Is he going to start drafting Oline that actually make decent starters? Is he going to change the pattern he has been following for a few years?

IMO, the answer is a resounding NO.

No team can follow the free agency-draft path Grier has been on and remain viable in the NFL for long IMO.

Without hitting on some valuable cheap draft picks to make a real impact on your team, the path Grier follows might work for one year or two (LA Rams won the SB doing it, but then went in the toilet) and the Phins are so far from being one or two free agents away from a SB what Grier is doing is borderline treason IMO.

Let's look at the Chiefs draft since 2020.



BY my count, just picking out the ones I know are contributors, that's sixteen picks making VALUABLE
contributions to the team. I included 2020 just to show Sneed, the DB who saved the Ravens game for the
Chiefs, was a 4th rounder!  

Wanya Morris is a starting OT for the Chiefs and he was a 3rd rounder! And then there is 7th rounder Pacheco who unseated 2020's 1st rounder Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

You want to know one of the several main distinctions between the Chiefs and the Dolphins, this illustrates
the cognitive disconnect between Grier and how a team should be run IMO.

When or If the Phins have to start paying Tua 40-50 mill per season, Grier's whole personnel management style is going to be
rendered null and void IMO.

I don't have time to respond in full, but for now:

Wanya Morris is not a starter for the Chiefs. He's a backup to Donovan Smith, who was signed as a FA (one year prove-it deal). 3 of the 5 starters on the Chiefs are free agents...just like the Dolphins.

JMP wrote:3 of the 5 starters on the Chiefs are free agents...just like the Dolphins.

its just that there FA starters stayed healthy and are playing better. are these FAs that Grier could've signing instead of the guys he did? just wondering.

finfanatic wrote:(LA Rams won the SB doing it, but then went in the toilet)

i read something yesterday that i absolutely could not believe. if the Rams actually make their selection in the 1st round this year, it will be the first time they have done so since 2016. crazy.

JMP, I think you missed the point entirely.

Morris did start 4 games for the Chiefs this year according to the stats. There's a pile of articles about him saving the Chiefs money when they cut the Vets.

And here is an Athletic article touting his stepping up for the Chiefs.

[url=Screen Shot 2024-01-31 at 12.10.26 PM]Morris[/url]

Morris worked his way into being the swing tackle backing up the starting vets. A 3rd rounder.  a Cheap rookie player making a valuable contribution. And has played so well the Chiefs may eventually part ways with Smith it sounds like.

THAT is what the Phins are missing IMO.

finfanatic wrote:JMP, I think you missed the point entirely.

Morris did start 4 games for the Chiefs this year according to the stats. There's a pile of articles about him saving the Chiefs money when they cut the Vets.

And here is an Athletic article touting his stepping up for the Chiefs.

[url=Screen Shot 2024-01-31 at 12.10.26 PM]Morris[/url]

Morris worked his way into being the swing tackle backing up the starting vets. A 3rd rounder.  a Cheap rookie player making a valuable contribution. And has played so well the Chiefs may eventually part ways with Smith it sounds like.

THAT is what the Phins are missing IMO.

Morris started 4 games due to injury. He was also injured himself at the end of the year. Morris is a valuable backup for the Chiefs - just as Eich is for the Dolphins. I know you hate Eich, but he's in the same exact context as Morris. Both players are mediocre, but have value as cheap backups because they play multiple positions. So the Dolphins are already doing what you are praising the Chiefs for doing...but somehow the Dolphins screwed up.

finfanatic wrote:

When you have to RELY on Free Agents... highly paid Free agents... because you are incapable of drafting, or in this case, traded away picks for the high priced free agents...that is a recipe for failure IMHO.

Is Grier just going to start focusing on improving the team through the draft? Is he going to start drafting Oline that actually make decent starters? Is he going to change the pattern he has been following for a few years?

IMO, the answer is a resounding NO.

No team can follow the free agency-draft path Grier has been on and remain viable in the NFL for long IMO.

Without hitting on some valuable cheap draft picks to make a real impact on your team, the path Grier follows might work for one year or two (LA Rams won the SB doing it, but then went in the toilet) and the Phins are so far from being one or two free agents away from a SB what Grier is doing is borderline treason IMO.

Let's look at the Chiefs draft since 2020.



BY my count, just picking out the ones I know are contributors, that's sixteen picks making VALUABLE
contributions to the team. I included 2020 just to show Sneed, the DB who saved the Ravens game for the
Chiefs, was a 4th rounder!  

Wanya Morris is a starting OT for the Chiefs and he was a 3rd rounder! And then there is 7th rounder Pacheco who unseated 2020's 1st rounder Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

You want to know one of the several main distinctions between the Chiefs and the Dolphins, this illustrates
the cognitive disconnect between Grier and how a team should be run IMO.

When or If the Phins have to start paying Tua 40-50 mill per season, Grier's whole personnel management style is going to be
rendered null and void IMO.

Grier has built the core of this team through the draft. I guess for some reason he doesn't get any credit for the good players he drafted, who I listed above. Grier also made trades and free agent signings to make the roster even better - which is what every single team in the NFL does.

The Chiefs are winning because they have Reid and Mahomes. They've done a good job drafting as well, but don't fool yourself: Mahomes is the reason they're in the AFC Championship Game every season.

As for signing Tua to a big contract, how does that make Grier's plan "null and void"? Isn't that the goal - draft a franchise QB and then keep him? The Bills, Chiefs, Chargers and Bengals just did exactly that over the last year or two and they get praised. But if Grier does it, it's a mistake.

I'm just not on the "everything sucks" bandwagon. This past season was the most exciting Dolphins season for me since the 90's, and I am absolutely LOVING the fact that we have one of the best offenses in the entire NFL. I am looking forward to the changes that will be made in this coming offseason, and I'm absolutely jacked up for next season. Obviously I'm in the minority, and that's fine.