Dolphins media coverage roundup: good-bad and ugly
Recent news reports are a mixed bag for the Miami Dolphins with some interesting internet debates stirring.
Many stories keep coming up that may not seem to paint the Dolphins in a very good light. However digging deeper there are also stories that do favor the Dolphins, those will be included here along with some interesting internet debate.
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The Good
While Koa Misi landed in the good section here it does come with a caveat, his overall feedback from most of the media has not been favorable due to inconsistency, inability to stay healthy and most recently off-season issues with the law.
If you want a break from the denigration that is most of the media covering the Dolphins look to the top countdown lists it is one of the last sanctuaries of good news, many Dolphin players can be found there, Ndamukong Suh and DeVante Parker for this example.
The Bad
Jordan Cameron is an easy target for Pro Football Focus in regards to his poor statistics last season, had they looked into blocking maybe he would have fared better. There were injuries on the offensive line that might call for him to stay back and block more, along with play calling that wouldn’t put tight ends in use as much as the new Gase regime will moving forward. Looking at the market price for the top end tight ends Cameron fits in somewhere in the middle where he should be. Cameron looked to be on his way out when Gase made a case for him and Cameron agreed to take less pay.
Gase might be looking toward Cameron’s potential and past achievements with respect to how he plans on using him in his scheme that calls for a greater use of tight ends offensively.
The “Jarvis Landry Quandary”-Scott Kacsmar the guy backing the outlandish statement that there is WR3 on some teams better than Landry has a stats background. While it is plain to see that Landry’s yards per catch were lacking somewhat overall in 2015, sometimes stats don’t tell the whole story. Landry was a crutch for Ryan Tannehill and at times was behind the line of scrimmage heavily covered. Hopefully this will be remedied this upcoming season with not so much dependency on him as well as letting him expand his role ( something he has advocated for), along with better play calling from the new head coach.
Jackson Safon also made some points with stats in his Jarvis Landry article, not to side with all the points trying to be set forth, but to overuse one player when others are good targets is a deterrent, even more so when the other target Matthews had better Yards after catch, some analytics should have been taken into account.
The Ugly
“Mitchell has never finished higher than 30th in overall grading among defensive tackles during any point in his career, and yet his salary is currently 16th among 4-3 defensive tackles on a per-year basis. ” via Eric Eager of profootballfocus.com
This is ugly but they got it right, to save face at this point Earl Mitchell should be converted into a fullback, start investing in the likes of Jordan Phillips, Zach Vigil, Mike Hull, Neville Hewitt and Akil Blount. Mitchel might be in the same boat as Dallas Thomas, looks real good in practice but leaves it there not translating it to game time were it counts the most.
John Breitenbach of profootballfocus.com states Mario Williams has least team-friendly contract in the NFL
This is ugly but also dead wrong in more ways than one, it wasn’t the franchise tag it was the transition tag, the Dolphins have shied away from using the franchise tag for some years now, and rightly so it leads to internal conflict look at Muhammad Wilkerson and the Jets.The other part wrong is a 1/2 doesn’t equal a whole, Williams was brought on for half of what Olivier Vernon would have cost. Many want to state the franchise tag would have been a placeholder while a deal worked out.The transition tag lets you see what the market bears and it blew up at that time, it was right to resend it.
The Dolphins entered into a belt-tightening mode as it should with the high price contracts being kicked down the road with Ndamukong Suh restructuring and possibly Ryan Tannehill should he turn the corner. Olivier Vernon should be thankful to Pro Football Focus for blowing his stock up so much, they ran many good articles on him, while leaving off his downfall penalties some coming at clutch game deciding moments and borderline dirty play off those articles for the most part.