Miami Dolphins must replace these five players in 2018

Ja’Wuan James

To be honest, I like James, but at a scheduled $9 million next season, I don’t like him that much. All of that money is recoverable. The Dolphins picked up his 5th year option ahead of the 2017 season but that is not guaranteed and frankly, he isn’t playing like he deserves to keep it.

James is missing assignments and blocks. He is inconsistent most of the time and while he has the ability to play at a much higher level he simply isn’t hitting that level often. I want so badly for James to succeed but the outside protection needs to be better and you would think that practicing against Cam Wake would make the right tackle improve, it’s not happening. James should restructure his contract or rather sign a reduced contract and then compete for the starting job. The problem is the Dolphins need an entire line overhaul and that isn’t likely going to happen in one off-season.

Miami has had several off-seasons to fix the problems along the line but they haven’t . Would James benefit from a better guard? Maybe but Bushrod isn’t the major weakness on the right side of the line and in reality could be hindered by the play of James.

CLOSING

The Dolphins have a lot of changes that need to be made and the 2018 off-season could see a lot of change. Adam Gase needs to be able to run his offense and if the reports are true that he is scaling back his playbook because he can’t run his offense due to protection issues then he needs to get that line fixed and that is what he should be pounding the desk for in front of Mike Tannenbaum and Chris Grier.