Miami Dolphins quarterbacks: Stay or go

The Maimi Dolphins have a lot to do this off-season and making a change within the quarterback unit is one of them. How they handle this position will be interesting as they move closer to the start of free agency and the league new year.

In this 10 part series, we will discuss which players need to stay and which players need to go.  First up, is the hotly debated quarterback position. Keep in mind that this article isn’t a prediction of which players will be kept but what the team should do. In the opinion of this author..

STAY

Ryan Tannehill is the only quarterback currently on the roster that deserves to be in 2018.  He’s 29 years old and the only consistent QB in the organization.

I know that Tannehill’s level of competency is highly debate among both fans and analysts alike.  With a salary cap figure at $19.8M for 2018, Ryan’s critics have plenty of ammunition to suggest he’s not worth the money.  That said, Tannehill is the only starting caliber QB on the roster and cutting/trading him would mean bringing in a “bridge QB” and drafting one very early in the 2018 draft.

GO

Is there ANYBODY, outside of Adam Gase, that believes that Jay Cutler was even a good option in 2017?  Not only were his statistics worse than Tannehill’s, it was apparent to anybody that watched this team that Cutler didn’t elevate, lead, or inspire anybody on the Dolphins offense.  Having already wasted $10M in valuable cap space in 2017 for Cutler, I don’t see any reason to convince him to stay away from the FOX booth he should have joined this past year.

Matt Moore is another quarterback that should have seen his last days in a Dolphins uniform.  This perennial backup has shown the occasional signs of playing competent football (i.e. the final three games of 2016) but, at the age of 33, has already shown the team that he cannot be the starter going forward with this team.  In fact, if Gase had any REAL faith in him at all, Jay Cutler probably doesn’t get signed when Tannehill goes down.

Brandon Doughty just finished his second year as a ‘project QB’ on the team’s practice squad.  All you need to know about his future with Miami is that the team TWICE brought in David Fales to be the ’emergency QB’ on this team.

The one quarterback that comes close to making a case to return for 2018 is QB David Fales.  If Miami doesn’t find a QB in the draft that they fall in love with there would be worse options than having Fales as the Dolphins backup QB.  Gase obviously trusts him and Fales could serve as a cheap option to back up Tannehill if the QB market doesn’t allow for a better option.