Miami Dolphins should ‘rebuild’ and not ‘tank’ with popular opinion
Since the Miami Dolphins season ended, it’s become apparent that the team will be taking a ‘long-term’ approach to winning going forward. Some people have even started hastags like #TankingForTua and #LosingForLawrence.
However, the two aren’t necessarily synonymous. I believe that the Miami Dolphins should ‘rebuild’ in 2019 which will involve quite a bit of losing but will not engage in “tanking”.
What’s the difference?
“Tanking” implies an intentional effort to lose simply to bolster a team’s draft status. What I propose is that the Dolphins hire their new head coach and perform a purge of the roster to build a foundation for the future. The following is the list of players, and their cap savings, that should be apart of this reset (via trade or pre 7/1 cuts):
Ryan Tannehill ($13.2M)
Robert Quinn ($11.8M)
Devante Parker ($9.4M)
Andre Branch ($6.9M)
Josh Sitton ($5M)
Danny Amendola ($6M)
Ted Larsen ($1.9M)
T.J. McDonald (-$494K)
To many fans, most of these names are not a big surprise. Tannehill has been inconsistent, and injured, for the past three seasons. Quinn’s 6.5 sacks don’t justify his salary. Branch’s contract was a Mike Tannenbaum mistake before the ink even dried. Sitton is an aging veteran that lasted all of one game in Miami. Ted Larsen has been a disappointment with Miami. Do I even need to mention why Parker needs to be released?
That leaves the two most debatable names on this list: Amendola and McDonald. Amendola doesn’t deserve to be cut based on production but he’s a 33-year-old veteran wide receiver on a team looking to get younger and could use the $6M cap savings.
As for McDonald, it might seem strange to cut the team’s starting strong safety and ‘lose’ cap dollars in the process. First, consider that if you can find a trade partner that 500k cap lose becomes a $3M cap savings. Secondly, cutting McDonald allows Reshad Jones to start at strong safety where his skill set is best utilized and Minkah Fitzpatrick becomes your hybrid/roaming free safety.
The ‘positives’ to making these cuts is that it frees up $55M in cap space and means that, barring any future players being released, the Dolphins will carry ZERO dead money and approximately $80M in cap space heading into 2020.
The ‘downside’ is that the Dolphins would only have 40 players under contract for 2019 and be severely ‘talent deficient’ heading into the offseason.
The team would then bring in four or five ‘responsible’ free agent signings and approximately 15 rookies to fill out the 53 man roster. Will many games could you expect to win in 2019? Four? Five?
I know this plan won’t make fans, or Stephen Ross, very happy. Well guess what? Neither has been happy with team for the 10 years that Ross has owned the team so what’s another 12 months?
The Dolphins can spend the next calendar year looking for their future QB, have a very financially flexible roster, tons of cap space in 2020 and beyond and gives the new coach the entire 2019 season to acclimate to what it takes to be an NFL head coach (seeing as it’s almost a certainty that the hire will once again be a first time head coach).
Whatever you think of this plan, and it will result in one season of ‘losing’ but it’s by now means “a tank job”. See the difference?
I look forward to hearing from the many readers who will rip this plan to shreds and question my fandom/qualifications for putting it in print.