Trading Miami Dolphins’ Xavien Howard makes sense long-term not short
By Brian Miller
When the league new year arrives or gets close there will be some speculation about the future of Xavien Howard with the Miami Dolphins.
Futures are hard to predict and when it comes to the Miami Dolphins, predicting a future with winning in it is also difficult. Predicting if Xavien Howard will be a Dolphins in 2019 is easy to do now but that could change, soon.
Rebuilding a team and a roster takes patience and time. It takes making right decision at the right time and everyone getting on the same page. It also means making tough decisions that may not fly in the face of the fanbase. Enter Xavien Howard.
Howard is a dynamic corner who is bordering on being a shutdown corner. He made his first Pro-Bowl this year as a starter and had a terrific 2018 despite missing most of the latter quarter of the season with an injury. Howard’s injury isn’t serious and he played in the Pro-Bowl. He doesn’t have a “history” of being hurt. That makes him a lot more appealing to other teams.
While Howard could be a great player to have around to help rebuild a roster the other side of that coin is that Howard would potentially bring in multiple draft picks in return that would bolster the roster long-term. Howard is a short-term answer.
At 25 years of age, Howard will be pushing 28 and 29 by the time the Dolphins have hopefully rebuilt enough of the roster to be competitive. If he signed a 4 year extension this off-season, it would be coming to a close by the time the Dolphins completed the build. Is the money that Miami would spend to extend him worth not having the draft picks?
Howard is a short-term answer. The long-term goal is to build a franchise that will win and compete at a high-level consistently. Howard can help get the Dolphins there but will he be around to experience the reward? That is if it succeeds at all.
Trading Howard is not a popular opinion among the fans and on social media you can get ripped pretty hard, like the mention of it will in the comments below. Miami has to make the right decision here because while he could bring in multiple draft picks, one of those picks will need to be used on his replacement. Sometimes cheaper isn’t always better.
The Dolphins have to weigh the value of Howard now vs. Howard in three or four years and that should be the deciding factor in an extension or possibly a trade. It depends on where their vision is.
Trading Xavien Howard, like we discussed with a potential addition of Trey Flowers via free agency, will be a tough decision. Is he a building block or an asset in hand?