Five players the Miami Dolphins should not have let go since 2000

If you have been reading along with our Miami Dolphins draft history articles or our coming soon top players since 2000 you will notice the Y2K theme.

There is a reason that we have been looking all the way back to the year 2000 for our cutoff and that is because, in 2000, Miami Dolphins general manager Chris Grier joined the team as an area scout.

Now we know that Grier had absolutely no say in anything with the roster back then and frankly through the years he didn’t as well but if there is one certainty, Grier has watched everything unfold from Dave Wannstedt to Cam Cameron, a jilted lover in Nick Saban and the infighting demise of the Joe Philbin and Jeff Ireland era. So yeah, he’s seen a thing or two.

Through the years there has been a lot of problems that the Miami Dolphins have faced. Finding a quarterback of course but also identifying top talent that they have let get away. Here are five cases of Miami Dolphins drafted players that should have been retained instead of let go. Key word here, drafted.

Mike Pouncey

Call this on the Adam Gase ego. While we will not know to what extent Gase had input on Pouncey heading to the 2018 free agency opening but what do know is that he was approached to take a pay cut and wanted a raise instead. So he was released instead. Was this a Mike Tannenbaum deal, a Chris Grier deal, or was this a push by Gase?

Regardless of who did it, Pouncey turned in a Pro Bowl season in 2018 and played in all 16 games. The Dolphins? They opted for Daniel Kilgore who was on IR two weeks into the season.

Wade Smith

The Miami Dolphins have had stretches of seasons where nothing went right on the offensive line and when they drafted Wade Smith in 2003, he was supposed to be a solution. After two seasons he was out of Miami. They should have waited.

Sometimes players take a bit to develop and in the case of Wade, time was all he needed. Wade left Miami and spent two more seasons with the Jets and then two more in K.C. While he never found a home that he lasted more than four years at, Houston was a four year stay, Wade turned a two year start to his career in Miami into an 11 year NFL career with one Pro Bowl.

Ted Ginn, Jr.

It still pains me to write this but in reality, the Miami Dolphins may have given up on Ginn, Jr. a tad too early. Ginn was never going to be the number one type WR that the Dolphins had hoped they were drafting. He was a number two receiver at best with special team return skills.

Over his career that is still going in 2019, Ginn never lit up the league or led any stat categories but he has always contributed and got better as he got more acclimated to the NFL. Had the Dolphins put the effort into coaching Ginn that they have DeVante Parker, who knows what might have been. Maybe that is why they are still holding out hope for Parker.

Lamar Miller

The fact that Miller is not a Miami Dolphins running back has more to do with the way the Dolphins use their runners but consider that while the Dolphins have got production from mid-round selections, Miller is not only still in the league running well, he was in the Pro Bowl last season.

Had Miller stayed with the Dolphins, there would not likely be a Jay Ajayi that we knew or a Kenyan Drake, but there would be stability and consistency and those draft picks may have yielded players that would be starring at other positions.

The fact Miller left never really hurt the team but had he stayed, things could have been a bit different.

John Jerry

Drafted in the third round of the 2010 draft, Jerry spent four seasons with the Dolphins developing into a quality starter at right guard where the Dolphins are still searching for a starter. Jerry didn’t leave Miami because he was bad, he left because Jonathan Martin was a trainwreck and called out his friends for bullying.

Jerry was one of the two players to take the fall from the Bullygate scandal. He left and went to the NY Giants where he started four seasons until 2017. He started all 16 games for three of those seasons and 8 games in one other.