Miami Dolphins should trade these guys by league deadline

The NFL trade deadline is October 29th, just ahead of Halloween and the Miami Dolphins should be looking to trick or treat before then.

When the trade deadline arrives many teams are expected to make some moves. Some may be major and some might be minor but moves will be made. The Miami Dolphins should make themselves a part of these transactions.

So far this season, the Dolphins have been one of the busiest teams in terms of trades. They have moved Kiko Alonso, Robert Quinn, Ryan Tannehill, Laremy Tunsil, Kenny Stills, and Minkah Fitzpatrick. They have hauled in three first-round draft picks plus. While they may not have much talent left on the team to trade, they still have some moves that they can make.

Kenyan Drake

Drake is already the subject of trade speculation and now it appears that the Dolphins may actually be talking to other teams. This according to Ian Rapoport but nothing is done yet and Drake will likely on bring the Dolphins a late mid-round pick at best.

Drake will be an impending free agent at the end of the season so any team that trades for him would need to lock him down on a new contract soon or risk losing him this next off-season.

Reshad Jones

The Dolphins have said they are not trading Jones this year and Jones has said that he wants to remain in Miami but guess what, the Dolphins do what they say they are not going to do and Jones will likely be released after the season if he refuses a major paycut.

While trading him wouldn’t be hard under normal circumstances, he has been banged up and his salary cap situation this year and next is atrocious. Jones simply isn’t the player that the Dolphins had given a big contract to and frankly, after he signed the deal he started to grade lower.

At best, the Dolphins would be able to get a late round draft pick for him but they would eliminate a lot of salary cap space next season. Something they can do after the season as well.

Xavien Howard

If the Dolphins want more first-round draft capital, then they have to let go of Howard. Howard is their best defender and even though he has missed time this year with injury, he is young and his contract is actually a team friendly deal that other teams would absorb.

The obvious question is why would you trade him? He is a cornerstone player that you build around but that was the same thing that was said about Laremy Tunsil and MInkah Fitzpatrick. The reality is Howard has a lot of value in a trade but whether or not the Dolphins would entertain any discussion of moving him is not likely.

Trading Howard would make sense in the fact that Miami is not likely to be Super Bowl contenders in the next three maybe four seasons and while he can get you to the post-season, the long-term goal of the team may not include Howard down the road. The counter point to that however is Miami doesn’t need that high of draft capital right now and Howard may retain that same value two years from now and it might make more sense for the team to move him then if they are so inclined as Howard would be older and a replacement may be on the roster by that date.

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Ryan Fitzpatrick/Josh Rosen

The Dolphins have two starting caliber quarterbacks that do not fit in the future plans of the team. Starting caliber of course meaning they have started games. Rosen is still young and in his second system in two seasons while Fitzpatrick is on his 15th in as many seasons it seems.

Neither quarterback would bring much in the way of compensation unless they view Rosen as a worthy project type QB or a replacement for an injured starter. Rosen’s future is going to be that of a back-up through his career. No fault of his own but he simply isn’t developing fast enough to save his career from becoming nothing more than back-up.

As for Fitzpatrick, the journeyman QB can offer another team a bridge to the future or a replacement for the injured and then there is still nothing guaranteed about the way he will perform. He is erratic when he is off his game and at his best he can be above average. Any trade that involved him would be done out of desperation, on the part of the other team.

Charles Harris

Just kidding. Harris has no trade value and any team in need of defensive edge help can probably do better on the street market than making a move for Harris. Harris can’t get out of his own head and even in a simple defense that Miami is running at that specific position, Harris can’t make forward strides.

Trading Harris for anyting would be success for Grier who many believe was heavily involved in making Harris a first-round draft pick. So many other talents could have been selected instead.

Kalen Ballage

Ballage is on this list because he has been passed over by Mark Walton and the Dolphins are not looking all that impressed with him. Ballage has not looked good this year and frankly there is no reason that we shouldn’t be seeing more of Patrick Laird and Myles Gaskin at this point.

Trading Ballage would make a lot of sense but he won’t bring much more than a late round draft pick at best and Miami may do better simply by working a deal for a conditional 2021 pick instead.

That’s it

Unfortunately the list of of tradeable assets ends here. The Dolphins no longer have a youthful player that has value such as Tunsil or Fitzpatrick at least for now. Maybe the future holds something different but today, the names above is where it starts and ends. Of course that is partly due to the fact Miami traded everyone who did have value.