Miami Dolphins patience in free agent market could pay off tomorrow
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins have been awfully quiet through two days of tampering and when the FA market officially opens tomorrow, they could be a big beneficiary of that patience.
Through the first two days of legal tampering, the Patriots have spent over $250 million on contracts. The Jaguars are tossing money as are the Houston Texans but the Dolphins, well they are waiting. The question is why?
One probability could be that we haven’t seen the market completely just yet. On Wednesday NFL teams must be at the $182 million cap number and there are still plenty of teams that are not there yet. While some are working restructured deals to keep key pieces in place, that won’t be the case for all of the players or teams, and come tomorrow, these teams have to make a decision and there is a big possibility those players will get released.
If that happens some of these teams that entered free agency with money to spend, and have already spent it may find themselves outside looking in and overspending on the players that have already added. Call it bargain shopping at OverStock.com because the FA market could become saturated with players and no place to go.
Miami doesn’t have a lot of cap space but they do have several players and contracts that can be moved or restructured to free up more space. They could potentially make a trade or two that would offset some of those salaries. The point is, if the Dolphins need to create space, they can create it.
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If the Dolphins are taking this approach it could make Chris Grier look like a genius. He is playing the market so far and it seems to be working against them adding playmakers on offense but if this does work out, it could give the Dolphins some very good talent for the 2021 season and a fraction of the cost.
There is a saying that many use in the NFL, playing chess while others are playing checkers. Grier could be playing chess or he could be exposing his king. One thing is for certain, tomorrow could see a lot of players hit the market that was not expected to and when/if the Dolphins are playing this kind of free agent roulette, we could see them get busy real quick.
It is a theory but there is reason to be optimistic that this is the plan Miami is using in their approach. And it would make a lot of sense if they are.