Assessing Chris Grier’s recent tenure with the Miami Dolphins

Chris Grier has been with the Miami Dolphins for 21 years now. He’s been here through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright hideous spanning the past two decades. His first 15 years were spent in the scouting department alongside the Wannstedt, Saban, Cameron, Sparano, and Philbin regimes. Since being promoted to GM in 2016, there has been some improvement in player personnel and a massive improvement in coaching.

The Laremy Tunsil trade and ensuing trades have made Chris Grier into the media-darling GM of this offseason, but pundits often miss the intricacies and forget recent history. It’s important to keep coaching hires, draft picks, and free-agent signings in context when assessing Grier’s performance. Let’s examine some of these nuances from the past few seasons.

The good…

It’s safe to say that the best move Chris Grier has made as the GM of the Miami Dolphins was the hire of Brian Flores in 2019. It was a grand-slam hire, albeit probably a career-saving one. Flores has squeezed a gallon’s worth of juice out of just a few fruits that Grier has picked. Still, good on Grier for nabbing the linebackers coach who had been a well-kept secret in New England.

I believe Flores should have won Coach of the Year in 2019. The fact that that roster won five games was nothing short of a miracle. Of the 22 starters that stunned the New England Patriots in week 17, nine of them were out of the league or relegated to practice squads in 2020.

Last year was a big step in the right direction, outdoing many fans’ expectations…only to have all of our personnel deficiencies laid bare in the sobering week 17 defeat at Buffalo, denying us a playoff berth. Flores has said repeatedly that he doesn’t need “stars”, but it is difficult to win consistently with so few innately great players.

Through a combination of disguised coverages, opponent-specific game-plans, and sheer team motivation, Flores was able to paper over some of these deficiencies. Jerome Baker led the team in tackles last season, yet there was a 4-game stretch last November where he only played 60% of defensive snaps because the game-plan didn’t require a big role from him.

Flores is a demanding coach and requires his players to have no ego…see Minkah Fitzpatrick’s short tenure with the team as exhibit A. Yet, he has the personal cache and no-nonsense disposition that commands respect in the locker room.

The bad…

2020’s improvement was welcome but it came at a steep cost. The Dolphins signed 11 free agents last offseason for a combined total contract value of $236 million, nearly double that of the next highest-spending team. $123 million of these contracts were guaranteed. $59 million was spent toward last year’s cap or 38% of the team’s total spent on players.

The free-agent class was headlined by Byron Jones, Kyle Van Noy, Shaq Lawson, Emmanuel Ogbah, Ereck Flowers, and Ted Karras. Only two of these players remain with the team (Jones and Ogbah). Ogbah was the only one who had a positive return on investment.

Credit where credit is due, Grier has owned these mistakes and righted some of the wrongs this offseason: getting Liam Eichenberg and D.J. Fluker for less money than what they’d be paying Flowers to stay, spinning Lawson into Benardrick McKinney who is an excellent scheme fit for Flores to utilize, and pulling the ripcord on Van Noy. Regardless, last year’s spending spree has limited the team’s ability to address needs this offseason, save for depth players in certain areas.

Frankly, it’s hard to call any of the 2017-2020 drafts a success. The last pro-bowler Grier drafted was Xavien Howard in 2016…Minkah Fitzpatrick, you can count for Pittsburgh. He has hit some doubles here and there with Gesicki, Van Ginkel, Gaskin, etc., but no home runs in the last few drafts.

There’s still time to get there and by no means am I writing off anyone drafted last year. It was never going to be pretty offensively with a young line, an inexperienced Tua returning from injury and wide receiver opt-outs. I’m looking forward to each sophomore expanding their role on the team with a normal offseason and solid coaching.

In conclusion…

I admire Grier’s commitment to taking the best player available this draft. It landed them excellent values in Jaelan Phillips, Hunter Long, and Gerrid Doaks. It takes fortitude to stick to the BPA strategy and not reach for stopgap team needs. BPA is the proven way to build a winning franchise…see San Francisco, Seattle, and Indianapolis in recent years.

I truly believe each pick from this draft makes sense in the overall team context. The right pieces are being put into place this offseason. Let’s hope a couple of these players pop and give Flores and Grier a team to continue to build upon.