Miami Dolphins are a much different team than the one in 2018
By Brian Miller
When a new coaching staff takes over a football team, there will naturally be a lot of player turnover and that is no different from the Miami Dolphins.
We don’t have to look very far into our Dolphins’ past to see the changes that have been made already. In 2018, the final year of Adam Gase’s coaching career with the Dolphins, we can see that only a handful of players remain from the roster.
Albert Wilson, Jakeem Grant, DeVante Parker, Mike Gesicki, Durham Smythe, Jason Sanders, Xavien Howard, Jesse Davis, and Jerome Baker are all that remain from that squad. Consider how much turnover has taken place in these short two seasons. 44 players from that 2018 team are no longer playing in Miami.
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While that may sound really horrific, the worst part is that the Dolphins are such a better team because of it. Miami started to turn things around at the end of the 2019 season but that year was already a lost cause. 2020 saw Miami jump to 10 wins and narrowly miss the playoffs leading many to view 2021 as the season they make it into the postseason.
So why is that worse? It shows how badly the Dolphins were coached and managed by their staff. There was wasted draft picks and a lot of Stephen Ross’ money thrown at players who didn’t make a dent in the team’s history. Take Jay Cutler for example.
It was recently reported nationally that Cutler didn’t want to play for the Dolphins but his wife, Christian Cavallari told him he needed to take the money. Miami guaranteed him $10 million to take the team over for one season and clearly, he didn’t want to play the game anymore.
While the roster had churned, there is no denying one fact, Brian Flores is a completely different coach than Adam Gase, and the players not only respect him but they want to play for him and because of that, they listen to what he tells them. These are the types of coaches that find long-lasting careers in their field. Now he needs to lead his team to success.
We can also look at Chris Grier a little differently as well. Grier was the general manager with Adam Gase as the coach but it was really Mike Tannenbaum calling the shots. That changed in 2019 when Tannenbaum was released from his duties.
Despite the number of players turned over, the shift was needed in order to bring in a new philosophy and dare we say it, “culture” to the team. Miami had to rebuild and gutting the roster was the only way to succeed in changing the locker room. Flores has done that and now, the team is far more in his image and far removed from 2018.