Miami Dolphins: Want a return specialist, get Braxton Berrios

The reason the Miami Dolphins seem to want to get a return specialist is simple enough. They don’t want to risk injury to the players who have been filling that role. The pair of players doing so are among the top players on offense and defense. Those players are Jevon Holland and Jaylen Waddle.

Why they haven’t used lesser players to fill this role is beyond me. Regardless, they are now said to be looking at a specialist to come in and fill this role, much like Jakeem Grant, used to.

Jakeem Grant is also available, however he is said to command 5 million per year to do so. This seems like an awful lot, however with the cap and everything else going up, there are other players like him around the same range.

We all know how electric Grant can be fielding returns, and he did earn a pro bowl spot with the team he was just on the Bears. Berrios got there with first-team All-Pro honors with the Jets, although he had more total return yards, and most likely didn’t have all the dropped passes that we have seen here from Grant as well as on the Bears.

Berrios has carved himself out an all around gadget role much like Grant, but is more consistent and better as a possession receiver. He is also better in the slot and scoring touchdowns around the end zone, two areas were Grant always seemed to fizzle out.

Berrios is said to be so good in the slot, that he is comparable to Cole Beasley when it comes to his ceiling for compensation. Beasley is averaging just north of 7 million per year on this last contract.

Here is where the rubber meets the road, Barrios is said to be seeking up to 9 million per year, and this is most likely why he hasn’t been resigned.

I might be off on how much these type of players are making now, but this seems like more than any team would be willing to pay. What he’s asking for makes Grant seem like a bargain.

It seems a team would be paying mostly for potential, we haven’t seen that kind of thing going back to when Mike Tannenbaum or Jeff Ireland were working for the Miami Dolphins.

If that is what he’s asking for, and to put this into perspective, he is asking for 1 million short of what Will Fuller got last season as a starting number two receiver, Barrios would be third or fourth, slot and return specialist.

Although I see some of the top number one receivers getting twice what Fuller did per year.

While the Jets have a fair amount of cap space, they also have a fair amount of needs, and they are on record saying they don’t want to overspend. If they can get Barrios down to around 7 million a deal might be worked out.

This is just my speculation, but the only way the Miami Dolphins would be able to match that amount and convince Barrios to play here, would be with the promise of an expanded role, and not just being a return specialist.

This would depend on what happens with the Miami Dolphins receiver room during the upcoming free agency, because a lot of them could be going.

Although there was some talk of spending freely, some of the top receivers have fallen by the wayside, so we will have to wait and see.

One last thing I’d like to add, that kind of made my eyes pop out when I saw the stat, is that Barrios had most of his yards on kick returns. This type of return is usually touchbacks and not brought out of the end zone. Would the Miami Dolphins be interested in keeping this trend going?

Someone might be getting a home town discount for Barrios. Will it be the Jets? Or the Miami Dolphins, where he played his college football in Miami?