Miami Dolphins should take a lesson from the L.A. Rams
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins seem to have been taking an L.A. Rams approach to buying a championship-caliber team, they should get educated.
“F those picks!” was the mantra over the last few years as the L.A. Rams regularly traded away their draft capital for top players in an effort to win the Super Bowl and build a winning franchise. Now, two years after winning the Super Bowl, the built-for-success Rams are being torn broken apart and the problem is…they don’t have the draft capital to build through the draft or the money.
The Rams released LB Bobby Wagner last week and are shopping Jalen Ramsey, one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. They need cap space, they need draft capital, and they need to stop overspending.
While the Rams won a Super Bowl, they tail-spinned last year and now look to be heading to a sort of rebuild but it is unclear at what level.
Chris Grier seems to have taken a page out of the Rams’ off-season playbook. They spent big on free agents last year, traded away a slew of draft picks for Tyreek Hill, and then midway through the season traded this year’s first for Bradley Chubb. There is speculation that Miami may move their 2024 picks to make moves again this year.
Grier’s had some fun the last two seasons but now he has to reel it in and be smart in how he tries to build the roster. The lack of draft picks will eventually hurt a cap situation as Miami will need to fill gaps with free agents instead.
The Dolphins are far from the problems that are creeping up on the Rams but it should serve as a guide that free-spending isn’t always the answer and doesn’t always help the franchise grow into a perennial contender.
The Rams are not a blueprint right now for sustained success but they can provide an example of bad decision making and the ramifications when mistakes are made. For Miami, look no further than the Byron Jones deal and then what happened with Xavien Howard. Miami is about to eat a lot of Jones’ deal and they had to restructure Howard to keep him happy.
If the Dolphins want to get to a Super Bowl once, keep the same speed of spending but if they want to build a consistent winner, the Rams is not the blueprint to follow.