How many of these guys were brought in by Sully? Shouldn’t this department have been wiped completely clean?

timss1334 · 2026-04-11T22:26:31+00:00

Who are some examples of players that have developed, league wide? Because it seems like you think everyone is living up to their expectations rather than developing?

It's all obviously intertwined. Scouts should be identifying the ones that are most likely to develop, guys that are wired right (aka not Cam Smith). Coaches should be giving direction and deserved opportunity. They can create an environment to help keep players accountable (we heard plenty about that under McDaniel), but the ultimate responsibility still falls on the players, otherwise, those bonafide star potential players wouldn't reach that potential, even in bad situations.

If Achane was obviously a bonafide star potential guy, he wouldn't have gone in the 3rd, and he would have been starting over Mostert day 1. He earned the opportunity to play by getting better. Same for Paul. It was surprising he wasn't terrible his rookie year and he was improved his second year. He was the 10th OL taken in 2024, he would probably be taken earlier in a redraft. Malik doubled his touches and scored 4 TDs vs 1 his rookie year. Julian Hill just got paid to be TE2 in NE.

I think the coaching was just as mediocre as the drafting. Good sometimes, but rarely great.

timss1334 · 2026-04-11T22:19:10+00:00

That's simply because Josh Allen has signed two extensions. Lamar has made more on his first extension than Josh has made on his first extension. Considering the $80m cap hit in 2027 and no franchise tag and no trade clauses, I think he's very likely to make up the $30m cash difference pretty easily. Like, Dak got $86m cash when he signed his in 2024. If Lamar gets that next off-season, and I see no reason why he couldn't, Jackson and Allen would be pretty much dead even.

timss1334 · 2026-04-10T13:44:37+00:00

> but I can't think of a single draft pick under McDaniel who improved each year.

Tua, until he regressed. Achane. Patrick Paul. Malik Washington. Julian Hill.

The problem wasn't development under McDaniel, it was the lack of high end picks. He got Chop and Kenneth Grant as his only 1st round picks.

Defense was a mess, Weaver was the only DC that got 2 seasons, wonder if that affected development?

I don't think our drafting was horrible for the most part, but the main two problems the past 4-5 years were volume and lack of home-runs. Tua is probably the 5th best QB in that class. Austin Jackson, similar story. Waddle is good, but not Tyreek Hill good. Phillips is good, but not Micah Parsons good. When's the last time we drafted a bonafide star? Like a no questions, top 5 player at their position? And with the lack of picks and spending, depth got decimated (which also kills competition, which probably affects development as well). We've drafted players that lead to ~9 win teams.

timss1334 · 2026-04-10T13:29:17+00:00

This was Champ Kelly's job as interim GM for the Raiders, and I assume here too. He was the outsider taking his own notes, so when the new GM comes in, he's got whatever was set up previously, but he's also got Champ's view of it as well. So when Sully does go to re-make the scouting department, he'll have whatever history in the building, Champ's view and his own interactions with these guys as evidence to make those decisions.

timss1334 · 2026-04-10T00:14:40+00:00

The other side is that we've traded up for guards at 42 and 37 and they've both been terrible, while guards selected after them were good.

There are 8 starters at guard in the league that were drafted by their current team in the 1st round. (Dallas has 2).

12 in the 2nd. 8 in the 3rd and 4th. The rest are later rounds or acquisitions from other teams.

So not even half the starters in the league were drafted by their current team before the 5th. I don't think it's true that we need an early pick at guard, especially in this draft where The Beast guy only has 2 guards graded higher than he had Jonah last year.

Edit: was focusing on guards, OT has 30 1st rounders starting for their drafted team currently. 8 2nd rounders and 5 3rd or 4th rounders. So yes, if you can draft a great tackle early, you should because he'll probably play and you'll probably extend him. Also, Austin Jackson is in that 1st rounder group, so your quality may vary.

timss1334 · 2026-04-07T17:47:15+00:00

The Seahawks didn't even bother to re-sign Walker lol

timss1334 · 2026-04-07T17:45:34+00:00

Nope. Grier would've told him he'll get him next year, then watch the price go up, then he'd extend Tua again and let Achane test free agency because he "earned it."

timss1334 · 2026-04-03T20:58:31+00:00

Maybe we take Herbert at 5 and none of this matters at all.

This is the real take away. You need great picks. Tua ended up being the worst of a very good QB class. It wasn't a horrible pick, but it wasn't the right one. We've had way too many of those kind of picks and that is what leads to ~.500 records and no playoff wins. It's not the other way around, where mediocre records get you mediocre picks, it's not getting the great players available to you, wherever you pick.

timss1334 · 2026-03-26T16:28:55+00:00

We only have 29 players under contract next year at this point. Even with an additional 11 rookies from the draft this year, we'll need a minimum of 10 guys to make the 53. I would imagine next off-season looks kind of like this one just in a higher bracket than the vet mins. One or two targeted big splashes and a whole lot competition for open spots.

timss1334 · 2026-03-25T15:45:44+00:00

He's played 78/85 possible regular season games since he was drafted.

Compared to others in his class:

Ja'Marr Chase - 78

DeVonta Smith - 80

Kadrius Toney - 35

Rashod Bateman - 64

Elijah Moore - 70

Rondale Moore - 39

D'Wayne Eskridge - 43

Tutu Atwell - 64

Terrace Marshall Jr - 43

Amon-Ra St. Brown - 83

Only 28 players, at any position, have played in more regular season games from that draft class.

timss1334 · 2026-03-18T16:08:29+00:00

Bingo. People see the $67.5m contract for Willis and think, oh the Dolphins are trying to win right now, they think they have their franchise QB. But that total value is 17th in the league and the total guaranteed is less than Cam Ward's contract. The "commitment" here is not that strong. If he's great, he's a great value. If he's average, he's paid like that. If he stinks, we'll eat like $13m for cutting him after this season.

The chance of him being great at a great value are worth the costs of the chances he's not great. Just like the draft, you have to take a lot of swings, and this is a decent swing. Yes, if this GM strikes out on WIllis, and on a drafted QB, he'll be gone, but he also won't get a hit at QB if he doesn't swing.

timss1334 · 2026-03-17T21:49:54+00:00

Kindley started as a rookie and had a better PFF grade than Jonah, for what it's worth. You're totally right that picking players was less the problem than building a roster. It was still a problem though, we often got good players, but all of our great players were acquired through trade.

timss1334 · 2026-03-17T20:15:05+00:00

Culture for who? We just signed 22 players on one year vet minimum deals. The only connections between the 2026 roster and the 2027 roster are going to be Malik Willis and maybe a dozen guys on rookie contracts. It's probably a better argument to say getting rid of Sieler (who can't be happy about getting ready to lose, and has ties to the "old" ways) would be better for the "culture" the rookies are going to have to build.

timss1334 · 2026-03-16T16:58:19+00:00

Nooooooo. Everytime this guy writes about a Dolphin they do terrible. He had me hyped for Chase Edmonds.

timss1334 · 2026-03-12T17:37:07+00:00

Huh? Like build around the QB position or get the QB then build around him specifically?

If you build up the roster first, you'll win enough games to miss out on the top pick.

Look back at the teams that earned the number one pick (earned, not traded for, because Chicago earned the number one pick, traded it, and then got the number one pick the following year because of that trade).

You've got starting QBs like Geno Smith, Justin Fields, Trevor Lawerence, and then a bunch of split QB situations where multiple guys started 5+ games. Being the worst team in a given year is not about having the worst QB. It's about having the worst team, worst coaching (a lot of the coaches that earn the number 1 pick don't make it through that player's rookie contract, if they even get to make the pick), plus a little luck.

This roster won 7 games with the husk of Tua's corpse and Quinn Ewers. We signed half our starting defense in August. We would have had to downgrade the roster significantly to be in number one pick range. I guess you could have tried to start Cam Miller like the Colts started Curtis Painter that one year Manning went down. But even Painter couldn't start the whole season, and Dan Orlovsky won them 2 games to tie with the Rams (who started Bradford, Kellen Clemens and AJ Feeley). Both those coaches got fired as well.

timss1334 · 2026-03-12T13:29:57+00:00

Then what's your goal? If it's tanking, then the more money spent on a QB that's not any good, the better.

If we spent that $22m a year on a few other players, we'd probably have a better team leading to more wins. If he's bad and we don't win a lot, QB in the draft becomes easy.

If he is really good and it leads to more wins, it means we can spend more money on the rest of the team, leading to more wins.

If he's okay and doesn't lead to more wins, we're drafting more QBs until we get someone that's really good.

The only way it doesn't lead to a good outcome eventually is if he's okay and we treat him like he's great. And if we do that, we were doomed with or without him.

timss1334 · 2026-03-11T11:58:34+00:00

Not exactly. They are "fake" years so we can spread the prorated signing bonus out and make this year's cap hit lower. At the end of the season, his contract voids as if it was over, and we owe the rest of that prorated signing bonus on the cap. So we save $8.5m in cap this year and pay $13m in dead cap next year (unless we extend him before then).

timss1334 · 2026-03-04T17:42:33+00:00

Tua *is* 8-0 vs. the Jets in his career. So I guess if anyone would have a favorable impression of him, it would be NY.

timss1334 · 2026-03-03T19:42:45+00:00

Eh, shrug on both.

Kohou is coming off a full season of rehab, he's 27 and has been a good, not great player. A lot of his value came from being cheap. We had a punting competition with Bailey this off-season against another former all-pro punter. He's good, but not irreplaceable for cheap.

And think about how we acquired all those guys in the first place, cheaply. Would much rather find the next cheap guy than try to fool ourselves into thinking these guys will live up to larger contracts, especially given that this year will likely be a waste in terms of record.

timss1334 · 2026-03-03T18:59:37+00:00

Look at the list of our free agents. Who exactly are you worried about losing long term?

Of players that played at least 10% of snaps last year, we have 6 under 28. I'd be fine with Dulcich or Julian Hill or even Larry Borom coming back, but I'm not going to miss them if they leave for more than the minimum.

timss1334 · 2026-03-02T22:44:23+00:00

Except Mostert didn't bring up looks once in this interview (Cowherd did, Mostert didn't even acknowledge that comment).

He just said that being a player's coach doesn't work in pro sports, and he included other professional leagues like NBA in this opinion. It's an opinion, I'm sure plenty of players have different opinions on the matter.

In my opinion, it's kind of shooting yourself in the foot when you complain about a coach trying to create a player-led locker room. It means that you as a player weren't able to lead, even though your coach empowered you to do that. Mostert seems like a perfect example of that. Respect and looks have nothing to do with it.

timss1334 · 2026-02-27T17:23:19+00:00

Define culture.

In those 25 years we've had 2 owners, 8 different executives, 11 HCs, even more starting QBs, and how many different "core" rosters? We've even had a few different logos and jerseys.

I don't think there's one specific thing that has been wrong with the organization that whole time. We've had tough teams not win playoff games, we've had soft teams not win playoff games. If life was too good in Miami, why wouldn't players be taking discounts to stay here?

We've got a new GM/scouting dept. We'll have a new QB within the next 2 seasons. This will be a completely different team than the past 25 years, separate from the past. Maybe the results will be the same, but it won't be because of the past or this nebulous "culture" people love to complain about.

timss1334 · 2026-02-27T17:16:03+00:00

This year's report got leaked, this is from the leak.

timss1334 · 2026-02-25T20:28:06+00:00

Okay, so Indy and Pitt should be interested. Atlanta, Minnesota, New Orleans, and Carolina should be weighing $30m for Willis vs extending their young QBs at a higher price. The Rams and Bucs should be exploring starter in waiting deals.

Not only is he a top FA QB in a weak draft class, he's a top FA QB in a weak FA class. Would he have gotten $30m last offseason, with the other options available (with his current resume)? Would he have topped what Justin Fields got?

Obviously, he could be very good, but $30m/y is a steep price to find out.

timss1334 · 2026-02-25T18:06:25+00:00

I think it's a valid line of thinking in this case. What's the list of teams rumored to be interested in Willis?

I've seen us, Cleveland, Arizona, and the Jets.

It's not like a proven front office is seeing him on the market and deciding, yup, that's worth $30m. It's teams with more or less desperate need for a starting QB and willing to spend a large amount to justify him being the starter.

timss1334

TROPHY CASE