Dolphins have no clue
The Miami Dolphins should suspend all operations until the front office understands how to run a football team.
On Saturday, there were multiple reports that free-agent defensive end Mario Williams was visiting the team’s headquarters down in South Beach to see if the club and player could strike a deal. Earlier in the week, Williams was cut by the Buffalo Bills, partly because he was lazy and hadn’t helped Buffalo reach the playoffs during his four seasons in town, and partly because the Bills saved $12.9 million in cap space.
Regardless of the reason he became available, Williams is exactly what the Dolphins need to be steering clear from. Instead, general manager Dennis Hickey and right-hand man Mike Tannenbaum are going full-throttle toward their next disaster.
This brain trust already is on the hook for $28.6 million this season thanks to its asinine deal with Ndamukong Suh, which made the defensive tackle the highest-paid player in the history of the sport on that side of the ball. Suh might already need to have his contract restructured so the team has any kind of cap space, which only pushes more cap issues down the road.
Miami is paying more than $60 million in 2016 toward its defensive line, easily more than the next highest team on the list in the Minnesota Vikings, who are below $30 million. The Dolphins put the transition tag on defensive end Olivier Vernon on March 1, valuing him at over $11 million. Yet, for some insane reason, Miami feels that signing Williams will cure its ills, a team that went 6-10 in 2015 mostly because the offensive line is terrible, and the back seven on defense leaves plenty to be desired.
The Dolphins should have let Vernon walk and cut Cameron Wake, who would be a $7 million savings against the cap while only having to pay $1 million in dead money. The team is not winning the Super Bowl this year anyway – or coming anywhere near it – so why not set yourself up for success in the coming years?
Instead, the Dolphins continue to kick the financial can down the road, while the New York Jets continue to improve and the New England Patriots continue to hang AFC East banners. Miami has not won a Super Bowl since 1973 and has not appeared in one since Dan Marino’s second year of 1984, so perhaps it is time to do a few things differently.
At 31 years old, Williams is not going to help in the long-term future. Heck, after only producing five sacks in 2015, he might not be much of a short-term fix. Yet, signing Williams is a perfect representation of what this franchise has become.
The Dolphins love to sign players and make the proverbial splash, but when the season comes around, the only sound you hear is the thud of them crashing into the divisional basement.
