The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Walt Atkins

Costly penalty that helped spark the Colts comeback.

Also, the front office again, for starting the rebuild one year early

Coach Flores gets mine. Fitzpatrick clearly has a concussion and should not be playing. Rosen should have not only been playing but leading us the rest of the way. Bad decisions by Flores.

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, wanting to not ruin the draft position, right?

Maybe just a little ... hahaha

Fitzpatrick was not that special in this game. The defense has been looking better and the team is not beating themselves as much as they did earlier in the year. If the defense can continue to hold teams under 20 points a game, Miami can win those games even with Rosen at QB.

I hate these threads.  I am pretty sure I've mentioned it.  I feel like anyone who has played at organized sports at a team level would agree with me.  Rarely, if ever, does a single event (or person) cause a loss.

This being said, I think this theme is interesting.  I don't think Miami is "tanking" this year; this will be an on-going process. 

i don't think miami was ever trying to tank .. i think miami was and is prioritizing long term success over short term success .. so if someone offers you a kings ransom for a good player, you say yes thank you and take the 2 1st and a 2nd all the way to the bank

Getting rid of the many of best players on your team at the same time is tanking.

Yeah, and tanking is prioritizing long term success over short term. It's potayto potahto.

Tanking isn't "prioritizing" long term success.  NE "prioritized" long term success when they traded Logan Mankins for draft picks.

Tanking is intentionally sacrificing short term success to move up in the draft via having a worse record.  If you are purposefully trying to improve your own position in the draft, you are tanking.  Period.

The front office is tanking. Flores and the players are not. Which is one of the reasons that Minkah had such a problem being here. How would you like it if your CEO was actively torpedoing your career?

If Flores was informed before accepting the job that that management's plan was to get a better draft position in 2020, he is a willing participant in the tanking process.

Concussion protocol.  It should be done on the very next play.  5 mins later is ridiculous.

Agreed. I've said from the beginning that the I think the reason that Gase was let go was because he was not willing to do what Flores was willing to do. But he is trying to win with the players he has and the players haven't quit on the team as far as I can tell. They are playing hard for Flores.

Miami will probably win four to five games this season.  Let's magically back up and erase all of the trades, bring back Stills, Tunsil, etc.  How many wins are those players worth, together, all told?  One?  Two?

At best, in the prettiest Normal Rockwell painting with the sun shining bright, this was a six to seven win team.

Miami got rid of players, obtained draft picks and gained flexibility in the cap all while sacrificing maybe a win, or two; I'm not sure if they would even accomplish that. They gave up 163 points in the first four games, those would have been a wash no matter what.  Kenny Stills ain't helping.  I like Mink, he isn't stopping those flood gates.  Those ass kickings are happening whether the trades do or not.

Maybe Miami gets their first win against the 'Skins.  They got smoked in Buffalo.  They got smoked again in Pittsburgh.  

Coming up - would they have beaten anyone else on the schedule besides the two they probably will beat (Jets and Bengals) and the one they may beat (Browns) to get to five wins?

This team did not / isn't tanking.  Tanking is losing on purpose.  They could not have done any better this season either way.

And, for the record, the Minkah trade was horrific.  

Yeah, BUT they traded probably the BEST two players that they have drafted in the past decade, young players not aging veterans, and now they will have to HOPE they can find two draftees as good to replace them.  So, although they have gained salary cap space going forward, they will be a worse team.

If MIA scores 3 more points over the first 3 quarters of the BUF game, they aren't trying an onside kick at the end because the game is tied.  That's hardly "smoked."  Similarly, if PIT doesn't have Minkah (so not even that MIA keeps him, but just doesn't trade him there), he doesn't get 2 INTs which lead to 14 points.  If you're counting those as games that were unwinnable even with Tunsil, Stills, and Minkah, I don't know what to tell you.  Even with the early season blowouts, MIA could easily be 4-5 with a squeezably soft second-half schedule.

The front office made decisions with the explicit intent of improving the Dolphins' draft pick position, in hopes of drafting a franchise QB.  Whether or not the team could have done better is frankly irrelevant; the intent is what matters.  So either you believe that the front office was trying to win every game possible this season, or you don't.

If this team, as constructed, finishes with 5 or 6 wins (and MIA cannot trade into the #1 pick), those trades will be among the worst in the history of the franchise.  There is approximately zero chance MIA will use those picks to draft players better than Tunsil or Minkah.

Let me just add this:

Trading away a player like Reshad or Stills is totally understandable.  And trading away Tunsil or Minkah for another young player (like Clowney or Ramsey) is also totally acceptable.  But trading away two of your three best young players - both on their rookie contracts! - for picks is just indefensible.  LT and DB are two of the cornerstone positions, and saying that you don't expect to be good soon enough to take advantage of their primes is just lunacy.

And I'm also not interested in hearing about how many picks MIA got for Tunsil.  How many picks would it take to make it a "good deal" for BAL to trade Lamar Jackson, or SF to trade Jimmy G?  There are certain positions you should not be gambling on.

I think they feel like getting a top QB is more difficult than a stud LT and they would be right. The Tunsil trade was all about getting ammunition to get a stud QB. If we fail to get one then that trade is as much of a bust as the Minkah trade. We are kind of in a wait and see mode until we see how that works out.

Perhaps, but having a top QB is worthless if your O-line, specifically your LT, can't stop anyone from killing your QB.

I think the four foundational positions are QB, LT, DE, and CB.  If you have a reliable player at one of those positions - especially on a rookie contract - you do not let them go, unless it's a trade for another reliable player at one of those positions.

Our O-line is getting better and we have a shit load of money to throw at free agents in the offseason. I think you will see us add to our o-line depth with some of that money.

We will see. Like I said previously we've had a few great LTs and it never helped us win much. I think if we can get the one position that eludes us the other pieces are easier to replace.

(https://usattouchdownwire.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/gettyimages-492237.jpg?w=1000&h=600&crop=1)
If "great LTs didn't win MIA a ring" is the logic here, why is MIA chasing after a franchise QB, again?

I'm not being facetious, here.  By the standard given for success, if MIA drafts Tua and his career precisely mirrors Marino, this was all for naught.

If you want a dynasty, sure, you need a legendary, franchise savior QB.  But "dynasty" is not a reasonable goal.  A reasonable goal is a championship team, which you build by assembling good players in key positions, then hoping the breaks bounce your way. And you can't assemble a team of good players by getting rid of good young players.

the dolphins are playing better and winning more games without minkah than with him ..

facts

We won a hell of a lot more games with Dan Marino than Jake Long, Laremy Tunsil or even Jason Taylor. If Dan was suited up we at least had a chance to win any game. Other than Ricky in his prime ... no other player has had that affect and Dan was here a long time.

And no one could have predicted that Dan would be the guy that did that. It turned out that way, but no one knew that when they picked him. No one. The fallacy is not that picking a franchise QB can win you a lot of games, the fallacy is that you can predict who is going to be a franchise QB when you draft him.

With Marino, MIA made the playoffs a little under 60% of the time and had one SB appearance.  Is that the kind of outcome that would validate an 0-16 season?

This is something I agree 100% with.

Lol ... at this point, hell yes! I get what you are saying but if Miami uses the Tunsil pick to help move up and does get a long term answer at QB then myself and many others will feel it was justified. If they draft a random player then they effed up and it didn't work out like they gad planned.

Where we disagree is this: if your goal is to "be competitive" (e.g. make the playoffs more than half the time, maybe lose a SB or two) you don't need to trade away all your young talent and post multiple seasons with win totals you can count on your elbows.  You can just try normally and if you hit on some key picks and pick up a few quality FAs, you're good to go!

The most important factor is hiring the right head coach, and you don't need to tank for that.

The key word is goal. My goal is to put myself in position to draft a franchise QB, get rid of dead money, and win several Super Bowls. If I fall short of that there are still several circumstances that would still make me happy. Either way ... until it plays out I have no reason to get upset.

So then you're not upset about Miami winning 2 games and possibly more this season because it hasn't all played out yet.