The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Here's the way I see it right now.

Best outcome:
- MIA finishes with a pick later than 12th AND SF finishes with a pick in the top 10

Great outcome:
- MIA finishes with a pick later than 12th AND SF finishes with a pick earlier than MIA's

Good outcome:
- SF finishes with any pick earlier than MIA's
- MIA finishes with a pick later than 12th AND SF finishes with a pick earlier than 20th

Mediocre outcome:
- MIA finishes with a pick between 6th-12th

Bad outcome:
- MIA finishes with a pick in the top 5

Nightmare outcome:
- MIA finishes with a pick in the top 5 and SF finishes with a pick later than 20th

Keep in mind that for all the outcomes worse than "good," it is necessarily implied that SF finishes with a later pick than MIA.  Any outcome in which SF's pick is better than MIA's is by definition a good one.

If you are looking at this from a purely draft perspective the best case scenario is for SF to draft 1st and Mia to draft 2nd.  That way MIA has the 1st and 34th pick.

Correct me if I am wrong, but through all the draft trades we made from going to 3 to 12 to 6, isn't all we got was the Niners 2023 1st rounder? That's not even counting the possibility that we could end up with a much worse pick in 2022 as well.

What difference does it make anyway?

Bingo. If we ever hit on a stud we trade them for more picks of mediocre players. You have to be trying to screw up as bad as we have.

^^^^ THIS

MIA currently has SF's 1st rounders in 2022 and 2023.
PHI has MIA's 1st rounder in 2022.

Earlier picks are better than later picks.

Even if you believe the current front office would just screw them up anyway, it's not out of the question that they could be replaced before the 2022 draft.

Marino was a first round pick.  Look where that got us.  Brady was a sixth rounder.  Enough said

Yes, but we had to give up a 2022 1st rounder to move back up to 6 so it's not like we have an extra 1st rounder in 2022 thanks to San Fran. So when it's all said and done, we moved back from 3 to 6 and only got a 2023 1st rounder which will probably be in the 20's if Lance pans out.

That's a pathetic haul to move back 3 spots and miss out on Chase and Pitts. That isn't even factoring in how our pick this season might be Top 10 in a Twilight Zone reversal of what we did to the Texans last year.

If you really believe what you are saying, MIA should immediately trade away all their 1st-5th round picks so they can stockpile 6th and 7th rounders.
Because draft position doesn't matter!

If MIA had Pitts or Chase instead of Gesicki or Waddle, do you think they would be meaningfully better right now?

I don't think there has been a significant difference between Pitts and Gesicki so far, and I doubt Chase would have caught 5 TDs from Jacoby Brissett.

Nah, but the fact remains that was still a terrible haul to move back and he got way too cute with his trades. Bad trade the day it happened and it looks worse and worse as time goes by and I like Waddle, not really about him, just the weak haul.

I think the primary benefit of that trade was as insurance.
If MIA is not happy with Tua's progress by 2023, they'll have 2 firsts to move up and get a new QB.

At this point, nothing matters anymore.  Miami will always stink

We could have got Waddle with that pick, why did we do it?

Not sure if I would use Marino as an example of a blown 1st round pick. 

Consider the source of the statement though. 

It's intentional trolling and not worth addressing as an example.

Update:
MIA cannot have any pick earlier than 5th, and several teams would have to run the table for even that to happen.  So it looks like the worst scenarios have been avoided.

Conversely, it would take a complete collapse for SF to finish with a pick in the top 10, so that looks like it's not likely to happen.  MIA is only 1 game behind SF in record, but 10 wins will definitely make the playoffs in the NFC, while that same record would be a tossup to make the AFC side of the tournament.  So even if MIA finishes with the same record as SF, SF would be likely to have a later pick.

That all being said, this looks to be an extremely weak draft at the top end, so the prospect of giving PHI an early pick (or getting a late pick from SF) is not the same terrifying threat it was earlier in the season.

Update:

Both MIA and SF can no longer have any pick earlier than 9th.

Given Waddle's performance this year and the weak prospects of the 2022 draft class, I'm confident saying that MIA won the trade with PHI (at least, to the extent that you can win a trade after 1 year).

At this point, I see them both in the mid to high teens if not early 20s (the difference between playoffs and no playoffs).  So it turned out to be a pretty even trade after all with San Fran getting the slightly better end. 

We'll be rooting for Philly to fail next year.

I still say we lost unless the Niners somehow die in 2023 and we get a Top 10 pick because at the end of the day, we went back 3 spots and got a worse pick in 2022 and an extra 1st rounde rin 2023 that will probably be in the 20's as well. That is not a good haul for moving back from 3 to 6. Waddle is awesome, nothing against him but I expected more to move down in a loaded Top 10 class.

Rams with a huge 3 score chokejob and lose to the Niners and now they are in the playoffs. I'm not sure yet but that looks to have cost us at least 8 draft spots and it can be worse depending on how far they go.

At one point the Rams had a 99.9% win probability. They're not going to recover from this one, bet on whoever their 1st round opponent is.

Cowboys with their usual chokejob and it's looking like the Niners will make it to the next round, making this trade look unfathomably terrible at this point. Picking 25th at the earliest if the Niners hold on.

Prescott just threw a pick in his own zone so I'm calling it now. Niners win, we are picking 25th at the earliest.

I think the only way you can see this as a terrible trade at this point (given that MIA's pick to PHI is #15) is if you believe Waddle was a bad pick.  On its own, exchanging MIA's 2022 first for SF's 2022+2023 firsts is a good deal, almost without question.

For example:  suppose KC makes the SB again and loses, while SF's pick ends up at #25.  If KC's GM calls up Grier and offers him #31 in 2022 plus KC's first in 2023 (likely to be in the late 20s or worse) in exchange for SF's #25 pick in 2022, should Grier take that trade?  I'd take it in a heartbeat.

At the end of the day, we went from the 3rd pick and our choice of whoever we wanted to the 6th pick and what we got in return was:

-Worsening our 1st rounder in 2022 from 15 to at least 25
-Getting the Niners 1st rounder in 2023 which could also be in the 20's again

Take the Niners 2023 1st rounder probably in the 20s and move it back all the spots we lost this year and we basically went from the 3rd pick to the 6th pick for a 2nd rounder 2 years in the future. That is a HORRIBLE haul for moving down from 3 to 6. People get fired over that in professionally run organizations. I like Waddle, we all do but we had all the cards and traded away our ability to choose for basically a 2nd rounder 2 years in the future. Absolute trash.

I agree with Spider and disagree with you.  You're playing some mental gymnastics.  It's not a 2nd rounder 2 years in the future, it's a 1st rounder, don't downplay it.  At worst it's a wash trade if you aren't thinking short term.  I personally think it was a good trade.

The location of the 1st rounder matters greatly. Would you rather pick in the Top 10 or in the late 20s? If you want to take it all at face value and not analyze anything, then we moved back from 3rd to 6th and all we got was a 1st rounder 2 years in the future. That's still a bad trade without taking into account everything else.

Getting a first rounder even 2 years removed to move back 3 spots seems like a great trade to me but I don't spend the time worrying about that you do.

From 20th to 23rd? Great trade. From 3rd to 6th and having to draft a lesser player? No. Like I said, that's without analysis which can't be ignored. We are getting a worst draft pick this year, you have to factor that in. Our pick from the Niners next year will probably be in the 20s again, you can't ignore these things. We made a bad trade, that's all there is to it. You have to pick:

1) Jamarr Chase and a better 2022 1st rounder

OR

2) Jaylen Waddle, a worse 1st rounder in 2022 and an extra pick in the 20s in 2023

I would rather have Option 1 and I think many other people would too. The formula changes if the Niners win 3 games next year.

Again, this is what your comparison really hinges on... not whether the SF pick is 18th or 28th.

Do you believe Waddle is a lesser player?

If the answer is no, this line of argument is kind of silly; you hit on your pick with the player you really wanted, and got an extra first out of it.
If the answer is yes, then this gets more complicated... not least because Pitts, not Chase, was taken by the pick after #3.

This entire line of reasoning only works if you presume that Chase would have done as well in MIA as he did in CIN... so let's make sure that sword cuts both ways.  Are you as confident in this a first-round pick that might be in the 20s isn't worth much take if MIA takes Pitts at #3, Chase wins OROY in Atlanta, and Waddle sets the rookie receptions record in Cincinnati?

With the windfall of top picks Miami received out of the Laremy Tunsil trade they should not be complaining about trade picks for a few seasons.  Furthermore if Miami was locked in on Waddle no matter what then it's still a fantastic trade no matter what kind of performance Chase, Waddle, or Pitts had this season.

I don't think there is any doubt that Chase is a superior player. Granted, Burrow is a superior QB to Tua right now(and hopefully not forever), but Chase is the better player and we took the lesser player. So, the argument comes down to how much lesser is Waddle than Chase in terms of draft capital. I don't think what we got is worth it even if Waddle has a good career. I think we could've gotten more but Grier traded too far back and had to use too much of it to get back into good position.

We obviously disagree on the things like our current draft pick being lower and what that means, but at the end of the day we got a 2023 1st rounder to move back and unless that lands in the Top 10, I don't think that was worth it.

If we were locked in on Waddle over Chase and Pitts, then I hope Flores was in charge of that so we know we did the right thing by firing him. Waddle is great but he is no Chase and maybe not even Pitts. I think that was just some PR by us to justify the trades we made.

You're saying this as if Pitts wasn't drafted before Chase.

In other words, if MIA stays at #3 but a) picks Waddle anyway or b) picks the player that was drafted before Chase (Pitts), you're still unhappy.  And if MIA picks Pitts, and Chase and Waddle go on to have great seasons, plus MIA has no extra first-round pick next year?  Well, if you think you're unhappy now...

If your point boils down to "Why didn't MIA identify who would be the best player out of Pitts, Chase, Waddle, and Smith, and then pick only that guy?"... I mean, you can apply that logic to every pick.  The Dolphins' front office was able to identify a really good player out of those four, and hedge their bet by trading down to acquire more picks.

The only thing that matters here is whether you think Waddle was a failed pick.  If you don't, then MIA made the right move.  You don't know in advance how the players will turn out.

I think it's fairly obvious who the better player was, Waddle was a distant 3rd amongst the "Big 3".

I think it really comes down to me not liking our compensation for moving back from 3 to 6. I feel that a 1st rounder 2 years in the future is bad compensation, especially when it involves not getting the best receiver in the draft because of it. I don't like that trade off. If we still got our top guy then it changes things some. Still like Waddle a lot, we probably win 4 games without him but I don't believe for one second we felt that he was the top receiver on the board. That's just PR spin from management.

Who is the "Big 3"? If you're talking about Pitts, Waddle had a better year than Pitts.

Exactly.

If MIA has stayed put and the draft had gone #3 Pitts to MIA, #4 Chase to ATL, #5 Waddle to CIN, and all those players had exactly the same year with their new teams, we'd be screaming that the Dolphins went before the other two and still somehow picked the worst player of the three.

The big mistake the Dolphins made was in winning five games in 2019 and not getting Joe Burrow.  If you're tanking, then tank completely and get the best player possible.  Those five games are now meaningless while Burrow's trajectory is that of one of the top QBs in the game.

PITTS:
               Games      Receiving                                 Rushing                        Total Yds               
Year   Age   Tm   Pos   No.   G   GS   Tgt   Rec   Yds   Y/R   TD   1D   Lng   R/G   Y/G   Ctch%   Y/Tgt   Rush   Yds   TD   1D   Lng   Y/A   Y/G   A/G   Touch   Y/Tch   YScm   RRTD   Fmb   AV
2021*   21   ATL   TE   8   17   15   110   68   1026   15.1   1   43   61   4   60.4   61.80%   9.3                           68   15.1   1026   1   0   8


CHASE:
               Games      Receiving                                 Rushing                        Total Yds               
Year   Age   Tm   Pos   No.   G   GS   Tgt   Rec   Yds   Y/R   TD   1D   Lng   R/G   Y/G   Ctch%   Y/Tgt   Rush   Yds   TD   1D   Lng   Y/A   Y/G   A/G   Touch   Y/Tch   YScm   RRTD   Fmb   AV
2021*   21   CIN   WR   1   17   17   128   81   1455   18   13   56   82   4.8   85.6   63.30%   11.4   7   21   0   2   10   3   1.2   0.4   88   16.8   1476   13   2   13

WADDLE:
               Games      Receiving                                 Rushing                        Total Yds               
Year   Age   Tm   Pos   No.   G   GS   Tgt   Rec   Yds   Y/R   TD   1D   Lng   R/G   Y/G   Ctch%   Y/Tgt   Rush   Yds   TD   1D   Lng   Y/A   Y/G   A/G   Touch   Y/Tch   YScm   RRTD   Fmb   AV
2021   23   MIA   WR   17   16   16   140   104   1015   9.8   6   59   57   6.5   63.4   74.30%   7.3   2   3   1   1   2   1.5   0.2   0.1   106   9.6   1018   7   2   7



There is no doubt Chase had the best year, but you shouldn't even be suggesting Pitts had a better year than Waddle.  Pitts had exactly 1 Touchdown all year, Waddle had 8.  Pitts had 68 Receptions, Waddle broke the rookie record with 104.  Waddle beats both of them by a large margin in catch %.  Plus Waddle is open almost every play, I don't understand how anyone is upset that we drafted him and got an extra first round pick out of it.  

Chase is shaping up to be the kind of go-to player that boosts considerably his QB's performance and largely fuels the pass offense, a la Deandre Hopkins.  Note how Kyler Murray and the Cardinals' offense perform with and without Hopkins:

https://twitter.com/GrahamBarfield/status/1481012195760607232?s=20

It may change in the future, but right now Waddle doesn't perform in that manner.  He was certainly the Dolphins' go-to guy in 2021, but he posed nowhere near the threat Chase did, and contributed to the pass offense at nowhere near the same level.  Consider simply that Chase's yards per target in 2021 was 4+ yards greater than Waddle's.  An astronomical number.

Of course the argument can be made that the Dolphins' offensive line prevented Waddle from being the downfield threat he can be, which restricted him to a "smaller" game than he's capable of, but that has yet to be determined definitively.  It's entirely possible the Dolphins' offensive line could be the best in the league and Waddle would perform in a similar manner.  We don't know whether that's the case, whereas with Chase we do know.

Oh yes. Same in 2011 when we were 0-7 and finished 6-10 and missed out on Luck.

Damn Matt Moore and Damn Ryan Fitzpatrick

This is true but you can't say we didn't try. We basically shipped off any player who even knew how to spell football. However, doesn't change the fact that what is now obviously "useless winning" cost this franchise a lot.

It is dumb as hell to blame a team for not tanking for a player.  GM, sure he can do what he can to tank the team for a long term future, it's his job to find the best players or stock up for the future, which is what Grier did.  If a head coach or players are tanking, they deserve to be fired immediately.

This is also very true, but as fans we can root for the tank. I mean really, what is the difference between 2-14 and 4-12? Sometimes it's better to be the worst, I'm sure the Bengals are grateful they were the worst team in 2019. Where would they be right now if they won 2 more games that year? Probably still around 3-5 wins a season.

I wasn't commenting on whether teams should tank.  My point was only that if they were tanking, they should've tanked completely and not won five games.  I suspect that what happened is that they made personnel moves without the intent of winning, but that the players and Flores did the best they could and won five games because of it.

You're not going to tell a head coach and the players to lose on purpose, but you can construct the team personnel-wise such that it has a very low probability of winning even with their best efforts.  I suspect they did the latter, but that Flores and company's best efforts got them five wins.

I put the "blame" on Fitzpatrick the most. The guy is a great leader and teammate.

Max Kellerman said it best, Fitzpatrick is just good enough to ruin your franchise.

A simple solution for tanking would be to hold an NBA style lottery for the first three picks and involve all non-playoff teams

Actually, I think he's a free agent and I would bring him back to replace BBQ Brisket as a backup to Tua. Fitz has to understand that at this point in his career that he's only a backup. And actually, in hindsight, if he would have stayed with the Dolphins as backup instead of going to Washington he would have played more games and been in the playoffs instead of sitting on IR all year. How many of the 6 games we lost with Brisket would we have won with Fitz? I would say at minimum 2.

I honestly don't think the NFL players tank. Management may try to but whether you win or lose, you're taking a beating on every play. In the NBA there is no physical pain in playing so they can be unmotivated and half ass it up and down the court, but not the NFL.

That being said, if the Jaguars hold the #1 pick for the third year in a row in 2023, something should be done behind the scenes to make sure there is no 4th straight year.

Not necessary, IMO.  The #1 pick is as much a curse as it is a blessing.  It's a great player, potentially, but with a salary cap, you just can't keep #1 overall talent four years in a row.  That catches up with you.

The incredible irony of these kinds of statements is that at the time the tank job in 2019 was explicitly for the player that the Dolphins ended up getting anyway!
It was LITERALLY CALLED "Tank for Tua!"

I think that was the overriding sentiment at the outset of the 2019 season, but as the season went along, with the 2019 college season happening at the same time (the one in which Burrow and LSU won the NC), it became evident that Burrow became the better pick than Tua.  So if they would've tanked "appropriately" they could've had their choice between Burrow and Tua, and I suspect Burrow would've been the choice.  If Burrow wouldn't have been the choice, he sure should've been.

Now Cincinnati has the primary (if not essential) ingredient of a team that can win big in the NFL -- a stud QB/receiver combo in Burrow and Chase -- while the Dolphins pray their players will develop or that they're somehow hindered by the absence of other pieces they'll try to assemble.

Yeah, and Tua "was" said to be the better player versus Herbert (and you were gung ho for Tua); and where has that gotten the Dolphins?

If Waddle was a complete bust then maybe I might go along with your argument, but Waddle has shown himself to be worthy of a #1 draft pick, and Miami got an extra future #1 pick so it's crazy to say that Miami made a bad trade.

MIA won their first game of the 2019 season on November 3.  Tua went down with a season-ending injury on November 16, a week after losing to LSU 46-41.
The entire time that MIA was successfully tanking, it was to get Tua, and MIA's tank job ended a few days before Tua was lost for the year.

Now obviously, if they had gotten the #1 pick that year and Tua had still gotten injured, they would have chosen Burrow just as CIN did.  But fundamentally, it's bizarre that the Dolphins are being criticized for failing to successfully follow through on a tank job which had the objective of drafting Tua Tagovailoa.

I think you're looking at production rather than ability. Certainly Waddle didn't produce as much as the others, but if Miami had a more explosive offense he certainly could have been the MOST productive of any of them which I don't think necessarily should be confused with which player is the best.

Literally the only one he didn't produce more than was Chase.  He outplayed Pitts.

Yeah you are correct, but I'm also taking into consideration that Pitts is a TE and Waddle is a receiver. Regardless, production is not necessarily equivalent to talent level.

Prior to the draft it's also noteworthy to take into consideration that Chase sat out his Junior year in 2020, using Covid as the excuse.  Many times it happens that college players are hot one year and considered a Top 10 draft pick, only to play another college season and fall way down the draft list the following year.  Chase listened to the agents and sat out the year so he could be drafted high, IMO that worried me a little bit when the guy is afraid to play.

Quite a few of the top draft prospects sat out the year because of Covid and it didn't effect their draft stock either, so Chase was hardly alone here.

With San Francisco winning again, this trade is not looking so flash (at least it's not going to get too much worse from here).

So for trading down from 3 to get their two 1st rounders, then trading our own pick to Philadelphia move back up to get Waddle, we have effectively downgraded our first pick in next years draft from 15 to at least 30 (possibly 32 if San Francisco win it all).

So the question has to be asked (assuming Waddle was our first choice all along and not Chase or Pitts), was downgrading our first pick (at least) 15 spots really worth it for the Niners first the following year?

Just as a point of clarity: 30 is the one remaining position this pick cannot be.

If SF loses in the NFCCG, the pick will be 29.
If they win the NFC but lose in the SB, it's 31.
If they win it all, it's 32.

That said: yes, it was worth it.  MIA will need that additional first-round pick to trade up if they decide to move off of Tua, and even if they don't, a (good!) extra first-round pick will be worth it.

I've said something similar to this before, but if a team - even a good team like BAL or GB - offers you an extra first-round pick to trade back from mid-first to late-first, that's a good trade.

Sorry about that - I got it from the CBS website that had us currently listed at pick 30.

Not sure how they had that one worked out... (strength of schedule?)

If we picked 15th and someone offers us their next year's 1st rounder to move back to 30th, I would agree that is a trade you make. However, we ALSO moved back from 3rd to 6th. Combine those two and I wouldn't make the trade. Each one is worth a 1st rounder to me personally but we all have different opinions on this.

If you pick the same player at 6 that you really wanted to pick at 3, there is no downside here.

It seems to me that if MIA really wanted Kyle Pitts, they would not have traded down from 3; presuming they had the framework of a deal with PHI when they made the trade with SF, there was zero chance Pitts would still be on the board at 6.  So it's pretty clear that either they specifically wanted Waddle, or felt he was equivalent to other options available at 3.

Even if you still got the player you want, the pick itself has value and should be treated as such. I disagree that we wanted Waddle the whole time and if we did, shame on our evaluators. I could understand some who viewed Waddle and Pitts the same due to position difference but no way could you have Waddle over Chase. I love Waddle, hope he is a Dolphin his whole career but it would be shocking if he had a better career than Chase.

It was, which is why MIA got two first-round picks out of the trade.

MIA clearly expected that they would have a better record than SF in 2022, which is why they traded PHI their own pick instead of SF's.  If MIA predicts their own incompetence and trades PHI the 2022 SF pick, you no longer have any problem with this trade, right?

Do you also find it impossible (or irresponsible) to have valued Pitts over Chase?
I mean, ATL made the same mistake MIA did, and they didn't get any extra picks out of the deal.

And an often overlooked upside beyond whatever compensation you get for the trade is the smaller cap hit on an unproven rookie.

NFL also has our first pick currently listed as pick 30 and not pick 29.

Hmmm.  Is it possible that SF's pick would come after CIN's if they both lose on Sunday, even though CIN won their division?

Normally division winners are slotted later than wild card teams.

Yeah, that what I would have usually thought, but maybe they don't take that into account with draft pick allocations?

Both teams finished 10-7 during the regular season - head to head Cincinnati lost to San Francisco. I wonder if that's the criterion they are using?

It goes by overall record where you finished in the playoffs.   Cincy and San Fran had identical records so the tiebreakers come into play but in the draft, they work in reverse.   Whoever would lose the tiebreaker for the playoff spot would win it in the draft.

That's not it either, for several reasons:

1) head-to-head does not matter for draft position* (this was extensively researched during Suck For Luck and Tank For Tua)
2) there are no playoff tiebreakers for teams in different conferences (for obvious reasons)

*As an example: MIA swept BUF in 2011, both teams finished 6-10, but in the 2012 draft, MIA picked 8th (Tannehill) while BUF picked 10th (Stephon Gilmore).

That is not true.  Head to head is the second tiebreaker for the NFL draft.  Strength of schedule is the first one.  In your example what happened was it never got to the second tiebreaker.

https://www.profootballnetwork.com/nfl-draft-tiebreakers/

Sorry, I didn't explain how the tiebreakers work for the draft.   Strength of schedule is the first tiebreaker in any case, followed by head to head competition.   After that, it gets dicey.   For non conference teams, I believe the third tiebreaker is record against common opponents, followed by strength of victory.

The pick is 29th.
While SF's pick would have been after CIN's had they both lost today, the upset in the AFCCG means that 10-7 SF's pick is before 12-5 KC's.

If we can't get someone we really want at 29, I would just dangle it for some 2023 picks in case Tua doesn't work out. The big holes we have can be filled with free agency and good coaching, IMO. I don't think whoever we take at 29th is going to win MVP, even if they can be a very good player.

Look on the bright side, with a pick that late it's almost a guarantee we take a RB.

Certainly won't be drafting a Tackle again. Kinda set at CB unless we trade Xavier, which I am not ruling out. Can always find guys to contribute at 29 but if there is a really good RB available, then maybe. 5 years of control is nice too because after 5 years of being beat up, you don't want to dish out the big contract. Sucks for them but that's just how it is.

That or a somewhat decent WR.

If we were still at 15, or at least somewhere before pick 20, I think we would have been a good chance. But at pick 29 I think it's likely the four best WRs will all be gone.

It's hard to have any real confidence with this pick so far down in the first round - that list in the other thread of pick 29 over the last 12 years isn't encouraging reading.

We must all light a candle or make ritualistic sacrifices that Trey Lance is a bust and the Niners pick next year will be Top 10.

Devin Lloyd would also have been a handy pick, a LB who could end our continued misery of being torched by opposition TEs...

Unfortunately he's widely expected to be snapped up... by Philadelphia with what would have been our pick at 15.  ::) :'(

Gotta find out what the Bengals have been doing the last three weeks... they seemed to have a charmed existence through all of the playoffs.  ;) :P