The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Nice interview with Jimmy Johnson in regards to the Dolphins. BTW .... He's pretty high on the new Hurricanes head coach.


BY BARRY JACKSON
https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/barry-jackson/article226200710.html

As the Dolphins begin their rebuilding program, there’s no better authority on the process than Jimmy Johnson, who traded Herschel Walker for a treasure trove of draft picks and built a 1-15 Dallas Cowboys team into a multi-time Super Bowl champion.

In a phone conversation this week, Johnson offered a half dozen helpful tips as the Dolphins embark on this process:

▪ Don’t necessarily succumb to the temptation to draft 5-10 Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray.

“Kyler Murray is the kind of player who can take you to the playoffs or can be hurt his second game,” Johnson said. “He is exciting and a great college player, but he is undersized and a big part of his game is mobility and mobile quarterbacks in the NFL don’t last very long. But he is great player and exciting. It would be a tough call for me for the long haul. I would be hesitant.”

▪ Pick Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa over Oregon’s Justin Herbert if you have the choice of those two quarterbacks high in the 2020 draft, assuming the quarterback need isn’t filled in the 2019 draft.

“Tua looks big time to me,” Johnson said. “Herbert I’m not nearly as excited about as I am with Tua.”

Nevertheless, Johnson wouldn’t automatically delay the quarterback decision a year if there’s someone really, really good available in this April’s draft.

“It depends on who is available,” Johnson said. “If you think they can win for you, [take one]. Putting it off a year is one thing — I don’t know if that’s the way to go if the right guy is there.”

▪ Be open to trading down for extra picks, but don’t bypass a player you love.

“I traded for extra picks only when there wasn’t a player there I desperately wanted,” he said. “My whole philosophy was there was a group of players I wanted but I wanted to take them at the right spot. And if the pick was too high for a player I wanted, I would trade down and get extra picks. But if there was a player there I wanted, I was going to take him.

“You don’t go into it thinking I’m going to trade down to get more picks. That’s foolish to bypass a great player just because you’re building for the future. If a great player is not there, you move down.”

▪ Get your salary cap situation fixed at the start of this process.

“They’ve got to get the cap in shape,” Johnson said. “We were so far over the cap when I first went to the Dolphins that I couldn’t keep quality players. I couldn’t keep Troy Vincent and Bryan Cox and Irving Fryar. I would love to have kept them but we were so far over the cap I couldn’t do it. I had to get the cap in good shape before we started building something. We started six or seven rookies. We were able to win eight games doing it that way. We were in playoffs from then on.”

▪ Delay paying good money for quality veteran free agents until you’re further along in this process, perhaps in a year or two.

“You’ve got to get some quality players and don’t overpay for them,” he said. “The Dolphins have overpaid for some very good players but not great players. You don’t overpay.”

▪ Prioritize certain positions.

“Starting quarterback, backup quarterback and pass rushers,” Johnson said.

He agrees that it’s helpful to have defensive tackles who can rush the quarterback in today’s game but said “you can get away” without that if you can puss rush from other positions.

What about offensive tackles? He places them a bit lower on his priority list, saying “that depends on the quarterback” because some quarterbacks with escapability and good pocket presence and instincts can thrive even without an elite offensive line.

Johnson — who went from 1-15 in his first year in Dallas to 7-9, 11-5 and then two Super Bowl winning seasons in years four and five — said he didn’t have enough information to give an opinion on whether the Dolphins should try to extend their best players — potential spring 2020 free agents Laremy Tunsil and Xavien Howard — or trade them for draft picks. The Dolphins are expected to make attempts to keep both, though Howard could be put in play if the sides cannot agree on money.

Johnson said “I don’t like tanking” as a general approach and that there’s a distinction between rebuilding and trying to be bad the first year in order to secure a high pick. “I never wanted to be bad — I just wanted to get the cap in good shape.”

But Johnson understands what the Dolphins are doing.

“The fallacy in the NFL is every team says I am one or two players away,” he said.

The Dolphins finally realize they’re not.

I don't think that every team thinks they are 1 or 2 players away, but they all try to put the best team on the field they can hoping that at some point they will have the team. I think it's a very tough thing to do to just say well blow it up and start over and I don't think every team that's not 2 players away should do that. There's absolutely NO guarantee that blowing it up and starting over will result in a better team faster then simply adding a piece or 2 every year. That's the fallacy in my opinion.

Agree with that.  But no point in keeping a very expensive vet that if this isn’t your year.

Agree. But you have to have SOMEBODY competant to play QB. You can't just go into the year with nothing but backups. That's a disservice to your team as well as a hinderance to actually being able to evaluate your team.

Advice from one of the people who I hold responsible for the past 2 decades of the Dolphins’ futility. No thanks.

Jimmy actually left the team in great shape. Just how did he make us mediocre for the last 20 years?

He sold me with the first item on the list. Whoever drafts Murray will be sorry.

Don't let Jimmy make himself sound too smart. He also drafted Steve Walsh with the 2nd overall pick in the supplemental draft in 1989 after already having drafted Troy Aikman number 1 overall in the 1989 draft. He was none too sure that Aikman was a hall of famer when he drafted him and actually preferred Walsh over Aikman initially. Jimmy had no issues with taking a flyer on QB Steve Walsh in '89. Maybe it was that failed decision that led him to the now current thinking that Kyler Murray is too small. :)

^^^ I fail to see how him taking his own college QB and allowing an actual QB competition to ensue as a bad thing. No one makes all the best picks but the good ones do it more than not. I only wish someone would have found us another Jason (HOFer) and Zach (Should be HOFer) since Jimmy left. 

He still drafted multiple hall of famers.  You're being overly critical.

I'm just saying that even the mighty JJ hedged his bets and he already had the number 1 overall draft pick as his QB. It's fine for him to say that he would be leary of taking Kyler Murray in the 1st round no one is questioning that but let's not make Jimmy a draft guru or anything. Some things worked out for him and some didn't, that's the nature of the beast. You can always take Murray in the 1st round this year and take another QB in the 1st round next year if it doesn't work out. Jimmy did it and he did it without seeing Aikman play a down in the NFL and it worked out ok for him.

I think it's too late for that! Hahahaa .... Although changed a bit ... his draft chart is still used by many teams.  Not only is he highly respected by those around the league but I can't think of anyone more imitated for drafting based on his chart.

I tend to look at it a little more like he coached multiple players into being hall of famers. Ask yourself this question...If Jimmy drafted them but someone else coached them would they have still made the hall of fame? It's an interesting question.

You do know that Jimmy drafted Zach on the advice of special teams coach Mike Westhoff who was sent to Texas Tech to scout for potential special teams players. He didn't even draft him till the 5th round because he thought the had potential to be a special teams guy and possible backup LB. He didn't know that Zach would become a potential hall of fame player when he drafted him. I think you are giving him too much credit for his drafting prowess and probably not enough credit for being one hell of a good coach who coached him into being a potential hall of famer.

^^^^I think that is overly critical.  Nobody else saw Zach potential either otherwise he wouldn’t have been available in the 5th. 

I give kuddos for drafting a HoF player late in the draft, rather than criticize for not using a higher draft pick. 

Technically speaking it wasn't Jimmy though that even saw the talent, it was the special teams coach that recommended Zach to Jimmy. Again, people are giving Jimmy WAY too much credit for selecting a guy in the 5th round. Even Jimmy said he never expected Zach Thomas to compete for a starting spot, he was drafting him as a backup/special teams player. He turned out to be much more then that, but Jimmy didn't forsee it happening. This is out of Jimmy's own mouth. I'm not just making this shit up.

You're not really gonna tell me that you think Bill Belichick drafted Brady in the 5th round even suspecting that he would be a 1st ballot HOF player. Fuck that. He's drafting him in the 1st round if that's the case. Get real people. Now he saw something that most people didn't I'll give you that, be had no idea it would turn out like this. NONE!!!!

It's cool, you're just a hater, lol. 

Of course not.  Brady was selected in the 6th round!!!!  BB wanted to select him in the 3rd (and 4th and 5th and earlier in the 6th).  But he didn’t have final say of the draft in 2000.  And even in  the 6th the only one who really wanted him was BB.  Brady was drafted in the 6th because at this point BB was throwing a fit.  Brady turning out so good and BB being the only one on the Patriots staff or in the league to see Brady’s potential is what led Kraft to give BB full authority.

I actually LOVE Jimmy Johnson, I just don't happen to think he's a draft guru (I don't think there is such a thing, it's all pretty much a guess albeit an educated guess). He's a FANTASTIC head coach!

And if Brady had been selected by Miami in the 5th round, he would have been out of the league in 3 years. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. The genius in Belichick is his coaching, not his drafting. He's actually a pretty notoriously bad draft analyst that happened to be right about Brady and a few others. He's not had a lot of success with many other draft choices.

That is possible.  Actually many in NE didn’t understand why he didn’t get cut at the end of training camp.  Close to 95% of all fans and experts would have benched Brady in favor of Bledsoe once Bledsoe was healthy mid season of 2001.  Even after the superbowl many thought the smart move was to trade Brady for as much as you could get and have Bledsoe start. 

Belichick saw something in Brady the rest of us didn’t.  And he was right. 

With Brady he was. With the rest of his draft choices he's been mediocre at best. If you make 100 picks you're going to be right with a couple of them. That doesn't make you a draft guru, nor does it mean that you should be giving advice to others how to ensure a great draft. The best way to try to ensure a good draft is to find a good coach to teach them how to play at a high level. Bill Parcells used to complain about not being able to buy the groceries with the Giants but later when he did the buying he kinda sucked at it. Turns out he was better at just coaching up whatever he got. It works the other way too, there have been a lot of perfectly good draft choices that have been squandered by the wrong coaches that we label as draft busts. Funny how we never really seem to blame the coaches for those disasters UNLESS they go play for another coach and suddenly turn into a star. Then we say the draft gurus were right, but it just took a little longer for them to be right. Whatever.

I get it, it's not a popular opinion, but that's mostly because the human brain is built to see patterns in things where there really isn't one. You've heard of optical illusions right? Draft guru's are an optical illusion in my opinion. The reality is there are great coaches that make the draft gurus look good and there are also terrible coaches that make scouts look bad.

It's more about what the draft pick and coaches make of the opportunity rather than the pick itself. We all like to rate teams draft picks right after the draft and then we go back and rate them a few years later and rarely do they match up much, because it's impossible to predict someone's future, you can only really look at someone's past to see how it turned out. For a few guys the expectation matches up with reality but for the vast majority, not so much.

I think you would agree BB’s team building (draft, trade, & FA) has been sufficient to win multiple super bowls

BB considers the draft to be some what of a crap shoot.  One reason he trades down is he believes he has a better shot at getting one good player with a second and third round pick, than he does with a single first round pick.

He also was more confident that sending a second round pick to Miami for Wes Welker and a fourth to Oakland for Randy Moss would yield him solid wideouts than using those pick to draft wide receivers. 

Also how you judge a draft has a lot to do with how he is scored.  Coach A drafts a superbowl MVP in round 1 and in round 7 a guy that is a marginal special teamer.  Coach B drafts in round 1 a marginal special teamer and in round 7 a super bowl MVP.  Some folks would give coach A an A and coach B an F.  I give them the same grade.  Two picks, two players of equal strength.  BB has had his busts, but he has also scored a SB MVP in the 7th.

Kinda had to day he is mediocre in drafting a team when he has won 3 of the last 5 superbowls.  All with players he either drafted, traded for, or signed in FA.  First three SB weren’t all his players, but the most recent ones are.

Not exactly. I would say that EVERYTHING that BB does has been sufficient to win multiple super bowls. That would be team building, coaching, game planning, scouting, game tape analysis, roster decisions (which is a LOT more than who to draft and/or trade, it's who to start, who to bring off the bench and when), play calling, game time decisions, etc, etc, etc. There's a TON of things that go into getting a team to the Superbowl. In my opinion what the coach does in ALL of those things plays a LARGE part into the team making the superbowl or not. To simply put it on just building the roster and even more limited to JUST draft day decisions is incredibly unfair to what a coach does outside of that.

Once you start thinking about everything a coach does, you realize that the draft is small potatoes in the big scheme of things. Sure's it's a part, but it's not the largest part, I'm not even sure if it's a large part. You can draft rather poorly and make up for it everywhere else. In my opinion BB has proven that. He's a LOT better at studying a player once they have reached the NFL and are playing in the NFL to determine what his strengths and weaknesses are then doing that in the draft based on college game tape which can be deceiving. In my opinion he does a LOT better on the free agency side of things then in the draft because he's got NFL game tape on that player.

Don't mistake me for saying that BB is not a good evaluator of talent, he is. I'm saying he might not be that great at evaluating how college talent, players will necessarily translate to the NFL level. It's not all about talent, a lot of it is desire, maturity, intelligence etc etc etc which can be hard to judge at the college level because it's not NFL level. It's easier to judge that once you have NFL game tape on a guy. Some guys can get away on talent alone in college, it's tougher to do that in the NFL and you don't always know what that will be like once they are in the NFL.

The draft is a crapshoot, but I never said that FA and trades were a crapshoot. It's mostly what happens before and after the draft which makes the difference. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.