Everyone in the universe knows about Ben Heeney right? Right? Um…right? Okay, he may not be very high on your draft board. So put him on your draft board already! This guy can play.
Ben Heeney is an overachieving, unathletic throwback linebacker right? Right? Um…right? Wrong Earthlings! Just wrong. I have no idea why the Kansas linebacker has people convinced he is just an overachiever who plays at a basketball school but if you believe Heeney is an overachiever you have never been more wrong since you bought that Rick Astley album. Didn’t think anyone new about that did you?
Hey Ben, What is that on your shoulder? A chip? Well that explains your 4.59 40 time. Or your 3 cone drill in 6.68, or your 20 yard shuttle in 4 seconds, or your 60 yard shuttle in 11.06. As it turns out Heeney was one of the most athletic linebackers at the combine.
But what is the combine by itself? What did he do on the field? In his time at Kansas the 6’0, 231 pound linebacker racked up 335 tackles including over 35 for a loss. He also had 4.5 sacks, 4 interceptions and 3 forced fumbles. That production lead him to a first team all-Big 12 player in 2014.
Heeney is a sound tackler who demonstrates excellent technique on each tackle. When he gets there, you are going down and trust me, he is getting there! He has great instincts, which is probably the most important trait of any inside linebacker. Heeney moves laterally fluidly and can chase down the ball carrier. But really what impresses this alien the most about Heeney is his coverage skills. Matt Miller thinks he is agile enough to drop into a cover 2.
If I was going to compare Heeney to an Alien Weapon of Destruction, I would compare him to a venusian sheep. I know, I know…a sheep? Well listen: we used to use these sheep to destroy planets. We would drop them off and fly away in our rockets. All the local aliens would say “awww, look at the cute little sheep” but underneath that cuddly wool – would be something like your Earthling wolves. And the wolf would eat them while they slept. It was awesome.
Watch Heeley eat Kansas State in this video
Also from a Green Drunk Alien to the rest of you:
Finsmob Unleashed 
We have 5 days to decide what to do
People are questioning not franchising Clay now
I sort of tilt my head like a dog who heard a new sound at the thought of franchising Clay
99% of those saying that were the ones saying he wasn’t worth $6million per year.
Typical that the media wants to make this out to be a negative on Miami even if they absolutely are firm in how they valued him. I’m really getting tired of that.
I as a fan wish he’d be back with us but I’m not going to make him out to be something he’s not in defense of him. Lots of teams win more games than teams with Charles Clay. He’s a nice piece to the puzzle, not a cornerstone player.
Both parties must decide ro do what’s in there best interest. This might be Ckays only shot at big $ due to his knee….he needs to cash in while he can.
Nothing wrong with Clay trying to cash in & I hope we can match
I think the knee is why we didn’t want to go long-term. His knee has been an issue for 2 years. We signed Cameron to a 2 year deal due to his concussion issues. We’ll find out what the thinking was soon enough.
I feel the same way. We’ve been damned if we do, damned if we don’t for several years now. Belichick does anything the same and he’s a genius.
Honestly think Miami wants to see continued growth from Sims. If he improves once again this year I could see them trying to extend him.
That might be the plan even if some us were hoping for something else. A true in-lineTE on the rise in Sims and a tall, fast seam buster and red zone guy in Cameron.
It could be analytics at work. Does Tannehill throw at a higher point for taller more rangy receivers or guys who can go get the ball? I don’t know. I’m just thinking this out.
I think he can vary his passes for any WR, but really hasn’t had a ton of big targets. If you looked at his passes to Sims last year they were typically spot on in Sims large catch radius.
Good tweet from Prof Lou
That’s brilliant stuff from ProLou right there. I wish he’d come blog here.
This was rich.
“TOP. just to name one. NOT NICE for a minister to not tell the truth. Criticize me all you want. I expect better than we’ve had the last several years. But mediocrity has always had it’s defenders, too. -I’m just not one of them.”
Top is not and has never been on this blog OD. Not nice calling a guy a liar either is it.
Sorry to move this to a new page, but no one else is going to speak up for me, so fuck it if you don’t want to read it.
If the cap number is 12m in 2015 and 2016
I think Clay is gone
That a big cap hit
I guess you have to give Buffalo credit for structuring the deal well
But that a big cap hit for them too
And they are playing McCoy a lot too
And Mario Williams
Dbolt, I don’t have your email, so I’m going to say this in public. I’m very sorry if me asking for sources came off as accusing you of anything. I have a lot of respect for you and I don’t believe you’d do that.
No problem Jahn. Like I said, I would’ve answered your question earlier, but it was post work routine….LOL. No biggie👍
Cheers bro.
Same to you bud!
Jahn,
When miami wins 4 rings I’m sure the coach that made that happen will be a genius too. Belicheat is called a genius because he wins. yes he has brady but he wins.
I think the point is that Belicheat does the same thing and is praised while dolphins are criticized
***
You are talking about perception and justifying it
And your justification is logical
But if you are judging a transaction itself
Why do you care who made it and what there credentials are?
It doesn’t become a better transaction based in the person who made it
Doesn’t mean the corrolary is that anything the fins do today is complete asshaterry.
I agree with Tim’s sentiment 100%. Don’t really care if the cheaters have won 10 straight championships.
Ah
I bummed
I think we are losing Clay
That two headed TE formation was looking like fun
😦
Okay, let’s say Clay goes to BUF.
WR Landry (low cost)
WR Stills (low cost)
WR Matthews (low cost)
TE Cameron (somewhat low cost)
TE Sims (low cost)
I see draft for another WR and that might be how we roll. This team wants to invest in a DT like Suh and next up is Tannehill. That could be the plan.
I’m sure it’s the plan
But too bad Clay is gone
I think Buffalo is a little crazy to make an offer like that just to make sure we don’t match but he’s still a good player
Agreed, I’m a big Clay fan bro, but I had to put on my realistic hat.
That said, this isn’t that different of an overall contract we gave Hartline. The difference is that was Ireland. So we’ll see.
I have viewed the reason as to why we chose the transition tag as opposed to the franchise tag as testing the market. I think they knew where they wanted to go with Clay, and didn’t want to exceed it. I get the feeling we let him go now. I think that’s fine, but I do think it substantially increases the likelihood we look for big WR early to replace what Clay did. Doesn’t mean our 1st pick, but if not RD 1, surely RD 2
Agreed. When I say WR I don’t necessarily mean 1st rd either. Could be 2nd round and we go OL in the 1st as you’ve suggested for a long time. I have no problem with that approach either.
Our offense is not based on feeding diva receivers (not meaning Clay), but guys who are open.
Armando’s blog reads like a fan wrote.
“But if they let Clay go, I can live with that.”; “As long as there was a plan executed and it has next logical steps, I can live with losing Charles Clay.”
Also, very relevant to our conversation is that 24M number. He reports (“if the report is true”) that Clay will “receive” 24M in the first two years. That likely includes signing bonus which would be prorated over 5 years. So they’re not “paying” him 12m a year persay, they’re just giving him his guaranteed money up front. My guess is his hit is small this year, large in 2016 (making the contract harder for the Fins to match) and the remainder is signing bonus that would pro-rate.
It doesn’t sound like the Fins will match, but I’m not writing it off just yet. Mando however, has made up his mind even without actually knowing what the numbers are. classic Mando:
“If the Bills believe he’s that and more, that is their right. If, however, after sitting on numbers belw $6 million for a year, the Dolphins suddenly match this deal, then it shows they had no plan from the start.”
Clay’s offer from Bills averaged over 5 yrs is within range of what many thought he might be worth to Phins… but the $20 mil guaranteed coming off injury might be enough to scare us. I’m more interested in the Phins being a vulture around the Saints salary cap carcass in hopes of landing Evans…. that would require us to have the cap space to make Evans a happy man. Protect Tanny and I think there are lots of guys who can make big plays for us.
In other words… finding a way to pry a top notch guard from some team would do much more for our prospects at this point.
If we decline, I hope we wait until 4 days, 23 hours, 59 mins, and 59 seconds to decline… keeping Buffalo from considering anything else except designing a new blizzard contingency plan.
LOL…vindictive plan. I like it. 🙂
EVANS!!!!!!
evans would be great
agree. good plan
Piggy:
Don’t count out Clay’s return just yet
BTW, if we don’t match Boulder, I’m 100% on board with your thought of shoring up the OL next. I think WR is deep in the draft, so it might be best to spend some of the current cap space on an OL as our next FA step.
This also jives with Rhino above.
Piggy, I feel like my long winded posts get skipped, but I addressed the 24M in my post above. I don’t think the cap hit will be 12/year for the first 2 years. Some of that will be prorated across all 5 years.
Tannenbaum and Aponte know how this works. It’s their specialty. I scoff at this idea that we don’t know what we’re doing.
We land Suh and somehow his contract is absurd for a defensive player though only a bit higher than Watts, Williams and McCoy. It always goes up. LOL
Suh is a prime age player and the most dominant DT in the game. If the Pats signed him it would have been a masterful option for losing Revis and Wilfork.. LOL
Yup. The other funny thing is that before the Fins signed him, the contract value, and rough structure (guaranteed vs. non gtd) was already being speculated about by the media and they were right in the ballpark of what it ended up being. LOL!
I swee your post now
I guess we have to see what the hit is
piggy,
sorry i just don’t believe there is this national conspiracy against the phins in the media. Winning teams are treated differently than losing teams.
Phenomenon doesn’t mean conspiracy.
it doesn;t have to be the belief in conspiracy that is an issue
I’m not suggestign there is a conspiracy
I just would rather use my judgment of a tranaction
rather than looking at past results
Likewise I would not assume a transaction is a good one b/c its my team that made it
I don;’t care about perception when it comes to my own judgment of whether I think we should have doen something or not
and I would not use prior success to escape criticsm or jurstofy praise
8-8 isn’t a losing team. Just middle of the road, man.
Either way I wish Clay the best!
Ditto! He’s a good dude, part of the reason I was a fan.
You’re killin’ me Pig, this guy Heeney sucks, he makes all of his tackles 30 yrds downfield, then puffs his chest out like he did something. The first 2 minutes of the 4 minute highlight shows a fumble over and over 40 yrds downfield that he didn’t even force.
LMAO. I think this was Heeney’s worst game. Was constantly blocked until the final 2 minutes. He’s a hell of a LB when it’s a simplistic straight forward offense, but once motion of any type is added to an offense he hesitates enough to let an OL block him. That’s why I said he can be a top 5 special teams player and a developmental WLB….but I don’t see a true MLB.
Its a crappy clip
But I would encoruage you to skip the first 2 mins and watch some of his other clips
I don’t get the Clay offer, the tag we put on him was for $7.071 million, the Bills average per yr is $7.6 million, so we won’t match at half a million more? I know there’s guaranteed money, but so what, it’s not like the guarantee was for $40 mil.
Did we expect someone to sign him to an offer sheet of $7.072?
And if we weren’t going to match such a small increase why even bother with the tag?
You’re assuming it was a given the price per year would be more than 7M. I think most looking at the deal, even including Mando, thought a long term deal would be around that, maybe a hair less.
None of what we’ve said takes into consideration structure either. If the hit is too big in year 2, the fins will simply not be able to match it and still resign Tannehill and still pay Suh. I think as it stands, they might be restructuring Suh as early as next season to fit Tannehill’s contract under the cap.
I didn’t invent that last idea btw..I saw an article where it was speculated.
That’s a one year deal. I think if the fins were going to offer him long term security, the annual dollar amount would have been less than the tag amount.
Also, 7M guaranteed vs. 20+ (we don’t know, it has only been reported, and those propagating the reports seem to be in the dark) is a stark difference in the contracts.
We set his base and wanted to see if other teams thought the same or more. One year at $7+M is an easy deal. We paid Soliai $9+M in 2011 and Starks $12M in 2012 with the franchise tag, or something like that. Then re-signed them both to 2 year deals and moved on since.
I will say that I don’t think Clay is worth 7.6 per year at any point of that contract. Injury prone, knee issues, etc. guy is talented, I loved him while he was here but we can easily move on with the guys we do have. Cameron is an upgrade. He’s a cheaper upgrade. Time to move towards our next set of FA goals but I do like the thought of making Buff wait the full 5 days.
Defense:
LDE Wake
LDT Suh
RDT Mitchell
RDE Vernon
SOLB?
MLB Misi
WOLB Jenkins
LCB Grimes
S Jones
S?
RCB?
? doesn’t mean we have nobody to play those positions, just that it’s not set in stone.
I’d take that Heeney with our 9th rounder… 😙
I know you meant 4th right?
😉
Offense:
LT Albert (season ending injury concerns)
LG ? Turner/Thomas
C Pouncey
RG ? Turner/Thomas
RT James
QB Tannehill
RB Miller
TE Cameron
TE Sims
WR Landry
WR Stills
WR Matthews
? doesn’t mean we have nobody to play those positions, just that it’s not set in stone.
If we lose Clay, I would trade up for *Amari Cooper who I have a gut feeling is going to be an impact player as a rookie and for years to come. He may not be the biggest or fastest guy, what is he 6-1 210 or something and runs in the 4.4s. I think he makes our offense legit.
Offense:
LT Albert (season ending injury concerns)
LG ? Turner/Thomas
C Pouncey
RG ? Turner/Thomas
RT James
QB Tannehill
RB Miller
TE Cameron
TE Sims
WR Landry
WR Stills
*WR Cooper
? doesn’t mean we have nobody to play those positions, just that it’s not set in stone.
I can easily see Landry catching over 100 passes this year. He had 84 as a rookie and though his YPCA was low at 9.0, he’s the key part to Lazor’s ball control offense along with the running game.
Stills and Cooper make the big plays along with Cameron and Sims from time to time. That’s where I think we’re headed.
We expect Suh and Wake to wreck games. I know some here feel Wake is at the end. I think we can preserve a player like him if we minimize his reps.
That’s when Vernon, Jordan, McCain and Fede step in.
Wake doesn’t have the Kobe miles on him, since he didn’t play much early. I still see 3 more top yrs left at least.
My rosters are so heavy no one knows what to do! LOL
Abramson has it right.
————-
“Clay signed an offer sheet Tuesday with Buffalo worth $38 million over five years with $20 million guaranteed, according to the Buffalo News.
It’s an enormous offer for a player who months ago was considered a $5 million-a-year player.”
To me Clay is a novelty, he doesn’t seem to do much when the focus of the D is on him.
I’ve been thinking what a big mistake it would be to not get a top flight MLB to go along with Suh, they would both feed off of each other and you’d get the most out of both. To win in the SB you have to be great at something.
Misi without a high ankle sprain might be an upgrade at MLB bhind Suh. 🙂
I think a healthy Misi is overlooked. I know… but he can he stay healthy? I think Plan B is Jordan Tripp.
We have Jenkins as a WOLB and nickel.
I still think Jordan and McCain will hybrid at OLB, but not be staples.
Teams play nickel/dime 65% of the time at the least. I think pass rush and DB depth is more important than LB.
Think about a more athletic Zach Thomas, that’s a little bigger behind Suh, that’s what I’m talking about. If we could only get our hands on the BC MLB of the Panthers. I can’t remember names for shit in the offseason.
In case anyone worried, my wife and I made it home safely from another St Patrick’s Day celebration. I skimmed through the emails and saw some things that are sad and disturing, not including Clay’s status. Ah, well. I guess you never really “know” people, and even less about those on a blog.
Disturing= disturbing
Hello Jermaine Gresham
Hi there Stefen Wisniewski
Howdy Mason Foster