Finsmob Unleashed

Personnel moves are really coming to a head right now. While the front office is working hard on the upcoming draft as the NFL Combine is in progress, there are two impending free agents that are absolutely huge parts of our team, DL Christian Wilkins and OG Robert Hunt. From what I’ve been hearing on the airwaves, it’s likely that DL Christian Wilkins will be tagged with the NFL Non Exclusive Franchise Tag, which is $22.1M for this season, but also allows other teams to negotiate with the player, and if the player receives an offer from another team, we have the opportunity to match that offer to retain the player. If we don’t/can’t match the offer, we would get two 1st RD picks in return over the next 2 years. So basically, other teams do the negotiations for us, and come up with a contract to pay Christian Wilkins, and then we have the option to match it, or receive the 2 first round picks. Listen, Wilkins is a key part of our defense, we drafted him, groomed him and turned him into a top defensive lineman, and now we need to pay him. We offered him lower contracts last season because he didn’t have the sack numbers, so this past season he finished with 9 sacks, his career high. He didn’t sign a devalued contract and bet on himself and won.

We all know that a big contract extension is in the works for QB Tua Tagovailoa. If this is the case, then you naturally would assume that protecting him is a priority, which then leads us to re-signing OG Robert Hunt. the 6’6 330 2nd RD pick in 2020 played every game over the his first 3 seasons, only to miss nearly 7 games this season. While we shuffled different players all around him due to injuries or poor play, Jones was the one constant. I think he should be the #2 priority of business immediately after DL Christian Wilkins. Hunt is a solid run blocker and pass protector, one of the most consistent guys on our line. We have a 1st RD pick and and a 2nd RD pick, #21 and #55, and boy do we have pressure to hit on those picks. We need players to come in immediately and fill spots. At the moment, the only OL you can realistically pencil in as a starter is RT Austin Jackson. It’s very likely that our first round pick is going to be an offensive lineman. OC/G Jackson Powers-Johnson and OC/G Graham Barton are two guys I’ve seen often going to us. This cap conundrum has us desperate to hit here, we simply can’t miss. Cornerback has to be a priority, but again, we need to protect our QB who will be getting big bucks shortly.

Jalen Ramsey is going to be starting at CB, but that’s what we got right now. Cam Smith, our first pick in the ’23 draft (#51), managed to play only 20 defensive snaps last season (2%). That has to be one of the most disappointing storylines of last season, that with multiple injuries to DB’s, that we couldn’t find a way to get this kid playing time. Fingers have been pointed to two things, grumpy hardass DC Vic Fangio and perhaps some immaturity issues with Cam Smith. New DC Anthony Weaver along with new CB Coach Mathieu Araujo have to find a way to have Cam Smith ready to start and play tons of meaningful snaps in the ’24 season. Xavien Howard has been cut, I thank him for his tenure here, he was a great player for a while here. Now, X will be playing elsewhere, and I don’t believe that fan favorite Kader Kohou is a boundary CB. Is it possible we spend our 2nd RD pick on a CB? I look at our roster and see lots of holes.

Our own Free Agent list is extensive, and of course, this comes at a time when we’re significantly over the cap, down to around $39M over or thereabouts. DL Christian Wilkins, OL Robert Hunt, NT Raekwon Davis, OLB Andrew Van Ginkel, OC Connor Williams, OLB/DE Emmanuel Ogbah, OL Isaiah Wynn, S DeShon Elliott, S Brandon Jones, and DB Nik Needham. There are more, but with the uncertainty at OLB with both Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips injured, who knows if either will be ready to play at the start of the season or even the middle. We know AVG wants to come back, but it’s going to be hard to find the money to keep him. Same goes for safety, because all we have is Jevon Holland back there. I know DeShon Elliott wants to come back, but again, where’s the money? I think it would be in our best interest to find an upgrade to NT Raekwon Davis, but now the cupboard is bare, so DL could be in play with one of our first 2 picks. We know there will be restructures and new contracts issued to get us below the cap and probably some cap space, especially if we do the big Tua contract.

If you missed it, this is my priority list for our Dolphins . . .

#1 – Re-sign DL Christian Wilkins

#2 – Re-sign OL Robert Hunt

#3 – Identify a plug in starter on the OL in the ’24 Draft

#4 – Identify a plug in starter at CB in the ’24 Draft

#5 – Try and re-sign some of our own free agents, like S DeShon Elliott, LB Andrew Van Ginkel, OL Isaiah Wynn, OL Kendall Lamm.

Of course before we do one through 5, the cap guys need to restructure, massage and rework a few contracts in order to get us in the black and out of the red. That has to happen, so we know it will happen. Then we sit back and watch with great interest to see how many players we like we can retain and how many we unfortunately lose. Our owner Stephen Ross is more than happy to pay down whatever he can, which is huge, because paying guaranteed monies lowers the cap, and Stephen Ross NEVER says no.

GO DOLPHINS!!!