Over the past week, the Miami Dolphins have set some sort of NFL record for one-year, minimum-wage contracts. They’re binge shopping for players at Dollar Tree.
If it continues like this — and it did Monday with former Tampa Bay offensive tackle Charlie Heck signing a one-year deal — training camp might need a meter maid for all the players parking by the hour they’re on such a short leash.
It’s not compelling to watch the parade of small to unknown names being signed, day after day. But the Dolphins are finally trying things the way good organizations do. There’s something right, if still incomplete, about what’s at work here.
New general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan has two methods and limited resources to resuscitate this roster. The first is the obvious way, the headlined one of using premium draft picks and free-agent money. The Dolphins have five picks in the first three rounds of this April’s draft. It’s not the New York Jets rebuilding with three first-round picks. But you take what you get.
The Dolphins also don’t have much salary-cap money and just invested two years and $45 million guaranteed on quarterback Malik Willis. That’s what that was in Willis, too: An investment.
The second vein of rebuilding the roster doesn’t involve investing. You can take the 17 other free-agent signings, including Heck, and they might not match the $22.5 million Willis was guaranteed next season (the contract details aren’t completely known yet).
The Dolphins hope is to uncover a Zach Sieler or Kader Kohou to make a career or a Rasul Douglas to remake one. Those are some recent success stories. But the other idea at work is to improve the bottom of the roster and add the secret sauce of competition.
Here’s the idea: What if the Dolphins hit on enough of these minimum-wage players that, coupled with the draft, the grade on the final, 53rd player this season is equal to the grade on the 43rd player last season?
That means you have 10 players on this roster better than last year. This isn’t the stuff that’s easy to see. It’s what separates good management from the past Dolphins decade in the wilderness, though.
Can any of the newly signed four cornerbacks — five, counting holdover Ethan Bonner — push for an open starting job? Miles Battle ranked 44th among cornerbacks last year, via Pro Football Focus. But he only played five games. He’s only played six in his career. You decide what that means other than it’s worth a minimum-wage roll of the dice by the Dolphins.
The Dolphins can’t offer much money. But they’re offering something these players need: Opportunity. Does receiver Jalen Tolbert recreate the 49 catches and seven touchdowns he had in Dallas in 2024? Will edge rusher Josh Uche, 27, get back to the 11.5 sacks he had in 2022 — or the six sacks he’s had since?
All you know is they’ll have the opportunity to do so. You don’t have to pay attention until the dust clears at season’s start. But don’t dismiss what’s at work, too. When Bill Belichick was winning Super Bowls in New England, he said the top third of the roster got the Patriots to the playoffs but the bottom helped carry it to championships.
Before last season, the Dolphins didn’t pay enough attention to pesky details like the bottom of the roster or salary-cap maintenance. You can see that by them not winning anything and the five biggest cap hits this season being for players no longer with them: Tua Tagovailoa ($56.2 million), Bradley Chubb ($31.2M), Tyreek Hill ($28.2M) and Minkah Fitzpatrick ($12.9M).
No one knows if this new Dolphins regime can reverse a quarter-century of such underachievement. They just unpacked in their office. They’re still cleaning up yesterday more than building tomorrow. Come back in a year with that question.
All you know so far is they’re following a blueprint the Dolphins haven’t in years and good organizations do. They liked a quarterback to build with? They went out and got him.
Now they’re filling their shopping cart at Dollar Tree. It’s not much fun to follow. But you need a remedial education in rebuilding if you don’t see why they’re doing it.