Listen up. I’m making my annual foray into fantasy by solving the Miami Dolphins offseason again in 10 simple steps.
Forget I said two years ago to keep the young offensive line intact and watch it develop. Remember I said to replace as many as possible last year.
Forget I said to chase quarterback Nick Foles in 2019. Remember I said to get Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson in previous years.
The easy groundwork has been done this offseason with the Dolphins creating cap space, writing big checks and making players happy. That’s the easy part. Now comes the harder decisions what to do with that cap space and how to improve this team. Let’s go:
1. Let Vic Fangio pick two inside linebackers. People ask if the Dolphins will land a whale in free agency. They already have. Fangio is a star. Change is coming, too. The Dolphins were a 4-3, big blitzing and big press-coverage defense the past four years. Fangio’s 3-4 system doesn’t blitz much and plays more zone than man-to-man. What’s needed? A couple of inside linebackers for starters. He had stars like Patrick Willis in San Francisco and Roquan Smith in Chicago. Smaller names like Josey Jewell and Alexander Johnson were his inside linebackers in Denver. But consider: Jewell ranked fifth and Johnson ninth among linebackers, according to Pro Football Focus, when Denver had the third-best scoring defense in 2021. Free agency is full of relatively inexpensive linebackers. Cincinnati’s Germaine Pratt and the Los Angeles Chargers’ Drue Tanquill fit that bill. But Fangio knows what he wants. Let him pick them.
2. Buy a right tackle to compete and the best swing tackle available. Tua Tagovailoa’s concussion concerns add to the consequence of this decision. You can hope right tackle Austin Jackson improves a lot. You can’t trust it. You can hope star left tackle Terron Armstead plays more than the two-thirds of the snaps of last year. You can’t trust he will considering he’s missed more snaps in four of the previous seven seasons. The easy out is saying to buy San Francisco’s Mike McGlinchey or Atlanta’s Kaley McGary for $16 million a year. But even fantasy money has limits. An NFL scout pointed to low-paid veterans who grade out well like Las Vegas’s Jermaine Eleumunor or Arizona’s Kevin Beacham. Eleumunor also has been a career swing …read more
Source:: The Mercury News