The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25749961/miami-dolphins-considering-rebuild-eye-heralded-qbs-2020-draft-class

Looks like we are finally going to do it and just tank in 2019 with the hopes of getting a Top 5 pick. Depending on how things fall and trades are made, I wouldn't be comfortable with anything but a Top 2 pick but at least we are acknowledging that we are trash and need to start from scratch.

Trade Howard for whatever we can get for him, he misses any more games with knee problems and his value plummets. Use every goddamn pick on line help, both of them. I will gleefully watch them go 1-15 again if it means no more mediocrity that goes nowhere.

I'm very glad you aren't our GM

Tank for Tua doesn’t have quite the same ring as suck for luck

So Shefter, with his usual flair for writing fiction gives zero quotes from the Dolphins that say anything at all about tanking and he tells us that tanking is what the Dolphins are "thinking".   So in addition to being a top notch fiction writer, he is also a mind reader who can tell what the Dolphins are thinking.  #fakenews

I don't understand why people are so anxious to trade away good players.  The Rams went from absolute garbage - one of the worst teams in the league - to a solid team in one year by adding a new coach, and had the best record in the league one year later.  The Chiefs were similarly putrid, hired Andy Reid & traded for Alex Smith, and started the following season 9-0 on the way to a division title.

If your goal is a multi-year rebuilding process, please name the last team that traded away their best players to intentionally get worse/stockpile picks, and actually parlayed that into future success under the same coach.

If you are looking for one year rebound examples, I vaguely recall that there was one team that went 1-15 and then the next year won their division. I think that was the 10 win improvement is the league record for best single season improvement.

Yes, but it's not like Miami traded away Jason Taylor and Ronnie Brown in 2006 to intentionally get worse for 2007.  That is the strategy people are advocating today.

hahaha ... now you're getting it. I've been saying that since Gase was let go. Originally when the powers that be (and they include Marino and Nat Moore) convinced Ross that this was the way to go ... Gase was going to be involved. Unfortunately Gase didn't want to be part of a rebuild and was let go.  Otherwise ... he'd still be here. The win now mode is no more. They are building a team for the future ... although they can't really say that publicly.

Yes, the issue is we are "too good" to get the #1 overall pick without trading away some talent for picks. Even if we started Fales and kept the current roster, we are probably looking at 5 wins or so. I would trade Howard for a 2020 1st Rounder, that way if we somehow still only pick 6th, we can trade up for a QB.

Whatever cuts we make should have the blunt of cap hits and dead money for 2019, let 2020 be clear so we can hopefully be smart in free agency. Been saying this for decades now, no more 7-9 shit. 7-9 just means the same thing next year, only 2-14 gets you dramatic swings.

I think there is a subtle but important distinction between tanking and building for the future in mind.  In the former you are purposely sabotaging your own team, in the latter you are focused on the future without concern for the impact on the present.  The latter is okay, the former is not. 

And if you are going to cut/trade players to improve cap space, it should be pre-June 1.  Do more damage to the current cap situation to improve next years...adding dead money to 2020 is not building for the future.

I don’t really think they are tanking per se but the moves they will be making won’t make us contenders anytime soon. As so ... we probably will lose some good players but only to make our roster better overall down the road. We paid Jones a lot of money and will be expected to do the same with Howard. We can probably pick up some good picks and save ourselves some money in the process

Jimmy Johnson - Dallas Cowboys '89

Maybe Miami should be looking at Dabo Swinney as head coach? What, he already has a job? Well when Jimmy did it in Dallas, I remember that Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys, kicked the coach to the curb and brought in Jimmy who I believe still had a job with Miami Hurricanes at the time. Who can buy the Dolphins that's friends with Dabo? :)

Course we will need someone to play the part of the Vikings and give us a boat load of players/picks for our best player. Who would that be? Can't think of anyone that's gonna give us a boat load of players for anyone on the Dolphins.

I think Tua's going to be a BUST in the NFL.  There, I said it!

Then Miami should try hiring Jimmy Johnson, and let him perform his magic.  That's certain to work!

Absolutely not... He's one of the main reasons this franchise has been in a 20+ year decline.   DISLIKE BUTTON X1000000000000000000000

I think spider was being sarcastic. At least I hope he was.

Yes.
Miami already tried hiring the only coach that's ever made that plan work.  And he was not successful.

The question is, why?   Why couldn't he succeed in Miami like he did in Dallas?

Isn't this the whole truth. I'll admit I was on this train from the station when they hired JJ

He may have put together a great defense, along with HOF'er Jason Taylor and soon to be Zach Thomas (crosses fingers), he completely dismantled that offense and ruined Marino in the twilight of his career

Guy still living off that Herschel Walker trade

We were very competitive long after Jimmy left. Other than him leaving before he won anything I really don't get the hate for Jimmy. OK ... The Wanny gift sucked pretty badly but that was on ownership as well.

Jimmy should have given it another couple of years, that team was stacked.

Because it wasn't the same situation and because he caught lightning in a bottle in Dallas. I think him just coming from coaching the University of Miami and them being a national contender really helped him in the draft. He was familiar with a lot of the college players and did a great job in the draft thanks in part to the Vikings and their love affair with an overrated Herschel Walker although to be fair at the time most people lauded the trade (I was not one of them). Things just worked out perfectly for him in Dallas and that's tough to repeat. I also think that after that run Jimmy was worn out a bit and was ready to retire soon after getting to Miami and realizing that it wasn't going to be easy to just repeat what he had done in Dallas.

Am I overreaching to say that the Dolphins are in the mess that they're in now because of JJ and Wanny? Isn't that one-two punch of JJ and Wanny the genesis of all of the Dolphins' woes?

Wanny YES, JJ no.  JJ just wanted out of coaching, he didn't hurt the Dolphins (unless you want to count him saddling the Dolphins with Wanny).

Yeah you are over reaching.  At most a good or bad decision will affect a team for 4 or 5 years, often much less.  The impact of a bad decision only lasts until you can cut the guy and clear the dead money.  The impact of drafting a pro bowler in the 5th round becomes trivial once you need to sign his second contract and pay him fair market value.

Actually, I would like to issue a correction.

At no point did JJ tank DAL in the hopes of improving draft position.  He inherited the #1 pick (Aikman) who started during JJ's first season of 1-15, and every year from there out, JJ's Cowboys got better or won the title.  In fact, DAL didn't even get the #1 overall pick after finishing 1-15, because they drafted Steve Walsh in the first round of the supplemental draft the year before (in the same draft they got Aikman).

No but he did trade away Dallas' best player to stockpile picks which was part of your initial question.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with trading away a player to get a bunch of picks.  The key part is intentionally trying to get worse, something that JJ never did.  And I submit that intentionally trying to get worse has never worked in the NFL, especially not over the long term.

So you're saying that if Miami trades away Xavian Howard and Minkah Fitzpatrick for draft picks, goes say 2-14 next year and the following year drafts Tua with the first pick in the draft there's nothing inherently wrong with that as long as they werent intentionally trying to get worse.  ;)

Well, yes.  The thread specifically references tanking for Tua, right?

Not too long ago, MIA traded away their best WR (Chambers), their best DE (JT), their best WR again (Marshall), and their best CB (Vontae). None of those were an attempt to tank, and neither was the Walker trade in DAL (because DAL didn't even have a first round pick).

There's a huge difference between trying to tank and trying to get picks for a player that's not in your long term plans.

^^^  I think what the Raiders did this year was specifically tanking.  It somewhat backfired because the two teams they traded players to did exceptionally better, and therefore the picks they received in return will not be as valuable as expected.  With this type of plan you have to be very confident that your GM & staff are very good at evaluating draft picks and making the right picks, not just a QB.  For Miami to trade away Howard and or Fitzpatrick they would have to receive 1st round picks plus additional pick(s) in later rounds for each player.  Then to complete the process they would have to draft players as good or better than Howard/Fitzpatrick in a later year, plus hit on the picks they normally have.  The result would be a younger, better, team with lower salaries going forward.  It's a very risky strategy.

I don't see what the Raiders did nor what we are doing as tanking. Gruden is building his team the way he wants it and is doing it for future results. He now has 5 first round picks in the next two years.

I think Miami is in a similar boat as far as their philosophy.  If they trade anyone it will be because they think it helps the team down the road and not because it makes them a worse team. Tanking also insinuates the team is telling players to lose so they can pick a player that may replace them .... and that will never happen.

No there's not. What if you do it knowing full well that you'll probably tank since you've traded away all your talent. You still intentionally made decisions that led to your team tanking. We're talking semantics here.

The goal of "tanking" is to get a better pick, which means that if management gets rid of their best players and the team has the same record as before, they would be disappointed in the outcome (as getting worse was the goal).

To my knowledge, tanking has never successfully worked (edit: in the sense of the tank-achieved pick leading to long-term success) in NFL history.

The problem with the concept of "tanking" is that it is conceivable that ownership and upper management would want the team to tank.  However, players know that their careers are based on their performance.  Even if you stock the team with subpar players, those players want to play in the NFL for as long as possible to make as much money as possible.  Therefore, they are going to play to the best of their abilities.  If they aren't good enough to win games, that is one thing.  But the idea of tanking means losing on purpose.  Why would NFL players lose on purpose to accomplish an ownership goal, knowing that they are limiting their own potential to make money?   Ownership may fill the roster with subpar players in order to tank, but players aren't going to "tank".   

Agreed, which is why it is hard to tank with a new head coach. Players are motivated to do their best for the new guy and think it is a fresh start. Tnaking would be best for a lame duck coach.

Unless we trade away anyone who has talent, I "fear" we are looking at a 5 win season and that just won't cut it for a Top 3 pick.

We have few stars and since RT is on his way out .... no decent QB.  I don't think it would take too much to see us at the bottom of the list.
 

But a coach could tank.  Put the wrong personal on the field, call plays with almost no chance of sucess. 

If an owner was to tell a coach I want the first pick in next years draft or your fired anybody could pull that trick off even if you had a playoff caliber team.  The Colts may have tanked for Andrew Luck rather than fight and claw for a 6 to 9 win season.

Agreed.  I think members on this site just have a different definition of tanking.  For me what the Raiders did was tanking, by trading away two of their best players for future draft picks, which greatly reduced their chances of winning games.  By these actions the Raiders players knew that the management didn't care much about winning now, and thereby give less than a 100% effort whether intentionally or not.  The players take their cues from the coaches and management.

 For others on here it doesn't qualify as tanking unless the coach makes an announcement in the locker room before the game and says "Let's go out and lose one for owner!!"

I guess a coach could possibly tank.  For one year.  Because after that first year, nobody is going to put their body on the line to play for him and the fans/media will run that coach out of town for losing on purpose and no other team is ever going to hire a coach who lost on purpose.  And any coach who would lose on purpose would be such a incredible scumbag that he would make Saban look like a saint (not a New Orleans one). 

Tell that to 76ers fans, who have a loving memory of their GM whose explicitly stated intention was to have a terrible record and get top picks.  It's just that in the NFL, no one has any confidence that The Process would work (because it never has).

No coach would "lose on purpose."  They would "play younger draftees so the team can evaluate whether they are going to give them a new contract," etc.

The difference is, in the NBA, a team who tanks is not guaranteed the first pick.   The team with the worst record can pick no worse than 4th, but that lottery is in effect so they could very well end up getting the 4th pick.   Maybe the NFL should do the same thing. 

I think it is hard to compare basketball to football though because in basketball, you have 5 starters.  In football, you have 22.  "Tanking" makes a lot more sense in basketball because a top 5 draft pick can improve your team exponentially more than a top 5 draft pick can in football.   In fact, even though I hate the concept of tanking because I believe in integrity, but a good argument can be made for doing it in basketball.

Your comment about a coach phrasing it as playing younger draftees so the team can evaluate them is reasonable. But he would have to not make it terribly obvious.  I guess that is just a tough one for me because having spent two years playing professional sports (a million years ago), the whole concept of tanking just doesn't sit well with me at all.  But I get what you are saying.

It actually wouldn’t be that hard.  If you are in a situation where you would even consider tanking odds are you are gonna lose most of your games anyway.  The difference between going 5-11 vs going 2-14 can be done in literally 3 badly designed plays.  Going 0-16 would be harder, but I am assuming any team weak enough to consider tanking is going to be up by two scores late in the fourth at most in two games.  Really wouldn’t be hard to tank in the NFL and just have it attributed to bad decision making.

Right. It would actually be really, really simple. Much of the narrow delta between winning and losing comes down to the quarterback. Even a very good rookie quarterback can have challenges winning...Peyton Manning had 3 wins his first season. Troy Aikman has 1.

All Miami needs to do is roll with a less highly rated rookie quarterback next year. Basically Luke Falk. Or spend a 7th round draft choice on Malik Rozier, and flipflop between Falk and Rozier in 2019.

Bottom line, 2019 should be about fortifying the offensive line, so that when Miami is in a position to draft their quarterback of the future he is reasonably protected.

Yeah, I guess you are right.  I think I'm probably just having a hard time personally differentiating between "could you do it" and "should you do it".    But I get what you are saying. 

I am not a fan of tanking.  I am okay with placing a higher priority on future success than present success.  I am okay with trading a great player on the last year of his contract that will be cost prohibitive to tag for a rookie that won't help you that much this year but has the potential to help you a lot over the next few season.  I am okay with trading this years 3rd round pick for next year's 2nd round pick.  And I am okay with playing younger players to get them experience.  For me you cross the line into tanking when your motivation becomes how do we improve our draft spot.