The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I don't have to explain myself or give reasons.  This is just obvious

He's pissed away several high draft picks and has nothing to show for it

So has every GM we've had for twenty years.

Seems to be a lot of support for this. It certainly doesn't seem like our multiple picks are performing as well as others who only had singular picks.

Not to mention guys they passed on are kicking ass for other teams.   

Grier is fine, but please, cry harder about it.  Wah.

I wouldn't fire him now but if we end the seaosn with 6 wins and our draft picks all suck except for Waddle, then yeah. He has whiffed on a lot of free agent picks and draft picks, wasting the once in a lifetime gift from Bill O'Brien.

I loved the tanking plan but so far it is not looking to be executed well. Still time but I am moving towards pessimism now.

This guy is the singular consistent in the Dolphins organization for the last 21 yrs.

From his website bio:
Chris Grier enters his 22nd season with the Miami Dolphins and sixth as the club's general manager. Grier was appointed general manager on Jan. 4, 2016 after spending the previous nine years as the team's director of college scouting. As of Dec. 31, 2018, he oversees all football operations. Prior to that, Grier oversaw the draft, both college and pro personnel departments and all scouting efforts.

Dude has overseen College scouting, how the fock has that turned during his tenure as scout?  Let's be honest.  Can you name me 8-10 high-performing draft picks that he's been responsible for?

He escaped the Adam Gase debacle by the skin of his teeth and what has he shown for it?  Like someone said earlier in another post, HOU basically gifted us those picks.  And this past Draft, he gets cute with some of our draft capital and wheels and deals with Philly and SF.  SF is gonna have a decent season IMO and probably finish better than us

Dammit. He needs to go.

Is that you, Chris?

How did I not know Grier was with us for 22 years? And 6th as GM? I thought the tank season was his first, was he part of that Co-GM nonsense structure we used to have?

I'm not saying this in defense of Grier, but more as a general comment about football fans.  I would think that a lot of fans of any team not in the top 10 of NFL organizations are probably all saying things like "Get rid of the GM, get rid of the coach" or some other combination of individuals who are thought to be the root of the fans' misery. 

Yes, he was part of the co-GM thing.  Should have been gone when Gase was canned. Should have made a clean break and started over with a clean slate.  

If you have a business, and you're in charge of evaluating the workers, picking the workers, etc and those workers don't perform to the level that is expected, wouldn't you be responsible for that????

He just gets too cute for his own good, thinking everyone is expendable. That trade down for the #3 pick is worse as time goes by, and it's not a good thing to walk away from all of your free agent pickups the following year. It's good to admit you made a mistake and walk away but it's even better to not make that mistake in the first place.

Firing a GM mid-season is pointless unless you are like 2-12, but he should be let go if they don't make the playoffs. Our free agency this offseason was all about depth until Fuller fell into our laps, did not address the need for a pass rusher. Just a lot of missed opportunities.

the Dolphins are only three games into the season, so the "Fire Chris Grier" chant is a bit premature IMO.  I expected some sub par play the first couple games with the new rookies, I didn't expect Tua to get knocked out, or the line to play as awful as it did against Buffalo; but there's a long way to go.  Miami started worse last year and turned it around, and I expect the same this year.  If Miami fails to make the playoffs then it's time for Grier to go.

Look, I'm not trying to get into the whole who's right, who's wrong, etc.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.  But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

They have not addressed, or should I say corrected the OL play.  It's poor at best.  They've drafted guys of course, but they definitely are not coming along to the play we would like to see. 

Chris Grier is responsible for this.  How can you say that he is not?

^ I'm not defending Grier, necessarily, but I think that it's hard to just look at results, in terms of whether guys are good or bad.

Nobody knows which of these players will be good.  There's a general consensus, you draft for needs and try to get as much value for the picks, and hope for the best.

I'm not super upset when we draft guys at positions we need and they don't pan out.  It's when we draft stupid picks that we don't need that really upsets me.

So, yeah, sure -- blame Grier, but I don't think you're necessarily going to get someone in who's better at evaluating the talent out of college.  Everyone is kinda working with the same information and some get lucky.

He bet everything on the past two drafts. We sold the farm to get 9 picks in the top two rounds. Currently no one from round one of year one is making a difference and year two isn't doing too much better. Regardless of the reasons that's where we are at. At this point Waddle might be decent but no one else has shown much.

2020
5   Tua Tagovailoa   QB   Alabama   
18   Austin Jackson   OT   USC   
30   Noah Igbinoghene   CB   Auburn

2021   
6   Jaylen Waddle   WR   Alabama   
18   Jaelan Phillips   DE   Miami (FL)   

Chris Grier doesn't coach the players. This is the problem with blaming GM's solely. They don't coach the players, someone else does that. So you have a GM that picks the player. You have a coach that coaches the player and then you have the player. I'd say at most each is about 1/3 responsible for that players on field performance.

LOL ... by your logic no one will ever get fired because they are only 33..3% responsible for anything. That means they are possibly doing a 66.6% good job.

Not true. If you think the coaching staff is doing a great job then you can certainly blame the player and the GM at that point. So the question is do you think the coaching staff is doing a great job? I don't. I'm not saying that Grier is doing a great job either but I think there's plenty of blame to go around. If 4 out of the 5 lineman were playing great and 1 wasn't, then I think you can say that particular player and whomever drafted him share the blame.

I think we need to remove the 2021 draft from the evaluation since it's only been 3 games and 2 with a backup QB. We can trash his trade down from 3 to 6, but the players need a full year before we say anything.

As far as 2020 goes, anyone in his shoes would've taken Tua so even if he is a bust, I can't fault him for that. Austin Jackson is certainly disappointing this year so far and Noah was a terrible draft pick at the time and looks like an all-time bust right now being a healthy scratch all season. We can judge him negatively for that, although the Jackson case is so bizarre I might put a big chunk of the blame on coaching, O-Linemen just don't regress like he has.

The Noah pick was incredibly dumb on several levels before he even played a down - you already have the most expensive corners in the league and you're drafting another corner in the first round?  But the fact that Noah appears to be terrible makes the bad decision even worse.  If you're not going to draft for need, you damn well better be good at identifying talent.

I don't necessarily disagree with the Dolphins taking a CB in 2020 because I truly believe that in the pass-happy NFL, you can't have enough high quality DBs.  But hardly any of the experts had Noah projected as a first round pick.   Most had him in the second round.  He came out of college with the rep of being a fantastic athlete but raw and without a lot of experience. If Noah was the top CB on the Fins board at the 30th pick of the 1st round, then they should have drafted someone at another position (and they had plenty of other holes to address).  So from that perspective I definitely agree with your comment about "If you're not going to draft for need, you damn well better be good at identifying talent."   I think that is definitely true when it comes to Noah and it is a very insightful comment in general about the draft. 

When you draft for potential as opposed to production, it tends to bite you in the ass more often than not.   Diggs was available and could've been had in the second round.   Meanwhile, there were a plethora of talented running backs available at pick 30 (and also at pick 18 in the 2021 draft).   Grier has failed to address some important positions and failed to get the proper talent in others.

Then why pay him 7 figures? I would expect he would know more than you and I or ESPN talking heads. I would take that position for far less, fire all the scouts and then use Mel Kiper's list ... LOL.

Sometimes a GM is left with a decision that really is a no brianer, like the Jaguars GM this year with taking Lawrence. Of course he was going to take Lawrence, they would've fired him if he didn't. Whether or not it works out is irrelevant, it was the right call.

As far as Tua goes, we needed a franchsie QB and he had the pedigree to be one. The only other decision he could've made was take Herbert but that wouldn't have been very popular and the game tape said go with Tua. That could be a mistake over the next 5 years but it was entirely the right call at the time so I won't shit on him for it.

The Noah pick is 100% his fault, that was a reach, and a waste considering who we had on the roster at the moment. Rebuilding teams can't waste first rounders.

Agree, you can't draft for potential in the first two, or maybe even three, rounds.

 To be fair to Grier Miami has had a ton of holes to fill over the past four years, and you can't fill them all through the draft.  I think he's done a decent job addressing the most needed positions.  You can't blame Grier if Austin Jackson becomes a bust, every team had him as a first round pick, and Miami needed an O-lineman.  I don't recall anyone on here saying it was a terrible pick at the time.  Constantly changing the O-line coaches has a negative effect also, which is a whole other conversation.  Same with Tua.  With the exception of Pappy just about everyone on here was ga ga over drafting Tua, now before he's even played a full season worth of games people think Grier should be fired for drafting him, this is insanity.

In theory, I agree with you about potential vs production.  But when we are talking about making draft selections, nobody has had NFL production.  The football unemployment line is full of kids who had great college production. In fairness to you, the unemployment line is filled with guys who had great potential too.  Someone from lets say a Mountain West Division might dominate production against other Mountain West teams and a guy from a top SEC program doesn't have such eye opening numbers, but he played against far superior competition. The SEC kid is going to be much more prepared to compete at the NFL than the Mountain West kid.    I'm not saying that production shouldn't be part of the evaluation process of course.  But I think that production at the college level is just one of several variables that they have to take into consideration when creating a draft board. 

Diggs is definitely looking good with the Cowboys, but again, hindsight is 20/20.  Coming out of college he had some of the same cons as Noah. He was considered athletic but raw and he had a rep for not getting his head around quick enough to track the ball and he was susceptible to double moves.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think Noah was worthy of a 1st round pick.  I didn't think it when they drafted him.  But they took who they took and took him when they took him.

Although RBs have a short shelf life and are often limited by the quality of the O Line they play behind, I do agree with you that the Dolphins should have made RB more of a priority both in 2020 and in 2021 drafts. 

You jest, but in terms of picking players, I think you're exactly correct.  If you just drafted the best guy on the big board on ESPN for positions of need, you'd be just a good a GM as anyone else.  I think it's the other parts of their job, like staffing and contracts and whatever else that really earns their money.

I can't complain about the RB draft in 2021.   At 18, none of the top RBs had come off the board.  MIA was on track to get Williams, but DEN traded up; if MIA had traded up to get Williams earlier, I would not have been happy.  It is what it is.

The Dolphins ended up with Safety Jevon Holland too and he is doing very well so far.

Our RBs have done an admirable job for the most part, especially last week. No reason to waste a high pick on an RB when half the time they are tackled behind the line of scrimmage anyway. It's the O-Line and QB play hurting the running game, not the lack of RB talent.

Don't we have someone else who is our bean counter for contracts? I know we used to have someone that did that. Seems like that used to be Dawn Aponte's role.

I agree 100% with that. 

One of my neighbors who's one of those not a sports fan, but will live and die by the local sports teams, has recently told me that she went to Highschool with Chris Grier. She went on and on about what a great guy he is, and how proud she is of him etc... I just nodded and smiled. Threw in a "that's cool" here and there.

Kind of awkward huh? hahaha

Since I'm about 30 minutes or so from Gillette Stadium I truly am behind enemy lines, and she made a point about how the Patsies are right in my backyard.  Conversation started out like I still can't believe you're a Dolphins fan. They're so awful, but Chris will make them better. I was like, I have to tell TDMMC about this.