The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Byron Jones, I guess

I was going to give it to X, but his bending his body in Baltimore, as I in my amazing insight and knowledge predicted, led to Miami making the playoffs.

Easily Byron Jones.

Lot of good candidates this year with Austin Jackson and Jason Sanders, but Byron Jones is the way to go. He literally quit on the team.

Jason Sanders and whatever the name of our DC is

Byron Jones is not only the biggest hame of the year but he is the biggest disappointment we have ever had. Second highest paid player on defense and he didn't play a snap. Hell ... he never even practiced.  Honestly ... has anything like that ever happened?  Every single dollar was a waste and the worst part is we were counting on him. Had we known we could have made a move to replace him.

^^^ Hopefully this is a lesson to STOP giving these huge signing bonuses to players, when the "bonus" is actually salary.  Teams should get back to paying normal salaries and normal signing bonuses, except in some rare instances.  They create these huge dead cap numbers so you can't just cut the guy; and it gives players like Jones the means to sit out the entire season with a fantom injury and collect a paycheck.

Personally I'd like to see all contracts guaranteed, and if a player is cut his salary doesn't count against the teams' salary cap.

Teddy Bridgewater.

He was brought in as an insurance policy for a QB we feared could have some injury issues (to say nothing of the possibility of being benched) and he turned in a Ray Lucas-level performance.

Teddy brought absolutely zero value to the team.  He was a wasted roster spot.

Another fantastic candidate. He was worse than Ray Lucas because at least Ray Lucas stayed on the field. Teddy was terrible AND kept getting hurt.

I think that Jones is the only answer, but he's such a special case.

I want to bring Mike Gesicki into the honorable mention category.

Something about him has rubbed me the wrong way this year.  I get that we don't use him in a way that best maximizes his skill set, so I'm prepared to grade on a curve.  But even then, he never seemed to improve or try to fit in at all in a blocking scenario.  And he dropped a lot of balls this year in key situations, even when we did target him.

But worse than all of that, he said some "at least they're using you right" bullshit in mic'd up segments with other players.  I got no time for that no-teamwork nonsense, especially when your production has dropped off.

I am going to change my vote to Mark Ingram. 

There are a couple reasons I didn't pick Jones.

1) Injury is injury.  We can talk a bunch of trash about Byron Jones or Will Fuller sitting, but we've also seen an injured X going out there and getting torched weekly.
2) Kohou has played as well as we would have expected from Jones anyway!  If Jones is playing injured and Kohou can't get off the bench, is the team really any better?

I think the thought process is that Jones' issue is something in addition to injury -- he was quiet quitting in some fashion.

A lot of people said the same thing about Fuller last year, though.  And the general vibe is that it would be preferable for an injured player to "tough it out" and get on the field, but I don't know that an injured Jones would have been better than what we got from Kohou.

I don't think any of us buy it that he was hurt to start the season, let alone miss the whole year. Same as Fuller last year, finger injuries don't last 4 months. For that reason, we hate him. If he was just genuinely hurt, that's disappointing but understandable.

Jones playing would've allowed X to miss a few games and fully heal, as hamstring injuries are tricky and if they aren't 100%, they are always a problem. What would've happened this seaosn with a healthy Xavien? Hard to say, but Jones and the other injuries stopped that from happening.

Jones was supposed to be back for camp and then the start of the season. Doctors miss by a week or maybe two. They don't miss by 4 months to injuries that they see every freaking day. Jones is a bum and I think the coaches would tell you that if they could. I know Sam Madison would.

+1

If he missed even half the season because of the injury nagging him I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but every one knows he just quit.

D4L and Dolfanlyst

That doesn't count.

No surprise, mine goes to Byron Jones.

Special mention to Stephen Ross who managed to lose us our remaining first round draft pick with his incompetent sneakiness.

I can't fault the guy. He wants to win and do it now probably more than anyone. He has had an open wallet for this team since he got here and typically stays out of things. Overall he is a really good owner.

I have to disagree.  I don't hate Ross overall, but the best thing he can do is stay out of the way.  He's been on the right side of some issues, but has also overseen some bullshit.

And you just can't have an owner meddling to the point where we lose first round picks.  That's crazyness.

I agree.  Notably, the entire dynamic behind the stadium upgrade was incredibly unusual.  I think these days, most owners would have moved the team without public money for a stadium rebuild, but Ross paid for the upgrades with private money.

The only difference in what Ross did vs most other owners is that he had Brian Flores involved. Otherwise none of us would have ever known.

I get that this may be true, but it's Ross' responsibility to sniff that out.  If you are picking an accomplice in sketchy behavior, you gotta know your man is on board before you start pulling the strings.  From the stories we got, he railroaded Flores and Flores wasn't having it.

It's a strange situation the more I think about it. We franchise the guy after not being able to come to terms on a long term deal. Fine I get that, although maybe the discussions as to if he was really a slot receiver or TE (and paid as such) began this spiral?

After the new Coach arrives, we say he's got to work on his blocking - in our scheme where there is a distinct lack of blocking by the TE and RB position?

He got less targets during the year. He's dropped balls that he never used to - up until this year he had probably the stickiest hands in the team, and could seemingly catch anything regardless of the thrower's accuracy or how close he was covered. That's changed in a hurry.

Something has been off all season, and it's not a happy situation for all parties - the obvious likelihood now is a split, for which we will get little to nothing in return. How much of this comes down to the drawn out contract talks? How much is the role expectations and lack of targets? How much is the new coach and new game plan?

If Jones retires I’ll have some sympathy. I can get giving up on this game when your body is on the line , maybe he was hurt I can’t say.

Generally speaking though and from the buzz coming from the team, he could have played and that’s different.

I still feel bad for how I treated Ricky Williams as a kid so I’m showing some caution but if he goes to another team and plays then it his on him and he really hurt us. If you’re gonna do this for a living then do it. If he was out there maybe a few close games go out way and the narrative on our season changes.

From what I've read an Achilles tear is a really hard injury to come back from, especially at a position that relies on quick twitch muscles and change of direction as much as a CB does.

Even if the doctors thought he would be ready, there's the mental aspect of being able to come back from an injury. Nobody wants to re-injure themselves and go through another 8-12 months of rehab after another surgery. It's possible that physically he was fit, but mentally he was not.

Rumors coming out that they are trending on keeping Jones so we will see. Hopefully he reworks his contract.

How can he earn back the trust of his teammates after what he did? Unless he is remorseful and restructures to close to the geteran minimum, let him walk.

And yes, I 100% believe he purposely sat out the whole year for whatever reason he had, it was not injury related. I believe his teammates feel the same way.

Wow.  I'm incredibly surprised by this.

If this is being reported correctly, then I think we all have to re-evaluate our read on this situation.  If what we are accusing this guy of is true, the Dolphins wouldn't be trying to keep him on the team.

They have until June 1st to decide anything so it may take a while before we hear anything "official".

Never say never in the sports world, but if true then the team should feel ashamed for how they handled it. Everything they said and didn't say led everyone to believe he was just sitting out. They never came out and said "He's had a very rough recovery and he can't play until fully healed. He is trying his best, he is not sitting out and we hope he will be back."

That's why I think this is just a rumor, I don't feel there is any truth towards it.

^ I'm not sure I agree.

I never got anything from the team at any level that suggested that was sitting out.  Their company line was that he was working hard but it just wasn't happening yet.  I always assumed that was spin / they didn't want to air dirty laundry as a distraction.

All of the speculation that he was quitting on the team came from forums / twitter / football "insiders", in terms of what I saw.

McDaniel gave a lot of non-answers towards the 2nd half of the year and was obviously annoyed by the whole situation, at least that's how I read it.

But like I said, when you have articles and all of social media saying someone quit on the team due to an injury that was supposed to be healed in Week 1, you should come right out and deny all of that and say it's 100% medical related. It's not always what you say, but what you don't say.

^ That's a fair criticism.

I never took it that way, but I see what you mean.

For what it’s worth im with you and think your take here will be the right one and he doesn’t coke back.

But..maybe Miami does want him back and whatever was wrong was just shielded from us. If they can work something out I’d be for it, so I hope it’s true.

If they can somehow mend fences and the reason for his absence is legit, Byron on say an $8 Million a year contract would be a nice thing to have. The rookie filled in admirably but you can't have enough depth in this league.

With his age and missing a whole year for an injury that had him scheduled to play in Week 1, I think he knows his big money days are over. No one is going to give him more than $10 Million a year after this season so maybe he stays where he is comfortable. We'll see how this soap opera plays out.

Sam Madison calling him out was a pretty big deal - considering his deep connections within the team, and I would assume the medical staff.

It's not just a few of us here that came to that conclusion - if you check out the Phinsider forum they had a poll on who should be gone this offseason, and virtually all of them had Byron Jones in their list (and most of those at the very top). A lot of people think he flat out quit - and the team hasn't really done much until now to quell this.  

I forgot about Madison, but that does back up what we all say about him. It's hard to win back your teammates trust if you sat out healthy for a whole year, especially when they desperately needed you due to injuries.

We'll see soon enough, but if he is a post June 1st cut, we will know about it well before that date.

That's kinda what I'm saying.  Sam Madison is a radio personality who has to make takes to stay relevant as a guest.  He's not addressing this from a team capacity.  He might be picking up on their frustration, but I've never heard anything from a team source.

Wasn't Madison a coach of some sorts or an advisor with Miami this year?

Huh?? He is the cornerbacks coach and pass game specialist for the Dolphins. He had Patrick Surtain on staff as an assistant too but he left after the season to work for FSU.

^ I didn't know he worked with the team as a coach.  My bad.

I thought he was showing up on these shows as a former player to give some insight.

If he's a coach or has inside team knowledge, then his comments are much more meaningful.

IMO any talk of Jones being on the team next year is PURE SPIN to try and unload him on another team and get rid of his contract.  He can be 100% ready to play, like he has been for the last several months, but the team and staff do not want him on their team anymore.  He did what everyone thinks he did and now Miami just wants to get back their cap space he is taking up.

At best he is going for a 7th rounder but I'll take it as long as that makes more sense for our cap than cutting him post June 1st. I will never understand NFL salary rules so I always have to rely on news outlets for explanations.

No one does. hahahaha That's why each team has high paid specialists whose job is to undertand it. Remember ...  it wasn't that long ago that Dawn Aponte went from that postition for us to Chief Administrator of Football Operations for the NFL