The Miami Dolphins’ saga with quarterback Josh Rosen has come to a close. The former top-10 overall selection is now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after clearing waivers and signing on the team’s practice squad, giving him three teams in three seasons. Perhaps the chance to learn behind Tom Brady will prove to be the difference for Rosen. But even if it does, it won’t help the Dolphins’ chances of feeling better about the sunk cost that is involved on their end of this gamble.
The Dolphins, after trading back from 48 overall to 62 overall in 2019, traded that 62nd-overall pick to Arizona for the chance to roll the dice on Rosen and, now that they’ve cut him, the team is obligated to account for nearly $5M in dead cap this season after no team claimed him and his existing contract.
Make no mistake: it is a loss for the Dolphins. The team gambled and bet they could coach more out of Rosen than what he had showed in Arizona. He didn’t. There are plenty of perspectives that will view the Rosen experiment and investment as a win — including the fact that Miami doesn’t likely get Tagovailoa without Rosen’s three starts last season. But never the less there will be infinite criticism of this pick because of the nature of the position and the draft pick that was involved. And sure, if Miami knew how the Rosen era would go, they likely don’t bother taking the risk.
So, with all that can be applied to this move for Miami from a positive and negative light, where does the Rosen trade fit among the list of Miami’s all-time worst deals?
It isn’t even a top-3 worst trade of the past decade, let alone an all-time blunder.
The 2016 trade back
The Miami Dolphins and Philadelphia Eagles engineered a trade ahead of the 2016 NFL Draft that the Miami Dolphins would come to regret. The team traded the No. 8 overall pick to the Eagles for the No. 13 pick plus LB Kiko Alonso and CB Byron Maxwell. The Eagles would go on to package the No. 8 pick with multiple other picks to move up and draft Carson Wentz. The Dolphins still landed OT Laremy Tunsil, who gave the team three years of plus play before becoming two additional 1st-round picks and a 2nd-round selection. But the Dolphins gave away prime real estate in a scare quarterback market and didn’t really get anything of value in return.
Alonso played three seasons with Miami before getting bounced from the roster last summer for free-lancing too much for Brian Flores’ liking in training camp. Maxwell played 15 games over two seasons in Miami before he was cut — and the Dolphins paid him $17M over the 2016 and 2017 seasons for his troubles (more than $1M per game).
The cost of this deal in the top-10 of the draft and the financial implications for a competitive Dolphins team that went 10-6 in 2016 while getting replacement level play from Maxwell makes it a tougher pill to swallow than the Rosen gamble.
The Dion Jordan trade
The Miami Dolphins haven’t just made mistakes trading down the board — their most egregious gaffe of the decade (and perhaps in the draft as a franchise) came in 2013 when the team traded up from No. 12 overall to No. 3 in order to draft DE Dion Jordan. The Dolphins moved picks No. 12 and No. 42 to make the jump, a costly decision that was multiplied exponentially by Jordan’s off the field issues and the Dolphins’ ability to place him anywhere on the field that could properly showcase his abilities. Add in a signing bonus of $13.3M for Jordan when he inked his rookie deal and this is an exponentially bigger waste than the Rosen deal.
The biggest kick in the teeth of all? The player that went immediately after Jordan was three-time Pro Bowl and former All-Pro tackle Lane Johnson — who played a position of need for the Dolphins.
The 2010 trade back
Don’t remember this one? We didn’t expect you would. The Dolphins were scheduled to pick No. 12 in 2010 but instead opted to trade into the late 20s after striking a deal with the (then) San Diego Chargers. The Chargers sent their 1st-round pick, 2nd-round pick and 4th-round pick to the Dolphins for the No. 12 pick, which they then used to draft RB Ryan Mathews.
That isn’t the loss for the Dolphins. Instead, Miami’s loss in this deal comes with who was still on the board for the team at the time of the trade: namely free safety prospect Earl Thomas. Thomas would go 2 picks later after the Seahawks traded up with the Denver Broncos. Miami would start Chris Clemons at free safety that year and the Dolphins would invest their picks in the trade back with the Chargers on DL Jared Odrick and LB Koa Misi.
We’ll try not to mention that TE Rob Gronkowski went two picks after the Dolphins drafted Misi at No. 40 overall in the same draft as the team forged ahead with Anthony Fasano as their lead tight end.
