We get it. Change is hard. After years of being conditioned to expect the Dolphins to be active players in the big money negotiations of free agency, yesterday was a little weird for us, too. But this is the “new” Miami.
This is how Miami is going to conduct business going forward. Not paying the Trey Flowers’ of the world to 5-year contracts worth north of $17M per season. Not making an average player in Ja’Wuan James the most expensive right tackle in football.
This isn’t to say Flowers and James couldn’t have been helpful players in winning here in Miami, of course they could have. But at an average price tag of $31M combined (technically more in order to out-bid the competition in Detroit and Denver)?
That’s equal to 16.5% of the 2019 salary cap. Here are some veteran player (second contract) pairings for other teams that come cheaper or nearly the same as what Miami passed on locking themselves into yesterday with Flowers/James.
$24M average per year salary: New Orleans – Terron Armstead ($13M average salary) and Cameron Jordan ($11M average salary)
$32.6M average per year salary: Houston – J.J. Watt ($16.6M average salary) and Deandre Hopkins ($16M average salary)
$33M average per year salary: Carolina – Cam Newton ($20.7M average salary) and Luke Kuechly ($12.3M average salary)
$31.3M average per year salary: Cincinnati – Geno Atkins ($16M average salary) and A.J. Green ($15.3M average salary)
How many of those talent duos would you prefer to James and Flowers?
And the list goes on, too. The point is this: even when you account for market inflation, Miami would have grossly overpaid for the services of Ja’Wuan James and Trey Flowers. They could have done it, too.
Older iterations of this team have done exactly that.
And more often than not, they’ve regretted it. Mike Wallace. Ndamukong Suh. New Miami might be “boring”, but at least it indicates the team has a plan that extends beyond throwing money at the wall in hopes that it sticks.
