Starting this a little early but this is a topic I've been thinking about the past few days and felt it deserved some discussion , especially with another trade happening last night. 

As a fan are you okay with how the Dolphins are handling this season? I know from a football standpoint it makes sense and I actually used to do this very thing in Madden back in the day - take over a bad franchise - trade everyone with value for draft picks and start from there in franchise mode. It was fun. There were no consequences in that though and it's a game. 

This is real life , real people with real jobs and coaches who are potentially ruining their only shot at this gig. Players who want to mutiny and most importantly - fans who have to , or already have paid to see this garbage. 

I think it's a little disgraceful to the game. I get knowing you aren't going anywhere and not necessarily trying to win a bunch of games , but taking it to this level and trading away TWO players who could actually be cornerstones of your rebuild is where I think you are taking it a little too far. Tunsil and Fitzpatrick were both still rising young players on rookie deals who could be superstars for you down the road and you send them off because they are too good? Might fuck up and make a good play? I don't agree with the principal behind trading either of them even for picks that aren't guaranteed to be the same level of starters they proved to be already be. 

The NFL can't be happy either , the Dolphins are embarrassing the product with what they are putting out there on the field in back to back blowouts and it's only going to happen again against the Cowboys. 

Now if all this works and in three years the Dolphins are building something special people will applaud it , but that will be in hindsight because they'll forget having to live through the season that the Dolphins embarrassed the NFL and made at least one game every Sunday unwatchable. 

Where do you stand on this? 

Also in BREAKING NEWS

DANIEL JONES IS THE STARTING QUARTERBACK OF THE NEW YORK GIANTS!

Wow only took 2 games. The coach had to make this move imo. They weren’t going anywhere with Eli and this move could save his job. I admit I was one of the Daniel Jones detractors when he was drafted but he impressed me a lot in the preseason.

Maybe the Giants package Eli to Jacksonville for Ramsey and they reunite Eli/Coughlin. I love Eli so I’m going to pass on making a comment right now.

As for the Dolphins; this happens in all sports. The Sixers did it and now look at them. People compliment “The Process”. The Dolphins are awful as an organization but they surely have a plan. These next two drafts will be huge for their organization and they know they have to plan Post-TB and they’re already behind Buffalo and NY when it comes to a starting QB of the future. I don’t blame them.

Sept 17, 2019 14:41:54 GMT KING KID said:

Maybe the Giants package Eli to Jacksonville for Ramsey and they reunite Eli/Coughlin. I love Eli so I’m going to pass on making a comment right now.

As for the Dolphins; this happens in all sports. The Sixers did it and now look at them. People compliment “The Process”. The Dolphins are awful as an organization but they surely have a plan. These next two drafts will be huge for their organization and they know they have to plan Post-TB and they’re already behind Buffalo and NY when it comes to a starting QB of the future. I don’t blame them.

This happens in all sports except football , until this year...

The Dolphins logic baffles me. I understand rebuilding but why trade your 22 year old 2018 first round pick who’s shown promise just because he’s unhappy. To me, he is one of the players you’d want to build around. Unless the Steelers have an awful season and that pick becomes a top 5 pick, I don’t think they’ll draft a player in that spot as good as Minkah.

Sept 17, 2019 14:57:40 GMT @theshow said:

The Dolphins logic baffles me. I understand rebuilding but why trade your 22 year old 2018 first round pick who’s shown promise just because he’s unhappy. To me, he is one of the players you’d want to build around. Unless the Steelers have an awful season and that pick becomes a top 5 pick, I don’t think they’ll draft a player in that spot as good as Minkah.

That’s my thing too. I think that’s where I draw the line.

I mean KING KID brought up “the process” but you didn’t see Philly trading Simmons or Embid a year after drafting them for more picks.

Why even trade for Rosen in the off-season? They will clearly draft a QB with their top pick. I don’t know if Rosen is a franchise QB or not but fuck, I’d like to see him groomed by a contending team with an established coach like New England, San Diego, or even New Orleans.

Why sign Xavien Howard to a huge extension and then trade every other valuable member of the roster? Clearly, he will be the next domino to fall?

That's the thing , I like Rosen too but he's going to go down as a bust after being put into two of the the worst positions in the history of the league. I don't understand the trade for him if you were never going to give him a chance to compete or an iota of a chance to succeed.

That goes for a ton of the rest of the roster too. I mean there is no internal scouting at all this year that is going to be worth a damn , you can't scout properly when everyone on the roster is inept.

And Xavien Howard seems to be the only name not floated out there yet. Weirdly enough.

Sept 17, 2019 14:29:56 GMT @theshow said:

Wow only took 2 games. The coach had to make this move imo. They weren’t going anywhere with Eli and this move could save his job. I admit I was one of the Daniel Jones detractors when he was drafted but he impressed me a lot in the preseason.

Preseason don't mean shit.   The Giants were undefeated in the preseason and look at them right now.  Jones still has a lot to prove in my book.

That being said, this move was inevitable and unlike being benched for Geno Smith actually makes sense.   Not every QB gets to play until they are 40, and Eli was clearly shot.    With the Giants in full rebuild it only made sense to put Jones in much like Coughlin did with Eli so many years ago.

Feels weird man. Eli's been my quarterback since I started following the NFL in 2006. It's sobering to think that I could watch for another 50 years and probably never see anything as exhilarating as the two Super Bowl wins. He's a legend.

Eli is pretty much done. Watching the Bills game it was like he didn't even want to be out there. He's at that age where he needs to move to a back-up veteran role and help out someone on the up.

He had a good career. Nothing to be ashamed of. Time conquers us all eventually.

I don’t really have a problem with what the Dolphins are doing. At least it’s a plan, compared to what several teams that have floundered for years under the “any given Sunday” bullshit thinking they should just throw money at a roster and hope it works out. It doesn’t feel that different than what the Raiders did a year ago trading for four picks in the top 35 and they looked like a better team this last weekend than they had in the last two from an athleticism standpoint.

Now if Miami doesn’t commit to the coaching staff and pulls plug after two years then I’ll take it back, but if they have a plan and live through the pain than I don’t mind.

It helps that I am not a Dolphins fan, though I’ve been through shit seasons in KC and they’re kind of okay, you can check out knowing the season doesn’t matter.

I agree with mikec on the other teams that have no plan. Look at the Knicks for example. Every year they suck and pretend to have a plan only to scrap it for another plan, etc etc. Carmelo was supposed to be the answer until he wasn’t. Lin was the savior until he wasn’t. Porzingis was the answer until he wasn’t. Nkitilika, Knox, etc etc. Just a waste of years of a Knicks fans life.

I don't think you can judge what sort of a coach Brian Flores through all of this, but if they go 0-16 I'll be very surprised if he's back next season. He's being dealt a terrible hand, but are you going to trust your draft pick bounty to a coach who oversees an all time bad team? Gruden is a much different case having built up cache as a winner. Chris Grier is running the risk of being the next Sashi Brown too.

I really envy teams like the Ravens and Seahawks who can rebuild their roster while still contending. It takes a special type of organization and front office to pull that together. I really hope the Saints can be one of those teams when Brees hangs it up. They have a young, talented roster that should be ready to contend for years. The Saints will have to draft the right guy when the time comes. And by the right guy, I am talking about LSU football legend and future HOFer Joe Burrow.

Sept 18, 2019 0:47:50 GMT @admin said:

I don't think you can judge what sort of a coach Brian Flores through all of this, but if they go 0-16 I'll be very surprised if he's back next season. He's being dealt a terrible hand, but are you going to trust your draft pick bounty to a coach who oversees an all time bad team? Gruden is a much different case having built up cache as a winner. Chris Grier is running the risk of being the next Sashi Brown too.

If you as GM are the reason he oversaw an all time bad team for the point of being bad, then you should definitely bring him back.

One bad football season shouldn’t be what any coach is based on, especially as you’re trading off all his assets going into the season. Unless they picked him to be the fall guy, you picked him for a reason and it was presumably to be the one you trusted your draft pick bounty to.

Sept 18, 2019 1:16:23 GMT mikec said:

Sept 18, 2019 0:47:50 GMT @admin said:

I don't think you can judge what sort of a coach Brian Flores through all of this, but if they go 0-16 I'll be very surprised if he's back next season. He's being dealt a terrible hand, but are you going to trust your draft pick bounty to a coach who oversees an all time bad team? Gruden is a much different case having built up cache as a winner. Chris Grier is running the risk of being the next Sashi Brown too.

If you as GM are the reason he oversaw an all time bad team for the point of being bad, then you should definitely bring him back.

One bad football season shouldn’t be what any coach is based on, especially as you’re trading off all his assets going into the season. Unless they picked him to be the fall guy, you picked him for a reason and it was presumably to be the one you trusted your draft pick bounty to.

Nothing wrong with this in principle, I'm just dubious as to whether the reality plays out this way. It's easy to say Flores is the guy you want going forward now, but does that change by January when your team has been waxed by 20 points every week meanwhile (for example) Kellen Moore has guided Dak to an MVP-esque season and you could pair him up with Tua? 

Sept 18, 2019 0:53:53 GMT @theshow said:

I really envy teams like the Ravens and Seahawks who can rebuild their roster while still contending. It takes a special type of organization and front office to pull that together. I really hope the Saints can be one of those teams when Brees hangs it up. They have a young, talented roster that should be ready to contend for years. The Saints will have to draft the right guy when the time comes. And by the right guy, I am talking about LSU football legend and future HOFer Joe Burrow.

As a Buffalo fan I feel this.

It's like after the Music City Miracle the Bills just went into rebuild mode and then went out of their way to draft poorly for a decade.

I think the Saints will be ok. They seem like they know what they're doing when it comes to scouting/drafting/etc.

Yeah New Orleans should be fine. They have a lot of young talent on that team. I don’t see them drafting the right QB to overtake Brees but they’ll be in contention for the next 5 years. Especially if you look at how the rest of their division is building.

What’s Carolinas plan post-Cam? They don’t even trust their rookie yet to take over if Cams injured to play the next game. What’s ATL going to do post-Ryan? Tampa Bay is going to be moving on from Jameis after this season but what if they get the wrong guy? The Saints are built way better then those teams.

As for Flores; didn’t Arizona have a similar situation last season? They fired him after one year and everyone went crazy. Same situation could be happening here but maybe they really trust his brain and knowledge from New England and keep him around.

OR maybe Sean McVay shakes someone’s hand at Starbucks and TMZ catches it on camera and everyone goes to find that mystery man from Starbucks and make him the new Head Coach.

Sept 18, 2019 1:31:39 GMT @admin said:

Sept 18, 2019 1:16:23 GMT mikec said:

If you as GM are the reason he oversaw an all time bad team for the point of being bad, then you should definitely bring him back.

One bad football season shouldn’t be what any coach is based on, especially as you’re trading off all his assets going into the season. Unless they picked him to be the fall guy, you picked him for a reason and it was presumably to be the one you trusted your draft pick bounty to.

Nothing wrong with this in principle, I'm just dubious as to whether the reality plays out this way. It's easy to say Flores is the guy you want going forward now, but does that change by January when your team has been waxed by 20 points every week meanwhile (for example) Kellen Moore has guided Dak to an MVP-esque season and you could pair him up with Tua? 

Yeah I don’t trust them to be good about it, which is why I reserve the right to disagree later... but if you have a plan that involves doing this, you gotta find a developmental coach you’ll trust to stick around and see it through because there’s nothing worse in the NFL than regularly changing your coach.

Is there any chance this Dolphins situation could change the league's view on draft policy? Lottery, weighted lottery, and snake draft are just three ideas to discourage tanking.

I know this is a little contradictory to what I posted yesterday - but I have a feeling something will happen during the season that makes everyone forget about most of this. A couple of seasons ago everyone was calling the Jets one of the most talent deficient teams they'd ever seen and a lock to go 0-16, and they ended up winning 5 games and having to trade up to get the draft pick they wanted. Miami trading blue chippers on their rookie contracts is more egregious tanking than shedding 30 year olds like Eric Decker & David Harris - but I don't think it's that outrageous to think that the Dolphins end up winning at least a couple of games from the Jets, Giants and Redskins.

A draft lottery would give the NFL another off season primetime event that would do ridiculous TV ratings so it wouldn't be a great shock if they tried that.

^^^
And that Darnold trade hurt the Jets from a draft ammo standpoint which is why a lot of fans were upset with the meaingless wins the Jets got to end the year that season. Harris and Decker were awful for the teams they joined elsewhere.

Lottery would be a terrible idea. It's already awful in the NBA where the league is unwatchable in the playoffs due to the lack of parity and the same couple of superstars/teams playing the biggest games. If you stink enough, you should earn the butt of all jokes AND no.1 pick altogether. Knicks were worse than the Pelicans last year yet Pelicans upgraded much better with Zion Williamson, how does that encourage parity especially in a league where superstars only go to where other stars play? It's why the NBA faces a crisis that the small market teams will lose said star off of a rookie contract to join elsewhere(COUGHANTHONYDAVISCOUGH) and why the league is ran by the superstars and agents rather than the teams. 

There is no such thing as tanking in sports, its a theory created by the media and fans alike. These players are paid based off of stats and play, you think these guys go in there to lose? Opportunity is created with the loss of these guys, it's a matter of if the players can take it or not. Teams trade said players because they want out, Minkah Fitzpatrick wanting out in year 2 where he has done hardly anything in this league speaks more about him than it does anyone else. If anything, I hate rewarding these players with what they want as it gives the impression to a Jalen Ramsey that if you cry hard enough, you can achieve anything.

Yeah Blindy nailed it in the head.

I absolutely hate the lottery (and yes it's because the Knicks got screwed out of Zion). If we had to watch the Saints win the #1 overall pick over the Phins, Bengals, etc. just because they missed the playoffs because Brees missed 6-8 games I would be furious.

Plus the NFL draft is way more different then the NBA draft. The star power in NFL drafts is everywhere and a lottery would screw everything up post Round 1. It would be a disaster.

As for the Minkah/Ramsey situation, it's a bit different. Ramsey is the best CB in the game right now (even though he just had a bad game). He has earned the right to whine, especially considering Marrone is an idiot. Minkah hasn't earned anything 'yet', but he is absolutely going to thrive in Pittsburgh. Pitt is a 6-10 team so even though they lose their first round pick, all they're really giving away is maybe a 14th pick in the draft for Minkah who will produce better then a 14th pick in this upcoming draft right away.

This 'tanking' the Dolphins are doing is smart. Like I said, they are so far behind the rest of the AFC East right now so I am not mad at them for doing it. Rosen obviously sucks. It can't be two franchises in a row being wrong about him. He can't beat out Fitzpatrick; that's a problem. He's going to be the bust of that draft whether it's right or wrong. 

Sept 19, 2019 13:22:04 GMT Blindy said:

There is no such thing as tanking in sports, its a theory created by the media and fans alike. These players are paid based off of stats and play, you think these guys go in there to lose? Opportunity is created with the loss of these guys, it's a matter of if the players can take it or not. Teams trade said players because they want out, Minkah Fitzpatrick wanting out in year 2 where he has done hardly anything in this league speaks more about him than it does anyone else. If anything, I hate rewarding these players with what they want as it gives the impression to a Jalen Ramsey that if you cry hard enough, you can achieve anything.

What a bizarre take.

No one is saying the players are tanking, but the organisation is by stripping itself of all its big assets, and deliberately weakening itself in order to win so few games that they attain the number one overall draft pick. How is that not tanking?

Sept 19, 2019 16:53:24 GMT Todd said:

Sept 19, 2019 13:22:04 GMT Blindy said:

There is no such thing as tanking in sports, its a theory created by the media and fans alike. These players are paid based off of stats and play, you think these guys go in there to lose? Opportunity is created with the loss of these guys, it's a matter of if the players can take it or not. Teams trade said players because they want out, Minkah Fitzpatrick wanting out in year 2 where he has done hardly anything in this league speaks more about him than it does anyone else. If anything, I hate rewarding these players with what they want as it gives the impression to a Jalen Ramsey that if you cry hard enough, you can achieve anything.

What a bizarre take.

No one is saying the players are tanking, but the organisation is by stripping itself of all its big assets, and deliberately weakening itself in order to win so few games that they attain the number one overall draft pick. How is that not tanking?

You see that as tanking, I see it as getting max value for assets. They got 2 first round draft picks for a guy who was about to cash in on a tackle market that had one great year of Trent Brown end up being the highest paid tackle in the history of the game. If they hang onto him, he will get them at best a 3rd round comp. pick all the while not being a one man difference in changing the team around, as promising as Tunsil may be. Same with Minkah Fitzpatrick, theyre banking on getting a top 10 pick out of this exchange and getting someone who will be on a cheaper contract by 2 years prior to commanding FA esque money. 

They are playing their depth, yeah they won't be as good as if they kept their players but how much of a difference do those guys make in the grand scheme of things? They aren't throwing the white flag out there, it's as much on the current squad of guys to lose the way they are losing as it is the front office. 

It can be both of those things, which it is. They are getting maximum trade value. They are also making themselves weaker so they are less likely to win and more likely to pick their QB in April. It's tanking.

OR maybe they're in the Melvin Gordon market for next season and they're the team that'll sign him to the multi year money he wants. We all know Drake and Ballage are not the answers. Maybe the master plan is to grab Melvin Gordon in free agency, grab a QB #1 overall and fill out their roster with the enormous draft picks they now have for the next 2 years. Then 3 seasons from now when TB is surely retired, they can take over the AFC.

Because let's face it. Nobody wants to give away a first round pick for Melvin Gordon, but someone is going to pay him and my money is on it being Miami or Tampa Bay next season.

Sept 19, 2019 17:54:34 GMT Todd said:

It can be both of those things, which it is. They are getting maximum trade value. They are also making themselves weaker so they are less likely to win and more likely to pick their QB in April. It's tanking.

And I don't believe that the team is intentionally looking to boot the season because no team does that from the get go. Your team fired it's GM(Brian Gaine) one year after he got hired, there is an immediate demand to win and very few GMs find themselves fully safe in this day and age. I would say if the Dolphins get a lead and then switch things up to make sure they lose, I would understand the skepticism but stripping it's team of assets to me isn't tanking. They are playing the best guys they got. 

Guys don't just lose or quit because they lose 1 or 2 guys whether via injury, trade, release etc. Raiders cut Antonio Brown doesn't mean they are tanking, just like Dolphins getting rid of a guy who didn't want to be there and was causing friction in the locker room.