Wednesday was the day the Buffalo Bills settled all family business.
The Miami Dolphins‘ biggest rival took a sledgehammer to its bloated roster, moving on from six significant players in necessary cost-cutting moves.
Will Miami Dolphins Pounce on Cut Buffalo Bills Players?
Core Bills players who learned they won’t be with the team in 2024: Defensive backs Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer, and Siran Neal; center Mitch Morse; wide receiver Deonte Harty; and running back Nyheim Hines.
Together, those six have started 269 games and made four Pro Bowls as members of the Bills.
They’ll join a long list of other familiar Bills faces in free agency — defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, defensive end A.J. Epenesa, and cornerback Dane Jackson, to name a few.
And Bills general manager Brandon Beane will have to be creative to even come close to replacing them, with a still-tight cap situation and just two picks in the top 125 of what most believe is a shallow NFL Draft.
Put another way, the Bills are poised for a step back in 2024.
What remains to be seen: If the Dolphins can step up — and over the Bills.
Josh Allen and Sean McDermott have absolutely owned the Dolphins (and the rest of the AFC East, for that matter), winning four straight division titles.
The Bills have won 11 of their last 12 meetings with the Dolphins, including a 21-14 thriller in the 2023 regular-season finale that served as a division championship game. That should end with a diminished Bills roster in 2024.
What’s more, the Dolphins can be more than passive beneficiaries of the Bills’ purge. They can use the released players to actively improve their own roster — and make a run at not just the division championship but the entire AFC.
Many of the players the Bills are losing this offseason play positions of need for the Dolphins.
Take a moment to imagine White and Poyer — who have six combined interceptions in their careers against the Dolphins — in a defensive backfield with Jalen Ramsey and Jevon Holland. It’s an intriguing short-term possibility.
Does Morse want to play a 10th NFL season? How about he gets an early taste of retirement life with a final year in South Florida? The Dolphins need a center (and two guards and maybe a tackle).
The Dolphins also need EDGE defender help, with Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips rehabbing major injuries and Andrew Van Ginkel set to his free agency in a week. Epenesa would be a helpful depth piece.
KEEP READING: 2024 NFL Top 100 Free Agent Rankings
None of these players should break the bank. And all have big-game experience that would only help the Dolphins.
So as the Dolphins’ offseason continues to come into focus, the question isn’t whether the Dolphins will have interest in any of these former rivals but how many.
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