A series of Miami Dolphins contract restructures this week turned a significant salary cap deficit into a useful surplus. Dolphins GM Chris Grier reworked the contracts of Tyreek Hill, Terron Armstead, and Bradley Chubb — three of the biggest contracts on Miami’s books — to give himself nearly $30 million in usable space that brightens the team’s free agency outlook.
And that doesn’t even account for the inevitable cut of Byron Jones, whose release with the June 1 designation will give the Dolphins even more relief over the summer.
Miami Dolphins Free Agency Outlook
That’s great — and greatly needed for a team that needs to add nearly 50 players in the next two months. Miami needs at least one starting offensive lineman, probably two starting-caliber defensive backs, and at least three running backs (Salvon Ahmed is the only one currently on their roster).
So while $30 million might sound like a good chunk of change, it’s not.
Which means Grier needs to be more selective with how he uses it than he did a year ago. The Dolphins certainly had some hits in 2022 — trading for Hill and signing Armstead were both home runs, and Connor Williams was a solid addition to the interior line.
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But the Dolphins would have a ton more money to spend if not for Grier’s misses in 2022. Miami handed out $33.4 million in cash last season to Mike Gesicki, Teddy Bridgewater, Cedrick Wilson Jr., Chase Edmonds, Trey Flowers, and Eric Fisher.
Combined, they played 1,107 snaps in 2022 — or roughly 11 per player per game. Due to the NFL’s cap rollover framework, that $33.4 million could be used in 2023 if it wasn’t used in 2022.
Certainly, some context is needed here. The Dolphins franchised Gesicki and signed Wilson before they knew Hill would join them via trade. But they still could have moved either of those players and chose not to.
Chris Grier’s Mixed Record
Grier’s mixed record in 2022 mirrors his mixed record in free agency since taking full control of the personnel department in 2019. Some of his more high-profile misses include Kyle Van Noy (four years, $51 million), Will Fuller (one year, $10.6 million), and Jordan Howard (two years, $9.8 million).
Van Noy was gone after one year. Howard and Fuller didn’t even last that long.
Which raises the obvious question: Has Grier learned from these mistakes?
“It’s like everything,” Grier said when asked by PFN to evaluate his 2022 free agency class. “We felt we made some good moves, some good players we brought in that impacted us. We were a young team, so adding some veteran guys that were leaders but also good players to show these guys how to do things we thought was important.
“Every move that you make, you’d love for them all to be home runs,” Grier added. “We thought we had a really good free agent class last year. Obviously, a player like Cedrick Wilson was signed, but then the Tyreek trade happened. So that was just different, which impacted him.
“But then end of the year, we probably don’t win games without him returning the punts, stepping up to do that, and then giving us a chance to win games. So all the guys contributed pretty much, so happy with that. But at the end of the day, I was really proud of the work the scouting staff did in season, like with Brandon Shell and those guys that come in and impact us to help us win. So it’s just trying to make good decisions to create depth and competition at positions to keep us in a position to try and win games.”
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The Dolphins are in line to win a bunch more games this year. But to get to where Stephen Ross wants — the Super Bowl — Grier has little margin for error in free agency.