As I watched that 35 to nothing physical assault of the Dolphins on Sunday, all I could think about were the mistakes and misses of the Dolphins General Manager Chris Grier. The national media seems to love him. Grier gets a lot of praise for his team building prowess. However, when I hear or see him getting pats on the back for a job well done, it sounds like nails scratching on an old school chalkboard. All I saw when the offensive line gave up sack after sack and QB pressure after QB pressure was the trade of Laremy Tunsil that turned into a reach pick for Austin Jackson. All I saw was an offensive line whose best member is Jesse Davis, a career back up who is a jack of all trades that can play any position on the line, but is a master of none. All I saw was a center named Deiter who has never played center in the NFL before. Even in college at Wisconsin he split time as a tackle, left guard, and center. All I saw was Austin Jackson getting another start and more snaps than he should because the Dolphins refuse to admit that they missed when they used a 1st round pick to take someone who clearly is not an NFL level left tackle. Stunts, twists, rush four, send five. It doesn’t matter. Austin Jackson is going to allow free rushers at the quarterback. That’s a guaran-damn-tee! Jackson also took away a good pass and completion from Tua to Parker for an inexplicable ineligible man downfield penalty. He went to block a linebacker on a non-RPO play action pass play for no apparent reason other than he erroneously thought it was a run play. Someone help me make it make sense please! To make matters worse, Jackson’s get off on run blocking downs isn’t any better and he gives the Dolphins little to no value in the running game. Couple that with the fact that Grier traded Minkah Fitzpatrick for a single number one pick. Greir wasted this pick on Noah Igbinoghene, a former wide receiver who is clearly not a first round NFL defensive back. We took Igbinoghene after trading down and still drafted a major developmental project over players like Antoine Winfield Jr. and Tee Higgins who were still available and made instant impacts to their respective teams. Christian Wilkins was the inaugural draft pick of this newly rebranded version of the Dolphins and he has been a solid player, but not the dominating presence we hoped he would be.
Grier has been with the Dolphins since 200. He has held roles in the player personnel department as a college talent scout, director, and now as the head guy in charge, GM. He was part of the scout team that graded Dion Jordan as a top defensive talent. We all know that he turned out to be the biggest draft bust in team history. Grier drafted Tua Tagovailoa over Justin Herbert even though many Dolphins scouts and fans including myself wanted Herbert. All I saw on the field on Sunday were mistakes and misses. The Dolphins offense could barely get the snap off before they had opposition players in the backfield. On the flipside, the Dolphins defense did not look ready to play giving up 2 explosive plays. Before we could blink it was 14-0 and our starting quarterback was knocked out of the game.
The Bills should have been charged with 35 counts of felonious aggravated assault for what they did to the Dolphins at the line of scrimmage today. The Bills Mafia dominated on both sides of the ball in the trenches, but I knew this was coming from the day the Dolphins traded Tunsil. This isn’t criticism with the benefit of hindsight either. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I didn’t like the Tunsil trade in real time because I knew how hard it would be to replace him. The Dolphins have a horrible track record when it comes to left tackles, so I value a good one when we finally get one and we quite frankly lucked into Laremy Tunsil because of the leaked video of him smoking weed on draft night. We finally had a good one and we traded him. It doesn’t matter who we have at the skill positions because the offensive line is awful. If the QB has no time to throw, all of the Dolphin receivers can be running wide open and it wouldn’t matter. On the play where Tua got knocked out of the game, he was about to deliver a pass to wide open receiver that certainly would have converted the 4th down if not more, but Tua had absolutely no time and got crushed.
How do you use a million draft picks on an offensive line and not hit on a single one of them? Is the luck of the Dolphins organization that bad where they just whiffed on everyone? The Dolphins staff coached at the senior bowl this past year. Did they know what they drafted last year in Jackson, Kindley, and Hunt wasn’t enough? Grier loves to wheel and deal and trade down to get more picks, but what good is having more picks when you keep drafting the wrong players? All I saw on Sunday were mistakes and misses and Buffalo exploited them to a 35-0 shutout victory where even Buffalo admits that they played like trash. I am not optimistic for the health of Miami Dolphins QBs moving forward this season with this level of protection. One thing Ryan Tannehill had going for him was that he could take a beating behind a bad offensive line. Tua will not be able to endure that same punishment. His frame is too diminutive and if we want to honestly assess Tua’s skill level, we need to protect him like the Saints did for Drew Brees. If not, Tua’s career will be a very short one and it won’t be his fault. All of the blame will lay squarely at the feet of Chris Grier as the carnage of all of his mistakes and misses raises its ugly head in every subsequent game that is played. If the Dolphins continue to get dominated by the other team at the line of scrimmage we could easily end up starting 2-4 in our first 6 games, which is not the season we were expecting to have. The Dolphins cannot afford to have anymore mistakes or misses. Chris Grier, you are on notice.