Chris Grier started in professional soccer with Bill Parcells, and so when requested if the Miami Dolphins’ 9-9 report precisely displays his ideas on the season he went proper to Parcells’ nice line about, “You are who your record says you are.”
“It is what it is,” the Dolphins common supervisor mentioned Monday on the primary day of Miami’s offseason.
It was a enjoyable yr, an entertaining product. And Grier appeared to begin his reply by saying a .500 report and playoff berth wasn’t sufficient in the way in which Miami Heat president Pat Riley mentioned after coming a bucket in need of the NBA Finals: “I’m not into warm fuzzies.”
But then Grier went on.
“We had a year — we haven’t had injuries like this since probably 2017,” he mentioned. “Maybe that was the last time we were this ravaged by injuries. We finished where we were, but we got to the playoffs and had a chance to win a playoff game versus one of the best teams in football.”
That’s the way in which lots of people see it, the Dolphins accidents submarining their hopes. There’s good purpose to that, too, while you go chapter and verse down the damage checklist beginning with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, left deal with Terron Armstead and a secondary that had extra our bodies lacking than obtainable at instances.
This is an offseason to have a look at architectural and strategic points for the Dolphins. The strategic ones got here out once more Sunday because the crew that completed final within the league in dashing makes an attempt had a rookie quarterback throw 45 instances towards 20 runs.
Coach Mike McDaniel is wise sufficient to search out extra steadiness within the offense this winter. The architectural points, although, are a part of this crew’s calculated philosophy. Tagovailoa and Armstead got here to the Dolphins as damage dangers, the way in which their careers labored.
Armstead, as an illustration, missed a mean of 5 video games for 9 seasons in New Orleans. But when first-rounder Austin Jackson didn’t work out at left deal with, Armstead was a free-agent purchase by the Dolphins. He missed 4 video games this yr and didn’t observe since September. Is that unhealthy luck? Or simply what you’d count on to occur?
This is essential as this 9-9 practice strikes ahead, as a result of a central tenet to hope is that they’ll be more healthy this coming season. They don’t have a first-round draft choose and received’t have loopy cash to spend in free company like final yr. Their roster is usually in place beginning with Tagovailoa.
“He’s our starting quarterback,” Grier mentioned. “I don’t know how we can say it any more clearly.”
Everyone hopes Tagovailoa is wholesome subsequent yr, and his profession goes wherever his expertise takes him. But there’s a bigger story of the Dolphins’ roster constructing at work by means of this large, four-year course of.
“I think you can’t be scared with [injury] stuff,” Grier mentioned. “Talk about Terron. He’s a Pro Bowl left deal with and the influence he had with us by way of management and what he did on the sector for us.
“Raheem [Mostert] is another guy people talked about being hurt and had a career year and everything he had done in terms of leadership and stuff again. If you’re scared — like Bradley [Chubb] again. He’s another one that people said was a good player and good person.”
He introduced up a participant, working again Curtis Martin, who his revered father, Bobby Grier, drafted whereas in New England’s entrance workplace. Martin didn’t end a season in faculty. He turned a Hall of Fame expertise.
“I wouldn’t want to be the GM that took Frank Gore off my board,” mentioned McDaniel, sitting beside Grier, of the San Francisco nice working again.
Great gamers. Great careers. Martin additionally was a fourth-round draft choose and Gore a late-third-round choose because of accidents. So the problem isn’t actually of taking gamers with an damage threat as a lot as the extent of funding in them.
Tagovailoa was the fifth choose within the draft. Armstead was a $72 million contract. You can see the expertise in every. But you’ll have to carry your breath and cross your fingers that they’ll be playng subsequent January in a fashion they battle to this January.
The Dolphins, once more, had a enjoyable and entertaining season. But they’re who their report says they’re, simply as Grier’s mentor put it. Parcells had one other line, one he’d use at any time when somebody would begin to clarify away a yr’s shortfalls in a fashion you hope isn’t at work right here: “You can always pick out excuses, one for every year if you want.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com