Chris Grier retains failing, however he retains surviving.
The best factor for Miami Dolphins proprietor Steve Ross to have accomplished this offseason would have been to press the reset button with your entire group, firing the workforce’s common supervisor when he eliminated coach Brian Flores a day after the season finale, which capped the franchise’s first back-to-back profitable season since 2002-03.
But Ross selected the laborious route. He opted to increase Grier a lifeline, holding one of many few minorities in energy within the NFL on the prime of his group, hoping that Grier may make the hires and strikes wanted to repair this franchise and get it off the mediocrity merry-go-round the Dolphins have been driving for twenty years.
“I don’t think it’s just one thing,” Grier mentioned when requested in regards to the franchise’s constant struggles.
The newest dysfunction was highlighted by Flores’ lawsuit towards the Dolphins and the NFL, and the league’s investigation into Flores’ claims that Ross supplied to pay him $100,000 per loss on the finish of the 2019 season to safe the No. 1 draft decide.
The Dolphins fired Flores in January as a result of, in line with Ross, “an organization can only function if it’s collaborative and it works well together.”
The method they talked you’d assume there was an influence battle going down contained in the group, however anybody who has had some stage of publicity to Grier is aware of it couldn’t have been a battle of egos as a result of Grier has none.
And he’s the furthest factor from energy hungry. He’s accommodating, in all probability to a fault.
That’s how he’s survived all these years, all these regimes, and located a option to transfer into energy inside the group he’s spent the previous 21 years with.
But that doesn’t means he’s harmless, and Grier is aware of that.
“I have to take blame for that,” Grier mentioned in regards to the workforce’s newest failures.
Flores was his rent.
Tua Tagovailoa appears to be extra of a placeholder than franchise quarterback after two seasons as a starter, and Grier picked Tagovailoa over Justin Herbert, whose play with the Chargers has him seen as one of many NFL’s brightest stars.
Part of Tagovailoa’s concern is the expertise positioned round him has been missing, and that’s on Grier.
The Dolphins’ offensive line was a catastrophe throughout Flores’ tenure — regardless of Miami utilizing 5 early draft picks on Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt, Michael Deiter, Solomon Kindley and Liam Eichenberg to repair the unit.
The Dolphins have handed on choosing at the very least half a dozen younger tailbacks who may have propped up the workforce’s sputtering dashing assault. Instead they relied on seventh-round picks like Myles Gaskin and Gerrid Doaks, low-cost free brokers and undrafted gamers to hold the dashing assault.
That’s simply unhealthy roster administration, and no person can deny it. Not even Grier, who ought to really feel lucky that he will get an opportunity to repair the lingering points this offseason, whether or not he deserves it or not.
“I don’t view this as a rebuild anymore. I think a lot of those were rebuilds,” Grier mentioned, referring to 6 teaching modifications he’s been a part of as an govt since 2007. “We’re in a spot now the place we’ve some younger expertise, younger gamers. There’s a possibility for us to have the ability to take benefit with numerous issues we do and we’ll have the ability to win video games right here.
“I would say the difference in those [previous eras] was they were rebuilds. I think [now] we’re just trying to supplement and keep building on what we have to push us forward.”
After a month-long teaching search, Mike McDaniel was employed to exchange Flores, and he assembled an completed offensive employees the group hopes will repair Miami’s struggling offense whereas retaining Josh Boyer because the defensive coordinator with the objective of holding that unit constant.
McDaniel’s specialty is constructing a forceful dashing assault, and if Miami achieves that — by fixing the offensive line, growing a productive zone-running scheme and including expertise that facilitates the run sport — it would take a few of the stress off the passing sport and Tagovailoa.
Whether that fixes the offense and makes Miami a perennial playoff workforce, solely time will inform.
But if it doesn’t, we all know who clearly deserves the blame, and that’s the person who has managed to flee it for twenty years.
That’s why Grier shouldn’t be allowed to outlive if the Dolphins fail this time round.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com