Championships aren’t won in the offseason, they’re won on the gridiron. But successful offseasons often help to lay the needed groundwork to pull together wins and allow teams to rise from the doldrums of NFL mediocrity and into contenders. And it is exactly that hope that makes it so significant to see the Miami Dolphins receive some praise for how they chose to attack this 2020 offseason.
The decision to spend aggressively in free agency raised some eyebrows, although the Dolphins ultimately did adjust their spending habits to front-load the deals — a significant departure from years past. Nevertheless, spending in free agency can come with mixed results and Miami drew some skepticism for it. But that didn’t stop Pro Football Hall of Fame scout and NFL Network analyst Gil Brandt from crediting the Miami Dolphins with having the best offseason in the entire NFL.
“The roster rebuild that began in 2019 under coach Brian Flores and general manager Chris Grier couldn’t be going more smoothly. Let’s start with the quarterback position, where the Dolphins located a potential answer to their decades-long quest to replace Dan Marino without having to give up any extra draft capital… he Dolphins also used their ample cap space to add difference-making free agents, most notably cornerback Byron Jones, linebacker Kyle Van Noy, defensive end Shaq Lawson and guard Ereck Flowers. It might take some time for these new pieces to gel, but the Dolphins are once more on the type of solid footing that would have made the late, legendary Don Shula proud.” – Gil Brandt, NFL.com
Whether or not the grand experiment actually works or not is to be determined. But the Dolphins feel like they have something different brewing here. The acknowledgement that all of the toxicity that had built up within the Dolphins organization over the past decade needed to be purged in the form of a rebuild seems to have the Dolphins poised to make legitimate change happen — and that may just be the team’s ticket to getting back into contention for meaningful games in the postseason.