The Miami Dolphins’ 2020 offseason has been centered around two primary principles:
- Get better
- Stay younger
The team is primed to follow through on those objectives courtesy of their 2020 NFL Draft class next week, an influx of potentially 14 new talents onto a roster that already saw 10 new additions come throughout the course of the first wave of free agency. That commitment to the process is something that Miami should be applauded for — too often in the past this team was chasing over the hill veterans as the big ticket selling point to put the team over the top and into postseason contention.
But, as Dolphins general manager Chris Grier explained to the South Florida media yesterday, the Dolphins wanted to fulfill several criteria with their new additions to the roster — with enough boxes to check that resulted in Miami playing an impressive high-wire act of balancing criteria in their new players.
“I think for us specifically, we talked about finding the right types of players for our organization. We didn’t want to go with older players. We got a lot of guys that were the younger – 25, 27, 28 (range) – guys that have been winners, guys that are great locker room guys, great mentors,” said Grier.
“We’re such a young team. Yeah, we were a little more active than we have been in the past. We wanted volume of guys, especially not knowing where we’re going to be in the future, we need guys that can help the younger guys transition, learn and get on board as fast as they can in terms of learning the defense and preparing. Having guys with some familiarity with Brian (Flores) was really important.”
Consider that mission accomplished for the Dolphins. Miami signed several former Patriots and effectively every signing the team handed out was to a player with several years of play left in their 20s. The end result may still provide some growing pains for Miami as the team looks to transition into a contender, but at the very least the Dolphins can rest easy knowing that their influx in talent should be positioned to provide returns for several years before age and depreciation becomes a significant factor.