The Miami Dolphins are approaching the build up to the 2020 season much differently than how the team handled the final days before the 2019 season. At this time last year, the Dolphins were still rapidly shedding players — both via trade and the waiver wire. With the team expected to be more competitive in 2020, it isn’t necessarily a surprise that the team is more stable and less active in trading away current players.
But this past weekend’s roster cuts did provide some surprises as well; mainly in how the Dolphins chose to handle the waiver wire process.
In 2019, the Dolphins filed a whopping five waiver claims after final roster cuts, accounting for nearly 10% of the team’s 53-man roster. That amount of turnover was understandable when you consider Miami had spent the summer shredding the team down to the foundation while looking to hit reset and starting over.
This past weekend? Just one year later, the Dolphins weren’t awarded a single waiver claim despite sitting at No. 5 in the waiver wire pecking order. If Miami looked to make waiver additions, there was hardly anyone standing in their way. The shift in philosophy speaks to how quickly the Dolphins have moved to rebuild the roster. This is what is possible when you approach the draft by embracing volume and when you finally swallow the pill of guaranteed money that the Dolphins had been kicking down the road for several seasons.
This isn’t to say the Dolphins’ work is done. Not by a long shot. But at the very least, Miami is in a different place as a roster and in a different headspace from an operations perspective — a much healthier one than the frantic blitz to find capable players that we found this team in just 12 months ago.