Dolphins agree to trade OG Ereck Flowers to Washington
The Miami Dolphins have agreed to move away from yet another member of their 2020 offseason — the Dolphins have agreed to terms with the Washington Football Team for a trade that will move veteran offensive guard Ereck Flowers as a part of a salary dump.
The Dolphins signed Flowers to a 3-year, $30M contract in March of 2020 and, just one year later, the Dolphins are showing no restraint in trying to maneuver salary cap space and strip down excess fat off their roster on the even of the 2021 NFL Draft.
Dolphins and WFT have agreed to terms on a deal that sends LG Ereck Flowers to Washington, source confirms. @RapSheet 1st. Swap of Day 3 picks but main part for Miami is getting off his $9M guaranteed salary for 2021.
It remains to be seen what specifics are involved in this deal, but for the Dolphins this is yet another move that retraces their steps from last offseason. Miami has already cut ties with Kyle Van Noy (cut) and Shaq Lawson (trade) — and now Flowers as well.
Given the financials of the Flowers contract, the Dolphins will presumably be walking away with a later Day 3 selection — this is a true salary dump for Miami that will likely reverberate through each of their three days of draft choices in 2021. But the maneuver isn’t a guarantee that the Dolphins will be drafting anyone early. The emergence of Solomon Kindley as a promising young talent figures to give the team ample flexibility to not force a selection.
Ereck Flowers didn’t quite work out for the New York Giants when they selected him No. 9 overall back in 2015. Just one month into his
Ereck Flowers didn’t quite work out for the New York Giants when they selected him No. 9 overall back in 2015. Just one month into his fourth season, the Giants released Flowers, and he would spend the rest of that season with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
So, in 2019, Flowers signed with the Washington Football Team on a one-year deal worth up to $4 million. Instead of playing offensive tackle for Washington, former offensive line coach Bill Callahan moved Flowers to guard.
Changing positions worked well, leading Flowers to sign a three-year, $30 million deal with the Miami Dolphins after the 2019 season.
Now, after just one season in Miami, Flowers is back in Washington, per Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network.
The Dolphins and Washington have agreed to a swap of late-round draft picks.
The #Dolphins and Washington Football Team are in agreement on a trade to send guard Ereck Flowers to WFT in a deal involving a swap of late-round picks, sources say. The deal is being finalized. Frees up some money for Miami, while giving Washington an OL to compete to start.
Before Flowers left Washington, he started at left guard in 2019, where he played well. Veteran Wes Schweitzer started 13 games at left guard for the WFT in 2020 and did an admirable job. With Flowers back, Schweitzer would likely move back into a utility role.
Flowers should move right back into his left guard role, giving Washington strong depth across the offensive line.
Next up for the Washington Football Team is the 2021 NFL draft which begins on Thursday. Washington appears intent on selecting an offensive tackle in the early rounds, further strengthening a unit that exceeded expectations in 2020.
One cost cutting move the Dolphins should consider in 2021
The Miami Dolphins will enter the 2021 offseason with one of the NFL’s 10 most flexible salary cap situations. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has taken an economic toll on the NFL — and this upcoming season’s salary cap will face a reduction as a result. But the timing works out for Miami to continue their roster build business as usual — especially when you consider the salary cap situations of some of the other teams across the league, such as the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints. Those teams are currently $50M+ in the red for 2021, which makes Miami’s approximate forecast of $30M in cap space a lot more friendly to consider.
But that doesn’t mean Miami can’t investigate avenues to further improve their cap situation and further bolster their flexibility for spending. And, as the team looks to level up the roster, it may make sense for the Dolphins to pivot away from players already on the roster to create a better talent situation and also a better cap situation.
One such move that Miami could and should consider depending on how aggressive they want to be with spending power this offseason involves one of their big-money additions from the 2020 offseason: offensive lineman Ereck Flowers.
Flowers, to his credit, was one of Miami’s leaders in the trenches this season and showed admirable toughness in returning to action after being carter off against the Cincinnati Bengals late in the year. And Flowers, a South Florida native and University of Miami alumni, undoubtedly has enjoyed his turn playing at home here with the Dolphins. But Flowers’ play is one of the obvious positions along the Dolphins’ offensive line that could warrant exploring for upgrade — especially when you consider Flowers’ cap situation. He’s due $19M in cash between 2021 and 2022 — a figure that is more so a product of Miami doing business in free agency last offseason as compared to Flowers’ caliber of play. Flowers was credited with 3 penalties, 5 sacks allowed and a total of 20 pressures allowed in 2020 according to Pro Football Focus — but his frame struggled at times with leverage and quicker defensive tackles were able to successfully beat him across face in the run game.
Miami signed Flowers to a 3-year, $30M contract last March, but this is why how Miami structured his contract is more important to note that what the surface numbers suggest.
Miami, should they decide the freed up cap space and a possible upgrade at left guard (via either Solomon Kindley or someone else) is a worthwhile proposition, can very easily move Flowers off the books and save somewhere between $8 and $9M in cap space. If the Dolphins were to find a trade partner to take on Flowers’ remaining deal at the start of the league year, the Dolphins would be on the hook for just $2M in dead cap and save a full $8M in cap space. If a trade were to come after June 1st, Miami would save an additional million against their 2021 cap and see half of their dead cap ($1M) rolled over into the 2022 commitments.
Flowers wouldn’t command a great deal on the trade market with these financials. But for a team that appears positioned to make another leap in talent, the cash availability would be plenty valuable as Miami looks to retool their skill players up front. And such a move would free up another position for versatility along Miami’s line to find the best combination of five starters — a proposition that isn’t overly realistic with Flowers locked into the picture as a high-priced veteran leader on the unit.
The Miami Dolphins’ offensive line has been one of the more stable units on the roster all season long — Miami has seen six primary starters working within the five available spots on the roster through the first 12 games of the season. And while the offensive line play has not been overwhelming by any means, it sure is a nice change of pace from the 2019 Dolphins’ offensive line, which was a merry-go-round of talent that constantly saw new faces in new places and prevented the team from generating much in the way of chemistry all season long.
But Miami endured a big injury in the trenches in Week 13 against the Cincinnati Bengals when offensive guard Ereck Flowers was rolled up on behind a Tua Tagovailoa scramble — which eventually led to the dreaded cart to make an appearance on the sideline to help Flowers to the locker room.
But despite the optics of Flowers’ injury, it appears as though Miami has avoided seeing their high-priced offensive guard succumb to a season -ending injury. It is yet to be determined how significant Flowers’ injury is, but reports indicate that Flowers will not be done for the season and we will see him back in the trenches for the Dolphins again soon.
Dolphins LG Ereck Flowers suffered an ankle sprain during Sunday’s game and didn’t return but he’s expected to play again this season, per source.
That’s a major win. Because for as frustrating as Miami’s struggles have been up front and in the run game this season, there’s little worse than playing musical chairs up front. That’s a one-way ticket to miscommunications and mental errors — and Miami has shown some signs of improvement in the run game over the last two weeks. Miami has rushed for 100+ yards as a team in consecutive games for just the third time in the Brian Flores era in their last two games. Granted, some of that success came with Flowers out of the game, but that is why Miami having six capable starters with varying ceilings as players between Flowers, Ted Karras, Jesse Davis and rookies Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt and Solomon Kindley is so important.
We’ll see how long Flowers is out of the picture, but we can rest easy knowing that there’s a capable fill-in who has logged starts elsewhere on the line in 2020.
Rookie Saahdiq Charles has been working as the starting LG this week, which could go a long way in helping the offensive line.
It’s been the same old story with Washington as far as the offensive line play goes this season, with the unit struggling as a whole to get much push in the run game, and allowing the quarterback to be under constant duress. Fortunately, they appear to be taking some measures to fix it this time around, mixing and matching some players in the front five to try and find a combination that works.
We posited earlier this week that the return of RG Brandon Scherff could allow Washington to shift Wes Schweitzer over to LG, placing Wes Martin on the bench. However, there is another young player that might be getting tapped for the start at LG with week, giving Washington a fresh look upfront that might actually instill some confidence from the fanbase.
Now Charles at LG during OL drills with Roullier and Scherff to his immediate right. https://t.co/rqRcIjRUVA
Rookie Saahdiq Charles, drafted as an LT out of LSU in the fourth-round this year, is currently getting run with the starters at the guard position. There were high hopes that Charles could take over as the starting LT in his rookie season, but a calf injury held him out of training camp and much of the start of the season, and Geron Christian Sr. got the nod instead. Shifting one spot to the inside might not be a bad call for Charles for the time being. He will still be playing on the left side, with just a few of the techniques and responsibilities shifting a bit. We saw Ereck Flowers go from LT to LG last fall, and he had a breakout season.
Expecting a rookie who is yet to have any real experience in the NFL to be the answer for a struggling unit as a whole is a bit risky, but at this point, Washington needs to be willing to try anything to patch things up on the front line.
Dolphins update reserve/COVID-19 list with two new designations
The Miami Dolphins have had a steady stream of updates for the league’s new reserve/COVID-19 list over the course of the past week or so. The Dolphins have already seen several players come on and off the list — with such a thorough testing approach this summer to attempt to solidify the locker room as a “safe space” from the ongoing virus, it was inevitable that positive tests — or at the very least, close contact with positive cases that signaled high risk potential — would be found and weeded out.
Miami announced two designations related to the new reserve/COVID-19 list yesterday, with projected starting guard Ereck Flowers being added to the list and rookie long snapper Blake Ferguson being removed from the list.
Dolphins announce Ereck Flowers goes on IR/COVID-19 list, but Blake Ferguson has since come off it. So four players Dolphins currently unavailable.
Ferguson was one of the first three players to be added to the list alongside fellow rookie Benito Jones and cornerback Cordrea Tankersley. Jones was on the list for a few days, whereas the Tankersley remains and is joined by Flowers, LB Jerome Baker and DL Zach Sieler as the current Dolphins players on the list.
The Dolphins will be eligible to remove all four players from the list when they meet the necessary requirements for removal — there should be no long-term impact on the Dolphins’ starting lineup and these designations, with so much time between now and the season opener, should clear up with plenty of time for all four talents to be given the green light for play. That is, of course, assuming there will be no additional close brushes with the virus between now and then.
Every NFL team has at least one player whose play deserves more praise than it gets. Here’s every team’s most underrated player.
In the NFL, players are underrated for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes, they’re second banana to a superstar whose deeds take up all the oxygen. Other times, it may be that the player has to climb up the depth chart as a little-regarded contributor, and the media hasn’t caught up yet. It’s also possible that the player has an incandescent talent that’s hidden by an unfavorable scheme. And it could also be that the player has had one great season, and everyone’s waiting to see if it’s a fluke.
No matter the reasons, every player on this list has set an exceptional standard deserving of more recognition. Here are the most underrated players for every NFL team going into the 2020 season.
Arizona Cardinals: EDGE Chandler Jones
(Getty Images)
Do you know which NFL player has the most sacks since 2012? We’re kind of giving it away here, but yes, it is Chandler Jones with 96 since his rookie season. That puts him above Von Miller, J.J. Watt, Cameron Jordan, Justin Houston, Aaron Donald, and anyone else you’d care to mention. Jones also has 85 quarterback hits and 307 quarterback hurries in that time, but he’s rarely discussed when it’s time to talk about the league’s edge-rushers. This despite the fact that he led the league in sacks in 2017 with 17 and finished second to Shaquil Barrett with 19 last season. Perhaps it’s because he’s been doing his work of late with a Cardinals team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2015, but no pass-rusher deserves more praise in line with his accomplishments than Jones.
Atlanta Falcons: DL Grady Jarrett
(Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports)
Lost in the specter of the Falcons’ 28-3 meltdown in Super Bowl LI was the fact that Jarrett, the Falcons’ fifth-round pick in 2015, was a borderline MVP candidate with three sacks and four quarterback hits before everything fell apart. Downgraded out of Clemson because he was allegedly too short, Jarrett has been a remarkable interior disruptor throughout his NFL career. Whether aligned at nose tackle or three-technique, Jarrett has totaled at least 43 quarterback hurries every season since 2016. The Falcons rewarded him with a four-year, $68 million contract in July, 2019, but Jarrett still doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.
Baltimore Ravens: OT Ronnie Stanley
(Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
Who’s the best left tackle in the NFL today? Were you to poll 100 experts, you’d get several different answers. But it’s hard to argue against Stanley, who allowed just one sack and 10 total pressures in 543 pass-blocking snaps last season, and helped the Ravens put together the NFL’s most dynamic rushing attack in his 489 run-blocking snaps. The 2019 season marked Stanley’s first All-Pro and Pro Bowl nods, and there should be more of that to come. Lamar Jackson is the talk of Baltimore’s offense, but it wouldn’t go the way it does without Stanley’s presence.
Buffalo Bills: WR John Brown
(JAMIE GERMANO/ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE -Imagn Content Services, LLC)
The big news for the Bills this offseason was the trade that brought Stefon Diggs to the team, but Buffalo’s receiver corps was already pretty strong, and Brown was the primary reason in 2019. Despite the fact that he plied his trade in a new offense and took passes from erratic quarterback Josh Allen, the former Cardinal and Raven set a career high with 72 receptions and posted the second 1,000-yard season of his career. The addition of Diggs should give Brown more one-on-one opportunities to succeed — especially if Allen is able to get his GPS aligned.
Carolina Panthers: S Tre Boston
(Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports)
Few deep safeties have been as adept in pass coverage than Boston over the last five season, so it has been a mystery why the Panthers cut him in 2017, and why he was unable to find more than a series of one-year deals with different teams until Carolina re-assessed its approach and signed him to a three-year, $18 million deal in March. It’s still chump change for a guy who plays as well as Boston does — he’s totaled 16 interceptions to just eight touchdowns allowed in his career — but it’s a nice bounceback for a player whose desire to protest may have cost him a more lucrative deal.
Chicago Bears: WR Allen Robinson
(Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports)
If any current receiver would be justified in filing a grievance against the NFL for lack of quarterback support, it would be Robinson, who has moved from Blake Bortles as his primary QB in Jacksonville to Mitchell Trubisky in Chicago. Hardly ideal. Still, Robinson led the NFL in touchdown receptions with 14 in 2015, and last season, with Trubisky falling apart most of the time, he still caught 98 passes for 1,147 yards and seven touchdowns. 2020 marks the last year of Robinson’s current contract with the Bears, and he’ll undoubtedly make the best of Chicago’s Trubisky/Nick Foles quaterback situation, and perhaps wind up on a team with a functional quarterback after that.
Cincinnati Bengals: RB Joe Mixon
(Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
The hope in Cincinnati is that the offense will come around with Joe Burrow at quarterback, but the Bengals are already set at the running back position, where Mixon gained 1,137 yards and five touchdowns on 278 carries last season, adding 35 receptions for 287 yards and three more touchdowns for good measure. Only five backs broke more rushing tackles than Mixon’s 52, and he totaled 14 runs of 15 or more yards last season, tied for fourth in the league.
Cleveland Browns: RB Nick Chubb
(AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Tennessee’s Derrick Henry was the NFL’s rushing leader in 2019, but it could easily be argued that Chubb was the league’s most efficient rusher. Not only did he gain 5.0 yards per carry (1,494 yards and eight touchdowns on 298 carries), but he also led the league in rushed of 15 or more yards (20), only the Raiders’ Josh Jacobs broke more rushing tackles than Chubb’s 66, and only Henry averaged more yards after contact per carry than Chubb’s 3.77. He was a one-man wrecking crew in a broken offense in 2019 — perhaps new head coach Kevin Stefanski can change that, but there’s no doubting Chubb’s status as one of the league’s rising stars.
Ohio State has been a cornerback factory over the past half-decade, but Apple is one of the school’s few flops in the NFL. Unlike others on this list, though, Apple didn’t have many on-field red-flags to worry about. The biggest from a grading perspective was his tackling. Apple earned tackling grades of 61.3 and 53.7 in 2014 and 2015, respectively. We’ve seen that show up at times in the NFL, as he missed 19 tackles on 100 attempts in 2018.
I think the biggest thing here was simply overvaluing his skillset. He was good at Ohio State, but not near what we’ve seen from their other recent top picks from a grading and statistical standpoint. Apple earned and 82.0 coverage grade his final season at Ohio State and allowed 14 first downs in his coverage.
Apple never fit in with the Giants. He grappled with authority and with the help of his outspoken mother, managed to display an unusual level of immaturity. He was traded to the New Orleans Saints at the 2018 trading deadline for a 2019 fourth-round pick and a 2020 seventh-round pick. The Giants used that fourth round selection to up in the draft to take DeAndre Baker.
The second bust was probably the most obvious, although he has now turned his career around at another position.
2015 ROUND 1, PICK 9: OT ERECK FLOWERS, MIAMI (FL)
Flowers was a guy who graded out extremely well his final season at Miami with a 90.0 pass-blocking grade, but the tape showed a guy getting by on pure physical talent. He faced one quality edge defender all season long in Nebraska’s Randy Gregory and got put on skates a few times in that game. The first two lines of the “Weaknesses” section in his NFL.com scouting report by Lance Zierlein reads:
Pass protection needs plenty of work. Footwork gets sloppy and undisciplined, causing base to narrow.
That’s not unlike a lot of top college tackle prospects, though. It’s difficult to be a finished product at such a skilled position coming out. The problem was that three years into his career you saw the exact same issues.
Flowers was a mess at left tackle for the Giants and almost got Eli Manning beheaded numerous times with whiffs and miss assignments. The Giants ended up releasing him in October of 2018 after he failed to successfully make the switch from right tackle from the left side.
OL Ereck Flowers relishing homecoming in Miami with the Dolphins
When the Washington Redskins and New England Patriots implemented the franchise tag to pull Brandon Scherff and Joe Thuney off of the 2020 free agent market, it became clear very quickly that Miami was going to have to pivot in their efforts to upgrade their offensive line ahead of the 2020 NFL Draft. Thuney was widely connected to the Dolphins for months — and Scherff would have been an excellent scheme fit under new offensive coordinator Chan Gailey.
But alas, neither was meant to be. And instead, the Dolphins signed a long-time Miami resident to pan their left guard position instead — former Miami Hurricane Ereck Flowers. Flowers, who was a top-10 overall pick in the NFL Draft a few years back for the New York Giants, enjoyed something of a career revival with the Washington Redskins in 2019. That revival was parlayed into a 3-year, $30M contract with the Dolphins once free agency opened last week.
For Flowers, the chance to continue advancing his career is made even more special by the opportunity to return to South Florida, a place he’s called home for a long time.
“I loved Washington. I loved being there. I loved my teammates. Their family bonded with my family, and I still talk to them to this day; but it was like playing for Miami was a chance for me to come home,” said Flowers yesterday during his digital press conference.
“It’s where I’m from, where I grew up and where I’ve been my whole life, and (to do it) at the pro level. For me, it was really kind of a tough choice; but I feel like it was the right choice as far as it’s what I’ve always dreamed of being able to do and where I always wanted to play. I’m just happy I get a chance to go out there and experience it.”
With some natural inspiration built into Flowers’ next chapter in the NFL, perhaps it can serve as the motivating factor for him to continue to level up as a player and continue to become a more consistent presence up front. The issue with Flowers has never been physical skill — it has been technique and consistency. Sprinkle in Miami’s coaching approach to player development and there’s some reason for optimism that Flowers can make the jump. At the very least we know he’s here for the right reason — because he wants to be. That should be enough to provide the positive mindset needed to work with a demanding coach to bring the best out of Flowers here in Miami.
Did the Dolphins overpay for any of their recent free agent signings?
[jwplayer UbhYJT3k-ThvAeFxT]
The Miami Dolphins moved aggressively this past week to secure several key upgrades to their roster — all in the name of formulating a team that better fits the vision of head coach Brian Flores and general manager Chris Grier. Some of the Dolphins’ new additions were easy to peg — like the addition of linebacker Kyle Van Noy as a former Patriot who enjoyed a career year under Flores in 2018.
But other additions weren’t necessarily tabbed as home run propositions — mainly because the player price tags can get a little crazy on the open market. That didn’t seem to phase the Dolphins in an abrupt about-face from 2019. The Dolphins locked down cornerback Byron Jones from Dallas, defensive end Shaq Lawson from Buffalo, Van Noy and offensive guard Ereck Flowers from Washington on deals that all pay at least $10M annually.
Are any of these signings considered overkill? Did the Dolphins overpay for anyone thus far in free agency?
Flowers’ deal will pay him $30M in three seasons, marking him as the 13th highest paid OG in the NFL. Flowers’ annual average salary is equivalent to what the Pittsburgh Steelers pay David DeCastro and is higher than the likes of Joel Bitonio, Larry Warford and Shaq Lawson. Is this a little rich? Perhaps. But that’s the natural of free agency. Give this deal two years and Flowers will likely sit somewhere around 20th in the NFL among guards, an appropriate value.
Van Noy’s $12.75M per season places him as the 6th highest ILB in football — but this number comes with an asterisk. Van Noy’s versatility will put him in more pass rush reps than your typical linebacker, so the Dolphins are paying for his productivity not just on the second level but for what he can also bring as a pass rusher.
Lawson’s $10M per season makes him the 40th highest paid “EDGE” defender in football. Among 4-3 defensive ends, Lawson’s pay is 24th highest in the league. For a player who brings more value than what you can see in the stat sheet as a pass rusher, Lawson might actually go down as a bargain when it is all said and done.
And then there’s Byron Jones.
Jones, at the time of his agreement with Miami, became the highest paid cornerback in football with an annual average salary of $16.5M per season. He held that title for all of two days — the Eagles traded for Darius Slay later in the week and agreed to a record setting contract to bump Jones off the top spot. An overpay in the short-term? Perhaps. But again, the Dolphins are shoveling tons of guaranteed money his way in the first two years and in 3 seasons time, Jones will probably sit as the 6th to 10th highest paid corner in football. That’s appropriate for his value in press man.
So if the Dolphins did overpay for any of their talent, it’s only because the deals are being looked at through the short-term point of view. Miami found players to match their price points and acted swiftly — for that they deserve credit.
