Chris Grier had been with the Dolphins since 2000. The team split with its GM just before the trade deadline. Two execs who had been with the franchise longer also are out of the picture now.
Following the Dolphins’ upset win over the Bills, NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero notes co-directors of player personnel Adam Engroff and Anthony Hunt are no longer with the organization. Both staffers had been with the Dolphins since the 1990s, and they had steadily ascended. They were the longest-tenured staffers in Miami’s front office, according to the Miami Herald’s C. Isaiah Smalls.
Engroff joined the Dolphins in 1999 as a scout and climbed to the director of college scouting post in 2016, the same offseason Grier took the GM reins. Grier overtaking Mike Tannenbaum as the Dolphins’ top front office decision-maker in 2019 also coincided with Engroff’s final rise within the organization, as the Dolphins elevated him to co-director of player personnel that year.
Hunt had been with the Dolphins since Dan Marino‘s prime, arriving in 1994, and he had been in the upper reaches of the team’s scouting department since 2013 — upon being promoted to co-director of pro personnel. Grier then appointed Hunt as a co-player personnel director alongside Engroff in 2019. While Engroff headed the Dolphins’ scouting department, Smalls notes Hunt worked closely with Grier on roster assembly.
It is interesting to see the Dolphins clean house on this level at this time. Scouting staffers are regularly retained through the draft, as contracts for those positions generally run beyond that point. Teams often prefer not to disrupt their scouting contingents during the runup to drafts, with many of those changes coming in May annually. Time remains to set draft boards, however, and the Dolphins are in overhaul mode despite having intentions to retain Mike McDaniel through season’s end. Though, having these positions unfilled ahead of Thanksgiving represents an interesting setup.
Champ Kelly is in place as interim GM, being hired this past offseason after a Raiders departure. Kelly is technically auditioning to replace Grier, but teams do not make a habit of removing interim tags from GMs. Stephen Ross likely has outside candidates in mind, despite Grier being an internal staffer to climb. The Dolphins last hired an outsider to head up their front office when they tabbed Tannenbaum as executive VP of football ops in 2015. Dennis Hickey is the most recent outsider to be named GM in Miami; his tenure lasted only two years (2014-15).
That’s sad.
NFL front office staffs are so bloated, that you could throw half a dozen guys under the bus and still have a few fall guys left over.