- As of late June, the expectation was that Dolphins center Mike Pouncey would be ready for Week 1. That remains the case, it seems, as Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald reports that Pouncey hasn’t had any setbacks during his recovery from the hip injury that kept him out of 11 games last year. As a result, both Pouncey and the Dolphins are “confident” a forthcoming hip exam will yield positive results. Still, for precautionary reasons, the Dolphins will limit Pouncey in practice throughout the year in hopes of having him for all 16 regular-season games (and potential playoff contests), relays Salguero.
Rashad Jennings has proven that he can dance. Now, he wants to prove that he can still play football at a high level. The free agent running back says that he is anxious to play in 2017 and eager for an NFL opportunity. 
“I know there is a place for me in the league based on my skill set. I want to prove one GM right this year,” Jennings told SiriusXM (Twitter links).
Jennings added that he has had “simple conversations” with the Lions, Packers, Ravens, Rams, and Dolphins. The veteran hopes that those simple conversations will lead to a deal from one of those teams, but for now, he’s in “wait and see” mode.
The reigning Dancing With The Stars champion had a paltry 3.3 yards per carry average last year on 181 rushes, but did record 35 receptions. On the plus side, Pro Football Focus graded him as one of the NFL’s best pass blockers in 2016 and he isn’t too far removed from a productive 2015 season in New York.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
The Dolphins recently worked out free agent defensive tackle Roy Miller, according to Mike Kaye of First Coast News (on Twitter). Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald (Twitter link) confirms the news, adding that the workout took place on Tuesday. 
Miller is still recovering from Achilles surgery, Salguero says, and he left Miami without a contract. It’s not immediately clear whether the Dolphins are still thinking about adding him to the 90-man roster.
Back in June, Miller indicated that he was starting to get bites from teams.
“There’s a few teams that have shown some interest here and there,” Miller said. “I believe my agent has a few – there’s a couple of trips I have to take – this month. It was always [the plan] to kind of wait until mid-July, so I can go out there with enough time to heal and time to get back in shape and then go out there and compete.”
From the sound of it, Miller might not be as far along in his recovery as he anticipated. His best bet might be to wait a couple more weeks before auditioning for other clubs.
Miller, 30, made 50 starts for the Jags from 2013 through 2016. After an injury-shortened season, the Jaguars didn’t show much interest in retaining him. Still, Miller offers lots of experience and he’s not far removed from a productive 2015 season in which he had 4.0 sacks and 40 total tackles.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
- The Dolphins face a “delicate balance” with safety T.J. McDonald, who is suspended for the first eight games of the season, as James Walker of ESPN.com writes. Miami signed McDonald as a free agent knowing he’d be banned for the first half of the year, but given that he’s expected to be inserted into the starting lineup when he’s eligible, McDonald needs practice reps in order to prepare. However, the Dolphins also need to prepare others, such as Nate Allen and Michael Thomas, who will start in McDonald’s absence.
- The Dolphins‘ best bet may be to simply let Jarvis Landry play out the 2017 season, his contract year, and put the franchise tag on him in 2018, as Roy Cummings of Florida Football Insiders opines. After all, Landry is set to make less than $1MM this year, so even the projected $17MM tag in 2018 would allow Miami to keep Landry for at least two more seasons at about $8.5MM per year, which is well below the $14MM per year he would likely get with a new contract. Although that approach could create some discord between player and team, it does make short-term financial sense.
The Dolphins released cornerback Brent Grimes in March 2016, which his wife, Miko Grimes, took credit for at the time and again in an interview this week with Jack Dickey of SI.com. “People say I got him cut with my mouth,” said Miko Grimes. “Duh! That was the goal!” While Miko Grimes has taken to Twitter in the past to make anti-Semitic comments about Dolphins brass and attack quarterback Ryan Tannehill, her obnoxious behavior did not spur Brent Grimes’ release, reports Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Rather, the Dolphins cut the now-Buccaneer “because of his size, his age, and the magnitude of his contract,” writes Florio, who adds that they first tried to trade him.
Dolphins wide receiver Jarvis Landry won’t be willing to discuss a contract extension once the season begins, yet the team still isn’t working to lock him up. The Dolphins haven’t made Landry an offer, reports Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, though he notes there’s enough time between now and Week 1 for that to change.
Miami entered the offseason with the goal of extending Landry, so it’s fair to surmise that the club will make an earnest effort to get something done with the 24-year-old over the next two months. Landry made an emphatic case for a lucrative extension from 2014-16 by amassing 288 catches, the most ever for a player in his first three seasons, and 13 touchdowns. As a result, the 6-foot, 205-pound slot target is likely in line for a deal worth upward of eight figures per annum, which would be an enormous raise for a player set to make just under $894K this season.
Given that the franchise tag for receivers will cost north of $15.6MM next offseason, it would behoove the Dolphins to work out an extension with Landry over the next several weeks. Otherwise, they could be at risk of losing the leader of the enviable Landry-Kenny Stills–DeVante Parker wideout trio at season’s end. The club already prevented Stills from leaving via free agency back in March, when it handed him a four-year, $32MM contract, including $20MM in guarantees. Stills, 25, received that deal off a 42-catch, 726-yard, nine-touchdown season, while Landry put up 94-1,136-four in 2016.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Jarvis Landry is entering his contract year, but he says he wants to stay with the Dolphins for the long haul. At the same time, he confirmed that he is setting a deadline for the two sides to agree to an extension.
Ryan Tannehill may be working with the most talented offensive weapons he’s ever had at his disposal in 2017, and if he wants to remain under center for the Dolphins for the long haul, he will have to make the most of those weapons. Yesterday, we looked at a discussion among ESPN’s AFC East contingent as to whether Miami should stick with Tannehill or start looking for his replacement, and while the consensus is that Tannehill is a solid quarterback whose contract looks more and more like a bargain with each passing year, the ESPN scribes do not appear to have much faith that Tannehill can bring a title to South Beach. Indeed, ESPN’s Bills reporter, Mike Rodak, believes the Dolphins need to begin preparing for their next quarterback now.
And it’s hard to blame him. It took Tannehill five seasons to post a winning record, and his skill-set and statistical output to this point in his career reasonably invoke the old adage that is trotted out for quarterbacks like Jay Cutler and Alex Smith: just good enough to lose.
Of course, Tannehill is not solely responsible for the Dolphins’ mediocre record during his tenure. After all, it’s not as though the team has been stocked with talent that was held back by substandard quarterback play. Rather, the roster has been average at best and Tannehill, whose performance has been average to a little above-average, has not been able to enhance it. But as the talent surrounding him slowly improves, it is fair to question whether Tannehill has enough ability to turn his team into a true championship contender.
What makes a conversation about Tannehill’s long-term future with Miami particularly interesting now is the way his contract is structured. After 2017, the only guaranteed money on Tannehill’s deal is $5.525MM of his 2018 salary that is currently guaranteed for injury and becomes fully guaranteed on the fifth day of the 2018 league year. That means that, if they really want to, the Dolphins could part ways with Tannehill after this season and the dead cap hit would be fairly minimal while the savings would be significant.
The problem is that Miami does not have a young quarterback on the roster that is pushing for playing time, and free agency is almost never an answer when it comes to quarterbacks. The 2018 rookie class may boast a fair amount of quarterback talent, so if Tannehill struggles in 2017, it would behoove the team to draft a signal-caller in the early rounds of next year’s draft and groom him behind Tannehill for a year or so (Tannehill is under club control through 2020).
So while it would be a surprise to see Tannehill somewhere other than Miami in 2018, the 2017 season will go a long way towards determining his future prospects with the Dolphins.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill believes the team’s 2017 offense will be the best he has ever played with, and James Walker of ESPN.com agrees with him. On paper, Miami does boast a great deal of talent at the skill positions, but as Walker observes, the Dolphins still have some depth problems. Jay Ajayi was a revelation in 2016, but what happens if he should go down with an injury, or if he needs to be spelled from time to time as the season progresses? Could Kenyan Drake or Damien Williams step up? And can Leonte Carroo be counted on to complement Kenny Stills, Jarvis Landry, and DeVante Parker, or even carry the load if one of those players should get hurt? Will Mike Pouncey stay healthy for a full season. Of course, every team can ask itself similar questions, but for the Dolphins’ offense to take a step forward this year, it will need to stay healthy or else get contributions from unlikely sources.