The Draft is for Depth

I grew up playing the Madden and NFL 2k games. For me it was more fun to play GM, assembling rosters through free agency and the draft, then simulating through seasons to see how I’d done.

One of the first lessons you learn when you play through ten-plus seasons this way is that the salary cap is your greatest enemy. Do you know how many dynasties I’ve seen broken up by the salary cap? Literally too many to count.

There are exactly three ways to add talent to your team’s roster: the draft, free agency, and trades. The old philosophy, which you still see around in places like Green Bay and employed by disciples specifically of Ron Wolf, is to draft and develop. Free agency is, in the context of the League’s history, a newfangled idea.

That’s why you keep seeing teams get it wrong every year.

Because I’m still new at this and our relationship is still young, I’m going to point to the Patriots as a guidepost for a while. Because it’s easy, yes, but because Brian Flores, Miami Dolphins and my head coach, learned at the hip of Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft for more than a decade.

Late last season, Bill basically broke down and tried to explain why his team was bad last year. The roster was bereft of talent. But why? To hear him tell it, it’s because they’d wrecked their salary cap chasing titles the last five years. And he's right.

The typical assumption when building a roster is that you assemble 90 football players, and by the end of training camp and roster cuts, competition will shake out the best available 53. Tradition tells us that, because of the restrictions of the salary cap and the balance of the draft, every team’s 53 are effectively the same. The difference comes in coaching.

This is true to varying degrees. But, in Ron Wolf terminology, you have to have more so-called Blue Chip players than your opponent. You have to have more guys in key places to make game-changing plays at necessary times. Coaching puts guys like Andrew Van Ginkel, someone who through the first eight weeks of 2020 flashed brighter than Chase Young. But 17 weeks separates the wheat from the chaff, and by season's end, Miami was out of Blue Chips to play.

“I’m excited to work with Tua.”

That's what Brian Flores said in regards to his quarterback situation yesterday. Dolphins management aren’t going to mess this up. They got their quarterback. They got him in-season reps where they could control what coals were in his path. (We can talk more about what I think the plan is and what the successes were with Tua in another piece.) They know the next missing pieces. Look, Flores isn’t the only one of the two with more than a decade watching a franchise as he worked his way up the ladder. Only his franchise spent his nearly 20-year career being mired in mediocrity.

The Dolphins have something absurd like exactly an exactly .500 record since Marino left.

He’s watched big-money free agents come in on long-term deals that seem to make sense. If those dudes were the missing pieces to a Super Bowl.

Dolphins fans know the names. But let’s review them, starting with none other than Kyle Van Noy. There was Ndumakon Suh. Brandon Marshall. Brandon Albert. Mike Wallace. These guys didn’t do anything. Nothing special. Was one of them a Player of the Year? Did he make a Hall of Fame bid with the team? Who of those dudes played like a Blue Chip player for Miami?

It’s unfair to compare Van Noy in that, and I’m sorry (if you’re reading this).

My memories for all but one of those dudes is getting a year or two into their contract and management getting squeamish.

This leads me to my philosophy - in Madden.

Free Agency is for depth. There is a reason those players are available. Sometimes it’s not because they aren’t worth what they want. Sometimes it really is just a difference in scheme or personality. We’ve all worked jobs where a simple transfer was enough to put a smile back on our faces and a pep back in our steps by our late-20s - which is when you’re typically getting free agents.

The Dolphins are not one star player away from a push at the Super Bowl. They just aren’t. They have to start collecting affordable Blue Chip players.

I expect them to play free agency smart. Teams know that the salary cap is going to spike in two to three years. (We can talk more about that in another piece, too - it’s what I’ve been watching and listening to most closely the last few days.) Two to three years is when last year’s crop of rookies will be wanting extensions. Brian Flores is a player-developing coach. Chris Grier’s background is in college scouting, and he has already established a Re-sign Our Own culture - which, admittedly has gotten him in trouble before and is something to look out for with Xavien Howard going forward.

If I’m Grier, I’m confident in the lines I’ve assembled, and I’m not looking for starters. In terms of Madden, I’m not looking for dudes in the 80s who are going to cost me multiple millions. I’m looking for dudes in the 60s with high upside who are going to cost me maybe 7 or 800k.

I remember that Albert Wilson is coming back next year and that my receiver corps are already undersized as it is. I pat myself on the back for my tight ends and consider that a position of serious strength on my team. I wonder what-if about my running backs. I like them all; they’ve all shown flashes individually. But they’ve all got major question marks in the most important area of ability: availability.

If I were to make a prediction, I would call for the Dolphins not to make a splash this year. They might target the offensive line for depth - but the Chiefs and other win-now teams, like the Colts who have a ton of cash to spend, are also looking for offensive line help. Everyone needs offensive line help. So look for a durable receiver to come our way and maybe a Swiss Army Knife offensive lineman.

Next time we’ll target 7 offensive players I would make Skype calls about. Bearing in mind I’m trying to drive their price up, not win a bidding war.