Not necessarily, after they add Watson's remaining contract to their salary cap... I mean, I think you're mostly on point and I don't disagree. But you're also talking about Watson essentially wasting 2-3 years of his prime, in a dangerous sport, and... he'll be needing a new, even bigger contract right around the time the scars are healing from the cost of trading for him. I would guess Watson is a little sheltered here about how things work. He's likely used to things being "easy." He would inevitably make any team better instantly - but he's gong to drastically impact their ability to sustain and/or grow around him. That's what franchise QBs do that *don't* also cost additional personnel capital. I mean, look no further than the impact the Tunsil deal has had here.
You might mean ownership. I fully understand Easterby complicates things - but Caserio is, technically, the front office and it is quite possibly an upgrade over the previous front office.
The Dolphins have Top 7 defense. They have Davante Parker as WR1 who should be just as good if not better than what Fuller produced with Watson at QB. Their O-line gave up 34 sacks all season. You're either underestimating how Watson could make a 10-6 team better, or how good the Dolphins would still be without those picks next season, or both.
Or would the dolphins be better with those picks plus cap space? It’s an interesting question. This scenario has literally never happened. Most franchise QB’s are drafted and you build around them without having to trade valuable picks or shed cap space.
If you work at Burger King but hate your boss McDonald's is going to start looking like a 5-star restaurant pretty quickly. It's possible Deshaun is just being a melodramatic spoiled brat here. However, even in the worst case of that, he's still an amazingly talented and important employee. On the flipside, the management is proven to be top-tier idiots. So... it's hard to give them any leeway that this either 1) isn't their fault outright or that 2) they should/could have done more to prevent it.
That's a valid argument though I think getting a known quantity, especially an elite QB, over gambling on rookie potential by way of those picks gotta make it easier. Unlike the Jets, the Dolphins are ready for success right now. That "success" might just be to make the playoffs and win a game or two or now but that's probably something Deshaun would want as anything can happen once you're in the playoffs.
If the NFL has its own WAR metric like baseball I wonder how many wins Watson was solely responsible for this past season. 2? 3? People might say "well even with him we were still a 4-12 team" are the ones that don't realize "well what kind of sh*tshow would this have been WITHOUT him?". I look at this year's team and if you take out Watson and replaced him with an replacement-level QB this team would easily be giving Miami the 1st or 2nd pick.
Yes - it's an improvement because the organization is better. The Jets have Robert Saleh, who he believes in. Jacksonville has Urban Meyer an endless amount of capspace. Miami nearly made the playoffs and is clearly on the upswing. Texans fans continue to make the same mistake - the underlying problem here is the organization itself and the decision-making process that ensure continued failure. He wants to get out of that. ANY situation is better than that because they have always have a chance to improve. He's not looking where he can win next year. He's looking at where he can win over the next 5-10 years. Texans fans repeatedly fall for "this time is different". Many of us have repeatedly pointed out ownership makes the same mistakes. You hope the Texans can be good in 5 years. He knows better.
This x 1000. He basically said he wanted an environment free of a holes who think they have the power to give people the label of 'no longer a cultural fit' Most local media focused on everything of this next clip and missed the most important part, seconds 20-30 in the video. Sometimes being away from a toxic environment can be refreshing. These natural born contrarians siding with easterby don't want to realize that trading watson is not solving the issue whatsoever. As for Watson wanting Mahomes fame and some saying he can't have that, that's hilarious. The entire sporting news has Watson's back. Everyone seems to love him. That Larry David "Jets Watson" skit is coming to fruition.
I don't obviously follow the Dolphins very closely. Flores does seem like a highly competent head coach and they very obviously played well in 2020. But very often, 10+ win seasons that suddenly arrest a long stretch of single-win seasons (in the Dolphins' case, 14 of the previous 16 seasons) tend to be outliers and difficult to sustain. Case in point, Miami's two double-digit win seasons since 2004 ('08 and '16) were followed by seven consecutive single-digit win seasons ('08) and three ('16). The Dolphins very obviously benefited from the Patriots finally falling back to Earth. They played - and won - three games against teams that combined to win 3 games (Jax and NYJ twice); they beat exactly 1 team with a winning record (Rams) and were 1-4 overall against '20 playoff teams. Seven of their 10 wins were against teams with losing records. Right now, today, their situation is undoubtedly better than the Texans'. What I think the Dolphins need to consider is whether *their* situation is better with Watson? Tua + the draft capital (including a top 3 pick they fell into) is the *right* way (IMO) to build on a outlier-ish of a season. Not assuming your team is otherwise set and just a QB away because everything that happened in '20 will happen again in '21.
YES. The answer to every one of these hypotheticals is YES. We went through the same nonsense when Peyton Manning was interested in the Texans after leaving the Colts and people argued "no, Matt Schaub is fine, we don't have the cap space, blah blah blah". If you can get a generational QB, it's worth it. ALWAYS. Maybe not next year for the Dolphins. But for the next decade? Absolutely. You move heaven and earth to get him and you sort out the rest. They will never regret making that trade.
I suppose... but let’s not act like Watson was never in the playoffs here. the Texans showed the world this year that you do need a little bit more than an elite QB, despite it being the most important/hard to find piece. they also showed the world that you can win 10 games one year (like the Dolphins did), and 4 the next year... despite your franchise QB getting better. All that being said, all teams should be trying to trade for him... minus KC and Buffalo.
U r thinking short term. Long term any team that Watson join, I will confidently say will do better than whatever sht Christian team our front office creates. Watson tanking on a competent front office gives him the best chance to win. This front office is so sht, even if he tanked (like this season) it's a waste of time. He literally lost a season for nothing.
The counterpoint here - which is what I'm trying to argue - is that those advantages likely evaporate when you trade for a franchise QB on a large contract. Watson absorbs Jacksonville's "endless cap space." (They're *much* better off drafting Lawrence.) Watson impacts the Dolphins' ability to build on an outlier-ish of a season (and might not be better than Tua + Devonta Smith + 1.18 + etc). Saleh is every bit as unknown and unproven as Culley and the Jets owner does not represent a significant ownership upgrade (The Jets have had one winning season in the past 10 and were significantly worse than the Texans last year after trading their best player). Here's the thing, though, Major - as spot on as you may be... the Texans have recently been a much better franchise than the Dolphins and Jets and debatably better than Jacksonville (they do have a championship game appearance; they also doubled-down on Blake Bortles). I cannot dispute anything you've said about the Texans - it's all true. I just don't necessarily think the grass is greener - it might be! But it also might be less greener after Watson's new teams guts itself to acquire him. I don't know what the *right* answer is here. But I don't think whatever it might be is as easy as Watson probably believes it is.
Agreed. I think there are just too many variables at play here for anyone following football to say, with high confidence, that Houston is the best place for Watson. Anything can happen in the NFL but the best way to minimize risk of 4-win seasons is to have a solid foundation and that's what Miami clearly has and will have even if they surrender all of their picks for Watson.
Recently, I 100% agree. But we're looking at things going forward. The problem is that the Texans' problems are not fixable from his perspective (and from many of our perspectives). It's the owner and Easterby and the whole process for making decisions. They just made a 6 year commitment to the new GM. And while the trade request was made weeks ago, hiring a coach that no one has ever had any interest in for decades just reinforces it all. From Watson's perspective, that means the rest of his contract would be under this mess of leadership. Any situation is better because no other situation locks him into what he (rightly or wrongly) believes is a complete failure of leadership.
Man, we're not far off. I'm absolutely on your wavelength even if I don't fully agree with it. (The Manning situation, however, is not analogous to this at all: he was a free agent, no longer "generational," and coming off of a major injury which lessened his leverage.) I don't know what the Dolphins think of Tua (and I have absolutely *no* opinion myself because I've seen him play exactly 0.0 times in my life). He was a rookie coming off a major injury who showed flashes, right? Started late? A full offseason, adding a weapon like Smith (who I assume he's played with)... Watson is go for broke. If he doesn't work, or requires a few more pieces (the Dolphins should assume *nothing* from '20 is automatically sustainable), you've severely impacted your ability to make it work around him. We watched the Rockets shuffle deck chairs around Harden because there was only so much they could do (and the NBA's salary structure is much more team-friendly than the NFL's) and it stuck them territory not terribly distant from the Texans - mostly first/second round playoff fodder.
Right. You are 100% correct, and have undoubtedly captured the likely essence of Watson's frustration. I just wonder if he's considered, as bad as things are now (and, look - he signed a large extension *a year ago* so things must not have been *that* bad for too long), is the process of salvaging the Texans' situation an easier path than gutting a new team? I mean, the Jets essentially trade places with the Texans if they deal for Watson: a first-year coach with a dipshit owner; less current talent; no immediate draft capital. I assume their cap situation is better - also, that cap situation doesn't include paying their QB ~$35MM/year.
