FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Perhaps I’m naive, but I’ll admit that I was a bit surprised Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill was accused of an alleged assault on June 18. I was caught off guard because the Dolphins have done a good job of staying away from knuckleheads recently, and players have done a good job of staying away from knucklehead behavior.
Granted, we don’t know what happened between Hill and a fishing charter employee at Haulover Marina on Miami Beach. Complete details haven’t yet emerged, and there have been no charges filed.
Here’s one thing we know for sure: Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and coach Mike McDaniel have tried to assemble a team that’s pretty much free of knuckleheads (that’s my term, not theirs). And for the most part, they’ve accomplished that goal.
I’ve been meaning to publicly comment on that for a while, and if I haven’t, I’m doing it now.
Yeah, my timing could be called into question.
I’m not taking sides, and I mean no disrespect to anyone.
But considering, as far as we know, this isn’t an incident in which a weapon was drawn or someone was punched in the face or anything along those lines, I feel fairly safe commenting on this aspect of the Dolphins’ roster.
And the reason I bring this up is because, again, I was a bit surprised to hear about this incident.
I understand this Dolphins’ organization wants to win as badly as any other. Their zeal cost them a first-round draft pick in their pursuit of quarterback Tom Brady. And, yes, they showed interest in quarterback DeShaun Watson while he was being investigated for unseemly behavior with massage therapists. And this is the organization that backed up a doctor who said quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a back injury against Buffalo early last season, and that’s why he was stumbling on the field.
Still, the Dolphins, as far as we know, have been pretty good along the lines of nonsensical behavior for the past few years. And last year they seemed to make it a point to get so-called “good character” guys. They’ve mentioned it. McDaniel talked about it last month.
“First and foremost,” McDaniel said nine days before the alleged Hill incident, “we wouldn’t have a chance to have the camaraderie that we have in this locker room if it weren’t for the personnel department and how good of a job they do and really figuring out what types of people we’re getting on this team.”
Granted, it’s the NFL’s Silly Season, the time between minicamp and training camp when knucklehead behavior seems to find headlines.
But this Dolphins team is pretty sharp. They have good smarts as well as off-field businesses, interests and ventures.
Edge rusher Jaelan Phillips was the Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee for his charitable works. Defensive lineman Emmanuel Ogbah, a native of Nigeria, recently went on a football-teaching trip to Kenya. Defensive tackle Christian Wilkins won the Campbell Award, the so-called “Academic Heisman,” while at Clemson.
Cornerback Keion Crossen is so sharp that he’s his own agent. That’s right, Crossen, one of the brightest guys on the team, negotiated his contract with Grier. Ex-punter Thomas Morstead was his own agent for a brief while when he was in New Orleans. Morstead, by the way, slept on a New Orleans street in a sleeping bag with his family during the bye week last season to raise awareness and funds for homelessness. Left tackle Terron Armstead is an aspiring hip-hop artist.
In fact, last season I explored writing a column on the entrepreneurial spirit and general wisdom/knowledge on the team but decided it wasn’t quite strong enough. You don’t want to stretch the truth on such matters. I know of a few other Dolphins teams, which, not coincidentally, were more veteran teams, that had more stuff going on off the field than last year’s crew, which was relatively young.
Still, this team seemed to have a lot going its way as far as being free of knuckleheads and knucklehead-related incidents.
I say that fully aware the Dolphins recently signed wide receiver Robbie Chosen, who has had his share of off-field incidents, including being arrested twice in an eight-month stretch in 2018.
Look, no team comes up completely incident-free when you look into player histories. Hill, for example, has incidents in his past, including an arrest on domestic violence charges in 2014. Most likely if you gather a group of more than 60 people (53-man roster and practice squad) there will be a few people with incidents whether that group of people are bankers, politicians, school teachers, coaches, NFL owners, whatever.
Now, obviously, the nature of those incidents matters, and so do details such as the offender’s behavior during the incident, since the incident, and other things.
The point is, while the Dolphins haven’t been perfect, they’ve been pretty good recently at avoiding knuckleheads and knucklehead behavior while also fielding a playoff team.
Let’s hope that trend continues.
