MIAMI — The Miami Dolphins, in an out-of-character power play and show of force, have loudly declared themselves in win-now mode and a sudden, major player in the NFL’s improved and densely competitive AFC.
They landed the overall No. 1-ranked free agent Tuesday night in elite offensive tackle Terron Armstead — only to top themselves Wednesday with a blockbuster trade that brings top-tier wide receiver Tyreek Hill from the Kansas City Chiefs.
And with two deals both big, bold, costly and smart, Miami has put the money behind its pledge to go all-in with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in a playoffs-or-bust gambit.
I’m not sure who feels more like a kid on Christmas morning today: Tagovailoa, or new head coach Mike McDaniel.
Or maybe it’s long-beleaguered Dolphins fans pinching themselves the most, like, “Wait. The Dolphins did what!?”
This is the NFL franchise that has been repaying the football gods for the Perfect Season for much of the past half century. Or at least since Dan Marino fell into their lap almost 40 years ago.
The franchise of Bullygate, and the offensive line coach canned for snorting cocaine off his desk. The club that hasn’t won a playoff game in 22 years, and whose owner is accused of bribing his former head coach to intentionally lose in a Machiavellian scheme to win the No. 1 overall draft pick.
Now the cursed, snake-bit Dolphins, in a 12-hour flurry, have instantly and immensely improved their offensive line, forever an Achilles heel, and then traded for perhaps the NFL’s fastest, most electric wideout in Hill.
The offseason had already been a quiet success geared to surrounding Tua with talent, thanks to signing guard Connor Williams, receiver Cedrick Wilson, running backs Chase Edmonds and Raheem Mostert and fullback Alec Ingold, along with the franchise tag to keep tight end Mike Gesicki.
Armstead and Hill turn good to great.
With shades of LeBron James in 2010, “I’ll be taking my talents to South Beach,” said Armstead on Instagram Tuesday night.
After ESPN reported Wednesday the Dolphins and Jets were frontrunners to get Hill, Edmonds retweeted the news, “Miami gang summon that prayer circle.”
I try my best to avoid hyperbole but there are times restraint is hopeless.
Signing Armstead feels like a watershed milestone in the club’s long and seemingly endless search to find guys who are good at blocking the other guy.
Hill pairs with Jaylen Waddle and DeVante Parker to give the Fins a dynamic WR trio — one of the best in the entire league.
It cost a ton to get Hill. Miami gives up its 2022 first-round pick (29th overall) as well as a second and fourth this year and a fourth and sixth in ‘23. He’s worth it — unequivocally.
Miami gets him on a four-year, $120 million extension, making him the highest paid receiver in football. If he makes the Fins a playoff team, and helps Tua blossom, he’s worth it.
Hill had 111 catches for 1,239 yards and nine touchdowns last season. Has 24 TDs over the past two years.
The two deals hit as the exclamatory punctuation on what has been a successful (if chaotic) offseason.
The Dolphins give Tua Tagovailoa two more reasons to soar and two fewer excuses to fail.
They provide — at least for Dolfans who have not yet had the optimism entirely beaten out of them — more nourishment for the idea this is a team finally poised to turn the proverbial corner.
(I know, I know. Miami is stuck in an AFC that now includes Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Matt Ryan and Lamar Jackson, among others. But now is not the time for sober realism. We’re trying to be uplifting over here!).
One can nitpick the Armstead signing, sure.
He is a natural left tackle, coming to a team whose lefty quarterback makes right tackle the more essential role. Can he switch over?
He had an injury history with the New Orleans Saints, including knee and elbow issues that limited him to eight games last season.
He’ll turn 31 as training camp begins in late July, still in his prime but perhaps the far side of it. But take even that as a positive. It means Miami believes it is close and working for now, not someday.
And why not, after the club’s first consecutive winning seasons since 2002-03? And with a potential wunderkind, next-big-thing new coach in McDaniel.
Miami traded away its last great tackle, Laremy Tunsil, in 2019. But that was in mid-rebuild. And the draft picks obtained for Tunsil turned out to be future stars Waddle and Jevon Holland.
Armstead signals the rebuild is over and win-now mode is fully on.
So does Hill. Some may cringe over his past off-field issues (pleaded guilty to domestic assault in 2014, was investigated for child abuse in ‘19), but on the field there are few who an rival him. And fewer who can catch him
These two major moves, and the offseason as a whole, erase all doubts about Miami being all-in, albeit belatedly, with Tagovailoa in what figures to be a make-or-break Year 3 for him and the club’s faith in him.
Armstead is a three-time Pro Bowl guy who instantly improves a line that ranked last in the league in 2021 with a pass-block win rate of only 46.6%. Miami got him for a good price, too, relatively speaking, at $87.5 million over five years. Most analysts projected he’d command $20 million a year. What they are paying for is an extra second of clean pocket for Tagovailoa, a difference not be underestimated..
“I haven’t seen a quarterback win a football game by himself ever, really,” as McDaniel put it recently. “He has to have somebody to throw to. And he better not be getting tackled before he throws, so somebody better block.”
More time to throw and an arsenal now featuring Hill should make all the difference for a young quarterback still trying to prove himself.
They had better.
Because the reasons to succeed are piling up all around for Tua Tagovailoa, and the excuses for failing are all gone.
