Last year the Dolphins ended the season as the number 24 ranked run defense in the league, and a big reason for that low ranking was because the run defense fell apart during the last 6 games of the year.
Most pay per head services sites like AcePerHead.com would say that was the Dolphins biggest weakness going into this off-season. As a result, the organization has made fixing the run defense one of their top priorities by signing Suh and using their second-round draft pick on Phillips. However, the Dolphins have not stopped there, and have just signed veteran DT C.J. Mosley, the former Detroit Lion, to a one year deal.
Mosley is a massive individual at 6’2”, 312 pounds, who appeared in 15 games last season with the Lions, with 8 of them being starts. Not only was he productive last season with 26 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and one forced fumble, but he predominately played next to Suh. Over the last two seasons when Mosley and Suh were on the field together, the Lions pressured opposing QB’s on 29% of drop-backs, including 18 sacks. (6.2% of drop-backs) These two players have very good chemistry together, and I think this is another great signing that will help to improve our run defense and our team as a whole.
The one thing I wonder about from this signing is whether or not this signing has any reflection of what the team thinks about Phillips and Mitchell. Is there some doubt in the organization that Phillips will not reach his potential or whether Mitchell can handle a larger amount of snaps and responsibility or did Miami just see Mosley as a great way to add depth at a position that was a weakness last season? I would say that it probably is a little bit of everything. If Phillips were dazzling coaches in practice, then I doubt the team would spend more money on the DT position. The team also probably feels that Mitchell has mainly been a rotational player throughout his career, so giving him a lot more snaps may cause his production to decrease.
Nonetheless, when a team can sign a quality depth player at a position that was previously a weakness, and that has great playing chemistry with another new player on the team, then it is a great move that most fans will agree can help to make one’s team better. Hopefully, the Phins can also find a quality Guard to add to their roster as well.
Regarding this piece of Miami Dolphins news, what do the rest of the Phins fans thoughts about us signing Mosley?
Our cap space should be focused on signing our own free agents the next few years. The front office has put together a very good young ascending roster. Now that the foundation is there, in-house should be their focus and to figure out a way to keep this team together.
Dunner I am torn because I hear what you say about signing our own free agents such as Vernon and Miller, however I feel if we splurged on Mathis, he could make our entire offense tops in the league. The offensive line would over night become one of the best in the league, and both our running and passing game would benefit from it.
Whether we cut Mitchell or not we need to go aftermath it’s aggressively. Mathes is a game changer for us he can protect kind of hell and open the polls for running backs. He can do it for probably 4 years. We need to upgrade our offense of line. This is the perfect opportunity to do that. We could offer a four-year contract the Mathes with two years guaranteed money and two years is optional. A contract like that he would probably sign for 4 1/2 to $5 million per year. Other veteran guards that are this good are getting 5 to 6,000,000 a year. Mathis was great at the best guard in the NFL in 2014. We will have injuries this year hopefully not door offense of line but if we do having methods in there will provide us more stability. We don’t need to cut Mitchell this year. We can use him and if he disappoints this year we can cut him next year when we need that CAP space. Next year we might also be faced with cutting one or two of our veterans due to injuries plus tha cap grows another 18 million next year so we will be fine to sign our free agents that we want to keep so there will be plenty of cap Space and that should not be a stopper for signing Mathis Our guards will benefit from playing as backups or rotating with Mathis plus it’s additional insurance in case of injuries Please get Mathis and finally solve our offensive line woes
Hope this signing is a sign (pun intended) that Mitchell will be let go. He got pushed around like a toy in the run game last year. Otherwise this signing makes no sense. How many DTs do you need on a team? Are they going to play a 5-2?
I like the signing. I do not think that it is a reflection on Phillips as I do think it is more of reflection on Mitchell. Maybe I’m hoping thats the case. Not sure what the cap numbers are for Mitchell, cutting Mitchell may be an option. I like what Diego mentioned about possible cutting Mitchell and rolling that money into a Mathis deal. All the sudden the right side of the line (Pouncey, Mathis, Albert) is monstrous. And yes, it would be a great finish to an already impressive off season.
The significance of this signing just multiplied because if this guy can replace Mitchell’s production in the starting line up, we need to cut him and use his $4.5 million to sign recently released Evan Mathis. Essentially we could replace the only guy that hasn’t done anything special in the line up with a guy with more production and familiarity with Suh and last year’s top rated guard according to PFF and NFL Spinzone. That would be the cherry on this offseason Sundae
They didnt all of a sudden lose faith in Mitchell. Theyre not hitting yet in practice.
They either already had lost it or they are bolstering the DL with plans to use Mitchell in passing situations.
I like the idea of jettisoning cap in favor of signing Mathis. Now can you imagine Mathis going against Suh in practice?
Our cap space should be focused on signing our own free agents the next few years. The front office has put together a very good young ascending roster. Now that the foundation is there, in-house should be their focus and to figure out a way to keep this team together.
Dunner I am torn because I hear what you say about signing our own free agents such as Vernon and Miller, however I feel if we splurged on Mathis, he could make our entire offense tops in the league. The offensive line would over night become one of the best in the league, and both our running and passing game would benefit from it.
Whether we cut Mitchell or not we need to go aftermath it’s aggressively. Mathes is a game changer for us he can protect kind of hell and open the polls for running backs. He can do it for probably 4 years.
We need to upgrade our offense of line. This is the perfect opportunity to do that.
We could offer a four-year contract the Mathes with two years guaranteed money and two years is optional. A contract like that he would probably sign for 4 1/2 to $5 million per year.
Other veteran guards that are this good are getting 5 to 6,000,000 a year. Mathis was great at the best guard in the NFL in 2014. We will have injuries this year hopefully not door offense of line but if we do having methods in there will provide us more stability.
We don’t need to cut Mitchell this year. We can use him and if he disappoints this year we can cut him next year when we need that CAP space. Next year we might also be faced with cutting one or two of our veterans due to injuries plus tha cap grows another 18 million next year so we will be fine to sign our free agents that we want to keep so there will be plenty of cap Space and that should not be a stopper for signing Mathis
Our guards will benefit from playing as backups or rotating with Mathis plus it’s additional insurance in case of injuries
Please get Mathis and finally solve our offensive line woes
Hope this signing is a sign (pun intended) that Mitchell will be let go. He got pushed around like a toy in the run game last year. Otherwise this signing makes no sense. How many DTs do you need on a team? Are they going to play a 5-2?
Yes I think it is a sign that they have lost faith in Mithell
I like the signing. I do not think that it is a reflection on Phillips as I do think it is more of reflection on Mitchell. Maybe I’m hoping thats the case. Not sure what the cap numbers are for Mitchell, cutting Mitchell may be an option.
I like what Diego mentioned about possible cutting Mitchell and rolling that money into a Mathis deal. All the sudden the right side of the line (Pouncey, Mathis, Albert) is monstrous. And yes, it would be a great finish to an already impressive off season.
The significance of this signing just multiplied because if this guy can replace Mitchell’s production in the starting line up, we need to cut him and use his $4.5 million to sign recently released Evan Mathis. Essentially we could replace the only guy that hasn’t done anything special in the line up with a guy with more production and familiarity with Suh and last year’s top rated guard according to PFF and NFL Spinzone. That would be the cherry on this offseason Sundae
That would be a great idea Diego, use the money saved on Mitchell to pay Mathis. Then that would be a double upgrade, DL, and OL
what he said!!!