Dolphins pattern their rebuild after Bills’ approach
If you want to know what the Dolphins are striving for as they rebuild under general manager Chris Grier and coach Brian Flores, all you have to do is look at the Buffalo Bills.
The Dolphins are playing the Bills on Sunday in their home opener at Hard Rock Stadium, and although the teams will be on opposite sidelines it’s clear both share the same goal of toppling the New England Patriots as the AFC East’s dominant power.
And to do that, the Dolphins are trying to model themselves after the Bills.
“They’ve certainly been a model,” Flores said this week. “They’ve done something that I’ve definitely looked at and said, ‘Hey, if we’re going to build something, we want to model it after a program, and that’s certainly one that we and I referenced as we’re trying to do some things over here.’ ”
Until now we thought the Dolphins were trying to pattern themselves exclusively after the Patriots. Their coach is a former Patriots assistant. They have added a dozen or more former Patriots players and assistants the past two years. The organization has even taken on a Patriots-like bunker mentality.
So the Patriots model, right?
Apparently not completely. Think Bills model.
As rebuild models go, the Bills are pretty appealing. General manager Brandon Beane and coach Sean McDermott both moved to Buffalo from the Carolina Panthers in 2017. And all they have done their first three seasons is
make the playoffs twice.
Now, in Year 4, they are aiming higher.
“We haven’t won the division, and to me, that’s the goal we have to do, because we need to host playoff games here in Orchard Park, and the only way we get a chance to do that is if we win the division,” Beane told reporters days before the season opener.
“That’s our goal, that’s our focus. We’ve got to try to compete and win the AFC East.”
That’s great for the Bills, but where does that leave the Dolphins? How closely have they followed the
Bills approach, and how close are they to being as good as the Bills?
Well, after one year, there were significant similarities between the approach from both organizations. Consider:
The Bills got rid of several talented players as part of their rebuild, and the moves weren’t always popular.
They traded talented receiver Sammy Watkins essentially for a secondround pick. They traded starting cornerback Ronald Darby to Philadelphia essentially for a thirdround pick.
The Bills traded starting left tackle Cordy Glenn to Cincinnati and used the exchange to help them get higher in the 2018 draft to select their quarterback.
The Dolphins similarly traded their starting left tackle Laremy Tunsil and other talented players, and although they didn’t use the picks on their new quarterback, they added talent to the team around that new quarterback.
The Bills also traded former high draft picks. Just as Miami traded first round pick Minkah Fitzpatrick after his rookie year, the Bills traded secondround pick Reggie Ragland to Kansas City after his rookie year. And, yes, both Fitzpatrick and Ragland went on to greater success with their new teams.
The Bills traded good players, such as Marcell Dareus for a sixth-round pick, because they didn’t fit their culture. The Dolphins did the same with Robert Quinn, Kiko Alonso, Kenny Stills and others.
There were other similarities as well.
The Bills signed Jordan Mills to play tackle in 2017. The Dolphins made the exact same move last year. The truth is a lot of the same players that got funneled through Miami’s search for talent had already gone through Buffalo’s talent search, including defensive tackle Adolphus Washington, cornerback Ryan Lewis and defensive end Nate Orchard.
The Bills signed and released a slew of players — often within days — as they searched the waiver wire for a gem. The Dolphins did that over and over last year.
And the Bills made mistakes. They traded a thirdand seventh-round pick to Carolina for receiver Kelvin Benjamin. Benjamin was often injured or overweight. He was gone within a year.
The Dolphins mistakes include trading a secondand fifth-round pick for Josh Rosen. The quarterback, a former first-round pick in Arizona, fell short in talent and makeup of what the Dolphins value from their starting quarterback. So Miami cut Rosen within a year.
But here are the key differences between the Bills’ rebuild and Miami’s:
Despite trading talented players that had either grown too expensive or didn’t fit the team’s vision, the Bills in 2017 succeeded in setting themselves up for the following year’s draft while also winning.
The Bills went to the playoffs the first season of their rebuild. The Dolphins were 5-11 last season.
Buffalo then selected quarterback Josh Allen in 2018 by trading up multiple times to gain the seventh overall pick in the draft.
And then came another significant difference between Buffalo’s rebuild and Miami’s: The Bills didn’t stay the course with veteran quarterback Tyrod Taylor.
Although Taylor helped get Buffalo to the playoffs in 2017, the Bills knew he wasn’t the future so he was traded to Cleveland for a third-round pick in March of 2018. The Bills turned quickly to Allen as their quarterback when he was a rookie, as he played 12 games with 11 starts.
The Dolphins are not on that same course at quarterback. They know veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick is not the future, but after he lifted the team as much as he could in 2019, the Dolphins are starting him again so far this year while first-round pick Tua Tagovailoa sits.
It’s possible Tagovailoa could get the starting call later this season, but that’s not certain. If he does not, the Dolphins will fall further behind the Bills because that team got Allen’s growing pains out of way in his first season.
That experience was painful in Allen’s rookie season as the Bills won only six games. But the team rebounded to make the playoffs in 2019 in Allen’s second year.
So the Dolphins are not following the Bills template to the letter. That doesn’t mean there isn’t agreement on what’s needed to make a bad team good.
“It’s about people,” McDermott said. “And I think, ‘listen, we’ve made our fair share of mistakes along the way and that’s to be expected.’ My hope is I don’t make the same mistake twice.“
Flores agrees.
“I think in any business, it’s about the people,” Miami’s coach said. “In his case, he’s got the right people in place from a scouting standpoint with [assistant general manager] Joe Schoen, Brandon Beane. They’ve got a great staff over there. It’s the same thing from a coaching staff standpoint.. And they’re bringing in the right types of players...
“Now, we have a long way to go. There’s no doubt about that. But we know it’s going to take hard work. It’s going to take everyone kind of pitching in and doing their specific job or role and wanting to do that role and wanting to be great in those roles.”
The irony in all this? When the Bills began their rebuild they turned to Schoen as their assistant general manager, to Brian Gaine as a senior personnel advisor, to Dennis Hickey as their senior national scout and they hired Dennis Lock as their director of football research and strategy.
All worked previously for the Dolphins.
The Dolphins, meanwhile, hired Marvin Allen as their assistant general manager. And, you guessed it, he was hired from the Bills.